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Oh, hello! Bonjour!
Welcome.
Voila. Oh, magnifique.
Peace and quiet.
It's so wonderful to be so far away from the crowd.
Far away from the stage.
I worked all my life to get this.
The music is finished,
and the children have gone now.
Have I stayed too long
At the fair?
Yeah, this is my favorite song, I think.
It's a story...
of our life, you know. We've been...
having a happy time, going dancing in discotheques,
and now, unfortunately,
it's all over, all these happy times.
Now, this is heaven.
And that's all right with me.
I've had my wonderful time.
Tonight, we're very happy to have
the European queen of disco, Miss Amanda Lear!
It's important to say that practically everything
that you have read in my biography
is not true.
There is absolutely no truth
about me having my sex changed.
I never changed my sex.
I don't want to change my sex.
I've invited to join us the most celebrated transsexual,
I think that's the word, in the country.
She, or if you insist, he, is April Ashley.
The boy from the slums of Liverpool
who became a fashion model.
Biologically, I'm a male,
but socially, I'm a female.
And you decided at a very early age up there
that you were female?
Well, I didn't decide.
I don't know who decides those things,
but I certainly didn't decide.
Dalí was fascinated
by the whole sex change aspect of your life.
I mean, it's ridiculous to deny that
because April Ashley's book is there.
I couldn't understand...
why she made up so many stories in her book.
I was born 29th of April, 1935,
and I was christened George Jamieson.
I grew up in Liverpool,
which was very rough.
I was never... anything, you know,
a girl or a boy, I was an "it."
So my brothers and sisters
were always very embarrassed by me.
My mother used to hit me every day.
So I was like an angel,
I tried to stay out of everybody's way.
It's terribly surreal and difficult to--
to have the mind of one thing
when you're meant to be another.
I wouldn't know how to put it any other way.
Because my mind was completely that of a woman,
and my body was also of a woman.
Except this petite inconvenience.
It was a terrible problem of growing up
and being terribly feminine
and yet having to behave like a boy.
So as all my brothers, and my father, and uncles,
and everyone had gone to sea,
I thought I ought to behave in the same way.
-What? Sort of be robust and-- -Be a sailor.
To get out of the Navy,
you actually attempted to kill yourself, didn't you?
It wasn't to get out of the Navy.
I'd just gotten incredibly depressed.
About who you were?
About what I was.
I tried to commit suicide again
by jumping in the River Mersey, of all places.
And this young chap jumped onto a pontoon
and grabbed me by the hair and pulled me out,
and I was furious with him.
But by the same token,
that was one of the first pieces of publicity I ever got,
when it said, "Youth Saved By Long Hair."
So, it was quite amusing.
And then they put me in the loony bin.
I had a year's treatment, which was shock treatment.
They even gave me massive doses of male hormones
-to try and... -Make you more--
-...make me masculine. -Right.
Well, as you can see, they didn't succeed.
And then after a year, they said,
"Listen, we're making you physically ill.
We have to let you go
and you have to sort of cope with your life."
Everybody kept saying to me,
"Why don't you go and work at The Carrousel?"
And of course, I'd never heard of The Carrousel.
Thank you for honoring us with your presence and your history.
Merci, merci.
If we could start by...
Maybe you introduce yourself first, Allanah?
I knew about Bambi for a long time,
but I met her for the first time
at the dedication of the promenade to Coccinelle,
where I saw her perform for the first time.
And I was really impressed and sort of like...
mystified by her.
And now she's like a mother to me, so...
That's our story.
Okay.
We drove up to The Carrousel,
and I met Monsieur Marcel, the owner,
and-and he thought I was a girl.
And I had to show my passport.
And he said, "Can you sing?" and I said, "No."
He said, "Can you dance?" and I said, "No."
He said, "What can you do?" I said, "I don't know."
He said, "Okay, you've got a job." So...
When I walked into the dressing room the first time,
we had a Black entertainer,
we had quite a few Arab entertainers,
and other people of various colors.
And I said to Les-Lee, the Canadian artist,
who was sort of mentoring me,
I said, "Are they all related?"
He burst out laughing and said,
"You silly thing!"
He said, "Don't be so stupid."
He said, "They've all been to the same surgeon.
They've all got the same nose."
"That's why they look alike."
I thought that was hysterical.
We're here in Pigalle, which is traditionally
the cabaret district of Paris,
and also the original red light district.
I think that people don't know
about the legacy of this neighborhood,
And how the seeds
of the modern trans community really was planted here.
In Paris in the '50s and '60s,
the biggest cabaret act of that time
-was a bunch of trans women. -Yes.
In Madame Arthur, still here,
-where it sort of all started. -Right.
This is the original place
where there was really a transvestite cabaret.
And it was a very different type of place
than The Carrousel because--
-A bit more low-rent. -Sort of. Yeah.
It was--
I think it wasn't so much touristy.
It was really for the local people.
What's interesting is that
when people started finding out about this place,
girls all over the world started coming here
because they realized that it was possible,
living their day-to-day lives as women.
It was really something people had never seen before.
You-you dragged up and went to...
to work in the nightclubs, didn't you?
Well, I think they'd be very annoyed with you
at The Carrousel, the greatest nightclub in France,
if you say "dragged up."
-But you did, effectively, do... -It was a great art.
-...a drag act, as such. -Yes, yes.
It was the most wonderful and most famous club
in the whole world at that time in the 1950s.
Did you feel any sense that was a little bit seedy,
and you weren't really being true to yourself?
There was certainly nothing seedy about it,
and had you come, young man,
had you been able to afford to come see us,
you would've also discovered it wasn't seedy.
No, it was the most expensive nightclub in France.
People could not believe their eyes
when they saw these acts come out,
and they'd say, "That cannot be a man.
That's impossible."
And when you saw the breasts of Coccinelle,
which were like two bazookas,
I mean, extraordinary.
My first years at The Carrousel
were an extraordinary time of excitement and discovery.
In 1958, a young painter from the south of France,
by the name of Alain Tap,
began performing at The Carrousel
under the stage name
Peki d'Oslo.
