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Grace Jones: True Crime Magnet. Eighties Icon. · DISGRACELAND

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Speaker 1: This episode contains content that may be disturbing to some listeners.
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Speaker 1: Please check the show notes for more information. Disgraceland is
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Speaker 1: a production of Double Elvis. The stories about Grace Jones
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Speaker 1: are fascinating. She was a true crime magnet, arrested, set up, invaded.
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Speaker 1: She was a global superstar, an actor, model, a multi
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Speaker 1: hyphen icon of the nineteen eighties, as big an attention
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Speaker 1: grabbing as Max Headroom in New Coke. And she of
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Speaker 1: course made great music, unlike that music I played for
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Speaker 1: you at the top of the show. That wasn't great music.
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Speaker 1: That was a preset loop for my melotron called New
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Speaker 1: Kind of Bond Girl MK One. I played you loop
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Speaker 1: because I can't afford the rights to the look by Roxette.
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Speaker 1: And why would I play you that specific slice of
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Speaker 1: platinum flat top Cheese? Could I afford it? Because that
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Speaker 1: was the number one song in America on April eighth,
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Speaker 1: nineteen eighty nine, And that was the day Grace Jones
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Speaker 1: was arrested and thrown into a Jamaican jail cell, where
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Speaker 1: she feared that her incredible life up to this point
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Speaker 1: might be coming to a quick end. On this episode
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Speaker 1: and arrest a setup a home invasion in eighties icon
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Speaker 1: and true crime magnet Grace Jones. I'm Jake Brennan, and
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Speaker 1: this this Disgrace Land. April first, nineteen eighty nine, Stony Hill, Jamaica.
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Speaker 1: Forty year old Grace Jones was hearing voices, too many
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Speaker 1: to count and too muffled to know their true purpose.
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Speaker 1: They sounded vengeful, diabolical, like a living, breathing conspiracy. At first,
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Speaker 1: she thought they were coming from inside the room, that
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Speaker 1: she was becoming one of those paranoid types here on
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Speaker 1: the island. Perhaps the voices belonged to duppies, the malevolent
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Speaker 1: spirits of Jamaican folklore, souls of the dead, veil piercers,
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Speaker 1: somehow lurking in the land of the living, mumbling, searching
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Speaker 1: for the flesh and blood of an unsuspecting warm body,
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Speaker 1: somebody scared, somebody afraid, some one like Grace Jones. She
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Speaker 1: shuddered at the thought. She looked around the dark room,
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Speaker 1: and there were no duppies here. There was only her boyfriend,
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Speaker 1: the record producer Chris Stanley, fast asleep in bed. This
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Speaker 1: was Chris's place, which also housed his recording studio, where
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Speaker 1: he and Grace were putting the finishing touches on her
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Speaker 1: new album, bullet Proof Heart. But Chris had been sick.
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Speaker 1: The stroke put him in a brief coma, left him
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Speaker 1: with brain damage, and now sleep came often, and as
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Speaker 1: Chris slept, the voices continued a little clearer. Now Grace
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Speaker 1: could tell they weren't coming from inside the bedroom. They
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Speaker 1: were coming from the next room over, the room where
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Speaker 1: she dumped her stuff when she arrived here today, her jacket,
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Speaker 1: her hat, her purse. She assumed the voices belonged to
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Speaker 1: one of Chris's studio employees, who was probably here with
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Speaker 1: her friends. Grace barely knew the girl, which she didn't
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Speaker 1: trust her. There was tension anytime the two were in
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Speaker 1: the same room. The girl didn't hide the fact that
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Speaker 1: she was jealous of all the time Grace spent with Chris.
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Speaker 1: Grace had no evidence, but she imagined a scenario in
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Speaker 1: which this employee did something that led to Chris's illness,
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Speaker 1: poisoned hisus food. Perhaps it sounded crazy, but then again
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Speaker 1: it didn't. And now Grace wondered if a horde of
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Speaker 1: kleptos were currently going through the contents of her things
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Speaker 1: in the other room with their sticky fingers, desperately seeking something,
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Speaker 1: just like Duppies, those ghosts out for blood, seeking something
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Speaker 1: that belonged to Grace Jones. Grace Jones, the enduring icon
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Speaker 1: of disco club fashion, Grace Jones the model, Grace Jones
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Speaker 1: the singer, the actress, the bond villain, the woman with
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Speaker 1: a face as recognizable as Princess Die, as Boy George,
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Speaker 1: as Max Headroom, Pee Wee Herman, or any other face
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Speaker 1: that came to define the nineteen eighties. Grace Jones, however,
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Speaker 1: exuded a different kind of cultural energy. With her chiseled jawline,
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Speaker 1: her flat top fade, her oversized shoulder pads, and one
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Speaker 1: of the deepest and most cutting edge closets in the game,
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Speaker 1: Grace Jones looked like she had simultaneously stepped out of
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Speaker 1: the past and the future, like when she once made
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Speaker 1: her entrance into New York City's famed Studio fifty four
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Speaker 1: for her own birthday party, dressed as the ancient Egyptian
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Speaker 1: queen Nephertiti while riding a Harley. Her look, her style,
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Speaker 1: her vibe, even the music that she made it pushed
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Speaker 1: the envelope and did so by design. Ever since she
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Speaker 1: left her home country of Jamaica for the United States.
