In her 2019 memoir, Face It: A Memoir, Harry describes having been raped at knifepoint during a burglary of the home she shared with Stein. [59] She also wrote that during the early 1970s, the serial killer Ted Bundy lured her into his car in New York City, but she escaped. Harry's description of the white vehicle stripped on the inside and missing the passenger door handle matched the 1968 VW Bundy was driving, but authorities believed him to be in Florida at the time. Ann Rule, an author of the Bundy biography The Stranger Beside Me, commented that erroneous claims of Bundy abductions are fairly common. [60] [61] [62]

Face It by Debbie Harry | Goodreads Face It by Debbie Harry | Goodreads

I think it's the same as having a flu shot basically, another way of looking after yourself,” she wrote in her memoir Face It. During this time, both Harry and Stein befriended graffiti artist Fab Five Freddy, who introduced them to the emerging hip-hop scene in the Bronx. Freddy is mentioned in "Rapture". [27] Through Fab Five Freddy they were also able to connect with Grandmaster Flash [28] who is played by Jean-Michel Basquiat in the video. [27] "Rapture" became the first rap-oriented song to reach No. 1 in the US Billboard charts. [29] Grandmaster Flash said Harry "opened up so many doors for hip hop" by mentioning him in Rapture. [30]Born in Miami, Florida, Harry was adopted as an infant and raised in Hawthorne, New Jersey. After college she worked various jobs—as a dancer, a Playboy Bunny, and a secretary (including at the BBC in New York)—before her breakthrough in the music industry. She co-formed Blondie in 1974 in New York City. The band released its eponymous debut studio album in 1976 and released three more studio albums between then and 1979, including Parallel Lines, which spawned six singles, including " Heart of Glass". Their fifth studio album, Autoamerican (1980), spawned such hits as a cover of " The Tide Is High", and " Rapture", which is considered the first rap song to chart at number one in the United States. [1] Centenary College Honors Deborah Harry as a Distinguished Alumna". Archived from the original on March 4, 2012 . Retrieved October 20, 2012.

Debbie Harry - Wikipedia Debbie Harry - Wikipedia

In June 1979, Blondie was featured on the cover of Rolling Stone. Harry's persona, combining cool sexuality with streetwise style, became so closely associated with the group's name that many came to believe "Blondie" was the singer's name. The difference between the individual Harry and the band Blondie was emphasized by a "Blondie is a group" button campaign by the band in 1979. [25] The band's success continued with the release of the platinum-selling Eat to the Beat album (UK No. 1, US No. 17) in September. [26] What drives her is not clear as she is a reluctant memoirist. Her honesty about sex and drugs is a relief. Unusually for a sex symbol, she actually likes sex. Her observations on heroin are acute: some people, she writes, take drugs not to feel more but to feel less. Nevertheless, I was enchanted by her girlhood in New Jersey and somehow makiA chance encounter at Max’s with singer Elda Gentile, sometime partner of the Dolls’ Sylvain Sylvain, led to her joining Gentile in the Stilettos, a trio “enamored of the Dolls,” which meant Harry was now in a campy girl group inspired by a group of guys who camped it up in makeup and glitter. It was after one of the Stiletttos’ shows that Harry met Chris Stein, a shadowy figure in the audience there with his girlfriend, who’d previously been involved with Dolls’ drummer Billy Murcia. (Here as in other accounts of 1970s NYC punk, all roads eventually lead to the Dolls.) In the early 80s, Harry and Stein – they were in a relationship for 13 years – lost everything. Their debut album, the eponymous Blondie, came out in 1976, and for years they toured the world; they had six No 1 UK hits, including Heart of Glass and Call Me, and sold 40m records. When the US Internal Revenue Service hit them with a huge bill for unpaid tax, they lost their New York townhouse; the IRS even took some of her clothes, she writes. Worse, Stein was in hospital recovering from an autoimmune disease – Harry would spend the next few years looking after him – and they were not sure how they would pay his medical bills. It also meant the end of the band. Getting older is hard on your looks. Like everybody else, I have good days and bad days and those, ‘S***, I hope nobody sees me today’ days,” she quipped. Simon, Scott (June 5, 2010). "How Times Have Changed, Ex-Playboy Bunnies Say". NPR. Actress Lauren Hutton was a Bunny, as was singer Deborah Harry... The Blondie singer is a reluctant memoirist and what drove her to write this is unclear – but thank God she did.

Debbie Harry Is Staying Put The Tide Is High (Really), but Debbie Harry Is Staying Put

As to the format and organization, Debbie gets off to a good start, talking about her childhood, her road to success, and the atmosphere in New York during the seventies, which was bursting with creativity and artistry, but was also a dark, dangerous, terrifying city that was going broke. Unfortunately, Debbie skimmed over some of the things I think people are most interested in knowing. Details!! We want to know about Chris Klein- not just that there was a relationship- but what came between them- what broke them up. Tell us about the drug addiction in a way that perhaps suggests a little regret or remorse- some hint of the agony she must have endured to get clean. None of those intimacies are here and I’m wondering if perhaps Debbie was not really all that interested in giving us a prolonged peek behind the curtain, which leads me to believe that she may have been better off going with an authorized biography instead. Still she remains aloof, made of steel but strangely maternal to all around her. She likes a cigarette these days and appears to be having more fun than at the height of her career. Fame, she says, was about wanting to make things happen – Harry did that all right, with her off-kilter dancing, her ability to radiate cool, her sheer presence.Your enjoyment of this book will increase with each one of the following criteria you can answer “Yes”: Reed, Ryan (May 29, 2019). "Blondie's Debbie Harry Memoir 'Face It' to Release in October". Rolling Stone. Hottest Photographs of Debbie Harry on Stage From the Mid-1970s". Vintag.es . Retrieved February 9, 2019. Debbie Harry shared her secrets to looking young as she admitted having a facelift for “business reasons".