Peki had been an art student,
making his way by painting pristine little postcards
for tourists on the street.
His performance was less lovely,
and I encouraged him to leave the stage
and continue his art.
But it was of no use. Peki adored the spotlight.
So it came as no surprise when, years later,
she went on to become the most famous of us all...
the European disco queen, Amanda Lear.
So when people look you up, Amanda,
they see that you're connected to a Parisian club
called The Carrousel.
Yes, I've never been there.
I've never been there in my life.
I don't even-even exist.
On the Internet, it says you're
one of the most beautiful showgirls at The Carrousel.
-Who was? -You.
Me?
I've never been there.
But Salvador Dalí went there and...
Yeah?
No... I've never been there. No.
Amanda was called Peki at that time.
She had come to me and said, "I want to live with you.
I-I want to be a lady like you,"
and I said, "Well, you can move into my hotel.
I'll pay the difference,"
'cause she didn't get as much money
as I was being paid.
And so we just carried on.
I began to grow very fond of Peki.
We had such fun together.
She was sharp,
with an exquisite sense of humor.
She became a little sister to me,
which was so meaningful in the absence
of my own family.
I continued to mentor her
as she blossomed into an extraordinary beauty.
Every movie star that visited Paris
had to go to The Carrousel
because it was the most "in" place in the whole of France.
We made great friends with people like Josephine Baker,
Elvis Presley, who sent me a bottle of champagne,
Juliette Gréco, Édith Piaf.
All of these extraordinary stars.
And Dalí came to The Carrousel.
Salvador Dalí had a thing about transvestites, transsexuals.
And he took one look at me and said, "I must paint her."
But of course, you know, I was very shy.
When I introduced Peki to Dalí,
I knew they would be a perfect pair.
Amanda became one of his greatest muses,
and he, her greatest teacher.
France is very liberal in theory,
but the culture can be very conservative too,
and people can be very conservative.
The trans at that time
had a very difficult trajectory.
You know, it was still illegal for a long time.
Everyone there at The Carrousel
would have been incredibly aware
of how close they live to the line,
and how, with one false move,
they could be walking the street,
turning tricks for pennies.
The goal for many early transsexuals
in this period was to blend into society.
But for the girls at The Carrousel,
they were well-known, famous performers.
The issue is, that closeness to fame
was entirely based in the fact that they were trans.
To go any further, you couldn't be trans.
But if you could save up about a thousand francs,
you could fly yourself to Casablanca
to get a sex change.
Then it was quite easy to pick up town,
go somewhere else,
and reinvent yourself as a new person.
And then maybe
you had the possibility of having a job,
or a husband, of...
being able to move through the streets
without fear of arrest.
Because of course if the police arrested you,
and stripped you,
they'd have nothing to arrest you
on suspicion of.
I had promised myself by the time I was 25,
if I couldn't have the operation,
I didn't want to live anyhow.
'Cause I didn't want to live in the half world
that you're in.
By this time,
Christine Jorgensen had done it.
And so that's when you knew
that it was possible to do.
So the moment I found out you could,
I started saving every penny I had
so I could go off to Casablanca
to see Dr. Burou, who had done Coccinelle.
Coccinelle was very naughty.
She wouldn't give me the address,
but Kiki Moustic, who was her best friend...
We were touring in Italy.
One evening, just as we were leaving,
the show was over and we were all
getting dressed and leaving,
Kiki just came up to me and said,
"I think, April, this is what you're looking for,"
and handed me a little slip of paper.
And that was the address of Dr. Burou
at the Clinique du Parc in Casablanca in Morocco.
So I wrote immediately to Dr. Burou and he said,
"Come whenever you want."
So I did.
Peki and some of The Carrousel troupe
insisted on seeing me off at the airport.
Going to Morocco for the surgery
was a terrible risk.
Very few had done it.
They were all worried that I might never return,
and even tried to dissuade me.
We parted in tears.
And when Dr. Burou saw me,
he said, "You're a boy?" Said, "That's amazing."
And he said, "When would you like to be operated on?"
I said, "As soon as possible."
He said, "Move into the clinic tonight
and we'll operate on you tomorrow."
And that's how easily and quickly it went.
The moment for me, really...
was a day in 1960,
on the 12th of May.
Well, that was the day I became a woman.
That's the day I was created.
And that was, to me,
was the most important day of my life.
If you're going to impress somebody,
impress them with your own self.
Be truthful to yourself, and you will be magnificent.
If you depended upon labels, you will be trash.
You know, my mother was Oriental,
as you see my cheekbones, you know, I'm...
She was from over there.
And they have there, a strange tendency,
Oriental people,
to accept their destiny.
This attitude, I can't stand it.
Why? Why do you have to accept your destiny if you--
if you can make it better, you know?
So you are totally free to choose your destiny.
That's what I realized.
I wasn't sure if I wanted to be an actress
or a singer or a dancer.
I like dancing. I could have been a dancer.
All I knew is that I wanted to be somebody, you know?
My mother, she was a poor woman.
She was not happy, her husband left her.
I said, I don't want to be miserable like her.
I want my life to be a success.
I left my family when I was 16
because I wanted to go to art school,
and I never saw them again.
I went to art school because I love painting.
And you know, I lived in Paris, when I was skinny as hell.
And one afternoon,
I ran into a little woman who said,
"Would you like to be a model?" I said, "Are you kidding?
I'm not a model. I'm a student at art school."
She said, "Yeah, but you are very tall
and thin, and cheekbones.
You could be a good model." I said, "No idea."
I didn't know how to put makeup on, anything.
In fact, I thought I was pretty ugly.
I was full of complex. My hair was too straight.
So anyway, that woman helped me to become a model.
And suddenly,
one day,
I was pretty.
I said, "God, I can't believe I was successful."
People were paying me good money
to pose for photographs.
I couldn't believe it. You paying me
to sit there and smile on a photograph?
And I thought, "Wow, that's amazing."
And that's how I started
subtly getting into fashion,
image, lights, photography.
I thought, "Oh, that's exciting."
Did you want to be famous?
It's not being famous.
It's being somebody...
special.
That is important, I think.
I came back to England in 1960.
