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DAVID HOCKNEY, from p.42
should.’ When she found out who I was, she
wasn’t particularly nice to me. I think she feels
I exploited her and made lots of money from
the fi lm. It wasn’t true because, if anything,
it stopped my career. People thought, ‘This is
really weird. Let’s see what else he’s gonna do,
and I couldn’t get work as a mainstream director.”
I responded, “She should get down on her
knees and thank you, because she comes
across as the most delicious, beautifully pre-
Raphaelite, creatively gifted Everywoman. I’m
gay but I wanna fuck her!”
Hazan agreed, “I made her look fantastic. I
should tell you, she doesn’t look as pretty now
as she did then, but then we’re all older chuckles.”
Clark (1942-1996) himself was equally if not
more fascinating. Aside from his phoenix talent
that represented the most timelessly fetching,
feminine, and elegant side of counterculture
fashion (much of Liza Minnelli’s “Cabaret”
wardrobe was composed of Clark pieces she
personally owned), he had a fl amboyant personal
life, being promiscuously bisexual and a
notorious drug addict, a habit started in childhood
when his mother would feed him speed so
he could make the long trek to the schools that
nurtured his talent. He married and divorced
Birtwell, by whom he had two children, became
far more wildly gay in his personal life, spun
out professionally, and was eventually stabbed
to death by a former lover, who only served six
year’s jail time on the grounds of “diminished
responsiblity.”
Hazan recalled, “Ossie was moody, but he
did cooperate because I had fi lmed a show of
his earlier for the BBC. He allowed me to come
round and fi lm him and Celia in his apartment,
which we did over a period of the three years
we shot the fi lm. You see him sitting on the bed
with her and their child.”
I asked if there are any survivors of the fi lm
today, besides Hockney and Birtwell.
“Most of them are gone like artist Patrick
Procktor, the narrator, Mo McDermott, and David,
the guy the at the beginning of the fi lm. But
I believe one of the boys diving in the pool scene
is still alive, as is Peter Schlesinger. We tried to
get Peter to come for the opening here, but he
said he’s on Long Island for the summer and
I may go and visit him tomorrow, as I haven’t
seen him since 1982.
“He is doing ceramics, no longer painting like
in the fi lm. They’re amazing, very impressive,
and he is still in the same relationship with Eric
Boman for whom he left Hockney. Eric is a photographer,
has shot for Vogue, and is very successful.
I did try to get him here, but he didn’t
want to play ball.”
Hazan followed “A Bigger Splash” with “Rude
Boy” (1980), about the experiences of a punk
➤ DAVID HOCKNEY, continued on p.45
GayCityNews.com | July 4 - July 17, 2019 43
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