Pamela Rooke | |
|---|---|
 Rooke in 1978 | |
| Born | (1955-06-23)23 June 1955 Seaford, East Sussex, England |
| Died | 3 April 2022(2022-04-03) (aged 66)[1] Seaford, East Sussex, England |
| Other names | Jordan, Jordan Mooney |
| Occupation(s) | Model, actress, band manager, author, veterinary nurse |
| Era | 1970s London Punk scene |
| Employer(s) | Vivienne Westwood,Malcolm McLaren |
| Known for | Contributions to Punk fashion |
| Notable work | Jubilee |
| Spouse | |
Pamela Rooke (23 June 1955 – 3 April 2022),[1] (known asJordan) was an English model and actress known for her work withVivienne Westwood and theSex boutique in theKings Road area of London in the mid-1970s, and for attending many of the earlySex Pistols performances. Her style and dress sense—a bleached platinum-blondebouffant hairdo with dark raccoon-like eye make-up—made her a highly visible icon of the Londonpunk subculture.[2] Along withJohnny Rotten,Soo Catwoman, andSiouxsie Sioux, she is credited with creating the London punk look.
Rooke took the single name "Jordan" at the age of 14, inSeaford, East Sussex.[3] When Jordan first walked into 430King's Road, London,[4] wearing goldstilettos, a see-through net skirt, with a white bouffant hairstyle,[5] it had just changed toSex,[3]
but there wasn't a position at the time so I got a job inHarrods, on the third floor in a place called Way In. ... A few weeks later I then got a call from Michael [Collins, the manager] asking if I could come in...Malcolm [Maclaren] had been in New York withThe New York Dolls when I was hired.[3]
Rooke commuted for two hours[6] each day to London from Seaford.[7] She recalled that her punk image caused problems for her:
I commuted for about two years. I had some real bad dos on the train. I had tourists trying to pay me for my photo ... worse than that, mothers saying that I'm upsetting their children and debauching them and how dare I get on a train looking like that. Somebody tried to throw me off the train one day, literally out the door, soBritish Rail told me to go sit in first class, get out of trouble.[8]
In the late 1970s, she served as an early manager forAdam and the Ants. She recorded the track "Lou" (aboutLou Reed) as a guest lead vocalist with the band forBBC Radio 1 DJJohn Peel'sPeel Sessions and often performed the song live with them from mid-1977 up to May 1978 when she left the band.[3] In the 1980s, she managed the bandWide Boy Awake, in which her then-husbandKevin Mooney was a guitarist. Mooney had previously been the bassist in Adam and the Ants.[9]
She made a cameo appearance inDerek Jarman's debut filmSebastiane, and played the lead role in his follow-up filmJubilee as the punk "anti-historian" Amyl Nitrate (named after the drugamyl nitrite).[10] She can also be seen inJulien Temple'sThe Great Rock and Roll Swindle wearing an "Only anarchists are pretty" T-shirt and appearing on stage with theSex Pistols during their first live television performance of "Anarchy in the U.K." in August 1976.[11][12]
Maisie Williams plays Rooke in the FX Network seriesPistol, which portrays Rooke's political influence and her ethos of turning the male gaze in on itself, weaponizing the male gaze.[13]
In 1984, after divorcing Mooney, she returned to Seaford, breedingBurmese cats and working as a veterinary nurse. Rooke's autobiography,Defying Gravity: Jordan's Story, written withCathi Unsworth, was published by Omnibus Press in 2019.[14][15]
Rooke died in East Sussex on 3 April 2022 fromcholangiocarcinoma,[1] aged 66.
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| Artists | |
