Cliff Simon - Paris Nights: My Year at the Moulin Rouge

Paris Nights

My Year at the Moulin Rouge

By

Cliff Simon with Loren Stephens

Published by Waldorf Publishing

2140 Hall Johnson Road

#102-345

Grapevine, Texas 76051

www.WaldorfPublishing.com

Paris Nights-My Year at the Moulin Rouge

ISBN: 978-1-943848-92-8

Library of Congress Control Number: 2015957002

Copyright 2016

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means whatsoever without express written permission from the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. Please refer all pertinent questions to the publisher. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by an information storage and retrieval system except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review to be printed in a magazine or newspaper without permission in writing from the publisher.

The chapter White Bubble of South Africa appeared in a slightly different form in Crack the Spine , Issue 159, in September 2015; and Diamonds appeared in the Spring/Summer 2016 edition of Whistling Shade Magazine.

This is a work of creative nonfiction. The events are portrayed to the best of Cliff Simons memory. While all the stories in this book are true, some names and identifying details have been changed to protect the privacy of the people involved.

Front cover design: Darrell Fusaro

In Paris, temptation takes on an entirely different dimension. Those who can resist its sensuality are bound to have died in some sense.

Jacques Riboux, Choreographer

If you are lucky enough to have lived in Paris as a young man, then wherever you go for the rest of your life, it stays with you for Paris is a moveable feast.

Ernest Hemingway, The Moveable Feast

Dedication

To Colette

Thank you for putting up with an actors life, keeping me humble and giving me more love and support than I could ever have hoped for,

To my sisters Terry and Shelley

and

To the memory of my parents, Mannie and Phyllis, my sister Karen and my beautiful, white British bull terriers, Harley and Montana. You all live forever within me.

Chapter 1: The Quest

Certainly a man should travel.

Voltaire, Candide

1988

I was feeling restless. My live-in girlfriend Liz and I were fed up with one another. We had been through the breakup and getting back together routine too many times. I loved her passionately, but I was tired of all the fighting.

It was April. Id wake up in the morning and before I had my first cup of strong coffee, I was bored just thinking about the day ahead. The early signs of autumn (April is autumn in the Southern hemisphere) and the cooler days at the beachside town of Umdloti on the South Africa coast were grating on my nerves; I felt like they reflected my dark mood. When the telephone rang, I barely recognized the voice through the static. It was Gavin Mills calling from Paris where it was already spring. I had met him when he was a dancer at a Las Vegas-type theater in Sun City, South Africa. We never worked in the same dance company, but we hung around together after hours, and became best friends. Both of us were known to be aggressive. Whenever there was a fight in the clubs, the police guessed that Gavin and I were at the center of it. Gavin had served in the South African military three years ahead of me and we both knew how to take care of ourselves with or without a gun.

I had lost touch with him after hed gone off to Paris, but I heard that he had been dancing at the Moulin Rouge for a year in Formidable, their latest extravaganza.

Hey, Cliff, the Moulin Rouge is looking for a replacement dancer in Formidable. I showed them your picture. They like your looks and youre the right height. What do you think?

When do they need me?

Now. A dancer broke his leg in the cancan number.

This isnt another one of your jokes, man?

No. He started singing, April in Paris.

I hung up the telephone, ecstatic that I would be having not one, but two summers this year. Within days I sold my Fiat 850 Spider convertible full of beach sand -- to buy a one-way ticket to Paris. I hadnt saved up any money. At twenty-six, I was still living from day to day with no responsibilities other than to myself, spending whatever I was making on giving Liz a good time and partying as if there was no tomorrow. Our parting was brief. I think she was relieved to see me go. I made no promises to her, but we would eventually see one another again, and each time it would end badly. I needed to sort things out, and Paris was as good a place as any to figure out what I was going to do with my life, and move up in the dance world. Id had enough of dancing in cabarets in Johannesburg and Durban.

I fell asleep as soon as the plane took off from Jan Smuts airport. At midnight, we landed on the desolate island of Sal, Cape Verde, to refuel. The belly of Africa was declared a no fly zone to South African Airways by the black African states. We were prohibited from flying straight north to Europe. Instead, all flights out of South Africa had to fly over the Atlantic circumventing the mainland, which added three hours to the flight time making it necessary to make a fuel stop in Cape Verde, a Portuguese island friendly to South Africa.

Passengers milled about the tarmac, smoking. The moon was high in the nighttime sky, and I could see packs of feral, barking dogs running in the dirt just beyond the runway. Somewhere in the distance, waves were lapping against the islands coast.

Reboarding the plane, I thought of this inhospitable place as a stepping stone out of darkness into the City of Lights. Closing my eyes the words of Karen Blixen in her Letters from Africa came to mind: I felt that Paris was illuminated by a splendor possessed by no other place.
I couldnt wait to find out if this Danish baroness was telling the truth.

When the stewardess announced our arrival in Paris, I grabbed my backpack and waited to clear through customs. I was traveling light, and had nothing to declare. The customs officer asked me, Any diamonds, Monsieur. Any gold? I thought, He must be kidding. I dont own a thing in the world.

It was early morning, but Charles de Gaulle airport was already busy with international travelers. I couldnt understand the announcements, but it was thrilling to hear Berlin, Prague, Barcelona, over the loudspeaker. I felt as if I was at the center of the universe. I looked around for Gavin. He had promised to pick me up. A tall blonde-haired guy approached me. He looked like Dolph Lundgren, the Swedish actor who played the villain in a Rocky Balboa movie. He asked Monsieur Simon? I hesitated and then nodded. I was feeling very vulnerable. How did he know who I was? He asked me to follow him, took me by the arm, and led me down a dark passageway toward a door, which looked like the entrance to an office building. I thought What the hell is going on? Wheres Gavin?

I heard footsteps behind me and then Gavin yelled out in his unmistakable South African accent, Cliff. Its Gavin. Where do you think youre going, man?

I dont know.

At the same time, the Swede was pulling my arm. I said, What the fuck are you doing? Let go of me. I was getting ready to punch him out.

Gavin burst out laughing. He had set me up. The whole thing was a joke. I should have suspected something from the beginning because Gavin was always looking for a way to fool around. Calm down, man. This is my buddy Joachim Staaf. He is one of the principal performers at the Moulin Rouge.