You know, I didn't try to hide who I was.
You know, if people said to me,
"Don't I know you? Didn't I see you in Paris?"
And I would say, "Yes, of course you did."
So I wasn't trying to hide anything.
Vogue chose me to be their favorite model
for underwear
because I was tall.
They wanted you to be a little more voluptuous
for showing underwear.
But I made some wonderful, wonderful girlfriends
and we used to have such fun afterwards.
And they could never get over that I could drink
until four o'clock in the morning and turn up
and get up at six and be there,
looking divine and, you know, ready to work again.
So it was a quite-- quite extraordinary period.
It was lovely.
I enjoyed every moment of it.
I think basically, deep down, I knew
I didn't have long to go before something would happen.
And sure enough, suddenly, one Sunday afternoon,
I'm at home,
and there's banging on my door,
and there's all this press outside the door,
saying, "We know who you are and you've got to let us in."
And I said, "No, you're not coming into this flat."
I said, "If you don't go away, I'll call the police."
And of course, the moment it came out,
I went to my agent.
Signon just said to me, "Well, April, you know, darling,
you will never get another job in this country.
Every job you've had has been canceled."
They did not want a transsexual associated
with their products.
It was extraordinary to be cut off like that,
to have every single job,
where you are booked for six months in advance,
canceled overnight...
never to be offered another one to this day.
That's a rather striking miniskirt.
Aren't you feeling a bit cold?
No, it's not a question of cold.
I don't feel the cold, really,
'cause I wear stockings and boots.
I was modeling. Um... I lived in London.
Unfortunately, it was not like the models of today.
I mean, today, they are paid millions of dollars.
We didn't have much money.
But anyway, I stayed there,
and I really was part of what is called,
I don't know, the London scene.
That's where it was happening. Not in the South of France,
where my mother lived.
There was the King's Road, there was this movement,
there's this revolution.
The Beatles, The Rolling Stones.
It was so exciting to live in London.
London was fully swinging by the '60s
when Peki popped up after having what she called
in our Carrousel days
"Operation Pussycat."
She was tight-lipped
when it came to discussing the details,
as she was eager to start life anew.
Peki's new life was not off
to the most dignified start.
While she had been enjoying the male attention she received
performing a whips and leather act
at Raymond Revuebar,
I knew such a profession would not endear her
to the passport office.
She changed her name to Amanda
and we set out to obtain her British passport
in the easiest way I knew how.
Marriage.
Upon entering a pub in Notting Hill,
we spotted an unremarkable individual sitting at the bar,
whom we would come to know as Mr. Lear.
I offered him 50 quid to marry Amanda,
and the next Saturday, we were off
to Chelsea Old Town Hall to perform the nuptials.
So you met him at a pub and, um...
-Yeah. -What was his name?
Paul, I think. No?
I'm not sure. I think it's Paul, yeah.
Darling, we're talking about...
60 years ago or something.
It's a long time ago.
-So you took his last name? -Yes.
What was your name before?
Forgot.
-There was no before? -No. Forgot.
What were your parents' last name?
-My parents' what? -Last name.
Surname.
Their last name was the same name I had.
Clever.
As the newly minted Amanda Lear,
she became shrewd, an adept social climber
who was brilliant at drumming up publicity.
Eventually, her ambition began to eclipse all else,
and I only heard from her when she was feeling lost,
reaching out for an anchoring presence.
Anita Pallenberg was my friend. She was modeling with me.
We had the same model agency. We all knew each other.
It was the same circle. The Rolling Stones,
Anita Pallenberg, Keith Richards,
Brian Jones.
We were all friends.
And Brian Jones, because he was taking
a lot of sleeping tablets at night,
in the daytime, he was taking what we call "speed,"
you know, amphetamines.
And he gave me this--
his pills, to keep in my handbag.
And when we were in that little shop
in the King's Road in London,
the shop was raided by the police.
And of course, they found those pills on me.
And Brian Jones told me,
"Say it's yours. Say it's yours."
So I say, "All right. They are mine."
So, I was-- I was searched,
I was taken to the police station.
I was charged with the possession
of, uh, dangerous drugs.
I mean, it was a... big nightmare.
I said, "My God, what am I getting into?"
So Brian Jones said,
"Don't worry, I'll get you a good lawyer."
And he took me to court in his Rolls-Royce.
But anyway, no charge in the end
because the doctor said that this was on prescription
for losing weight.
But it was a difficult moment, I must say.
All this drug situation.
Yeah, that's me going to court.
That's the lawyer and the driver.
Nice miniskirt.
I've got skinny legs. My God, so skinny.
Here we are going to...
Marlborough Court.
In Amanda's version of events,
Brian Jones bailed her out.
The truth is, it was me who paid her bail,
accompanied her to court, and testified on her behalf.
It's a curious thing, being removed
from someone's story.
How did you create Peki d'Oslo?
-How did I create? -Peki.
-Who's Peki? -Peki d'Oslo.
Who's that?
Amanda.
Oh, Peki. I see, I couldn't understand.
Oh, yeah. That one. Well, that's not me.
She does look like me sometimes, but that's not me at all.
That's really not me.
That's a total, total misunderstanding from the start.
The arrest photo of you, though, says Peki d'Oslo--
And it is true that people keep saying,
"That's you. Come on, that's you."
I say, "No, that's not me."
Look, that's not me. It's not the same person.
The dates, they don't coincide.
She should be about 95 by now. That's not me.
But I mean, I don't care, okay? Think what you think.
Think what you want. I-I don't give a shit.
It doesn't change my life at all.
Can we look at these photos?
That's not me.
-That one you mean? -No?
That's not me. No, no, that's not me, baby.
That's not me.
That's not me. That's not me. That's not me.
That me.
With Salvador Dalí going out at Maxim's.
That's not me. Oh, that's not me.
That's not me.
Amanda, looks just like you.
That's not me. That's not me. That's--
Oh, this one. Definitely not me.
So you are not Peki?
No, darling.
I'm Amanda.
Only what people?
Only stupid people tell the truth.
Never tell the truth?
My life changed because I met Salvador Dalí.