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Speaker 1: Since she was a teenager. She had built her life
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Speaker 1: and her art around risk because she had been denied
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Speaker 1: taking those risks growing up. If you, like Grace Jones,
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Speaker 1: took those risks as a kid in Jamaica, you were punished.
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Speaker 1: You felt the sting of your grandmother's new husband's leather belt,
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Speaker 1: the whack of the headmaster's cruel ruler, and the curse
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Speaker 1: of your hometown's Pentecostal bishop, who made sure Grace's parents
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Speaker 1: knew in no uncertain terms that their daughter was the devil.
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Speaker 1: The best way that Grace knew to distance herself from
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Speaker 1: the trauma of her past was to take risks. It
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Speaker 1: was what separated her from those who wanted her to
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Speaker 1: be so terrified that she would remain a meek, safe,
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Speaker 1: boring person just like all the rest. But Grace Jones
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Speaker 1: was not like anyone else. She knew this, and so
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Speaker 1: did the man sleeping in the bed next to her
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Speaker 1: in this house high in the hills above Kingston, Grace
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Speaker 1: watched chrisle while listening to the voices in the next
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Speaker 1: room rise and fall, and suddenly they stopped. The silence
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Speaker 1: was deafening, and then cutting through the bedroom window the bright,
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Speaker 1: blinding blue swirl of police lights. She heard a knocked
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Speaker 1: front door of the house, followed by more voices, this
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Speaker 1: time louder, deeper, male voices, a couple of police officers
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Speaker 1: talking with Chris's employee and her friends, and then another
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Speaker 1: moment of silence, followed by another knock, this time on
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Speaker 1: the door of the bedroom Grace was in. Grace opened
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Speaker 1: the door, confused and even more out of sorts than
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Speaker 1: when she was when the voices had begun minutes ago.
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Speaker 1: Standing before her were two Kingston cops. It wasn't so
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Speaker 1: much their presence that surprised her, it was what they
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Speaker 1: were holding, Grace's purse in one hand and in the
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Speaker 1: other a bag of cocaine. Twenty something years earlier, in Syracuse,
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Speaker 1: New York, Grace Jones was arrested for the first time
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Speaker 1: disorderly conduct for kicking a CoP's car. She and her
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Speaker 1: siblings had just moved to the United States, sent for
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Speaker 1: by their parents, who had already emigrated years earlier. It
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Speaker 1: was the late nineteen sixties. Grace began wearing her hair
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Speaker 1: in an afro with two pairs of false eyelashes, just
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Speaker 1: like the Queen Supreme Diana Ross. She painted her lips
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Speaker 1: orange in her eyelid's bright green so that the colors
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Speaker 1: would really pop against her skin, skin that was so
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Speaker 1: dark they used to call her Firefly back home because
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Speaker 1: at night he could only see her eyes and her teeth.
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Speaker 1: She lived as a nudist for a month and dropped
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Speaker 1: acid for the first time at a hippie commune. She
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Speaker 1: moved Philadelphia, where she was arrested for the second, third,
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Speaker 1: and fourth times, each time for simply walking down the
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Speaker 1: street holding her white Italian boyfriend's hand. The cops took
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Speaker 1: one look at the Caucasian with the flamboyantly dressed black
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Speaker 1: woman on his arm and assumed she was a prostitute.
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Speaker 1: When it came to the Philadelphia police, they were no
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Speaker 1: different from that Jamaican bishop. Grace was there because she
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Speaker 1: stood out, because she was unorthodox and dared to live
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Speaker 1: out loud, cracking a whip on stage as a go
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Speaker 1: go dancer, an androgynous vision in black leather pants for
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Speaker 1: one of her first fashion shoots alongside the Chamber Brothers
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Speaker 1: in Essence magazine, and soon she upped the ante from
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Speaker 1: Philly to New York City, where standing out was held
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Speaker 1: against her audition after audition, it was the same thing.
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Speaker 1: She was too black, her features were too angular, too strange.
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Speaker 1: No matter, Grace was not discouraged. She was fueled by
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Speaker 1: the rejection. She sought out modeling agencies that were looking
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Speaker 1: for something different, the same ones that like her, were
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Speaker 1: seduced by risk, and she went to the places where
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Speaker 1: the strange ones congregated. At Les Jardin, a discotheque located
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Speaker 1: at forty third and Broadway, she danced to the sounds
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Speaker 1: of early disco while lou reed, Jackie on Nassis and
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Speaker 1: Eliza Manelli blended into a sea of drag queens, a
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Speaker 1: place where standing against a back wall, John and Yoko
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Speaker 1: gossiped with Andy Warhol. Andy, for one, never turned his
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Speaker 1: back on the room anymore, not since he'd been shot
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Speaker 1: by that crazy woman in his studio. Grace wasn't there
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Speaker 1: when it happened, but in a way, she felt like
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Speaker 1: she was, because what was quickly becoming apparent was that
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Speaker 1: even though she would soon become known as an exhibitionist
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Speaker 1: and a provocateur, Grace Jones was in fact something else. Entirely,
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Speaker 1: she was a magnet for true crime. The Jamaican jail
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Speaker 1: cell was small, a concrete floor, a bench, also concrete,
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Speaker 1: a small toilet, and a blanket. By day two, those
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Speaker 1: initial feelings of disorientation in fear that Grace Jones had
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Speaker 1: first experienced when she was handcuffed and hauled away from
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Speaker 1: her producer and lover, Chris Stanley's house, were long gone.
