The opening sequence of ‘The Donna Summer Special’ January 27th, 1980.
 
When I first saw The Donna Summer Special in 1980, I was excited to see that actor Robert Guillaume—the star of the popular television series Benson—was scheduled to appear along with Boston-born disco queen Donna Summer. Sadly, I was too young then to grasp the fact that legendary Andy Warhol/Halston muse Pat Ast and model/actress/cultural icon Twiggy were also a part of the special. Honestly, my pre-teen mind could simply NOT handle all that went down on the show which originally aired on January 27th, 1980. Even now my adult mind still can’t handle it—though at least now I can properly appreciate it.

The show was part live-performance showcase for the then 32-year-old Summer and part autobiographical variety show as it tells an abbreviated story of Summer’s life, how she became the “Queen of Disco” and one of the biggest musical stars of the 1970s. For the live musical segments, we get to see Summer strutting her hot stuff at the Hollywood Bowl in all her sequined glory. The other musical interludes are (mostly) not live but presented as short music video-style pieces—and that’s where things get weird, and also magically wonderful. As I mentioned previously, the show included several interesting casting choices—an unexpected highlight being a vocal performance by Robert Guillaume. Many people are unaware that Guillaume spent decades on Broadway showing off his impressive musical skills early in his long career. Of his many stage credits, Guillaume is also noted to be the very first black actor to ever portray The Phantom in Andrew Lloyd Webber’s longrunning musical The Phantom of the Opera. The choice to place Guillaume in the role resulted in a fair amount of controversy causing some racist-ass ticket holders to return their tickets, outraged that he would replace long-time Phantom, Michael Crawford.
 

A vintage newspaper ad for ‘The Donna Summer Special.’
 
Getting back to The Donna Summer Special one of the live musical segments included Summer banging out a version of her 1979 Grammy Award-nominated single for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance “Bad Girls” produced by Italian disco shaman Giorgio Moroder and English songwriter Pete Bellotte. The song (which was co-written by Summer and her often collaborators, Brooklyn disco band The Brooklyn Dreams) spawned a music video which the show reproduced as a live number on a soundstage with an audience in attendance. According to folklore, the song was allegedly inspired by a real-life incident involving a member of her staff. Here’s Summer on that:

“I was in my office in the old Casablanca building, and I sent my secretary to do something, and the police stopped her on Sunset Boulevard. She was dressed in business attire, but they were trying to pick her up. That ticked me off. I pondered why that would happen to innocent people—and then I developed compassion for the girls, working on the street.”

If you’ve completely forgotten the epic video (or were a tad too young to process it like I was), it is a fantastic disco adventure featuring Summer looking like a futuristic streetwalker flanked by her Bad Girls—Twiggy, Pat Ast, actress Debralee Scott (who famously played “Hotsi” Totsi on Welcome Back Kotter and the younger sister on Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman), and a cast of other characters. The Donna Summer Special does not disappoint nearly 40 years later and as a more enlightened viewer, it is all the more fun to watch. I’ve posted the one-hour show below and highly recommend you watch it as soon as possible to ensure your New Year gets off on the good foot.
 
Take a look, after the jump…

 
I simply adore this painted toy car piece of Twiggy titled Driving Miss Crazy by anonymous artists team—known more for their urban street art—Miss Bugs.

 
Below, what it looks like from behind:
 

 
Via My Modern Metropolis

 
The platform shoes to-die-for were Frank N. Furter’s in The Rocky Horror Picture Show - those bejeweled white heels made Tim Curry’s first appearance as the sweet transvestite the epitome of glam. And gorgeous he was too.

Elton John may arguably have had the best platform shoes, but his tended to veer into stage props, eventually leading to those sky-high Doctor Marten boots in Ken Russell’s Tommy. And of course, there was David Bowie, Twiggy, and a host of pop stars sashaying around London on pairs of ankle-breakers. Like Oxford bags, bell bottoms, high-waisters, and bomber jackets, the platform shoe epitomized the androgynous nature of seventies fashions. Originally devised as stage shoes in Greek theater, platforms have been in and out of style through the centuries, at various times used by prostitutes to signal their availability and profession (to literally stand out from the crowd), and were popular in the 18th century as shit-steppers, used to avoid effluent on the road. However, their greatest impact was in the 1970s, when they were the boot of choice for seemingly everyone under 30.

