ILLUSTRATION BY Mark SummersDebbie Harry tells
the story of her life
in music in ‘Face It:
A Memoir,’ out now.What’s the most indul-
gent purchase you’ve ever
made?
One of the first things that
I bought that I considered
indulgent at the time was
something from [designer]
Issey Miyake. I don’t know
how you would describe it
— it was sort of like a long,
quilted, sleeveless, Japa-
nese peasant-style jacket. Itto Joe E. Brown. Joe E. asked
[Lemmon] to marry [him],
and Jack says, “I can’t,”
and he pulls his wig off and
says, “I’m a man.” And Joe
E. Brown turns and says,
“Nobody’s perfect.”
Your first tour with
Blondie was opening for
Iggy Pop and David Bowie.
What did you learn from
watching them perform?
There was a certain amount
of improvisation in their per-
formances. It wasn’t robot-
ic, and the passion was there.
Mr. Pop is passionate. It’s
pretty obvious he’s kind of
a wild guy, but he has stan-
dards; he has a controlled
madness, and this is what it’s
really all about.
Did you find yourself
changing as a performer
after that tour?
Probably. Experience is
everything and I was sort of
in an odd position as being a
woman in a man’s band, and
I tried not to be too coy or
too cute — other than the fact
that I was cute — but I tried
to bring other elements into
it. Whether I always achieved
that is another story.
You’ve spoken before
about your love for wres-
tling. Do you still watch
WWE?
[Laughs] No, not so much. I
think I’ve done my wrestling.
I’ve wrestled with wrestling.
It’s very entertaining, but I
don’t follow it as I once did.
I guess I just moved on.
What advice would
you give your younger
self?
Don’t be cruel. That
would be it. Whether it’s
in thought or in action, just
leave cruelty alone.
ELISABETH GARBER-PAULIn Blondie’s early days,
Tony Ingrassia introduced
you to the theory behind
Method acting. What do
you think you gained by
using Method techniques
to create the Blondie char-
acter, instead of being a
more genuine version of
yourself onstage?
Initially, it helped me to
really bring strong emotional
content to songs that I didn’t
write. The hard part is — and
it’s the same for actors as
for singers — to make choic-
es for yourself that are going
to resonate within your life
experience and your emo-
tional world. When I start-
ed out, [the Method] gave me
that overview kind of thing,
where you’re looking down
at yourself. This, to me, was
a tremendous advantage.
Your fame came a bit
later in life than for some
musicians. How do you
think it benefited you that
you started Blondie in your
late twenties?
Perhaps to have a little bit
more flexibility with my ego.
How so?
Well, to realize that some-
times you hold strong on
what your idea is and some-
times you step back and ac-
cept another person’s idea,
and you know that nothing is
so precious. A little bit of age
gave me that.
You grew up idolizing
Marilyn Monroe. What’s
your favorite movie of hers
and why?
I guess, off the top of my
head, Some Like It Hot, be-
cause it’s so much fun and
she’s so beautiful to look at.
One of my favorite lines at
the end of the movie is when
Jack Lemmon reveals himselfwas very uniquely him, and I
just went for it. I don’t know
what else I would consider
self-indulgent. Probably
everything.
What’s the best advice
you’ve ever received?
From a manager that I had
a long time ago. His favorite
answer to a lot of things was,
“Well, there’s no such thing
as a free lunch.” I was very
disappointed about that, be-
cause we were being taken
out to lunch a lot, but I un-
derstand the underpinnings
for that. And then the serious
best advice that I got was to
get good legal advice.
How has that helped you
over the years?
Well, I’m not a trained busi-
nesswoman, and there are
some real complexities with
authorship, and publishing,
and recording, and the differ-
ent ways that your recordings
can be used or sold. So it’s
not as simple as I imagined it
would be at one time.
And did you learn that
early in your career?
Not early enough!The New Wave icon on becoming
Blondie and what Iggy Pop taught herDebbie Harry
98 | Rolling Stone | March 2020