One evening, I was modeling in Paris.
It was Fashion Week.
I was modeling for a crazy stylist
called, uh, Paco Rabanne.
Paco Rabanne used only metal.
He was doing dresses completely made of metal.
They were heavy. They were really like 30 kilos.
You have to carry the dress.
And we went to a restaurant after the show,
and there was Salvador Dalí, the big painter.
He was sitting there. He was surrounded
by a sort of court of people.
"Oh, you are the great maestro. You are so wonderful."
It was disgusting to watch.
So... Paco Rabanne introduced me to Salvador Dalí and said,
"Oh, I want you to meet Amanda. She's my favorite model."
And Salvador Dalí looked at me
and he looked at my cheekbone. I was very thin, of course,
and he said, "Wow,
you have the most beautiful skull I've ever seen."
Skull? Me, skull? I was shocked.
My God, that man is insulting me.
So I said, "I'm not just a model.
Actually, I'm a painter like you."
And he said to me, "If you want to remain my friend,
don't ever show me your paintings."
Now that was a bad start.
So I said, "I'm never gonna see that man again."
That's it. And the next day,
he phoned me
and he said, "Would you like to have lunch with me?"
And I said, "Well, all right, I'll come for lunch."
And suddenly he was alone. He didn't have around him
all this court of photographers and models,
and he was all by himself,
and he was charming.
He was adorable. He was funny. He was incredible.
So I fell in love, obviously, because no one...
no one has been so kind to me like he was before,
and he was so intelligent and everything.
Salvador Dalí was a superstar, right?
The whole world knew him,
and he behaved like an enormous pop star.
So I was watching him,
and in fact, it was like going to school,
how to become famous.
You watched how he behaved.
The minute there was a cameraman,
a photographer, a journalist, that's it.
He was putting on an act. He was being Dalí.
He was doing what people expected him to be.
So it was all an act.
Celebrity is an act.
You give people what they expect.
And I was learning from him very much.
He loved to surround himself with people
who were eccentric or odd or a little...
visually striking.
Or, in Amanda Lear's case, people who were striking
because of the meaning of them.
Having himself surrounded by transsexuals
and transvestites
made him an outsider, glamorous figure.
And he wanted that. He wanted that energy.
That's why he hung out in New York with Candy Darling
and in London with Amanda Lear.
He went wild when, uh...
hippie time arrived, because the hippies, for him,
were the epitome of what he likes--
long hair, flowing robes,
boy-girls,
very difficult to tell who was who.
He liked all that.
Did you have a romantic relationship with him?
It was passion.
He was passionately in love with me.
But it wasn't...
It wasn't an affair.
Like, people might think it includes sex.
It's nothing like that. It was very artistic love.
Very sublimate in his art, you know.
He was looking at me differently, holding my hand.
Sometimes I look at him and say,
he's not just my lover.
He's a sort of brother. He's a bit of...
a guru, perhaps, a teacher.
He's a bit-- a bit of everything, you see.
I met the Honorable Arthur Corbett,
who was the heir to Lord Rowallan,
and he fell in love with me.
A few months later, it coincided
with me being outed, so to speak.
And he had left his wife and children,
and decided to open a nightclub in Spain.
So he said to me, "Well, come and work with me in Spain."
I knew I couldn't work in England.
So I went with Arthur to Spain.
You see, when I first knew him, I liked him very much.
We had such fun.
I always told him I never loved him,
but he wouldn't have it. He said,
"I love you enough for both of us."
We ended up in Gibraltar, getting married.
I said to him, "Is it legal that we can get married?"
Because I wasn't sure, you see.
And the solicitor said,
"Well, as long as Miss Ashley's got a female passport."
And so Arthur arranged the whole thing.
I didn't, I had nothing to do with it.
I just turned up.
And the marriage, it was incredibly difficult.
Arthur was so mad
and totally insane.
He was a transvestite, which I didn't know about.
And the more we got to know one another,
the more she appeared.
When he was a man,
he was very jealous of anyone who made passes at me.
And a lot of people did, of course.
But when she appeared,
she was madly jealous of me
and it was a nightmare.
I said, "You've always known that I don't love you,
but I've come to the point where I don't think
I even like you anymore."
I left him after 14 days.
I couldn't take any more.
And so that's what happened,
until we reached the divorce case,
which was seven years later.
By this time, I had gone to live in England,
and I was fed up with the fact that
Arthur was still living in my house in Spain
and he wouldn't pay rent.
So I went to my solicitor and I said,
"You know, he gave me this house,"
but I had spent thousands of pounds furnishing it.
And then Arthur countersued,
and that's when the divorce started,
in 1968.
The second day we were in court,
I said to my team, I said, "We've lost this case.
The judge will not even look at me.
Even when he's directing a question to me,
he will not look at me."
They decided that I had to be...
examined from head to toe.
So all of Arthur's side
had to come to the hospital with me.
They X-rayed all my bones.
They X-rayed my brain.
And of course, the most important one
was what's called the three finger exercise,
which is to go into your vagina
to see if you can receive a man or not.
They did a measurement of your hips
and your shoulders.
And if you're the perfect woman,
your hips and your shoulders are the same width.
Mine were both 36,
but what they didn't say was that my waist was 17 inches.
You know, that's Scarlett O'Hara.
So you can imagine my fury when
they just said, "Well, she's got 36 shoulders, 36 hips."
So there were all kinds of nauseating little things.
And every day I arrived in the court,
the press were there, so it was incredibly difficult.
Arthur Corbett knew exactly what he was doing
when he married me.
There was no... no deception.
So it was a total fabrication on his part
that he didn't know what he was doing
when he got married to me.
The marriage of April Ashley,
formerly merchant seaman George Jamieson,
was declared void in the divorce court today.
The judge granted a decree to her husband, Arthur Corbett,
who is the heir to Lord Rowallan.
He ruled that Miss Ashley was biologically male,
and said this was the first time
an English judge had ever been called upon
to decide an individual's sex.
Miss Ashley called the verdict a load of waffle
and said she intends to appeal.
This could have been just one loss
for one trans woman, but oh, no.