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Speaker 1: Those feelings were now replaced by panic. The cops said
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Speaker 1: it was opened and shut. They had been called Chris
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Speaker 1: Stanley's house on an anonymous tip, and when they arrived
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Speaker 1: they found a baggy of cocaine hid inside a two
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Speaker 1: dollar bill in Grace's purse. It was a small amount,
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Speaker 1: just zero point zero zero seven of an ounce, but
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Speaker 1: cocaine was cocaine, and cocaine was illegal, and now the
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Speaker 1: illegal cocaine having Grace Jones was fucked. And on top
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Speaker 1: of that, the voices were back, this time the voices
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Speaker 1: of police officers. Over at a desk just beyond the
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Speaker 1: cell where she now sat. They spoke in tones that
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Speaker 1: varied from loud and boisterous to hushed and protective. She
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Speaker 1: wondered if they were talking about her. She wondered what
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Speaker 1: they would say if she told them about the things
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Speaker 1: going through her head, that her sick boyfriend may have
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Speaker 1: been poisoned, that the cocaine had no doubt been planted,
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Speaker 1: and that there was a fifty to fifty chance that
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Speaker 1: they sworn officers of the law were actually in on it.
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Speaker 1: But they wouldn't listen. They wouldn't even let her make
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Speaker 1: a phone call, which she knew was her right if
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Speaker 1: she could only explain just how ridiculous the charges were.
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Speaker 1: If you knew her, if you really knew Grace Jones,
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Speaker 1: you knew the one that came to cocaine. She didn't
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Speaker 1: mess with that stuff. She never put that stuff up
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Speaker 1: her nose. Her nose was part of her face, part
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Speaker 1: of her unorthodox beauty, her moneymaker, if you will, and
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Speaker 1: she wasn't about to jeopardize all that just for a
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Speaker 1: little cocaine for a little high. Cocaine wasn't even Grace's thing.
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Speaker 1: She was more partial to coelude's value mandrex. Her ideal
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Speaker 1: high was chilling out, not freaking out. But on the
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Speaker 1: occasions that she did do coke, she'd opt for a
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Speaker 1: disco cigarette aka cocoa puffs, joints of marijuana laced with cocaine,
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Speaker 1: or as Grace called them Mary Anne's since she was
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Speaker 1: introduced to them by Mary Anne Faithful. Grace Jones's true
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Speaker 1: preferred method of cocaine intake, however, was to stick a
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Speaker 1: rock up her ass. Cocaine via one's butt meant no
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Speaker 1: white residue lingering on your upper lip, no blood dripping
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Speaker 1: from your nasal cavity, just a nice clean, small rock.
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Speaker 1: Stuff it up there and forget about it. There was
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Speaker 1: no forgetting her current predicament, so she sat in the
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Speaker 1: jail cell waiting for the other shoe to drop. And
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Speaker 1: the shoe did drop, but just not in the way
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Speaker 1: she was expecting. It dropped like this. The cops on
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Speaker 1: duty were eventually relieved by others, and these new guys
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Speaker 1: were more sympathetic to her plate. Grace Jones was finally
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Speaker 1: granted that one phone call, and as she picked up
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Speaker 1: the receiver and dialed the number, she thought back through
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Speaker 1: her life as a magnet not only for crime, but
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Speaker 1: for obstacles, barriers, and for the devil himself. Nineteen seventy nine,
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Speaker 1: New York City, an apartment at the top of a
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Speaker 1: commercial building in Union Square. It was the weekend, which
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Speaker 1: meant that the only people in the building were those
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Speaker 1: occupying set apartment. Its tenant, the art director for Esquire Magazine,
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Speaker 1: Jean Paul Good, and his girlfriend, Grace Jones. Grace stepped
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Speaker 1: out of the shower and wrapped a towel around her
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Speaker 1: naked body. Grace was often naked, whether it was performing
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Speaker 1: at the Paradise Garage Discotheque in Lower Manhattan wearing nothing
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Speaker 1: but Keith Herring's white tribal body paint, or in a
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Speaker 1: New York Magazine feature article, or at Studio fifty four,
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Speaker 1: where anything went and where Grace was often found in
15:02
Speaker 1: which you can hear more about in our episode on
15:04
Speaker 1: Studio fifty four. But I digress. Being naked at this
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Speaker 1: very moment was a bit different for Grace because she
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Speaker 1: was pregnant with her first child, and her body looked
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Speaker 1: different to her than it ever had before when she
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Speaker 1: looked at her reflection in the focked up mirror. Maybe
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Speaker 1: it was all that time spent at newdest retreats and
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Speaker 1: hippie communes when she was younger. But being naked for
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Speaker 1: Grace wasn't tantamount to being vulnerable. Being naked was being strong,
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Speaker 1: and being strong was what a guttner To this point
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Speaker 1: in her life and career. When her career as a
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Speaker 1: model suddenly morphed into an opportunity to make a go
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Speaker 1: of it in the music business. In nineteen seventy seven,
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Speaker 1: the year of the Blackout, the year the Yankees, the
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Speaker 1: year of garbage strikes, in the year of the Son
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Speaker 1: of Sam, Grace Jones jumped at the chance. She loved
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Speaker 1: music as much as fashion or art. But her management,
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Speaker 1: her record company, they all tried to make her something
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Speaker 1: that she wasn't. She would never be a wreath of Franklin,
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Speaker 1: no matter how how hard she tried. She didn't have
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Speaker 1: that voice. No one had that voice. Grace had limitations.
