1O4 ELLE.COM/UK Nove mbe r 2O19
ELLEPlayt’s late afternoon on a blistering day in the Chelsea
art district of New York, and Debbie Harry is taking
a breather, munching on a bowl of fruit. She’s had a full
day, rehearsing for an upcoming tour with her long-time
band Blondie. Dressed in a white T-shirt printed with
the word SELFIE and a pair of shades firmly planted on her face,
she speaks exactly as you’d expect tough New York legends to
talk: straight to the point, a little deadpan, with a slight twang picked
up from a New Jersey childhood.
In her youth, Harry was part of the downtown Manhattan world
of avant-garde art and punk in the 197Os – the hippest woman in
the hippest era of the hippest city on earth. She and her artistic/
romantic partner Chris Stein married that sophistication with mass
appeal in Blondie, through songs like Heart of Glass and Call Me,
both of which she co-wrote. Her music is embedded in the fabric of
pop culture, inescapable in bars and karaoke joints all over the US.
Yet, despite her music’s omnipresence, Harry has always
excelled at the mostly lost art of mystique. That is to say, she keeps
her private life private. But now, on releasing her first memoir, Face
It, she feels ready to share her history. And what a history: given up
for adoption as a baby, she struck out on her own to New York in
the 196Os, making her way to the Lower East Side.
She broke down musical barriers by blending new wave with
punk with pop with disco, made friends with Andy Warhol and
was painted by him, bought Jean-Michel Basquiat’s first sale of a
painting for US$3OO (£25O), acted in John Waters’ Hairspray, and
released the first song that featured a rap verse (which she rapped)
to reach number one in the Billboard charts, Rapture. All while selling
around 4O million albums along the way. It hasn’t all been easy –
she’s battled drug addiction – but hearing her story she makes you
wonder if the world could ever be as fun as the one she grew up in.
In a backroom of the rehearsal space, she takes off her sunglasses,
fixes her lucent blue eyes into a hard gaze, and tells her story...
Turn over to see Debbie Harry’s life in picturesI
T HE L IFE
A ND (good)^
TIMES OF
DEBBIE HARRY
FOR 4O YEARS, SHE HAS been ONE OF OUR
most ENIGMATIC CULTUR AL FIGURES.
HERE, FOR THE FIRST TIME, SHE OPENS UPWORDS by ALEX FRANK