My dear friend Marianne O’Hagen died of cancer on May 17th, 2013. She was 63 years old.
When I was 17 years old I was about as close to Marianne O’Hagen as I have ever been with any one. In the wilds of Beirut, the East Ender taught me so many things that have lasted me a life time and after the unconscionably wild times we shared, she straightened up and went in the opposite direction to a life helping people. She married Martin O’Hagen Farrow in April and died on May 17th from cancer.
To call Marianne (everybody called her Maude but it never stuck with me) beautiful might well have been to understate the case. A professional dancer at the Crazy Horse, she moved like an angel and looked like a fallen angel! She introduced me to going to bed at noon the next day!!! It was a never to be relived blast.
Musically, she did her own fair share of damage as well. We are talking 1974 – 1975 and this glam rocker taught me the facts of musical life. She introduced me to Mick Ronson’s solo album, the Rocky Horror Show, and shared my tastes in countless others.
Marianne was a glorious glammy dream of a woman; smart, fun, trouble with a capital T, and the sort of woman very very easy to fall in love with.
I have so many memories of Marianne but the most earth shatterring one didn’t involve me at all. 3am on a Thursday night and we are dancing to the DJ between shows and he plays Deep Purples “Highway Star” and Marianne took over the floor. You see this sort of thing in the movies but in real life it was astounding, Marianne seemed taken over by the music, she didn’t shimmy she shone, she twirled round and round arms outstretched. It felt as though she was floating above the dancefloor, it felt that she wasn’t the car of the song, but a star in the sky and in the universe, or maybe not a star: it seems like she was a dark hole where all the energy in the room was drawn into her. Blonde hair, extremely fit -like healthy looking fit, she was a dancer remember, but with a great figure yet not model thin: she simply had everything a woman should. and that face? Sultry and sweet: one part Tim Curry with the sort of lips people pay a fortune for today, and one part Marilyn Monroe.
And round and round she went, arms outstretched, her head tilted back and hair flowing. Every movement a message, her feet using intricate disco moves, like bossa nova but alone, and her body shaking in time to the swinging off the chandeliers keyboard riffs. I was not nearly alone in my admiration: the place stood still and watched and when it was over, they erupted in applause, a spontaneous appreciation that they had seen something, not just the essence of rock and roll but the essence of rock and roll as an art form, Marianne released herself and us from these earthly bonds as we all became highway stars shining forever.
The thing Marianne got about rock and roll was immersion, though not a musician she could let herself be drawn in to and out of the action. It was an act of decency, of bravery, of conceit. Much like the woman herself.
And now, again, she is a highway star.
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