to c. 1967: ANDY WARHOL MEETS ANDREA FELDMAN , GERALDINE SMITH AND PATTI D'ARBANVILLE
Patti d'Arbanville in Interview Magazine
Excerpt from an interview with Patti D'Arbanville by Bob Colacello from the April 1973 issue of Andy Warhol's Interview magazine:
"Patti D'Arbanville is a young actress who has appeared in three films to date: Flesh, L'Amour and La Maison, which was a critical and commercial success in France. She has been through the pop hippy scene in New York and California, the rock groupie scene in London, the chic ready to wear scene in Paris, always travelling fast and light. Now she is back home in New York, waiting."
Bob Colacello [turning on the tape recorder]: It's on. Talk.
Patti D'Arbanville: Well, I just got back from my ballet class... (phone rings)... Hi, Candy... Taking an interview... How's your play doing?... Did you get kicked out of it or did it close?... Oh, well, keep the faith... You're going to do nightclubs?... In New York or the Catskills?... How'd you get that together?... That's always it, being in the right place at the right time... Okay... Bye. You know, when I get in front of a camera I really feel fantastic. The only thing is when I'm in improvised films I just tend to overact because there's no real direction... There's such freedom in something like L'Amour that I just run wild. I mean, at times I was just foaming at the mouth. I haven't seen the film, just some rushes of me in the bathtub, and I was quiet for a change. But I just love being in front of the camera... The last time that I was on stage was in the fourth grade... Oh, wait, I know: I never did a play but I did this fantastic fashion show for Ossie Clark in London. He made these fantastic clothes for me. Amanda [Lear] was in it. She's supposed to be a sex change but I don't believe it... Anyway she had on this fantastic g-string and was running around pulling up her dress... It was at the Royal Court Theatre and it was my birthday and I was really fantastic.. That's my only stage experience since fouth grade but it was pretty good...
I went to PS 41 on Eleventh Street. I grew up on Bleecker and Macdougal. The Figaro was right across the street. One time I asked my mother if I could stay out until midnight, and I was sure she'd say no, but she said, 'Well, of course, it's only across the street.' So I used to stay out every night until midnight, then it got to one. I would fall asleep at school. I couldn't stand it. So I quit... I was fourteen when I quit. I stuck it out for two years afer I started going out, but when they started telling me they were going to take me away from my parents if I didn't come to school more often, I had it...
Then I started going to Ondine. That's the club Jerry Schatzberg had with what's his name, the French guy that owns Hippopotamus now, Olivier Coquelin. The first time I went there I was fourteen and I had identification that said I was 18. Of course, nobody believed me, but I had such balls they let me in.
Then I decided to go to California and I left with these two girls and my best girlfriend who was pregnant. We had spent all the money for her abortion on mescaline and spent three nights in a hotel with some boys freaked out on mescaline. We got $1,000 for the abortion by going up to this guy in Ondine and asking him for it. He wrote out a check right there and the next day we went down to his bank on Wall Street and got the money. Then we drove across the States in a four-cylinder mustang. With my girlfriend pregnant and these two strange girls who turn out to be dykes. We fought all the way there over whether the window should be open or shut. I ended up hitting my girlfriend and she threatened to stab me, so I left. I went to live with this guy named Stanley who was some creep who lived right across the street from Harlow's house in Beverly Hills. I stayed for two months and went back to New York and went to Max's a lot with my girlfriend who had by this time had her baby and gave it away. I made Flesh then, I think. Then I went back to California, back to New York.
Then Bert Stern took me to Paris to do the collections. From there I went to London and stayed at Donald Cammell's house for a couple of months. I loved London, the whole scene there. Then I went to Paris to make this movie called La Maison, with Michel Simon... I should've gotten an agent then, but all I wanted to do was get to London and spend all my money, which I did.
Then I went to Hollywood to do a movie with Nic Roeg, who had made a name for himself with Performance and Walkabout. It was called Deadly Honeymoon... but it didn't work out. Jim Aubrey didn't like what Nick had done to the script or something, and Nic wouldn't do it any way but his own...
I just have to be by myself for awhile to do what I want to do. It's good to be alone sometimes. Look, Steven wrote that song [Lady D'Arbanville by Cat Stevens] when I left for New York. I left for a month, it wasn't the end of the world was it? But he wrote this whole song about 'Lady D'Arbanville, why do you sleep so still.' It's about me dead. So while I was in New York, for him it was like I was lying in a coffin... he wrote that because he missed me, because he was down... It's a sad song.
to c. 1967: ANDY WARHOL MEETS ANDREA FELDMAN , GERALDINE SMITH AND PATTI D'ARBANVILLE