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NANCY SPUNGEN
1958-1978 |
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Record Mirror, April 8 1978, by Rosalind Russell ___________________________________________________________________________ Why does Sid Vicious think he’ll be dead in two years? 
 ...=omitted To read the full interview click on the scans. I have only included what is related to Nancy SEX, DRUGS AND ROCK ‘n’ ROLL When SID VICIOUS was at the height of fame with the Sex Pistols, he was supporting an £80 a day heroin habit. His fix cost £40 and he had to find the same again for his American girlfriend NANCY SPUNGEN. Here they talk to ROSALIND RUSSELL about the hell they lived through and how they kicked the habit. Their first night of sex together. Sid’s overdose and why he quit the band. Now, as they say, read on, over page... WHEN SID Vicious was at the height of his notoriety with the Sex Pistols, he was supporting a £80 a day heroin habit. As the Pistols were- as they are now- on a wage of £60 a week, the frantic hustle for money became more desperate as the days went by. Not only had Sid to find the necessary £40 for his own fix, he had to find the same for his girlfriend, American dancer Nancy Spungen, who was also addicted. And all the time he begged and borrowed, he knew that time was running out. That the more addicted he became to the drug, the more he’d have to step up the dose as he gradually became immune to the smaller amounts. By the time he stepped off the merry go round of no hope, he was injecting two grams a day.  “We used to ride around in cabs for hours, trying to raise the money,“ Sid
told me. “We had to blag it from everyone, sometimes from Virgin Records.
It was very difficult getting that much money. Then we had to find a
contact who could sell us the smack. And if he didn’t have any, we’d have
to go on to the next.“It’s the worst pain in the world. One minute you feel hot, so you take some clothes off, and the next you’re freezing and you’d have to put them all back on again. Sometimes we’d just inject cold water, just to get the buzz of seeing the blood and the needle go in. We had needle fixation.” Although both Nancy and Sid have kicked the heroin habit, they both bear the scars on the back of their hands, permanent reminders of the hell they lived through. It’s not even as if Sid went into this unaware of the peril. Nancy had been a heroin addict for over three years and she warned Sid about the pain and suffering the drug caused. But he had to find out for himself. The hard way. When they decided to break the addiction, Nancy was accepted for a programme of methadone treatment. Methadone is a drug which blocks heroin and takes away the high, and as Nancy says, it buys you time to sort yourself out. Sid opted for the other way. He tried to come straight off heroin without any other treatment, but it resulted in so much pain, he eventually had to give in and join Nancy on the programme. Now both are “clean” and fighting for survival, without the threat of addiction and early death hanging over them. “I got Sid on the programme when he came back from the States,” said Nancy. “John Rotten used to laugh at him, saying ‘what are you fixing now?’ That’s the cruellest thing you can say to someone who’s trying to come off. But you just can’t do cold turkey by yourself. Fixing was almost sexual, almost orgasmic, but it was awful. “Sid used to phone me from wherever he was and I knew the pain he was in. On Christmas night (1977), I was so worried about him, I took a cab to Leicester with all his Christmas presents, a shirt and a camera I’d bought for him and some other things. He wasn’t expecting me, but when I arrived, he was so pleased to see me, and he just ripped off all the wrapping paper just like a little kid.” Sid and Nancy are devoted to each other and it’s hard to see how either of them would survive without the other to lean on and support. Although Nancy maintains she doesn’t just want to be known as “Sid’s old lady”, and that they’re definitely NOT getting married, she is eager for confirmation that they are a well suited couple. However the rest of the world might view Sid Vicious, to Nancy he’s perfect, sweet and kind. They live in a dream of their own, protecting each other from harm, either real or imaginary. SCENE ONE But over lunch at a London restaurant, they both told me they didn’t expect to live for very long, even though they have conquered their drug problem. “I’ll die before I’m very old,” prophesised Sid Vicious. “I don’t know why, I just have this feeling. There have been plenty of other times I’ve nearly died.” “I’ve saved his life lots of times, and nothing to do with drugs,” claimed Nancy. “When?” asked Sid. Nancy