In the UK, this resulted in all trans people
losing the right to change our legal gender,
and thus losing any marriage rights
for four decades.
Gay marriage was not legal in the UK
during any of this period,
which meant that no trans person
could marry anyone of any gender
because it would be considered a gay marriage.
Yet another tragic thing is, though,
that she should have won the case
because there was a legal precedent.
She and her lawyer found out
the night before the verdict was read
that several years before, there had been another case
of a trans man from the aristocracy,
Sir Ewan Forbes,
who had legally changed his birth certificate.
And that information not only came too late,
it was sealed because he was a member of the aristocracy,
so they couldn't use it in court.
Thus she lost her case,
and lost all trans people our rights to transition...
legally.
Everything was crumbling around me.
I was tormented by the court's decision
and by the public scrutiny brought on by the tabloids.
I once again felt the hopeless pain
of wanting to give up.
I was a ship tossing about at sea
with nothing to anchor me.
There was no escape,
no family to return to,
and no release valve.
I was alone.
Bryan Ferry of Roxy Music
saw me modeling and he said,
"I want this girl for our next record cover."
So he said, "I want you to be a Hitchcock girl."
Very mysterious,
all clad in black leather with very high heels,
and he wanted me to hold a-a black panther on a leash.
And it's because of this famous Roxy Music cover
that David Bowie finally discovered me.
He saw the photograph, and he said,
"Oh, I like that girl. I'd like to meet her."
Who are you?
Better yet, explain yourself.
I can't explain myself because I'm not myself, you see.
Anyway, explanation takes such a dreadful time.
-Would it be better, maybe? -Okay.
What do you mean, "Okay"? I'm finished.
-Very good. -I can't explain myself,
you see, because I'm not myself.
It doesn't mean much today, I suppose.
-You don't think so? -Well, I don't know.
Lots of people didn't understand.
Well, it's because it was David Bowie.
You know, it had to be weird.
The dialogue, strange. A bit like a...
like an enigma. Like a-- But I don't know.
I don't really know what it meant.
Well, it's about performance.
No, it's just that David Bowie
was always hiding behind different personalities,
you know, different masks.
So the whole idea was, who are you really, you know?
David Bowie said to me, "Why don't you sing?"
I said, "Well, I'm not a singer. I'm a...
you know, I'm a fashion model."
So David Bowie said, "No, but you've got a voice
that you should cultivate,
and I think you could be a singer."
So he sent me to singing classes.
His manager, Tony Defries, put me under contract,
and for a couple of years I followed David Bowie around.
We had a little fling going on.
I suppose we were in love.
And after a couple of years, um, nothing was happening.
So I was getting restless and I said,
"Well, when am I gonna be, you know,
having my first record released?"
So I got fed up. I took a plane, I flew back to Europe.
And in Germany...
this German record company
called Ariola put me under contract.
They gave me a seven-years contract
and they said, "Okay, we like your voice, we like you,
but you have to do disco."
And so we cut this first record.
-I Am a Photograph, the first album. -Exactly.
Exactly. Because David Bowie fell in love
with a photograph,
I decided to call my album,
I Am a Photograph. Not a real person.
I finally signed my seven-years contract
and I sold 28 million records all over the world
and money came in.
I had that feeling
of revenging myself on all those years
when I was just looked at...
like an object, like a thing.
"You're just a beautiful girl, you know, a model."
That was very frustrating.
Now I can communicate with people
through my music. That is, for me, a revenge.
And that's why I call my second album Sweet Revenge.
I decided to make it a story, you see.
So that from the first track, it'd carry on
to the second track, the third track.
And the story was the story of Faust.
The devil offered Faust
fame, glory, whatever, beauty,
in exchange for his soul.
And Faust signed. And I thought, now that's a good story.
Let's convert it into showbiz.
Let's say that this girl wants to become famous worldwide,
and she's ready to sell her soul to the devil to become famous.
That's why I wrote this song called "Follow Me."
In fact, the whole idea was that the devil
was saying to this girl,
"Follow me. Follow me.
I'll give you anything you want.
You'll be rich, you'll be famous."
So follow me
Just follow me
And you said that it was autobiographical.
Did you feel...
like you sold your soul?
And in what way?
It's not autobiographical. No, it's not. It's not me.
It's not autobiographical
'cause I did not sell my soul to the devil.
But you have sometimes,
when you're successful in showbiz,
you have this sensation that a little part of yourself
has been sold.
But anyway, "Follow Me" was a really big success,
at least in Europe.
The European queen of disco,
Miss Amanda Lear!
Amanda Lear.
-Amanda Lear. -Amanda Lear.
Ladies and gentlemen, Amanda Lear!
Oh, disco music is very fresh. It's alive.
Grace Jones, Amanda Lear...
-Donna Summer. -...Donna Summer, yes.
I think this is very good
for this fresh, new group of people.
What would you like people to know
about your life? What are you proud of?
Well...
First, it's important to say
that practically everything that you have read
in my biography
is not true.
I think some, um, asshole
has dug out this publicity handout.
And anybody who believe that I am a man
obviously is an idiot.
There is a truth in having been a boy.
You were called John and--
-John? -No? That's what I read.
No, there is absolutely no truth
about me having my sex changed.
I never changed my sex.
I don't want to change my sex.
I like my sex.
I don't see why I should change my sex. And I--
I don't see any reason for it at the moment.
Absolutely. Some people maybe think
I am a man, but, um...
I don't think I look like a man,
-and... -Not anymore,
but what does the word "transsexual"
mean to you at all?
Does it have any role in your life
or is it something you don't rather like--
don't like to talk about? That's the question.
Well, I can--
I can only talk about the things I know.
About transsexuals, I don't know.
I was only wondering why the hell,
before, we agreed on the topic,
and now you say, you know, it's not valid.
-No, no, no. -I feel a bit faked.
I just...
You see, I come here because I made a record
and I want to sell my record,
and I want everybody to see my record.
-Oh, yes. -I don't come here to do
a campaign for transsexual people because
-they can do it themselves. -Oh, of course not.
I'm sorry about it. But if you want me to sympathize,
I sympathize deeply because...
