[IMG:L]Marcel Winter* has made a life for himself by dressing other people–mainly powerhouse celebrities. Their distinguished ranks include the likes of Halle Berry, Jim Carrey, John Travolta, and Nicole Kidman to name just a few. Over the years, Winter has also developed a successful second career as an analyst of celebrity fashion for several television networks, on which he identifies, candidly, the “best” and “worst” dressed attendees at the biggie events like the Oscars and the Golden Globes.
Overall, Winter has turned his stints as a celebrity stylist into a full-blown career. He’s developed a booming cottage industry for which he’s written magazine articles, authored a book, designed an eye-catching line of jewelry for QVC, and worked as a major network TV guest correspondent. He’s even served as a spokesman for countless commercial products, including razor blades, luxury cars, fast food, and even toothpaste!
After submitting an interview request with one of his assistants, I received an e-mail with a series of explicit and somewhat mysterious instructions worthy of Ian Fleming novel: “At 11:30, you will go to Central Park in Manhattan. Use the 72nd Street entrance on the East Side. Turn into the park and you will see some benches. Have a seat. Here you will find Marcel. He will be the man with the cane.”
So, on the appointed day, I waited for Mr. Winter at the specified bench in Central Park. I sat there for almost half an hour waiting for some sign of him. Finally, just shy of noon, I saw a blind man approaching with a rickety, collapsible cane. I dismissed this possibility initially, but as he drew closer, the man said, “Are you the writer?”
“Yes,” I replied.
“I can kind of see you. I’m Marcel Winter.”
As he sat down on the bench next to me, I got my first good look at him. He wore camouflage Reebok sneakers, brown cargo pants, and a well worn t-shirt that read, “Africa is our home.” He was extremely thin. He had a head of wispy brown hair and two long arms lined with stringy, sinewy muscles and bulging green veins.
“I’m not completely blind,” continued Winter in what sounded like a Maine accent. “Many people who are blind can see in a limited way. For example, I can see that cars are passing and that a woman over there who just walked past is wearing something bright, like purple.”
I nodded dumbly. “Have you been blind your entire life?” I asked him finally.
“No man, I’m a stylist I need my eyes–I’m just studying for a part in a movie!” Suddenly his Maine accent disappeared and in its place came a thick New York accent. “The character in the movie is blind, so I wear these contacts lenses that purposefully fuck up my vision. I play the role of a blind man from Maine named Daniel Moody who talks like this…” Winter paused for a moment and then he was back in character. “I’m real quiet, and I get beaten up, and I wear clothing that feels good; but I am blind so the clothes don’t match. You may notice that I also rock a lot.” He bobbed his head back and fourth in a vaguely Ray Charles manner.
According to Winter, this clandestine movie was the “opportunity of a lifetime,” because it gave him his first chance to play a leading role in an actual film. (As I later learned, it was a low-budget, independent film about a blind man who attempts to leave his home after decades of living in isolation.) Prior to this, Winter had starred in some TV specials about fashion, in which he played himself. But this, as far as he was concerned, was his first real foray into acting.
“When I’m acting, it’s almost like I’m channeling Daniel,” Winter told me. He went on to explain that he found it quite refreshing to play the role of Daniel, whom he described as a person who just said what he thought in a blunt, child-like manner. “Sometimes when you’re wearing the stylist’s hat you can’t be so outspoken. As a stylist, you have to learn to be very diplomatic and say the right things, especially with celebrities.”
Winter soon began digging into his pockets for a lighter and pack of cigarettes, which he eventually found. Very awkwardly, he pulled out a cigarette, wedging it into his mouth. He then fumbled for his lighter and made several attempts to light his cigarette. “This is difficult,” he grumbled. “I guess this is why blind people don’t smoke – they’d burn their noses off.”
When his cigarette was finally lit, Winter took a long drag and leaned back against the bench. I asked him to tell me more about his work as a stylist.
“Well, I’ll spend days dressing people for events that I dress myself for in five minutes,” he said. The bulk of his job, as he explained it, was to play the role of the court jester. Typically, it only took him thirty minutes to dress a celebrity for an event, but he often ended up staying for as much as nine hours in order to entertain them, fuss over them, and listen to them complain. “It’s very disconcerting because you invest so much of your time and you really become their slave–and I don’t mean it in a bad sense by any means–you just have to be there for them, and it’s just interesting that they don’t take the time to the do same for you.”
According to Winter, in all of his years of working as a stylist, only once did a client have the decency to notify him that she would be leaving him for another stylist. “It’s sad because you think you’re friends with them, but now I know that it’s just work and it’s not personal.”
Rather abruptly, Winter jerked his head around and asked, “What’s that over there?”
