Molly Parkin at her book launch with Barrington De La Roche. Photograph by Inesa and Barrington De La Roche © Dark Theatre
❚ AS ALL READERS OF SHAPERSOFTHE80s should know, the godhead of all things stylish is not “the Posing Doughnut” as gossip columns were once wont to call Steve Strange, but our true icon, Molly Parkin. If you need reminding why, click on the Giants Who Went Before.
Molly has been a font of mischief and outrage for almost eight decades and the 80s were no exception. Yesterday she wowed a launch party at the Chelsea Arts Club for her newest auto-exposé, Welcome to Mollywood, about which actor turned nightclub buccaneer Robert Pereno has said: “Well done Moll.” A couple of newspaper pieces this week give the flavour of a life thoroughly well lived, so click away…
The Sunday Telegraph’s new men’s mag asked Moll for 12 things every man should know about women, and here is one of them:
“You should think of women as goddesses. I regard myself as a goddess. Even if you pluck a few flowers from a neighbour’s garden after dark and bring them in, that is a small gesture towards the goddess. It’s a question of nourishing that romantic spark that was between you when you first got together.”
And the Daily Mail — who else? — trailed a serialisation with this bait: “Molly Parkin’s racy confessions turn to her wild affairs with George Melly, John Mortimer and a host of others”. Among her regrets, Moll writes:
“I regret not accepting Cary Grant’s offer of an evening out in London, when he was flying back to the States the next morning… And I’d like to say to the late Orson Welles, Lee Marvin and Walter Matthau, whom I’ve always fancied more than any of the pretty boys of Hollywood: ‘I’m on my way’.”
In her heyday: Molly aged 29 at her first art exhibition. Photographed © by John Timbers
➢➢ Shapers of the 80s ➣➣ 