I want everybody in the world to be happy.
And I am bored and tired with scandal publicity.
I do not want to pose nude in Playboy magazine,
although they offer me a lot of money, 10,000 marks.
-You know, it's cheap publicity. -Oh, yes, alright.
-I do agree on that. I just-- -So, I only want people
to judge me on who I am-- what I do, you see.
Do you remember this interview
on German television in 1976?
Well, I wasn't speaking German when I arrived in Germany.
So to me, it was very difficult to...
to go on television and be interviewed.
So my-my very first interviews at the beginning
when I was launched,
I didn't know what to say. I was-- It was very difficult.
It's easy to make fun of people, you know,
if they don't understand what they say.
What-- What was that like for you at the time?
'Cause when I watch it today, it's-it's very painful.
Yes, it is painful because you hesitate,
you don't know what to say.
Now I've learned.
The story went around that Amanda Lear
was perhaps a man
and that made me even more attractive.
So, it's why maybe you did the photo in Playboy, no?
You posed nude.
I think there was such a high price to pay
at the time for being out,
and Amanda Lear surmised the situation,
made her choice, and then she stuck to it.
And that sort of enigma,
as she calls it in some of her songs...
is the entire interest in her, really.
Even in her music,
Amanda Lear is always playing with that line
of "Am I or aren't I,"
and sometimes just flat out saying it.
For someone who so strenuously denies being trans,
she has made an entire career out of being trans,
and just not saying the word.
Now, my next guest is someone whose name has been the target
of many a ripe remark over the past ten years.
She first came to public notice when her name
was blazoned across the front pages
of the Sunday newspapers as the man
who had had the effrontery to undergo an operation
and become a woman.
Since then, she has undergone the even more painful business
of divorcing the man she married
and being told by a judge
that she didn't measure up to being a woman anyway.
Well, she's here to tell us where she stands tonight.
Ladies and gentlemen, Ms. April Ashley.
It's a very medieval gown, that, isn't it?
No, I think it's Japanese, actually.
Now, let's get on to you. How many years ago now is it
-since you had your operation? -God, I can't remember.
Are you still an object of curiosity in England?
Oh, I think so. Why do you think they're all staring so intently?
While I watched some of my friends
from The Carrousel move forward with their lives,
the newspaper attention had enshrined me in notoriety.
I had never wished to hide who I was,
but in the face of a media merry-go-round
that persistently diminished me as merely a sex change,
I had to constantly assert my humanity.
I mean, I had people coming up and poke me in the breasts
and saying, "Are they real?"
Pulling my hair and saying, "Is that real?" You know?
Which didn't happen before the marriage?
Most certainly never. Not-- No. Not ever.
What do you think it was about the decision
that made people react that way?
Well, I think it just stripped--
stripped you, it denuded you. It sort of gave--
It gave very ordinary people in the street...
a feeling that they had a right to bully you, if you like.
Ordinary people in the street would come up,
and they would behave...
in such a way that, in the end, you wondered who was the freak.
Was it you or was it them?
Because they behaved so abominably.
So eventually, in 1970,
I was living in, again, in London.
But I couldn't get a job.
I couldn't get a job as a model.
I couldn't get a job as a salesperson.
I couldn't get a job at anything.
Nobody would employ me.
So I opened a restaurant.
And it was an extraordinary success.
And my customers buy my glamor.
That's part of the deal, in fact?
Yes, but they have a lot of fun too.
We had royalty, we had the aristocrats,
we had the pops,
and we had the hoi polloi. It was extraordinary.
You had to book three months in advance to get in.
But Amanda was entirely absent.
We still spoke on the phone when she was glum.
And I offered many times to host her at the restaurant.
But she never turned up.
I met my husband
after my second album.
Yeah, after Sweet Revenge.
I saw this charming boy coming to my dressing room.
I liked him very much.
I thought he was sweet and charming.
And I said to him, uh,
"After tomorrow, I'm going to Brazil
to do a television show.
Do you want to come with me?" Just like that.
And that's how it started.
I took him with me in the plane,
we arrived in Rio de Janeiro,
and it was love.
Once we were married I realized,
"My God, I'm not Amanda Lear anymore.
I am now Madame Malagnac."
I wanted to remain that figure that my fans loved.
It was a big sacrifice.
I wanted to be famous. I wanted to be rich.
I wanted to travel the world, have fans.
And what he wanted, my husband, was to have a wife,
you know, staying home.
It's not a very nice position for a husband, you know,
to have the wife being on stage
and him sitting there in the wings.
So he wasn't very happy about it.
Which is why I think...
it was, perhaps, not a terribly happy marriage.
And, uh, that is why...
Well, it's because of-of showbiz.
Because of the fame.
I adored writing lyrics, you see.
So, all of those hundreds of songs I released,
I wrote them all.
And I was trying every time to say something.
Philosophical or not, or whatever.
Talk about illusion, about lies, about love, w-whatever.
Unfortunately, nobody was listening to those lyrics.
Except you, perhaps.
Nobody was interested in my lyrics.
It was very frustrating.
"I keep looking for all the faces I had,
before the world began.
I've only known desire and my poor soul will burn
-into eternal fire." -That's "The Sphinx."
"And I can't even cry."
-Yeah, that's "The Sphinx." -"A sphinx can never cry."
I wish that I could be
A silent sphinx eternally
"I'm famous or am I infamous?"
Yes.
"It doesn't matter much anymore.
Phony words of love or painfully truth."
-Yeah. -"I've heard it all before.
Appraisal or critics or even politics."
-Yeah. -"A conversation piece.
A woman or a priest.
It's all a point of view.
-I am standing in the sun." -Absolutely.
That's all those people asking question...
I'm famous or am I infamous? It doesn't matter much anymore
Yes, it's-- I was asking myself all those questions.
In fact, you know. "Why are they all after me?"
Uh... "Why they criticize me?"
"Why do they want to know who I am, where--"
It was difficult. So I wrote this song, "The Sphinx"
'cause the sphinx never cry.
I wanted to-- not to be hurt by all this.
And if you're a sphinx, you are...
You don't care. You're a statue.
I wanted to be like that.