I turned and saw a large wedding party that had just finished posing for pictures in the park. “It’s a wedding,” I explained. “The groom and bride are actually walking toward us.”
“I love going to weddings,” said Winter. “It’s the most exciting thing, to be a part of someone’s personal history.” Neither of us spoke as the wedding party drew near. When the bride and groom finally passed, Winter rose to his feet and gestured for us to begin walking and I offered him my arm for guidance. As we walked, he reminisced about all the stars he dressed and how this had made him the most highly visible person in his field. “If you asked a hundred people on the street to name a stylist, 80 people would not be able to name anyone, and the other 19 would name me. But I’m at the end of this phase of my career. I’ve given everyone in Hollywood their day, many days, and I’ve been blessed enough, but now I’ve got a chance to have that life–to become a celebrity.”
When we finally reached the western edge of the park, Winter paused to gain his bearings, and then turned northward and set off at a steady clip. As we walked, he explained that he was due for an acting lesson, which he then invited me to attend. Moments later, as we attempted to cross a busy intersection, Winter seemed to lose his patience and he stepped out into oncoming traffic, where he was almost flattened by a taxi. “It’s amazing, in this city, the cab drivers will just cut you off! And I’m like, ‘Dude, I’m blind. If you hit me, I’m going to own your house.’ But they’re not thinking that. They’re thinking: ‘I’m going to get to that corner before the blind guy doe—fucking blind guy–run him over.’ And I’m like, ‘There’s a five-foot cane with a red thing on it. You didn’t notice that, dude?’ People are just funny. I’ve been talking about Hollywood, but it’s really the whole world. Everyone’s a star in their own movie.”
Winter and I gradually made our way to a handsome brownstone on West 87th Street where we met his acting coach, Heather Brills, a faculty member at the Yale School of Drama. Heather was slender blonde dressed in a black leotard and a pink scarf that she’d wrapped around her waist and wore as a sash. Heather led the way through an opulent living room furnished with Persian carpets, a marble fireplace, a Tiffany’s chandelier and their signature lamps. We then proceeded up a set of stairs to a small studio. Here, both Winter and Heather both dropped to their knees and sat cross-legged on the floor. Winter then shook his head once, almost in a shiver, and then he began speaking in the voice of Daniel Moody. “I haven’t left my home in 25 years,” said Winter as he bopped his head. “I am not very comfortable in public.”
“Good,” replied Heather. “Let’s read the scene where you go into the bar.”
In this scene, Daniel unknowingly walks into a diner and has a series of awkward encounters. After the initial reading, Winter seemed quite pleased until he received his first suggestion. “Let’s read it again,” said Heather. “But this time, let’s have a little more spontaneity and honesty from Daniel.”
For a moment Winter considered this, but then he shook his head. “The real problem is the script. The lines just don’t feel like words that Daniel would actually say.”
“How so?” asked Heather.
“They’re too proper. Daniel’s been locked in a house for twenty five years, and he’s from rural Maine, and I doubt he would say: ‘Do they have beer here?’ He would say: ‘They have beer–don’t they?’”
Using great tact, Heather pointed out that if Marcel ignored the script, he would throw off the other actors. He disagreed. He insisted that when the other actors heard his complaints, they would rally to his cause. Heather nodded sympathetically and then suggested that Marcel try the lines again.
Once again, the two began reading the scene, but just thirty seconds into it, Winter stopped mid-sentence and proclaimed that he could not read the next line–“it smells good in here”–because it just wasn’t believable. “Do you really think Daniel would talk like that?” he asked. “I think he would say, ‘Smells good here.’” Heather didn’t react immediately. She stared at him blankly, perhaps nursing the hope that he would let it go, but he was actually just getting started. For the next two hours, Winter aired dozens of grievances, even about the music that she chose to simulate background music in the diner.
At one point, he complained that his lines always landed on page breaks, whereas the other characters’ lines were always neatly contained on a single page. “Everything is against me! Am I wrong? Are my points about the script valid–or are they crazy?”
Silence fell over the studio. Winter and I were now both looking at Heather, waiting for her to respond. It was clear that he expected a response. It was a scenario, I presumed, that he knew quite well. He was using his leverage as the actor and the client to push the envelope and to see how much he could get away with. Through it all, Heather did her best to remain calm. Only once did she betray her true feelings, when Winter left the apartment so he could practice his lines while walking through a doorway, as he was scripted to do at the start of the diner scene. As soon as the door shut, Heather leaned against a wall, closed her yes, rubbed her temples, and gave a deep sigh of frustration. A second later, the door clanked open and Heather was smiling brightly.
Clearly, the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree; nor, does it seem, the stylist from their celebrity.
* Marcel Winters is a fake name used to protect the true identity of the stylist in this story.
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