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Speaker 1: With the guidance of her art world friends like Andy
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Speaker 1: Warhol and Richard Bernstein, as well as her fashion world
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Speaker 1: friends like designer is Miake, and her music world friends
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Speaker 1: like Chris Blackwell, founder and owner of the record label
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Speaker 1: Island Records, along with the super funky rhythm section of
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Speaker 1: Sly and Robbie, Grace quickly found a way to turn
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Speaker 1: those limitations into strengths, and so after three albums in
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Speaker 1: three years that clung to the soon to be haggard
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Speaker 1: corpse of disco, Grace Jones pivoted for her fourth album,
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Speaker 1: Warm Leatherette. The record combined the organic feel of Sly
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Speaker 1: and Robbie's bottom end with Grace's soulful, cyborg vocal delivery,
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Speaker 1: a heady combination that you can hear on Grace's incredible
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Speaker 1: cover of the Pretender's private life. For a very public person,
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Speaker 1: Grace Jones valued her own private life even more so
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Speaker 1: now that she was expecting. As Jean Paul worked away
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Speaker 1: in another part of the apartment, cutting up and arranging
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Speaker 1: new photos of his views of Grace on a desk,
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Speaker 1: Grace put on clothes and stepped from the bathroom into
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Speaker 1: the living room. She was thinking about her upcoming trip
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Speaker 1: to the Bahamas to compass points studios where she would
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Speaker 1: put the finishing touches on the Warm Leatherette album. And
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Speaker 1: that's when she saw him, a man who wasn't Jean Paul.
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Speaker 1: And this man was just beyond the living room window,
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Speaker 1: standing on an outdoor terrace. He was tall, perfectly coughed, afro,
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Speaker 1: well dressed. Grace clocked his suit as Italian, so debonair
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Speaker 1: that her first instinct wasn't a panic, And then she
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Speaker 1: saw the gun. The man was coming through the window,
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Speaker 1: now one foot down on the living room floor, followed
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Speaker 1: by another calmly, deliberately, the pistol gripped tight and aimed
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Speaker 1: straight at her. She thought about screaming for Jean Paul,
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Speaker 1: and also about making a run for it. In her
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Speaker 1: elevated state, she opted for the latter instinct, and then adrenaline.
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Speaker 1: She wasn't even thinking about hauling ass. She was just
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Speaker 1: doing it, heart pounding, breathless. She was in the bathroom now.
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Speaker 1: As she slammed the door shut behind her and twisted
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Speaker 1: the lock, she heard the footsteps of that tall man
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Speaker 1: getting closer, and then the door was being kicked down.
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Speaker 1: She was now face to face with mister armed Debonair.
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Speaker 1: Jean Paul must have heard the noise because he came running,
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Speaker 1: and now the man had his gun trained on both
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Speaker 1: of them. The man wanted cash. Grace had none. Jean Paul,
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Speaker 1: being European and worldly, only had some douschemarks, two thousand
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Speaker 1: of them. Give her take, Give her take. The man
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Speaker 1: was shaking his head now. He rotated his neck in
18:43
Speaker 1: a way that indicated either his winds or not, or
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Speaker 1: this couple's lack of funds was irritating him most likely
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Speaker 1: both give him cash, American cash, he demanded. He tied
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Speaker 1: them both up, one by one, and then he stood
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Speaker 1: there looking at Grace Jones and John Paul in their
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Speaker 1: faces and wondering what he was going to do with them.