I realized that people, they-they want to dream.
People need to say, "Oh, I want to be like Amanda Lear."
Why not try to be like Amanda Lear?
Whether you're man or not a woman,
or trans or whatever,
try to be Amanda Lear if you want.
I don't even know who Amanda Lear represent for them.
I don't... I don't really know.
I'm so normal. I'm so down to Earth.
I'm so...
I don't-- I don't feel that I live in a world of fantasy,
of-of sequins and glitter, and...
No, really. I feel like I'm totally normal.
Paris, sexy
-Marie-Pierre Pruvot, bonjour. -Bonjour.
Did you know Bambi?
Never met her.
I know who she is, obviously.
But I never met her.
From what I understand, she was... a teacher.
She was a teacher in school for many years.
Intelligent. I know she wrote quite a few books.
No, she's intelligent. I-I know her
because she came to see me in the theater.
I never met her personally, but she-she came to see
my-my plays in the theater.
And she wrote me
a couple of very nice letters, congratulation and all,
"You're wonderful on stage, I'm an admirer."
Very-- I think she's a very...
proper person.
But I never met her.
I have to explain to anyone who doesn't know that--
Is this gin and tonic or champagne?
Well, if it's champagne, it's pretty pale.
-You can sip it and see. -Yes.
Oh, it's blue. It's gin and tonic.
Now, you began your life not as April Ashley
but as George Jamieson, I think I'm right in saying.
-Yes. -So you are a remarkable person.
I wanted, like anyone else,
to be many things to many people.
But my sole role in life became to justify myself as a woman
and to tell my story of transition.
I was endlessly subjected
to the same offensive line of questioning.
One has to talk a little bit
about the whole problem of sex changes,
because I was talking to some psychiatrist.
He said one of the criteria was that if you were ugly
and look terrifically like a man,
you know, they wouldn't do it
because you'd be sort of more miserable after that.
That was the implication. Um, what--
The need is just as great if you look revolting...
-Well, abs-- No, no, no. -...and very manly.
I can't go along with that, because the criteria for me
is what you are mentally.
And so, it doesn't matter if you're beautiful.
One day, while yachting with friends
in the south of France,
we docked in Saint-Tropez,
and whom should I see but Amanda Lear
sitting outside a cafe.
I waved her over from the deck of the yacht
and she instantly fled the scene on bicycle.
I understood then that I was an artifact
from the past she had discarded.
April Ashley tells this story about seeing you
when she was on a yacht, in her book.
And that she sent somebody down...
Darling, so many people write stories.
They can write what they want.
It didn't change anything for me.
She write what she want.
It did not change a thing.
I still carried on-- selling record,
going on stage, making shows,
having beautiful boyfriends.
My life didn't change.
So she can-- They-- Her and all the people,
perhaps, can write what they want.
Dalí was fascinated by you.
But he was also fascinated by the whole sex change...
aspect of your life. I mean, it's ridiculous to deny that,
because April Ashley's book is there.
-Yes, I-I... -Do you object
-to my asking you about that? -Yes. I read her book,
and I... I couldn't understand
why she made up so many stories in her book.
Suddenly, people came up and say,
"Ah, you were a sex change."
And I said, "It's a good story. Let's keep it," you know.
Yeah, I've seen that picture before.
The problem with that woman, uh...
What's her name? That one there.
She died, I think, a few years ago.
The problem is that she was a complete alcoholic.
Yeah. I met her in London.
She was running a club, a restaurant,
and she was totally...
pissed every night.
And everybody know that she was a bit of a mythomaniac,
inventing herself a past as a great model.
The... Which is not true.
It's a bit sad, actually, her life,
because that is a typical life of someone
who did not make it in showbiz, at least,
and desperately wanted to be in showbiz.
But a part of that was her saying,
"I am trans," right?
A part of it was that she said,
"This is who I am."
And then, because of the circumstances
-of the time-- -I think in England
she was quite famous, in England, yeah.
Only in England, though. I don't know.
Not in France or in Italy or whatever.
But in England she was quite famous,
she went on television.
She became very grand.
I saw a picture of her looking very...
Late in life.
But as a young woman,
she didn't have a ton of opportunities. Right?
I don't know. I don't know what she was doing.
Tell you, she was drinking too much, probably,
or hanging around the wrong people.
I don't know what she was doing when she was young.
Now she was the epitome of the swinging '60s.
Showgirl and socialite April Ashley
was regarded as one of the most popular celebrities of her era.
What do you view as your biggest achievement?
Becoming me.
Even to this day, now that it's 53 years later,
I still wake up in the morning with a little sense of joy,
of that moment.
I had written to Prime Minister Tony Blair
saying, why doesn't such a great country of ours
catch up with medical science
and enable transsexuals
to change their birth certificate?
Eventually, in 2004,
the UK very quietly bring forward
the Gender Recognition Act,
which gave trans people the right to change our gender
and thus gave us again the right to marry.
So trans people from 1970 to 2004
could not legally change their genders
all because of April Ashley's case.
Now, some people...
would have perhaps
thrown up their hands and walked away.
But to April Ashley's credit,
she continued to push, all the way up
until the Gender Recognition Act and beyond,
for a change in the law.
She didn't abandon her community,
and I think that's one of the reasons
why April Ashley is so widely beloved,
especially by British trans people.
Because she fought for decades to get back the rights
that had been stolen from her and from all of us.
They had forced me in 1960
to change my name completely.
They wouldn't let me keep my family name,
which was Jamieson.
So it was an extraordinary thing.
In 2005,
we were sitting on the terrace in the South of France
on a beautiful sunny day,
and a big brown envelope arrived,
and I knew exactly what it was.
After nearly waiting 50 years, it was an enormous...
sense of satisfaction
to actually see that birth certificate,
which said, "April Jamieson.
Female."
Extraordinary.
See, if you live long enough
as I'm actually doing,
the most wonderful thing is you become an institution.
And once you become an institution,
you become quite respectable all over again.
But what happens in between becoming an institution,
and the fact is-is another story.
So my lesson to anybody listening is,
never, ever think life is over.
