What do Morrissey, Bjork and Sebastian Coe all have in common? They’re all people I’ve kicked out of Soho House. I used to be a nice girl from Toronto who didn’t even know what a private members club was… then I found my Inner Nazi and, known as The Alsatian, I ruled the right-of-way into London’s most popular one.
But this isn’t a tell-all of who snorted what line with who in what loo – although at one point Soho House had such a reputation of being a coke haunt for celebrities that the club was ‘visited’ by the local police. I was about to ask for their membership card when they showed their ID… I tried not to smile when they stated officiously they had evidence that cocaine was being consumed at the club because people sometimes (gasp!) ‘went into the toilets two at a time’.
This was before our culture sank into its current quagmire of celebrity adulation and there wasn’t the daily photo assault of powdered-up TV presenters and other faux-fame-heads leaving nightclubs at 3am in every bloody newspaper. Consequently, people did literally say to me, ‘Don’t you know who I am?’ Well, in fact, Mick Hucknell’s manager pointed at him and said ‘Don’t you know who he is?’ Which was just embarrassing for everybody. Or, like Janet Street-Porter, they heard what they thought was my American accent and assumed I knew nothing about the British media…. actually, Janet, I do know you are director of the soon-to-be-dead L!VE TV but you’re not a member and you’re still not coming in! (And I’m Canadian.) Of course, I didn’t know everyone. Once Lionel Blair came in and as he left, I told him effusively how much I had liked Oliver! (The musical was written by Lionel Bart, who is dead.)
Sometimes because of prior promises and string-pulling, famous people who weren’t members were allowed into the club on a one-off basis. And you know, the old adage is true – the less famous, the more foul. Mick Jagger asked me my name, Jason Patric called me a rude bitch. By then, I had developed a hide thick as a prairie buffalo when it came to name calling. The more drunk and more desperate to get in, the more decidedly people would insult me when I thwarted their party plans. My favourite was ‘Vinegar Tits’, shrieked by one of the myriad media-babes I threw out nightly – I thought of putting it on a t-shirt.
My ability to flush out even the most forceful blagger became legendary. Jack Davenport (pre-This Life fame) came in once, insisting he was Benjamin Bates (son of Alan). I knew what Ben Bates looked like and I knew he was a member and I knew this pretty-boy parvenu wasn’t him. We had a rather heated exchange about this obvious inconsistency and eventually he backed down, turned and left, tail between his legs, disgruntled date following, obviously not planning to let him between her legs later. A member who had been watching our row said afterwards: ‘Thank god you held your ground. He is not Ben Bates, his name is Jack Davenport. I’m a casting director and I auditioned him today and let me tell you, he didn’t get the part!’
Another time, an odd-looking old man came in and claimed he was Stanley Kubrick. I knew he wasn’t. Not because I had seen a picture of Kubrick lately (who had?) but I sensed Soho House on a frantic Friday night would so not be the kind of hang-out for that very reclusive director. I asked him to leave. Shortly after, a couple came in with a camera, very excited, saying they were filming a documentary about this man, Alan Conway, who conned his way into London clubs pretending to be Stanley Kubrick. ‘And you,’ they exclaimed, ‘are the first door person who didn’t fall for it!’ My glory was only slightly flattened when the owner of Soho House, Nick Jones, wandered by and when told the tale, said guilelessly, ‘Who’s Stanley Kubrick?’
But after a couple of years, I tired of the relentless robot-like routine of denying ersatz members entry, chasing out the sly slags who slipped past me, trawling the club at 4am for the stuck-fast barflys and frankly, making a feeble salary. I enjoyed chatting with the core club members who were directors, actors, writers, musicians – not stars as such but legit artists. But this only highlighted the lack of creative juice in my life. So I quit. Nowadays, with the surfeit of private clubs and public celebs, it’s a scene I’m seldom seen in. Famous people are no more fascinating than unfamous ones, and no-one is interesting when they’re excessively inebriated. My only regret from my time at Soho House is that when Chrissie Hynde came in I didn’t call her a pretender. But hell, she probably would have thrown me out.
