Chapter 10 - You Are Beautiful and You Are Alone: The Biography of Nico

Once your chance goes by, that’s it. Nico as Ariane in Strip-Tease

Paris plays a commanding role in Strip-Tease, the movie which finally gave Nico her turn as female lead. Director Jacques Poitrenaud cap­tures the boozy, swinging nightlife of the time, the clubs filled with socialites looking for danger and kicks, drowning in equal parts cash, boredom and sadness. The plot revolves around a dancer, Ariane (Nico), and supplies a haunting foreshadowing of many very real events and themes in Nico’s own life. Having been unfairly cut from starring in a traditional dance troupe, Ariane must somehow find a way to pay her mounting bills. Enter her old pal Dodo, whose husband Paul runs an up-market burlesque club called Le Crazy. Though hesitant at first, for financial purposes Ariane eventually does ­acquiesce to appearing at the venue, her routine accompanied by a wooden marionette in her likeness that mirrors her moves on stage.

As a stripper, Ariane becomes the toast of the town, finally getting the fame and recognition she craved before with the formal dance company. She catches the eye of playboy Jean-Loup, played by an extremely handsome Jean Sobieski. He attempts to woo her with gifts, flowers and nights out, all of which Ariane refuses, though in one scene a friend of Jean-Loup’s points out that ‘Everything is for sale, even a halo.’ Dodo and Paul do not understand why Ariane is rebuffing the eligible bachelor’s overtures, saying she is a ‘com­plicated girl’, to which Ariane responds, ‘Sometimes I need to feel alone … No one gets away scot-free.’

Ariane eventually accedes to her suitor and allows herself to be swept up in the romance. Her spartan existence is suddenly injected with lavish gifts, furs and jewels. As a rapid succession of glamorous nights and days out flashes across the screen, she confides in voice-over that ‘It was good at last to feel you were someone. It was good after being a nobody to be recognized. Then eventually you stopped remembering why. Days, nights, all merged into one.’ After a sub­stantial amount of time together, Jean-Loup takes Ariane to meet his family at their massive estate. In front of all the dowagers, he reveals to Ariane that he is completely broke and has run through all of the money that his trust fund had afforded him. He tells the gathered elders that he is going to marry Ariane. He then throws down on a table a handful of her promotional postcards, all which feature her in various states of undress. Realizing that he had only been using her to blackmail his family the entire time, a devasted Ariane silently cries as the men escort Jean-Loup away.

The next sequence shows Dodo with Ariane in her dressing room. Jean-Loup has sent an exquisite diamond necklace, which Dodo gushes over. Dodo is surprised by Ariane’s lack of excitement over the opulent gift, to which Ariane responds, ‘It’s not a present, it’s just my salary cheque.’ The music starts, and the camera pans to a packed Le Crazy. Jean-Loup is in pride of place at the front of the stage, surrounded by a rabid pack of his catty, vapid friends. The curtains open to reveal a fully clothed Ariane, wrapped not in her skimpy stage clothes but in the mink that Jean-Loup gave her. She opens up the coat, revealing a bevy of jewel-encrusted acces­sories. One by one, she takes them off, starting with the earrings, and drops each piece into the lap of a shocked Jean-Loup. The final ­bauble Ariane removes is the first gift she accepted from Jean-Loup: a flowered diamond brooch. She looks down at it sadly, fingering it in her hand. Seeing the piece, another member of Jean-Loup’s group comments, ‘He gave Dora exactly the same piece.’ As Ariane drops the last trinket into Jean-Loup’s hands, a woman turns to him and says, ‘She humiliated you … for all Paris to see,’ while a muf­fled male voice concurs, ‘You’re a laughing stock now.’

Strip-Tease’s portrayal of a strong young woman chasing her dreams against the odds is not new; it is Ariane’s journey and evo­lution that make it an incredibly compelling and unique film. Though in other works the allure of money and societal elitism are almost without exception placed as the most important goals, in Strip-Tease those ideas are turned on their head. Here it is Ariane’s rejection of materialism and the normative symbols of success – for example, the mink, the jewels – that is celebrated.

