(5 of 10)
I really loved him. He was my first taste of what I thought was an artistic person. I remember once I had a towel wrapped around my head like a turban. He came over to me and he said, "You know, you're really beautiful." I said, "What?" Nobody had ever said that to me before. He said, "You have an ancient-looking face. A face like an ancient Roman statue." I was flabbergasted. I knew that I was interesting, and of course I was voluptuous for my age, but I'd never had a sense of myself being beautiful until he told me. The way he said it, it was an internal thing, much deeper than superficial beauty. He educated me, he took me to museums and told me about art. He was my mentor, my father, my imaginative lover, my brother, everything, because he understood me. He encouraged me to go to New York. He was the one who said I could do it if I wanted to.
NEW YORK. I saved up enough money for a one-way ticket and flew to New York. It was my first plane trip. When I got off the plane, I got in a taxi and told the driver to take me to the middle of everything. That turned out to be Times Square. I think the cab driver was saying, like, "O.K., I'll show her something." I think he got a chuckle out of that. I got out of the cab and I was overwhelmed because the buildings, you know, are really high. I walked east on 42nd Street and then south on Lexington and there was a street fair. It was the summer and I had on a winter coat and was carrying a suitcase. This guy started following me around. He wasn't cute or anything, but he looked interesting. I said hi to him, and he said, "Why are you walking around with a winter coat and a suitcase?" And I said, "I just got off the plane." And then he said, "Why don't you go home and get rid of it?" And I said, "I don't live anywhere." He was dumbfounded. So he said, "Well, you can stay at my apartment." So I stayed there for the first two weeks. He didn't try to rape me or anything. He showed me where everything was, and he fed me breakfast. It was perfect. (In Southern-lady accent) I relied on the kindness of strangers. So then I auditioned and got a scholarship to the Alvin Ailey school. I wasn't worried about not getting anywhere as a dancer. I knew I was a decent dancer. It was great. I moved from one dive to the next, I was poor. I lived on popcorn, that's why I still love it. Popcorn is cheap and it fills you up.
IDOLS. Growing up I thought nuns were very beautiful. For several years I wanted to be a nun, and I got very close to some of them in grade school and junior high. I saw them as really pure, disciplined, sort of above-average people. They never wore any makeup and they just had these really serene faces. Nuns are sexy.
I also loved Carole Lombard and Judy Holliday and Marilyn Monroe. They were all just incredibly funny, and they were silly and sweet and they were girls and they were feminine and sexy. I just saw myself in them, my funniness and my need to boss people around and at the same time be taken care of. My girlishness. My knowingness and my innocence. Both. And I remember Nancy Sinatra singing These Boots Are Made for Walkin' and that made one hell of an impression on me. And when she said, "Are you ready, boots, start walkin'," it was like, yeah, give me some of those go-go boots. I want to walk on a few people.