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Once -- not so many years ago -- we lived our lives as exclamation points, taking our cues from across the ocean. The time: The Mid-60s! The place: Swinging London! The face: The Chelsea Girl!
The Chelsea Girl wasn't a song by Simple Minds or a chain of clothes shops or a four-hourfilm by Andy Warhol, no. The Chelsea Girl was the first breath of post-deBeauvoir liberation.
The prototype for the Chelsea Girl was hot, hot murderess Ruth Ellis. Mrs. Ellis was the last woman hanged in Britain and the object of the Miranda Richardson's scene-chewing in the 1985 trash epic, Dance with a Stranger. Mrs. Ellis was a bleached blonde, divorcee "dancehall hostess" who ended up offing her ne'er-do-well race car driver boyfriend. Directly from her trial and death came the abolition of the death penalty in England (a profoundly liberal conceit if ever there was one). And with this new breeze of liberation blew in the first two authentic Chelsea Girls: Christine Keeler and her sister in whoredom, Mandy Rice-Davies.
The objects of the action that was The Profumo Scandal, Christine and Mandy had it all: the looks, the Cold War intrigue, the drugs. They whored with both Russian and British politicians and, through sheer Chelsea naivete, possibly slipped state secrets to the Russians. Christine and Mandy were the two that defined the essential characteristics of the Chelsea Girl: naivete (where sex is concerned - they just can't understand why everyone doesn't think it's just good clean fun), looks, youth, swank clothes and an excellent soundtrack.
The whole world was breaking loose: the youngest U.S. president ever! The cutest pop stars ever! The shortest skirts ever! The most punctuation marks ever!
With Jackie Kennedy leading the American fashion troops, there wasn't a chance in hell that the Chelsea Girl would arise in the USA. Leave it to poor, depressed London to give us fashion maven to the Chelsea Girl: Mary Quant.
In that weird area of London called Chelsea, Mary Quant set up shop and gave the world pearlescent lipstick, short skirts and white, so white, go-go boots.
But the Chelsea Girl was not just a "type." She was many types. Let's explore:
Consummate Chelsea Girls
. Julie Christie
. Sandie Shaw (Never a name in America but a super-hot performer in Europe, she always sang barefoot. The most individual of the Chelsea Girls, Sandie bucked all trends, including closing the decade by opening a shoe boutique.)
. Cathy MacGowan (British TV performer -- sort of to 60s British Pop TV what Denny Terrio was to 70s Disco TV)
. Jean Shrimpton
. Marianne Faithfull
Serious Actress Chelsea Girls
. Vivian Pickles
. Rita Tushingham
. Lynn Redgrave (sister Vanessa was hip, but was in no way Chelsea)
Transitional Chelsea Girls (half-Chelsea Girl/half-Hippie)
. Twiggy
. Mary "Those Were the Days" Hopkin
Mega-Bitch Chelsea Girls
. Charlotte Rampling
. Susannah York
Faux-chelsea Girls (Wrong Attitude, Correct Wardrobe)
. Diana Rigg
. Petula Clark
. Dusty Springfield
. Lulu
Dark hair or light, fashion plate or slightly ruffian, the Chelsea Girl was always sharp, always looking out for number one, always interested in men -- not boys -- but always
happiest on their own or with other Chelsea Girls. The Chelsea Girls didn't ordinarily mix with each other, but when they did fun -- not a cat-fight -- would ensue, unless Charlotte Rampling was on the scene. And often they sang, if often off-key. But who cared? We loved the Chelsea Girls.
Chelsea Girls were also Chelsea Boys. Although the Beatles ripped the seams open, they were just a little too bright (and way too famous) to be real Chelsea Boys. The Rolling Stones were closer to the mark. The two Michaels (Caine and York) were the epitome of the Chelsea Boy. And so was Dirk Bogarde (the one Chelsea Man). The Kray twins brought the glamour of Chelsea to mob crime. And the comic team of Dudley Moore and Peter Cook were high-camp Chelsea Boys. Their moment of super-Chelseadom came with the film Bedazled!, the most comic of all comic Chelsea films.
Like Bedazzled!, most Chelsea films (and they were legion) fall into the category of bitter, brittle satire. And they also have (or seem like they should have) an exclamation point in the title:
. Darling! (the quintessential Chelsea Girl film)
. Alfie!
. Georgy Girl!
. Smashing Time!
. Leather Boys!
The permutations continue ad infinitum - add your own particular favorites.
Author Julie Burchill, in her trivial book Girls on Film, defines the Chelsea Girl as the girl who "drifted from dream to dream."
She's right. The Chelsea Girl followed the next dream and turned into the unkempt hippie chick thrashing to the Joshua Light Show. But every time I hear the strains of Georgy Girl, I have a near-death moment of excitement. That's legacy enough for anyone.
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