leaned over the table and whispered. They decided against telling me the details. “I’ll kill myself as soon as the first wrinkle appears,” declared Nancy. “I don’t want to lose my looks.” Nancy rearranged her mass of blonde curly hair. She’s only five foot one, but well put together. She comes from a wealthy family, but was packed off to a boarding school for problem rich kids when she was 11 years old. She claims she went to New York when she was 15 and made her living by doing exotic dancing. How exotic? “With no clothes on,” she admitted candidly. She met Sid in a gay punk club just over a year ago and the couple have been inseparable ever since. During lunch they fondled each other under the table and stopped eating every now and then to kiss and cuddle. Nancy ordered Sid’s food for him, but had to cajole him into eating anything, by saying that if he didn’t eat, then she wouldn’t either. In the end , Nancy managed to put away quite a bit of lunch (she’s been sick recently and had hardly eaten for two weeks) but the most Sid could manage was a small salad and a sweet. He’s mad about sweet things and would probably live off chocolates if he wasn’t persuaded to eat other food. “Haven’t they got any peppermint schnapps?” asked Sid. “I really like that, I drank two bottles of it a day in the States. I also drank a bottle of mescala, including the worm they put in the bottom.” But Nancy is controlling Sid’s drinking too, until he’s in better health. “Don’t you think I’m looking better?” asked Sid. I don’t know because I’ve never met him before. All I know is that Sid looks pretty frightening in his red T-shirt with the black and white Swastika on the front, his chain and padlock and his black leather bikers’ boots. He is careful about his appearance and fanatical about his black, spikey hair. If it looked as if Nancy’s hand was going anywhere near his head, he backed off. But Sid doesn’t see himself as a frightening person at all – and of course neither does Nancy. “When I was in America, I went up to this bloke in a car to ask directions,” said Sid. “But he wound up his window and drove away. And then when I went to talk to a bunch of spades, they ran away saying ‘Don’t hit me, don’t hit me.” Nancy: “Sid is so sweet and kind. He’s bought over £2,000 worth of presents. He’s bought me loads of clothes, these leather trousers, my Nazi belt, jewellery and make up. He brought me a lighter from Sweden and some really neat stuff from the States. He buys me really pretty underwear, bras and that kind of stuff. Yes, I suppose as much for himself as for me!” But, perhaps because of his appearance, Sid finds himself in a lot of fights. He has the right eye half closed most of the time- a reminder he says, of the time the police beat him up after the famous 100 Club gig. “The cops are really after us now,” said Sid. “It’s turning into a Keith and Anita thing. But they won’t get anywhere because we’re clean now. I’ve been beaten up in London a few times. Two guys started on me in Dingwalls- the previous day I had got a knife in the leg, but I started on him with a broken bottle. “I got in a fight at the Speakeasy, but I got my hand in his mouth and ripped it open while Nancy kicked him in the balls. And then at the Roxy some kids jumped me and they got me on the floor and kicked me. Nancy stepped on their balls.” They’re a formidable pair of tag wrestlers, so don’t ever think you can take them on and get away unscathed. “I protected John Rotten once,” said Sid. “There were six guys eyeing him up at the Roxy and he didn’t even know. I started screwing them out, staring at them. Then I took off my chain and started swinging it round. I hit all of them. Otherwise Rotten would have got killed.  “I don’t fight unless anyone starts on me. I used to fight a lot more but
now I’m with Nancy.“At the Rainbow one of my mates started on a bouncer and he was getting beaten up, so I put a bottle over his head. It was at the Ramones gig. Nancy stopped me though, she’s really strong, she clamped my arms back. I get out of control sometimes. “At school I got in fights every day. I just like the feeling of mashing someone up and splitting them open. I was at six schools but the last one was at Clissold Park in Stoke Newington. I got kicked out of them all for fighting. At school it was all the Marquis of Queensberry rules, now you can use fair means or foul.” “We had a fight in a hotel with John Martyn once,” remembered Nancy. “When he asked me if I liked it doggy style.” But the main topic of conversation over lunch was John Rotten, and Sid’s present disgust with him. ... SCENE TWO A cab going to Virgin boss Richard Branson’s house. Nancy catches sight of a man “of a different culture” crossing the road. “I can’t stand Pakis,” she