The Look Away Project

Spreading the truth about the baby groupies

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Look Away:
The Story of Sable Starr

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All vocal performances are paid actors and are unaffiliated with The Look Away Project.

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Quote Bank

The script for the short film Look Away was entirely comprised of quotes from real interviews. This quote bank also contains additional material that did not make it into the final cut. See the references page for a list of sources.

“We had a gig at the Whiskey-A-Go-Go when we first moved out there and that's when we met Sable Starr, who was a really nice girl. First she was Iggy's groupie, then with me, then go back to Iggy, then back to me, and then go to my brother and back to me. We would do two sets at the Whiskey, and in between sets, Sable would say, "Can I suck your dick?" She was real open about stuff, that's what I always liked about her. So in between our sets Sable would suck my dick in the upstairs men's bathroom.” – Ron Asheton [1]“I didn't really live in Hollywood, I was about forty-five minutes away. But my friend called me up one day and said, "Do you wanna go to the Whiskey-A-Go-Go?" This was when I was fourteen. And I was nuts to begin with, I always liked getting in trouble, so I said sure. Hollywood-I thought I'd see movie stars or something. So I went to the Whiskey, and I'll never forget the girls there, I was so intrigued. I was still ugly then, I had to work on it for about a year when I was hanging out in Hollywood. I didn't get my nose fixed until I was fifteen.” – Sable Starr [1]“David came in and had a cigarette in his hand and a glass of wine. And he started kissing me - and I couldn't believe it was happening to me, because there'd been Roxy Music and J. Geils, but David Bowie was the first heavy[…] I became very famous and popular after that, because it was established that I was cool. I had been accepted by a real rock star.” – Sable Starr [1]“Coral was real quiet, real straight, didn't really get fucked-up, and always looked out after Sable.” – Ron Asheton [1]“Oh, I hated school when I was fifteen. I had to have a probation officer, that's when I started living with Iggy Pop in the Hollywood Hills and I didn't go to school for about a month.” – Sable Starr [1]“Sable had a good heart and I liked her, but she was on a general rampage of buying Billboard magazine and working her way down the list to someone she hadn't fucked yet. Wayne County came to stay with us at the house and Sable came on to Wayne very heavy. Wayne said, "BUT I'M A FAG!" Sable's thinking was probably, But you're next on the list! So Sable took all her clothes off, cut her wrists, and dove into the pool. She was floating facedown in the deep end with blood going everywhere, and I was saying, "Wayne, we have to get her out of here!"Wayne said, "Why not let her drown? We'll take her over there to the cliff and pitch her off. Nobody'll know where she came from." I finally managed to reach her by hanging on to the side of the pool, got a hold of her, dragged her out, wrapped her in a blanket, bandaged her up, and gave her to Coral, who put her in the car and took her away.” – Leee Childers [1]“One day I was at practice and Leee Childers called up and said, "You gotta come back to the house, Sable's locked herself in your room and she's threatening to kill herself." I thought, What the fuck? It wasn't like we were in love or anything. It was just nice to get my dick sucked when I woke up. I liked her and we were friends, but I didn't know why she was so distraught. It definitely wasn't over me. So I go back to the house and our road manager, Eric Haddix, had to kick in the bedroom door. Sable was locked in the bathroom and I had to coax her out: "Come on, open the door!" She finally opened it and she was just downed-out. She was naked except for some bikini underwear and she had taken my razor and tried to cut her wrists. There were these two little lines on her wrist because it was a Trac II, and I just started laughing and Leee said, "Get her the fuck out of here!" And there was poor Sable, being hauled out of the house half-naked. Her sister, Coral, got some friends to pick her up in their car. Leee was saying, "That's it! No more of this bullshit, man! This is a business-I can get into trouble for this!" Thank god I was using Trac lIs then, because usually I used a straight razor.” – Ron Asheton [1]“lggy took off all his clothes and was jerking off on the radio! He was saying, "I've got all my clothes off now, I'm playing with my balls ... " Later he locked himself in the radio station's elevator with Cherry Vanilla and tried to rape her!” – Leee Childers [1]“The Dolls pull up in this limousine and Johnny Thunders was the first to get out of the car. He had this red leather suit on-the one on the back of the first album cover. And I just knew something would happen with Johnny. And it did. He asked me to stay the night and the next day he started laying all this heavy stuff on me: "I really like you, I mean I really care about you, I mean really like-I love you. Will you marry me? Will you come back to New York and live with me?"” – Sable Starr [1]“I think Sable was quite surprised that Johnny was so intensely and passionately interested in her, as opposed to just screwing her and kicking her out of the room[…]I think Sable's big romance previous to Johnny had been some schmuck from Led Zeppelin or something, who probably pissed on her, you know, literally. So I think Sable was surprised that Johnny wanted to become so intensely involved.” – Peter Jordan [1]“I had just turned sixteen, it was summer, and my mother was starting to make me register for school. So I ran away.” – Sable Starr [1]“Then the Dolls came in, WOOF, and the cops jumped on me[…] Of course Sable wasn't with them, Johnny was smart enough to send her straight