Thursday, 9 September 2010 (First of all, many apologies for the hiatus with this blog. This is due to some improvements that we're trying to make with the rest of the website.)
I first became aware of Phoebe Legere when I saw the film Mondo New York, during which she’s shown, doubtless in some dingy lower Manhattan club, giving an absolutely mesmerising performance of her minor U.S. hit ‘Marilyn Monroe’. Think Jimi Hendrix but with different hair. That performance, once seen, I doubt anybody would forget.
As luck would have it, only a few months later, I saw Phoebe on the Croisette, during the Cannes Film Festival, whilst she was promoting The Toxic Avenger Part 2 (in which she played Toxie’s blind, accordion-playing girlfriend). During a pause, I went over and introduced myself and took a few quick snaps and, later on, she very kindly invited me up to her suite to take some more (of which this is one). It led to a friendship which has lasted ever since, with only a few hiccups along the way.
Phoebe is a classically trained musician and there’s no instrument that she doesn’t seem to have mastered. She’s astonishingly accomplished. When she wants to, she can play jazz piano like Keith Tippett only better. In her lower East Side appartment she once showed me a pile of her best reviews. It was about a foot tall. I looked through a few and they were absolutely glowing. I said to her: “this is amazing, how come you’re not a huge star?” With her hand about four feet from the ground she said: “Because my pile of bad reviews is about this tall.” Phoebe can, sometimes, be a little overpowering.
She told me doesn't like this photograph much (but then she did post it on her Facebook page). She said it made her look like a "hooker in a ten dollar hotel." Never mind that The Carlton Hotel is one of the most famous and expensive hotels on the whole Riviera, I suppose she does have a point. I like it because it shows her as she is, always totally irrepressible.