VANITY FAIR: The Missing Years

AS Excavated BY DAVID KAMP, STAFF ARCHIVIST

“The new ‘done thing’ among our set is to hire a car and instruct the driver to proceed straight downtown to the Mercer Arts Center, whose Oscar Wilde Room hosts a concert every Tuesday by a marvelously disheveled quintet of slatternly ladyboys who call themselves the New York Dolls. Last week, a bunch of us who fancy a bit of rough'—including Bobby Short, Marlene Dietrich, and myself—hotfooted into the place early to get prime seats at the lip of the stage. Bobby and I reserved our biggest hoots for the Brünnhilde-like singer, David something-or-other, but Marlene couldn't keep her eyes off of the guitarist, a hopeless urchin who goes by the name Johnny Thunders. His hair a rat's nest, his nylons torn, and his platforms too high to balance on, he toppled right onto her—and kept on playing!

“‘Look at heem, he eez nothing but a leetle punk!’ Marlene exclaimed, her fingers pulling up his shirt to reveal his bony, scabbed chest. ‘Dey should call dees punk rock!’”
—FROM “DOWNTOWN DIARY,”
BY ALEXANDER LIBERMAN, OCTOBER 1972