On Blondie (Deborah Harry Turns 80)

Deborah Harry (Angela Trimble, b. 1945) turns 80 years old today — yet another sign post on the road ahead en route to The Twilight Zone. I’m one of the millions who worship her. I have especially wanted to add her here since I came across that great series of photos of her taken at Coney Island in the 1970s. What a synchronicity between a star and a locale and a time. I don’t know that Harry would click in the Coney of 1912 or of 1940, but in the 1970s the gem was in the right setting. (Not for nothing, I photographed the woman myself, along with her former lover and bandmate Chris Stein, in 2017 when they were Queen Mermaid and King Neptune at the Mermaid Parade. See this earlier post).

In the photo above, Harry seems to be doing a streetwalker thing, or at the very least some sort of post-debauch dishabille. This was pretty much her brand during the peak years, although it was always clearly a role. The name of the band she fronted, Blondie, clearly referenced her, but abstracted the idea as well. SHE is not “Blondie”. She is the blonde front woman for Blondie. Right away that uncouples the concept from the person, and your mind speculates about what is meant by this. We are reminded of the comic strip, and of “Blondes Have More Fun” and Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. We are reminded of the long, long line of previous Hollywood blondes. But Harry wasn’t embodying those things, or evoking them in a literal way. No doubt the densest observers reduced it to that in their heads, but clearly the point was that she was above all that, indifferent to it, even takes a dump on it. The media tried to impose this “sex symbol” thing on her, but she wasn’t really doing that, not in such a facile way, anyway. She was gorgeous and effortlessly cool, but her power came from NOT being a bimbo in that hackneyed, simple-minded fashion. She was much more like a European star than an American one.

Raised in suburban New Jersey, Harry was an adopted child whose birth mother, fascinatingly, was a concert pianist. Early in her career she had been a Playboy Bunny, a go-go dancer, a waitress at Max’s Kansas City, and a secretary at BBC Radio’s New York studio. She started out in music as a backup singer in the late ’60s. Blondie was formed in 1974. They came out of the scene at Max’s and CBGB’s alongside The Patti Smith Group, Television, The Ramones, The Talking Heads, etc. They were thus associated with punk and new wave, although when they became ubiquitous on the airwaves a few years later, most of America had no idea about that, for their singles sounded like pop and disco. They were aloof from labels, and they were flying at such a high level that they were above musical genres. Later Harry would sing jazz, and she is also credited as a pivotal person in the widespread public awareness of rap (through the influence of Fab Five Freddy).

It speaks to the potency of their influence that Blondie was only on top for a couple of years, but they never ceased to loom huge in the imagination. In America, they had four #1 hits in a short period of time “Heart of Glass” (1979), “Call Me” (1979), the reggae-flavored “The Tide is High” (1980), and “Rapture” (1981). During the first flush of success in 1979 there were also the hits “One Way or Another” and “Dreaming”, which I am dumbfounded didn’t crack the top 20 here, for I know them about as well as the other songs (they charted at #24 and #27 respectively).

The 1982 book Making Tracks: The Rise of Blondie provided clues to what they were really about for those of us who weren’t lucky enough to be going to New York rock clubs in the mid ’70s. Ironically, the book came out just as the original incarnation of Blondie was coming to an end. For those who may have wondered what could have happened to a band this strong, there were several factors. The most important was that song-writer guitarist Stein became ill with a rare disease. At the same time, Harry spread her wings as a solo artist and began a movie career. A third factor? Believe me or not, it’s just my gut, but another intriguing and beautiful blonde pop star emerged at around this time, and pretty quickly she was all anyone could talk about. Madonna didn’t steal Harry’s act, but she was easier for the masses (and those who serve their needs) to comprehend, I think.

Harry’s solo albums didn’t chart very high, but her film work is memorable. She started out in films by No Wave director Amos Poe, Unmade Beds (1976) and The Foreigner (1978). Other stuff includes David Cronenberg’s Videodrome (1983), Amos Kollek’s Forever Lulu (1987), John Waters’Hairspray (1988), the Scorsese section of New York Stories (1990), and scores of others. She was on the tv show Tales from the Darkside, as well as the 1990 movie version. Other TV credits include The Muppet Show,Saturday Night Live,Andy Warhol’s 15 Minutes (his very first guest), Sabrina the Teenage Witch, Absolutely Fabulous, and Difficult People.

In spite of her international fame Harry has stuck close to her roots in the New York arts scene. Notably she has done lots of alternative theatre — I’ve seen her in experimental theatre productions in surprisingly intimate venues. It’s not everybody who’s as comfortable there as they are singing in a stadium. (Blondie has reunited many times since the ’80s, btw). Harry’s book Face It: A Memoir was released in 2019.

For more on the history of show business,consult No Applause, Just Throw Money: The Book That Made Vaudeville Famous, and pleasestay tuned for my upcomingElectric Vaudeville: A Century of Radio and TV Variety.