No matter what age you are, you just go on and on and on
and life keeps offering you the most wonderful surprises,
and take them.
I think one of the nicest things
that happened was,
that in Her Majesty's Honours List
I got an MBE.
Which means the Most Excellent Member of the British Empire.
And to be presented...
with that from the Prince of Wales
at Buckingham Palace was rather nice.
They wanted to make me a Dame,
but unfortunately, Lord Tebbit and Ann Widdecombe
and a few other Grandies said, "Absolutely not.
She is not getting a damehood,
but she can have an MBE."
But I don't like the title "Dame" anyhow,
so it doesn't matter.
There is nothing like a dame
She was forever telling me to moisturize.
"You'll be sorry," she'd say,
"if you don't moisturize now."
She was right.
April was invited to come back to Liverpool
in 2008
from a lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans,
um, festival in Liverpool.
And I know, having spoken to her when she came back,
that she was quite nervous about coming back,
um, because she hadn't been back here in quite a long time.
-There it is. -There it is.
That was my bedroom, called the box room.
Even as a child, you couldn't
put your arms outstretched, it's so narrow.
-Hi! -Hello!
-No... -She did at one time.
I used to live there.
She was programmed into St. George's Hall,
in a very historic building, and it's incredibly beautiful.
And I think that convinced her partly to come back.
She said to me, "I don't know if anybody
would remember me, you know, in Liverpool."
And of course the event sold out in a day.
And everywhere she went in the city
people were thrilled, thrilled to see her.
And then the Museum of Liverpool
had talked to her about honoring her
by doing an exhibition about her life
from a sort of sociopolitical point of view,
charting her life alongside how her life
had impacted on legal and societal change
in this country.
And I mean, I don't think she expected that exhibition
to be quite what it was,
because it was very grand in scale
and a million people came to see it.
Yeah.
She was very loved, I think, by people.
And I think that's something that mattered to her, you know.
-Now I'm getting upset. -I know.
It's ridiculous. She's been gone for two years.
-No, it's not. You loved her. -Oh.
How quick as I can.
Oh, darling.
Transition is very difficult
no matter what decade you do it in.
It sets you apart from society.
It sets you outside of your family, your friends.
Cheers. Cheers.
But the one thing that you get out of that
that is incredible and that gives you strength
is...
your trans siblings, you know, the sisterhood of trans women.
That kind of community
is, I think, what sustains
many of us in our day-to-day lives,
and especially the older women from previous generations.
I certainly don't put anyone down for being stealth.
I understand the struggle. I understand why people do it.
Hello.
But when I think about someone like Amanda Lear,
I think it must be really lonely at the top.
But that's the bargain she made, you know?
Do you really believe that Amanda is not trans?
Or is it just an open secret?
What I really believe? Okay.
All right.
How can I say this?
Respectfully so...
I believe that she's trans, yes.
But I want to say that I respect
her decision not to...
say it.
But I know that in France,
people accept her
as being a cisgendered woman
because that's the narrative she's given in Europe.
Which is amazing.
She did that well.
I mean, in the end, it doesn't really matter, right?
Well, you've had to fight so hard
for your identity as a woman.
Your-your whole public life,
you've been dogged by this question,
and you've always had to persist that you are a woman.
And that's very painful.
No problem for me.
No. Honestly.
But the women who said, "Yes, I am trans,"
-they were not very successful. -But I'm not.
I'm not saying that. I never-never say that.
People say that, and I never deny.
I say, think what you want. You're free to think.
But I know who I am, you know?
Like the queen. Never complain, never explain.
I think you would not have the success
then, if you had said yes.
But I think you will have even more success now if you do.
Do you know what I mean?
It's weird, you know.
-It's very, very weird. -And it's up to you.
You are the epitome of...
-a successful woman. -Success. A success story.
And I can understand how in your time
in the 1960s and the 1970s,
you wouldn't have all of that.
Oh, no, it's completely different from now. Yeah.
It's very different.
It's easier, I suppose, for the girls now today,
or new generation.
Things have become a little easier.
In my days, it was a little more difficult to...
because people are-- were...
not bad,
but at least they say, how...
"What is it? We don't understand.
She's strange. What?" You know, all this going on.
It's easier today
to be accepted as a different person.
But it hasn't...
Well, perhaps our society changes. Anyway...
I wonder if you know who your legacy is for.
I don't realize that.
That's true. I don't realize.
I'm amazed sometimes when I see people's reaction
or the letters I receive, the messages. I'm amazed.
And it is a worry 'cause you have to-- For them,
you have to always be, you know, not perfect,
but at least trying your best not to disappoint them.
I would hate to disappoint people.
But it's in...
our flaws that we are human.
And to me, I don't idealize you.
I think that you're very human
and that's what makes you relatable.
And there's so many parts of your story
that I can relate to,
and also that I can't understand
because I didn't live in those eras.
I feel like I am a part of your legacy.
But you're much younger, darling.
And I know many girls
who are also a part of your legacy,
who admire you and look up to you
for all that you've accomplished.
And they're trans girls.
Yeah, there is a lot. Even in France, also in France.
But... I don't really know
what I can do for them. I don't know.
I have an idea.
Oh, you have an idea. What?
When you are remembered,
and when you have a legacy, you are eternal.
You have helped me become the person that I am today.
And now that I've met you, even more.
When I tell girls I was meeting you,
people were amazed.
-How do they know me? -Pioneers seldom...
understand the paths that they've blazed,
and you have just kept your eye on the horizon
and moved forward.
And so you have this path that you've blazed
and we're all walking in it.
The thing is that I never looked back, you see.
I don't know, I probably made many mistakes in the past,
but it doesn't matter.
It's gone. It's finished, the past.
And you should do the same. The past is past.
I mean, you're not the person you were 20 years ago,
and that's what's important.
But I learned so much from...
knowing about your history and your past
because it tells me how to move forward
and how to survive.
I think the main thing is not to listen to anybody.
You go your...
You know where you're going and you're going there.
You know what you want. You know where you wanna go.
Go there.
Which is why I keep saying,
I want to become the Greta Garbo of Provence.
That's it. You never see me again. Ever.