to New York.” – Cyrinda Foxe [1]“I lived with Johnny in New York but it didn't work out. Johnny and I were going to get married. We were going to have a baby, too. I did get pregnant, but had an abortion. Johnny tried to destroy my personality. He wanted me to sit there and be quiet and tell him I loved him twenty-four hours a day. I liked to run around and have a good time, but I did change for him. I mean I was becoming the type of person he wanted me to be-just stay home every day. After I was with him, I just wasn't Sable Starr anymore. He really destroyed the Sable Starr thing. He made me throw all my diaries and all my phone numbers down the incinerator and he ripped up my scrapbook. It was a good one, too. It had everything in it. After that I was just kind of destroyed. That's why I felt so bad, to have been such a hot shit and to be let down to such a low level.” – Sable Starr [1]“Johnny Thunders was genuinely into Sable, but he hit girls he was involved with. The first time I actually met Sable was after one of her fights with Johnny. The whole area under her lip was cut. She was beaten up. She was dirty. And her clothes weren't cute like I'm sure they were when she met him. I said to her, "What are you doing? Just go home!"” – Cyrinda Foxe [1]“So after Johnny tried to kill me four or five times, I thought I'd take a trip back home.” – Sable Starr [1]“I was really still fucked-up over Johnny Thunders. lt took me a long time to get it together. I met Keith Richards and it was really weird. It took a great person like him to show me what a great person I was. He's such a beautiful person. I was in Atlanta with Keith and I had money and I wanted to come to New York to see what was going on. I was also curious about Johnny- I hadn't seen him for a year. He called me the first night I was here and said, "Do you wanna go out with me?" It could have been heavy , but I was in such a neat place. I knew who I was- I was with Keith Richards, not him. So I went out with Johnny, and he introduced me to Richard Hell- and I fell in love with Richard and moved in with him.” – Sable Starr [1]Obviously, the guys who left the shitty comments are insecure of sexually empowered women who go out and get what they want. Essentially, Lori and Sable adopted certain acceptable male traits– that are quite common for women these days. (About time!) [2]When Sable Starr was a young girl she was known as being sexually aggressive, especially with David Bowie. She turned musicians on with her body and her enthusiasm for their music, in exchange for rides in limos, being flown in private jets, and some memorable sex. Maybe not an even trade, but a fun one, nonetheless. [2]Lori and Sable were two girls who were ahead of their time [2]Mattix was under the age of consent, she says, when Page pursued her. Post-#MeToo, does she see the situation differently? “I think that’s what made me start seeing it from a different perspective because I did read a few [articles], and I thought: ‘Shit, maybe,’” she says. As for whether Page was in the wrong: “That’s an interesting question. I never thought there was anything wrong with it, but maybe there was. I used to get letters telling me he was a paedophile, but I’d never think of him like that. He never abused me, ever.” Still, Mattix sounds conflicted – rapturous reminiscences (“honestly, I had a great time”) are followed by cautionary notes. “I don’t think underage girls should sleep with guys,” she says. “I wouldn’t want this for anybody’s daughter. My perspective is changing as I get older and more cynical.” [3] [note: this interview was given three years after the Thrillist one]She told me that when the 71-year-old Jimmy Page, now dating a 25-year-old, recently came to town, they met up. As Mattix remembers it, “He said to me, ‘Lori, we were both children back then.’ I felt like telling him, ‘At least one of us was.’” [4]Sable Starr lived to fuck rock stars. [4]What I remember most about the E Club was Bowie. I met him when he was doing the Spiders from Mars tour. I had not yet turned 15 and he wanted to take me to his hotel room. I was still a virgin and terrified. [4]He told me that David wanted to take me to dinner. Obviously, I had no homework that night. [4]THRILLIST: Still, you were a 15-year-old kid and he was an adult man with a lot of experience, and power, and drugs. You don’t see any problem with that now?I was an innocent girl, but the way it happened was so beautiful. I remember him looking like God and having me over a table. Who wouldn’t want to lose their virginity to David Bowie? [4]That night we all wound up at the Rainbow, where I got approached by Led Zeppelin’s manager Peter Grant. He was like 700 pounds and scary as hell. He said, “You’re coming with me, young lady.” I wound up in a limo and didn’t know where I was going. But it was to the Hyatt. I felt like I was being kidnapped. I got taken into a room and there was Jimmy Page. He wore a wide-brimmed hat and held a cane. It was perfect. He mesmerized me. I fell in love instantly. [4]My whole life was about waiting for Jimmy. I tried going to high school, but I couldn’t concentrate. [4]I was really special. I knew it the night after I lost my virginity to David Bowie, when I went to see his concert at Long Beach Arena. [4]“And you just can't walk away from them because you never know what they could do for you. Even if the guy is 120 years old you have to be kissie with him 'cause he might make good connections for you.” – Sable Starr [7]STAR: Do you consider being a groupie a career?SABLE: No, it doesn't pay - it's more like an ego thing. Just to be able to call up girlfriends the next day and say who I was with last night. [7]“I think that the wish that’s always inside, in the back of your mind, is to really have a famous guy fall in love with you and take you all over the world with him. Like to marry him. Some girls are just out to marry a superstar.” – Queenie Glam [7]

References