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Speaker 1: Grace feared the worst. She thought about being shot dead
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Speaker 1: in her boyfriend's apartment, the baby still in her belly,
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Speaker 1: about not being found until Monday when the building opened
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Speaker 1: her business. She thought about Paula Kilmack aka Pola, her
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Speaker 1: friend and fellow model, and how just a few years
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Speaker 1: back Pola took a bunch of coeludes and died, and
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Speaker 1: how her ghost haunted the city in the pages of
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Speaker 1: Cosmopolitan in Vogue, that face of hers staring directly into
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Speaker 1: the lens, and how the rumors wouldn't quit, that it
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Speaker 1: wasn't a case of too many pills, and that Pola
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Speaker 1: had actually been high on heroin and angel dust walk
19:39
Speaker 1: right off the roof of a building. She thought about
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Speaker 1: what it would be like to be a ghost, to
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Speaker 1: be a rumor. She thought about being laughed at by
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Speaker 1: fashion moguls who'd once doubted her, and about her first
19:50
Speaker 1: music management team, how they wanted to make her a
19:53
Speaker 1: Vegas act in a few years time. She thought about
19:56
Speaker 1: how she'd left that cocktail lounge stuff in the dust
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Speaker 1: when she sang live for the f time, no stage,
20:02
Speaker 1: just her and the crowds surrounding her like wolves, and
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Speaker 1: how she didn't cower with fear, but instead crawled around,
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Speaker 1: hissing like a snake, barking like a dog. If anyone
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Speaker 1: felt fear that night, it was the captive audience. And
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Speaker 1: now she thought about this well dressed man with the
20:19
Speaker 1: rod in his hand, and how she was one wrong
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Speaker 1: move away from him pulling the trigger, and that perhaps
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Speaker 1: the same fear that she felt he felt as well,
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Speaker 1: how that despite being tied up, Grace Jones could still
20:32
Speaker 1: have the upper hand. She calmly explained to the man
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Speaker 1: that he could take the Deutsche marks to a nearby
20:38
Speaker 1: travel agency and convert them to cash to American cash,
20:42
Speaker 1: and that the money was untraceable and that he would
20:44
Speaker 1: need no idea to do so. She also said he
20:47
Speaker 1: could take her keys and use them to activate the
20:50
Speaker 1: elevator that would bring him down to the bottom floor
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Speaker 1: and get away without a trace, which is exactly what
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Speaker 1: the well dressed man did and within seconds, just like
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Speaker 1: the music execs did, not see Grace's vision, and just
21:02
Speaker 1: like the butterflies in her stomach on the night of
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Speaker 1: her first public performance as a singer, just like Beautiful Pola,
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Speaker 1: the man was gone. The whole ordeal was absolutely terrifying,
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Speaker 1: and Grace Jones wouldn't have been criticized by anyone at
21:20
Speaker 1: the experience of being held hostage in her boyfriend's apartment
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Speaker 1: had led her to dial back her public persona. But
21:27
Speaker 1: Grace Jones's ambition was defined by the risks she took,
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Speaker 1: and there was nothing more risky than her next move,
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Speaker 1: because Grace Jones, the model, the singer, was now about
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Speaker 1: to take that next step way outside of her comfort zone.
21:42
Speaker 1: Grace Jones was going to Hollywood. We'll be right back
21:51
Speaker 1: after this word word word. There was only one person
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Speaker 1: Grace Jones knew would be able to help her when
22:06
Speaker 1: she was being held inside a Jamaican jail cell in
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Speaker 1: April of nineteen eighty nine. That person was not her
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Speaker 1: ex lover Jean Paul, good father to her only child
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Speaker 1: and the man who once endured a home invasion with her.
22:19
Speaker 1: Nor was it Dolph Lungren, the fulbright scholar turned muscle
22:22
Speaker 1: bound Rocky Foe, Ivan Drago who dated Grace for a
22:25
Speaker 1: while in the mid eighties. Hold Up Dolph Lungren was
22:30
Speaker 1: a Fulbright scholar, the beefcake meathead who beats on Sylvester
22:35
Speaker 1: Stallone and Rocky four. That guy was supposed to go
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Speaker 1: to MIT for chemical engineering, but instead left it all
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Speaker 1: behind to become Grace Jones's bodyguard when they met at
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Speaker 1: a club where she was performing. What Yeah, that happened? Anyway?
22:50
Speaker 1: Back to the story, Grace Jones didn't turn to bo's
22:55
Speaker 1: or boyfriends or ex's in her time of need. Instead,
22:59
Speaker 1: she called a professional, her press agent, and it's her
23:03
Speaker 1: belief that calling her press agent, John Carmon, not only
23:07
Speaker 1: sprung her from custody, but saved her life. She didn't
23:11
Speaker 1: tell John Carmon her whole convoluted conspiracy theory involving the
23:14
Speaker 1: cocaine that didn't belong to her, or of Chris Stanley's
23:17
Speaker 1: illness or as jealous employees, and that the local constabulary
23:21
Speaker 1: force that had no doubt been bribed in the past
23:23
Speaker 1: had something to do with what was going on here.
23:26
Speaker 1: She just gave him the irrefutable facts. She'd been held
23:30
Speaker 1: in police custody for a few days now with no
23:33
Speaker 1: sign of being let go, her mind wandering in the darkness,
23:37
Speaker 1: growing just like mold, now growing in the corner of
23:41
Speaker 1: her dank little cell. But once John Carman sent out
23:45
Speaker 1: a press release to every major publication in the world,
23:48
Speaker 1: every newspaper, every magazine, to all those friends in places
23:51
Speaker 1: high and low, the cops felt the pressure and had
23:54
Speaker 1: no choice but to release Grace Jones, and the bail
23:57
Speaker 1: was set at twenty seven hundred dollars. A trial now wounded,
24:01
Speaker 1: and the prosecution had their evidence, not just the zero
24:05
Speaker 1: point zero zero seven of an ounce of cocaine, but
24:08
Speaker 1: evidence of Grace Jones's history as both a victim of
24:11
Speaker 1: criminal behavior and as a perpetrator. Grace was banging on
24:22
Speaker 1: the hotel room door so forcefully that she thought her
24:25
Speaker 1: fist would go right through it, and her other hand
24:28
Speaker 1: she held the pistol. She couldn't even remember where she
24:32
Speaker 1: got it, not that she intended to actually fire it.