Strip-Tease is shocking in many ways. Most astounding are the incredibly modern ideas of the independent woman and racial equality. Ariane never needs to be saved by anyone – especially a man. The movie ends with her walking away – entirely by her­self – into the unknown, throwing away all security in pursuit of her authentic self. The only male that Ariane trusts is Sam, played by American rock’n’roll legend ‘Big Joe’ Turner. He is the African American owner of the Blue Note jazz club, and the one person who sees, appreciates and nurtures the ‘real’ Ariane, never being taken in by fame and wealth.

Yet none of this is mentioned by critics. It is Nico’s appearance that is recalled and remembered, the film itself all but forgotten. Reviewers focused solely on the same outer shell the movie cri­tiques, with one saying, ‘One should certainly raise objections to the foreign accent of the principal actress, Miss Krista Nico. Her diction is dreadfully laboured, the accent a touch crude. But, never­theless, there is the compensation of Miss Krista Nico’s glamorous physique, not only the beauty of her big eyes, but also the sculptural allure of her body.’ A film review from Catholic watchdog journal Les Fiches du cinéma sums up the overwhelming negativity thrown at the movie: ‘The road to hell is paved with good intentions. We thought our interest would be held by this – alas! – banal story of a young girl who strays into the arms of dubious types. But, frankly, it’s nothing more than a pretext to present a spectacle that does not respect human dignity. This is why we reject this film finally as empty and degrading.’

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Strip-Tease made its debut in Italy in May 1963. Clive Crocker was Nico’s date, and he recalls the night clearly: ‘We went to see the premiere. We had dark glasses on and put our collars up and sat in the back because we didn’t want to be recognized. Suddenly, the nude scene came on, and she started giggling! She didn’t have much of a figure – in fact, she was flat-chested. She kept laughing, so we had to leave the cinema.’

The presence of alcohol plays heavily in Crocker’s memories from the time. This is not surprising, as the average adult in 1960s France drank 250 ml of wine a day. Nico seemed to be no exception, as evidenced by her flat in Paris (‘It was in Le Roux or in Benoit, some­thing like that. I’d know it on the map,’ says Crocker of the abode’s location). ‘This apartment was filled with bottles of Dom Perignon – empty. They were all over the place. She must have nearly drunk herself to death when she lived there,’ Crocker remembers. ‘Another time, we were at a grand hotel. Lying in bed at four in the morning, and she’d shake me. “What’s the matter?” I’d say. “Come on, we’ve got to have a brandy,” she’d reply. A waiter, an elderly guy, would come in with two brandies on a silver plate.’

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When in Ibiza, Crocker’s nightclub – the Domino – was Nico’s ‘favourite place to spend time on the island’, he remembers. ‘We would always sit in the back. She would smoke cigarettes. She didn’t take any drugs. She sometimes smoked marijuana. I never smoked ever in my life. I used to have to clean the ashtrays in the morning, and it was a disgusting job. She’d do things like dare me that she could put a cigarette out on the back of my hand, burn me. I would say, “You better bloody not dare!” She thought it was funny. One time, she decided she wanted to bite my arm. I smacked her in the face to get her away. “You silly bitch!” I said. It wasn’t huge, though I do have a little scar on my ancient arm. She burst into tears and ran out. The next day I came down to open the bar. It was abso­lutely full of flowers. She’d gone to the florist and she’d bought the whole lot. The tables and the bar, everything was covered in flowers. It was wonderful.’

Crocker tells a story of Nico possibly acknowledging that she may not have been in an ideal situation to raise a small child. ‘She brought this young kid, this tiny kid, to her mother in this little house on Platja d’en Bossa [in Ibiza]. That’s how we were able to have an affair, because the kid was with the mother [Grete]. Then she decided to find a proper parent for the kid. She wanted to go to Paris. She had a car, a convertible. The kid wasn’t a year old, and we went to Barcelona in this car full of stuff. The mother took the kid and the plane to Barcelona, stayed in a hotel. It had great rooms. We took the kid to England because we had this vague idea that my ex-wife, who had a house in Maidenhead, would adopt him, but it was impossible. You can’t adopt just like that.’

It was during another trip to the UK that Nico revealed to Crocker her dream of being an artist. ‘I remember being in England with her. It was quite funny. I went to Chelsea art school when I was twenty-one years old, a young guy. I knew the area and had a few friends. We’d drink red wine and go to restaurants. She’d just disappear one day and come back the next day. She had these crazy ideas about being a singer.’