remarked. Are you both racialist, I asked. “Oh no, we like spades,” answered Sid. ... SCENE THREE Richard Branson’s beautiful house and Sid, looking for something that takes his fancy to pinch. Both Sid and Nancy are anxious that their photos for the feature should turn out well and Nancy retouches her make up. They offer to strip off and screw on the pool table, but I decline the offer as there’s not much chance of getting it printed. Sid and Nancy sit close together on the leather sofa, Sid casually twiddling with Nancy’s nipple as they talk. They’re like a couple of lovesick kids and it wasn’t much fun for me playing gooseberry. I asked Sid if he felt used by Malcolm and the group. ... NANCY ON THEIR FIRST NIGHT TOGETHER... “We slept in the same bed for five nights before we screwed. We screwed as a joke really. He didn’t appeal to me sexually then. One night I woke up and he was rubbing up and down my thigh and I said: ‘Sid what do you think you are doing?’ He said to me, ‘how is it that the birds I fancy never like me?’, so the next night, when we were down at the Roxy, I said to him, right, tonight we’ll screw. And we went home and we did. We did it in the bedroom, we did it in the bathroom, we did it everywhere. “And do you know that John Rotten listened outside all the doors! John had made a bee line for my bed- there were two single beds in the room, I was in one and Sid in the other- for the first two nights. I slept in the same bed as John and he said to me ‘You want it but you’re not going to get it’. Now what do you suppose that means? Don’t you think it means that he just wanted to get into my pants? Anyway, later I slept with Sid. “On the first night we screwed, me and Sid, he had smelly feet and he wet the bed.” Presumably, Nancy has found Sid attractive since their first meeting. What does he have now he didn’t have then? “I find him sexually attractive now. Don’t you think he has a sexual aura? I’ve taught him everything he needs to know. I’ve put that sexual aura into Sid, he was pretty near virgin before. He was turned on by me like he never was before. He had a schoolboy crush on me. You know, people have said that I’ve grown up too fast. Well, maybe that’s true but I think I’ve grown up pretty damn smart.” AND STILL ON SEX... Sid: “I had a phase of dressing up in women’s clothes when I was about 14 or 15. I did it for about a couple of months. I borrowed the clothes from my friends. No, not my mothers...” I asked Nancy what she thought of Sid’s mum, the lady who referred to her as ‘Nauseating Nancy’. “I hate his mother. I don’t know if I should say this but I will. She’s a bitch.” Mrs Beverley’s opinion of Nancy doesn’t influence Sid in the slightest, he’s daft about his girl. “She’s the best looking bird I’ve ever seen, that’s why I like to screw her,” remarked Sid simply. The happy couple have just made another court appearance with regard to their drugs bust a while back. Nancy: “We were at court again and spent all that money getting experts and top lawyers in and the police have asked for the case to be adjourned again until May. It’s disgusting.” Sid: “I coughed up a big greenie and put it on a press photographer’s coat in court. I saw him showing it to a policeman and we were laughing. It was very funny.” But all these things are really side issues. The burning topic with Sid right now is the collapse of the Sex Pistols and the bitterness he feels with Rotten. ... After the tour of Sweden, Sid started to run into real trouble with the band. “There was a lull,” said Sid. “John didn’t turn up to rehearsals, no one turned up. Seven nights in a row I went along there and no one was there. I organised a rehearsal myself. I phoned them up and went mad at them and told them they’d better turn up. They did, and then they tried to sack me because of Nancy. “They said if I didn’t stop hanging around with Nancy and all of my friends they were going to kick me out of the band. I said ‘that’s blackmail. See how far you get without me, you’ll get nowhere!’” ... the situation took an even more sinister turn, according to Nancy. All the way through the last part of Sid’s vituperative attack on Rotten and the band, Nancy was desperate to get a word in. Now she had her say, and what she claimed is as astonishing as it is bizarre. Nancy claims that Malcolm McLaren and his associates at Glitterbest (the management company) tried to remove her influence on Sid. Nancy: “They sent Sid off, very conveniently, to the dentist. Someone came round and picked me up in the car to take me shopping for some things for the flat. We actually did buy some things for the kitchen. “Then I mentioned a place I wanted to go, and she said no. She was taking me to the airport. I said ‘what!’ Paddington police station is just across the road! “She took me back to Malcolm’s office and they were all there. They said I was the cause of the band’s problems. I had actually offered to the states for a two-week vacation to let them sort themselves out. “Malcolm said he was giving me a ticket to the States, he actually had the ticket there. I said ‘how am I going to get back?’ He got nasty and said why should he give me a ticket back? He said ‘this group is falling apart and you’re the cause of it!’ Nancy’s voice began to break with emotion and Sid put a protective arm around her. She was very close to tears. “No one in New York knew I was coming and I didn’t have a halfpenny. How would I have got home from Kennedy airport in New York? “ I said ‘who’s going to tell Sid I’ve gone?’ Who’d DARE tell him I was on a plane to New York and that he’d never see me again? I’d never see Sidney, my best mate, ever again...” “It’s all right Nancy,” whispered Sid, stroking her hair, “don’t cry. It’s all over and it happened a long time ago. You know,” he turned to me, “I’d have beaten them up. She could have died on that plane without her methadone. It would have been murder.” Whether or not that’s true- they are both very melodramatic, although these things are real and important to them- the separation would have caused them suffering. Nancy: “I said ‘what are you trying to do?’ Sid would have left the group if he’d found I’d gone. They wouldn’t have told him what happened. He would have come home from the dentist and I wouldn’t have been there. They’d have told him I’d left him.” Sid: “I’d have left the group. I couldn’t work with people as slimey as that.” But he did. Sid continued to work with McLaren and the Pistols. Is there that much difference between trying a stunt like that and actually bringing it off? “I made it so clear that I’d kill then if it ever happened again,” said Sid fending off the question. “I never trusted Malcolm anyway. I said I’d go to Holland with them but if any of them tried that again while I was gone I’d kill them.” “They wouldn’t even let me get my methadone,” interrupted Nancy, her eyes filling with tears again. “But I’m strong enough a person not to have got on that plane.” “You could always have refused to get on it,” said Sid sensibly.  “I’m almost crying now just thinking about it,” continued Nancy. “I’d
never see Sid again or say goodbye to him.”“It was the management, not the band,” said Sid. “At that time I was still prepared to give the band another try. They know how nasty I can get if I get annoyed. There were six of them onto Nancy and all blokes as well.” Nancy: “That shows how strong and what a smart person I am.” By this time, Nancy was in tears. Sid cuddled her comfortingly, but was careful it didn’t mess up his hair. “Don’t get emotional about it Nancy...” ... SCENE FOUR In a cab going to Sid and Nancy’s flat. Nancy has asked the driver to turn off his music and he’s getting irate. So Sid and Nancy amuse themselves by holding each other close. “You sexy bitch,” whispers Sid. I feel even more like a gooseberry. While we stop at the shops for Nancy to buy some milk, Sid told me how much he cares for Nancy, how beautiful he thinks she is, and about the first time they met in the gay club. ... SCENE FIVE Sid and Nancy’s flat. Nancy apologises for the mess, but they’re still doing the place up and have only got a couple of rooms straight so far. Sid zooms straight into the bedroom and turns on the TV to watch “The Bionic Woman”, although as far as he’s concerned, Nancy is the only real woman on the planet. ... Suddenly, loud and alarming groans came from the bathroom. I asked Sid if he thought Nancy was all right. He told me she’d been having trouble with her kidneys and they’ve been giving her pain for some time. But she maintained she didn’t want to go to hospital, although Sid thought she was very sick. She came and lay on the bed and Sid softly stroked her hair while we talked. We got back to the subject of Rotten and the States. ... Nancy (recovered a bit, but still moaning quietly in pain): “We were on the streets for six months, before we found this flat. At least we have a roof over our heads now. Oh, don’t mind me, please go on with the interview. I don’t want to go to hospital. I damaged my kidneys in a car accident and then the police took my kidney pills when we were arrested and they didn’t give me them back. “ ... When it comes down to it, Sid Vicious is just another lover who brings home presents for his girl and buys her nice underwear and worries about her when she’s sick. And I’m not taking the mick, because their last words to me were: “Please don’t take the piss out of us. Everybody does that...” |
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