24:35
Speaker 1: The gun was merely insurance, a tool of motivation when
24:38
Speaker 1: her words in her fist would inevitably fail. She banged
24:42
Speaker 1: on the door again and screamed his name. She knew
24:45
Speaker 1: Dolph was in there, and she knew that Dolph knew
24:48
Speaker 1: that she meant business. He understood that back when she
24:51
Speaker 1: burned all of his clothes, even that nice versace suit,
24:55
Speaker 1: all of it up in flames. Dolph, you asshole, what
24:58
Speaker 1: the hell are you doing in there? Why aren't you
25:00
Speaker 1: coming out? She struggled to understand, while also struggling to
25:04
Speaker 1: understand who she had become at this moment. It wasn't her,
25:08
Speaker 1: and it wasn't him either. It was this city, nineteen
25:14
Speaker 1: eighty seven, Los Angeles. If you must get into trouble,
25:18
Speaker 1: dude at the Chateau Marmont. Such was the advice that
25:22
Speaker 1: Columbia Pictures president Harry Cohne once gave to actors Glenn
25:25
Speaker 1: Ford and William Holden back in the nineteen thirties. He
25:29
Speaker 1: could have easily directed the stars to Arrow Flynn's bachelor
25:32
Speaker 1: pad up on Mohand Drive, where the Robin Hood star
25:35
Speaker 1: hosted Anything Go as parties on the QT on the downlow,
25:39
Speaker 1: very hush hush. But by nineteen eighty seven, ground zero
25:44
Speaker 1: for Hollywood debauchery was not somewhere up in the hills,
25:47
Speaker 1: nor was it down on the strip at the Chateau Marmont.
25:51
Speaker 1: It was at the home of Grace Jones, who was
25:54
Speaker 1: busy making a name for herself as the Pepsi Generations
25:57
Speaker 1: Errol Flynn, with the bulging biceps of her unlikely live
26:00
Speaker 1: and lover the Swedish gentle giant Dolph Lungren wrapped around her.
26:05
Speaker 1: There was one rule and one rule only at Grace
26:07
Speaker 1: Jones's house party. Don't die, don't smoke too much weed
26:12
Speaker 1: in the designated weed room, and don't snort too much
26:14
Speaker 1: cocaine off the gold plate in the designated coke room.
26:17
Speaker 1: Don't pop too many pills in the quayludes room. And
26:20
Speaker 1: if you're going to get in on the action happening
26:22
Speaker 1: in the orgy room, then make sure you've got a
26:25
Speaker 1: safe word ready. Parties were part and parcel of the
26:28
Speaker 1: Grace Jones lifestyle. Back in New York at Andy Warhol's factory,
26:33
Speaker 1: a good party would get you a front row seat
26:36
Speaker 1: to the likes of Divine John waters Is drag Queen
26:39
Speaker 1: Muse smoking an angel dust laced joint while Woody Allen
26:42
Speaker 1: neurotically coughed nearby, or maybe another Grace Grace Kelly aka
26:48
Speaker 1: Princess Grace of Monica chewing the fat with Robert Redford
26:52
Speaker 1: and Beatle John over at Whole Books. Grace Grace Jones,
26:56
Speaker 1: that is, even had her own baby shower at Studio
26:59
Speaker 1: fifty four, grown for her by none other than Blondie's
27:01
Speaker 1: Debbie Harriet. But here in La Grace didn't go out
27:05
Speaker 1: on the town. La was the devil's workshop. It was
27:09
Speaker 1: all asphalt and plastic. It lacked New York's authenticity. Where
27:14
Speaker 1: were the Warhols and the Keith Harrings and the Richard
27:17
Speaker 1: Bernstein's in Los Angeles. The place felt so manufactured that
27:21
Speaker 1: it actually frightened her. Thus the parties came to her.
27:28
Speaker 1: Hollywood was the last place she thought she'd then done.
27:31
Speaker 1: Grace Jones was in New York City in so many
27:34
Speaker 1: ways that it felt strange to be here in La
27:38
Speaker 1: But of course strange as a cozy bedfellow of risk,
27:41
Speaker 1: and risk is what really turned Grace on. Besides, just
27:46
Speaker 1: two years earlier, in nineteen eighty five, there was this
27:49
Speaker 1: new wave of stars in Hollywood, and it was a
27:52
Speaker 1: wave that Grace wanted to catch right on before it
27:54
Speaker 1: came crashing down. Nineteen eighty five was the year in
27:57
Speaker 1: which Tina Turner, the R and B singer, starred in
28:01
Speaker 1: the film mad Max Beyond Thunderdome. It was also the
28:05
Speaker 1: year in which Madonna the pop singer starred in the
28:08
Speaker 1: excellent film Desperately Seeking Susan. And it was the year
28:12
Speaker 1: in which Grace Jones, a model turned singer, a New
28:15
Speaker 1: Yorker turned Los Angelino, starred opposite Roger Moore in the
28:19
Speaker 1: James Bond film of You To a Kill. Grace was
28:24
Speaker 1: suddenly no longer the intimidating looking musician per Icy Stare
28:28
Speaker 1: Piercing You from the cover of her excellent nineteen eighty
28:31
Speaker 1: one album Nightclubbing. That's the one with the transformative covers
28:34
Speaker 1: of songs by Iggy Pop, Bill Withers and the Police.
