Before the Influencer,
There Was Angelyne

Angelyne greets me warmly, wearing a kiss-printed mini dress with beige stockings, peep-toe heels, and ribbons tied throughout her voluminous blonde hair. “Are you the Canadian?” she teases, before instantly luring me to her trunk-turned-mobile-merch-shop. Inside, it’s brimming with an extensive range of product: keychains, dog tags (when I explain I have a cat, she insists I wear one myself), apparel emblazoned with “I Believe in Angelyne” and “Kiss Me L.A.” slogans, postcards, buttons, tote bags, meditation cassettes, and $300+ limited edition records. I choose a fan club t-shirt with “Warhol-inspired” graphics and a magnet featuring Angelyne sprawled across a table, then we head back into the restaurant. She plucks two leaves from a potted plant along the way, “for good luck.”

Strutting ahead on a mission to her favorite table, Angelyne waves at the employees and patrons à la British royalty. Our server rushes over—she’s evidently a regular here—and we both order a coffee and proceed to business. Who am I? Where do I work? What am I looking for? What will I buy? As Cyndi Lauper’s “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun” booms over the speakers (Angelyne politely requests for the volume to be reduced, three times), we agree on our terms. The dynamic shifts from the context of an interview to a conversation between a witty, eccentric aunt (the kind that gives both the best presents and advice) and her beguiled niece. From her purse, Angelyne pulls out a palm-sized rhinestone hair clip and offers it to me. She mentions that she just bought it yesterday, and before totally handing it over, she draws it back and asks, “How would you style this?”

I push the fuschia barrette sloppily into my tangled hair, awaiting her approval. Angelyne immediately asks for my phone and begins taking pictures of me beneath the diner’s window. “You’re so bashful!” she squeals, before elaborating on the importance of good angles and optimal lighting. She captures a shot she’s satisfied with, ensuring I agree.

I ask her what she’s been working on recently, and she divulges all the details of her latest musical projects, billboard ads, and an upcoming documentary (it’s been in-the-works for over a year). She shares a clip in which her portrait is plastered over a building at the corner of Hollywood and Vine, and while a man paints her larger-than-life-sized breasts onto a brick wall, Angelyne chimes in: “That tickles!” I learn that she has a particularly chummy relationship with her dentist, when she plays me an audio file of a song he wrote, recorded, and named after her. When I ask her where she keeps her collection of Corvettes, she tells me “under the bed.” Discussing her plans for the rest of the evening, Angelyne goes off on a tangent about her passion for silent movies.

We decide to meet again the next day, back at Denny’s, but this time as a pick-up spot for a trip to The Roosevelt Hotel. In his 2003 documentary Los Angeles Plays Itself, Thom Andersen reveals the city’s convoluted, and at times misguided, representation in film. Showcasing the false premises that pop culture perpetuates by inserting its own ideological standards in the depiction of its subjects, he exposes an honest and jarring assemblage of L.A.’s uncharted realities. Moments into my second date with Angelyne—sitting in the passenger seat of her car, bonding over our shared love for Kate Bush—I realize I’m experiencing a similar epiphany. Despite the media’s undying attempts to uncover her past, Angelyne’s reputation precedes her. That’s because she’s so committed to controlling it—eternally in character of the role that she created. She asks that I transcribe our conversation on-the-spot, as she’s not comfortable being recorded. As if rehearsed (and likely so), she concludes each answer by prompting me with a question of her own: “Ask me why?” The script she’s been running for decades has become her second nature.

On our way to The Roosevelt, Angelyne shares a dream she had the night before, in which she realizes her legacy will be similar to Joan of Arc’s (this doesn’t seem entirely unfounded). She tests the waters of our budding acquaintanceship, asking me to pump her gas. I decline, and Angelyne is unbothered—“It’s just not glamorous,” she explains.

We arrive at the hotel and Angelyne guides me through a tour of its Golden Era architecture, tiered fountains, and multiple cocktail lounges. Ready for a meal, we find a table at the hamburger spot downstairs, but the music is “too distracting,” and the AC is making Angelyne’s eyes water. She suggests we relocate to her Italian restaurant of choice, Miceli’s: a Hollywood landmark since 1949 (where, as its website recounts, waiters will “serenade you with Italian arias, musical show tunes, classical standards all while you dine”). Finding parking is proving impossible as we circle around the block (more than 10 times) listening to all of Angelyne’s new music. She asks for my honest opinion, serenading me (sans chicken parmigiana) with songs titled “Sex Goddess” and “I’m So Lucky.” While pedestrians stop to take her photo and police officers blow her kisses, Angelyne proposes that we return to our relationship-defining dining destination: Denny’s.

Long before Beyoncé was writing her own cover stories for Vogue, before Lana del Rey was publicly lashing out at NPR’s renowned music critic, Ann Powers (via Twitter: “Never had a persona. Never needed one. Never will.”), before Kylie Jenner was dubbed the world’s “youngest self-made billionaire,” Angelyne invented herself. Pre-internet (she tells me not to believe any of the rumours I read online), she became a star—the first to be “famous for being famous.” Despite her elusive approach, Angelyne is avidly authentic. A master of her industry, ever-flourishing in her (truly) self-made “mystique.” While her backstory appears in fragments all over the internet, mostly in the form of rumor or speculation, it all feels somehow irrelevant.

Erika Houle is an editor at SSENSE in Montreal.