I had a pair of 5 inch heels, blue patent leather, divine to walk in, impossible to run in, and not the expected school uniform. This British Pathe featurette takes a look at the trend of platform shoes from 1977.
 

 
Via British Pathe
 

 
Ossie Clark was a master cutter, who could run his hands over a figure and cut a dress to fit perfectly. He liked his dresses to lie next to the skin, nothing in between, capturing the wearer’s form, beauty and shape. Clark’s inspiration was dance, his idol was Nijinsky, and the movement, flow, and freedom of dance inspired his clothes to enhance the female form. At the height of his success, in the early 1970s, his clothes were worn by some of the world’s most beautiful women - Ali MacGraw, Patti Boyd, Gala Mitchell, Twiggy and Elizabeth Taylor. His leather jackets were worn by Keith Richard, while he designed a jump suit for Mick Jagger to wear during The Stones Exile in Main Street Tour. His favorite model, the beautiful Gala Mitchell said in 1971:

“Usually I lack confidence, but when I wear Ossie’s designs I know I’m beautiful and sexy. His clothes are like a play. I act to suit the mood of the dress. Fashion now is very sophisticated - as always Ossie had that feeling first.”

The magic of Clark’s fashion was the cut, the shape, the heart-tugging style, and the beautiful prints designed by wife Celia Birtwell. Together, Ossie and Celia brought a fabulous, ethereal beauty to fashion in the late 1960s, early 1970s, which has often been copied, but rarely equalled.

Here’s a small selection of Ossie and Celia’s fashions from German TV, circa 1969. Painting above David Hockney’s Mr. and Mrs. Clark and Percy (1971).
 

 
More of the Clark’s beautiful fashions, after the jump…
 

 
There was an interesting letter in that scurrilous rag, the Daily Mail yesterday, printed under the headline, “Let Ken’s movies inspire a new audience”. It was written by Paul Sutton, of Trumpington, Cambridgeshire, who gave a passionate plea for the BBC to stop using edited clips of Ken Russell’s early TV work to liven-up crap shows made by today’s lesser talented directors:

These Ken Russell films aren’t entertainment fit only for ‘found footage’. They’re films, works of very real cinema in which every frame,pictorial composition, cut and music cue has been thought through with a craftsman’s hand and an artist’s mind and eye. They constitute a body of work which stands with the best of any director working anywhere in the world between 1959 and 1970.

Mr. Sutton went on to explains how both Lindsay Anderson, in If…, and Stanley Kubrick, in A Clockwork Orange, lifted from Russell’s TV work, and concludes:

Every one of Ken Russell’s 35 BBC films displays the master’s art. We should be boasting about them and using them to inspire the next Lindsay Anderson, the next Stanley Kubrick and the next Ken Russell.

I for one, certainly do hope the BBC listen up and release all of Ken Russell’s TV films for all of us to enjoy, very soon.

Most recently, the Beeb made this fine documentary Ken Russell: A Bit of a Devil , and while it doesn’t cover all of the great, genius director’s work (no Savage Messiah, no Crimes of Passion, no Salome’s Last Dance) it does manage to show why Ken Russell was England’s greatest film director of the last 50 years, and one of the world’s most important film directors of the twentieth century.

Presneted by Alan Yentob, this documentary tribute includes interviews with Glenda Jackson, Terry Gilliam, Twiggy, Melvyn Bragg, Amanda Donohoe, Robert Powell and Roger Daltrey.

Read Paul Sutton’s blog on Ken Russell, Lindsay Anderson and Stanley Kubrick here.
 

 
With thanks to Unkle Ken Russell
 
More on L’enfant terrible Msr. Russell, after the jump…