28:38
Speaker 1: Grace Jones was now the intimidating looking Bond villain who
28:42
Speaker 1: spent her time offscreen carousing with an equally intimidating, blonde
28:46
Speaker 1: haired Jim Rat. Dolph Lundgren's career was rising just as
28:51
Speaker 1: fast as his girlfriend's. But while Dolph was putting in
28:55
Speaker 1: the work, early warnings at the gym and all that
28:57
Speaker 1: to ensure that he looked like the kind of guy
28:59
Speaker 1: who could knock out Sli stallone, Grace Jones, his girlfriend
29:02
Speaker 1: was back home and she was all play the parties
29:06
Speaker 1: were going on day and night. The parties brought her
29:09
Speaker 1: closer to that New York state of mind. They made
29:12
Speaker 1: la feel less frightening. The dancing, the drugs, the sex,
29:15
Speaker 1: the hedonism, it was all just as much of a
29:18
Speaker 1: coping mechanism as it was a fringe benefit of the
29:20
Speaker 1: lifestyles of the rich and the famous. Dolph Lungern couldn't
29:24
Speaker 1: keep up with Grace Jones. Dolph needed his rest, so
29:27
Speaker 1: he started sleeping elsewhere. First it was slize place, and
29:32
Speaker 1: later it was hotels. If you grew up in the
29:37
Speaker 1: nineteen eighties like I did, then you know that Grace
29:40
Speaker 1: Jones and Dolph Lungren's relationship was one of the weirdest
29:43
Speaker 1: of the decade, but also one of the most eighties
29:46
Speaker 1: things ever. It was bond and rocky, black and white,
29:51
Speaker 1: the fashion and the music and the blockbuster films of
29:54
Speaker 1: the era all twisted up into one indelible image. But
29:59
Speaker 1: it wasn't meant to last. Maybe Grace knew that before
30:03
Speaker 1: she showed up at Dolf's hotel room carrying a loaded
30:06
Speaker 1: pistol or when Dol finally opened the door, calmly took
30:10
Speaker 1: the gun from her hand, removed the cliff and proceeded
30:13
Speaker 1: to talk his way back into her good side, and
30:16
Speaker 1: maybe she tried to put the whole thing behind her
30:19
Speaker 1: once her volatile romance with Dolf came to its natural conclusion,
30:22
Speaker 1: and she at long last made her escape from La
30:25
Speaker 1: when she once again pivoted, this time from movies, back
30:29
Speaker 1: to music, and back to Jamaica, where she was not
30:33
Speaker 1: welcomed as a star, as an adult who made a
30:35
Speaker 1: name for herself, but as a defiant, corrupt child who
30:39
Speaker 1: needed to be punished. January nineteen ninety Grace Jones, perhaps
31:11
Speaker 1: wearing a gold pleated Bessain mackay hood at one piece
31:14
Speaker 1: or a more ostentatious brown for her coat, sat Stone
31:18
Speaker 1: faced before a magistrate in m Kingston, Jamaica court. The
31:22
Speaker 1: magistrate was not yet speaking, but the voices already were
31:26
Speaker 1: just like the voices she had heard at her boyfriend
31:28
Speaker 1: and producer Chris Stanley's house on the night she was
31:31
Speaker 1: arrested for cocaine possession. These voices came from an unseen source.
31:36
Speaker 1: They were behind her, whispering low, and they belonged to
31:40
Speaker 1: the audience. The rubberneckers sitting there in the gallery, eager
31:43
Speaker 1: to learn the fate of the prodigal daughter. The voices
31:47
Speaker 1: spoke of her transgressions, her affinity for drugs and munity,
31:51
Speaker 1: her pact with that Gomorrah of the West Hollywood, multiple
31:55
Speaker 1: affronts to God, the prophecy of a Pentecostal bishop. A
32:00
Speaker 1: devil was in their midst. All grace Jones, ever, wanted
32:06
Speaker 1: to do was what came naturally, and that was to
32:09
Speaker 1: define herself by her actions in her ambitions, both of
32:13
Speaker 1: which were reactions to the way she was brought up
32:16
Speaker 1: as a child to not just be another meek, safe,
32:20
Speaker 1: boring person. If living as a newdister dropping LSD on
32:24
Speaker 1: a Hippi commune meant that she was some sort of
32:26
Speaker 1: devil in the eyes of the old world, then so
32:28
Speaker 1: be it. She knew that her lifestyle and her public
32:31
Speaker 1: image would draw attention, but she never thought that she
32:34
Speaker 1: would attract the attention of criminality year after year, nor
32:38
Speaker 1: did she ever think that she would be on trial
32:41
Speaker 1: for But here she was. When she was first arrested
32:45
Speaker 1: and released on bail in April of nineteen eighty nine,
32:48
Speaker 1: she wasted no time telling the press that the cocaine
32:51
Speaker 1: had been planted in her purse She said that this
32:55
Speaker 1: would be proven in court and that the identity of
32:57
Speaker 1: the duplicitous person would be revealed. Nine months later, sitting
33:03
Speaker 1: before the magistrate, Grace reiterated her claim she'd been set up, framed,
33:09
Speaker 1: taken advantage of by someone who was not well known
33:12
Speaker 1: to her. This person, she claimed, was a female employee
33:16
Speaker 1: who worked at the recording studio of her boyfriend and
33:19
Speaker 1: music producer Chris Stanley, and the woman was identified as
33:22
Speaker 1: such under a pseudonym in Grace's memoir, though in the
33:25
Speaker 1: papers at the time, the woman was referred to as
33:28
Speaker 1: Chris Stanley's ex girlfriend. These are the same papers that
33:32
Speaker 1: also claimed that Grace and Chris were married, which Grace
33:35
Speaker 1: has since denied in her memoir. So who really knows.
