(Smash Hits Yearbook 1985)

MARILYN: ONE MAN AND HIS MAKE-UP

This is the most professional photo I had taken before I signed. We all went over from our old squat to have these done. We all put on loads of make-up and walked through the streets looking like this. I borrowed the hat off Stephen Jones. It was when he first started doing his hats.

We used to go on these stupid coach trips and spend hours getting ready. This looked good at the time, but I’d die if I had to look like that now. It was so much hard work. Having to put all that crap on every day is not fun, believe me.

After that I got bored with all that stuff. I went to Los Angeles for about eight months and cut off all my hair and everything. This was laying by my pool! I used to wake up in the morning and find dead bodies in it and things. It was really rough in L.A.

When I came back from L.A. I started doing all these publicity shots with David Levine. I wanted to do pictures like Marilyn Monroe in the bed but it didn’t actually turn out like that because we had to use Kate (Garner) and Paul’s (Caplin) bed which isn’t very glamorous, as you can see.

This is in Egypt. Terrible hairstyle, isn’t it? Ugh – it’s like rope. We were standing by the Pyramids and – actually, I hate this picture. Because it’s horrible, really boring.

That’s when I started doing "Calling your Name". I was really bored at this session so I just looked around the studio to see if I could find any bits of old material and I wrapped my hair in it like a turban. I always do things like that, run around trying to find fab things.

This was a publicity shot but it was also like my gift of love to somebody. That’s just a piece of material I threw around my shoulders – it’s not a jacket at all. I wanted to look like a white version of Diana Ross, glamorous and glittering and all that.

That was in Mike Mansfield’s Supersonic at Christmas. I just wanted to show as much body as possible – just fun. It was meant to be sporty. A mental footballer!

It’s nice to do one thing and then think of something else. I don’t want to stay the same all the time. I’d much rather be myself and wear jeans and a T-shirt now than put dresses on and all the rest of it.

Dressing up was the only thing I used to have to do. Now it’s not practical. I have millions of different appointments to keep and to turn up in a dress with a corset on isn’t very funny, because you can’t breathe and I can’t walk in stilettos. I don’t need to wear all that stuff.