I met Tony Griffin pretty much the instant I moved to LA. I shared a house in Manhattan Beach, with Terry & Bob White who were the older brothers of my friend Val, who I had grown up with.
I met Tony the first day I got into LA because he came to our house, with the guy he was seeing, to bring me a mattress for my room. He took one look at me and said: “Honey – we are going to be Best Friends!” Turns out he was right as we became inseparable from that moment forward.
Tony was so over the top with everything he did and said. Life was just a continual party when he was around. He would say something really serious and deadpan and then be shrieking with laughter the very next minute. He was also always all over me, as is evidenced by these photos! I never just “sat around” this closely with boyfriends, yet Tony and I were almost like twins, still in the womb!
Right after I moved out to LA, Jeanne Miller moved out from Boston, and my younger sister also happened to be visiting at the time. (The timelines in this house get really confusing since so many people lived there, and stopped through there, that I lose track of exactly when all these things took place!) Anyhow, Tony loved being around all the women and he came up with “pet” names for all of us (for some reason!) My name was “Felicia” and I forget what he called Julie and Jeanne. Of course, whenever he called me Felicia, it would be in his most affected, Drag Queen voice!
One time Tony came with me out to Cal State, because he was modeling for me, for one of my assignments. I had just met Todd in a class we shared, so one day it was 8:00 am and me, Tony and Todd were sitting in class, waiting to move on to the photo shoot.
Julie & Tony mugging for the camera
I had a bunch of old photos with me and Tony kept pulling them out of my hands to see them (and talking really loudly while he was doing so, asking me “who was who” and then getting everyone’s names wrong.) He grabbed this photo of me, from 2nd Grade, (where I looked the worst I ever had in my life, due to the Blue framed glasses that I wore.)
Tony said: “Felicia! Is that YOU?!” I replied that it was, and Tony said, really seriously: “Honey, you were so ugly in this photo I am surprised that your parents didn’t return you!”
It was really quiet for a second as I was kind of hurt he said that and didn’t know how to respond, when he just cracked up laughing really loud, and then Todd and I started laughing so hard we were crying, and then we all had to leave class!
Tony and I laid out at the beach together, we shared the same clothes, we would terrorize Manhattan Beach on someone’s scooter, as we would race back and forth, between each other’s houses, to see who had the best food to eat after a night of drinking. I remember, after one such night of drinking, he made us eat “tacos” made out of rolled up Salami slices, with peanuts in the middle and Thousand Island dressing on top! Yuck!
Tony worked at a shoe store for awhile and he would bring me home pairs of high heels and Purple Suede Boots, cause he felt I should have them!
Tony was also always holding his ass for some reason, so having this photo in here was quite appropriate!
Tony actually ended up moving back home, I think, after only a few months, but we did a lot of crazy stuff in those few months that we hung out together. More stories to come later…
I have no idea what is going on in the last photo, but apparently we were all just piling onto each other this night, as here I am, on top of Jeanne! And no, this isn’t a “lesbian” scene! Just friends goofing around and having fun!
Jeanne dyed her hair Black, when she moved to LA, which prompted me to tell her one day, that she looked like someone who would be named “Maria Valdez”, because of the outfit she had on.
Back in March of 1980, I was hired to photograph a Punk Fashion Show at Spit Nightclub, in Boston, MA.