33:40
Speaker 1: What we do know is that Kingston Police originally responded
33:43
Speaker 1: to Chris Stanley's house and studio on an anonymous tip.
33:47
Speaker 1: The identity of that caller remained a mystery during Grace's trial,
33:51
Speaker 1: although Grace herself would tell you otherwise. In the end,
33:54
Speaker 1: the magistrate overseeing the case chose to give Grace, in
33:57
Speaker 1: the magistrate's own words, the benefit of the doubt, despite
34:01
Speaker 1: her past, despite the drug fueled industries in which she
34:05
Speaker 1: worked as a multi hyphenate, and despite her own reputation
34:08
Speaker 1: in her home country, Grace Jones was acquitted. Her trial
34:13
Speaker 1: lasted three days, the same amount of time she'd spent
34:15
Speaker 1: in a jail cell some nine month prior, and the
34:19
Speaker 1: entire ordeal left her with about thirty thousand dollars in
34:22
Speaker 1: legal fees and travel expenses, as well as a new
34:24
Speaker 1: album to promote. That album, Bulletproof Hard, had been released
34:29
Speaker 1: by Capitol Records in October of the previous year, nineteen
34:32
Speaker 1: eighty nine. The cover photo of Grace, taken by her
34:35
Speaker 1: old flame and collaborator Jean Paul Good, Now, feels like
34:39
Speaker 1: a final wave goodbye to the decade that defined her,
34:42
Speaker 1: the nineteen eighties. Grace's head, bathed in dark purple shadows,
34:47
Speaker 1: sits atop her elongated neck, her lips bright red, her
34:51
Speaker 1: ears sharp and perfectly symmetrical, her flat top like a plateau,
34:56
Speaker 1: bright yellow light emanating from where her eyes should be.
34:59
Speaker 1: She is the past and the future, bathed in mystery,
35:03
Speaker 1: maybe too mysterious. The album was a disappointment both commercially
35:09
Speaker 1: and critically. It failed to reach the heights of many
35:12
Speaker 1: of her past records like Nightclubbing, Slave to the Rhythm,
35:15
Speaker 1: or even the Nile Rogers produced Inside Story. Perhaps it
35:19
Speaker 1: was the lackluster response from the public, or perhaps it
35:22
Speaker 1: was the traumatic circumstances under which the record was made,
35:26
Speaker 1: But Bulletproof Heart was the last album Grace Jones would
35:29
Speaker 1: release for another nineteen years, until two thousand and eight,
35:33
Speaker 1: when she reunited with Sly and Robbie the other Compass
35:36
Speaker 1: Point All Stars to make her triumphant record, Hurricane. But
35:43
Speaker 1: before taking an extended hiatus from the music world, Grace
35:47
Speaker 1: Jones returned to the scene of the crime, or rather
35:50
Speaker 1: to the scene where she'd been held for her crime
35:52
Speaker 1: she didn't commit. Grace Jones rolled up to the Kingston
35:58
Speaker 1: jail where she'd done her town, but now she had
36:01
Speaker 1: a film production crew in tow. They were there to
36:04
Speaker 1: shoot a music video for one of the tracks from
36:06
Speaker 1: her Bulletproof Heart album. Being here, making art here, in
36:10
Speaker 1: the very place that tried to silence her, took the
36:13
Speaker 1: power and control out of the hands of those who
36:15
Speaker 1: wanted to define her as something else. She knew what
36:20
Speaker 1: she was, She knew what lurked behind her eyes, the
36:23
Speaker 1: ones that had been innocent and God fearing as a child,
36:26
Speaker 1: who were now curated with makeup and beaming with the
36:29
Speaker 1: bright yellow light of the future. Grace Jones's eyes were
36:35
Speaker 1: the future, a future with no fear, no rules, and
36:39
Speaker 1: no disgrace. I'm Jake Brennan and this is Disgraceland. All right, guys,
37:08
Speaker 1: thanks for hanging with me on another episode of Disgraceland.
37:10
Speaker 1: Hope you dug this Grace Jones story. Listen Question of
37:14
Speaker 1: the Week six one seven nine oh six sixty six
37:16
Speaker 1: three eight. Leave me a voicemail, send me a text.
37:18
Speaker 1: I want to know your answer on who's your favorite
37:20
Speaker 1: multi hyphen it singer? Okay? Or you know which actor
37:24
Speaker 1: turned singer do you think did it the best? Or model?
37:28
Speaker 1: Or you know whatever? Whoever it is, is it Grace Jones?
37:31
Speaker 1: Is it somebody else? Get at us again? Six one
37:33
Speaker 1: seven nine oh six sixty six three eight to leave
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Speaker 1: All right, I gotta get out of here. Here comes
37:56
Speaker 1: some credits. Graceland was created by Yours Truly and is
38:02
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38:09
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