September 10, 2025 • 35 mins
Paul Fisher is a semester away from graduating college when his knack for seducing beautiful women catches the eye of alleged mobster Larry Lind. Larry convinces Paul to work for him, and we follow Paul’s journey from growing up in the Valley to running a model agency in gritty 1980s New York City, with absolutely no experience.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Campsite Media.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
It's nineteen eighty four and Paul Fisher is in an
elevator at the Wellington Hotel in New York City going
up to his room. He's just a guy from the
other side of the country, a twenty something from Ella's
San Fernando Valley, rocking a Juvro. He doesn't have much
going for him, honestly, he's fueled almost entirely by his
(00:35):
own absurd self confidence.
Speaker 1 (00:38):
But Paul's done pretty.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
Well in just a little time in New York. He
might look like a nobody, but he's heading up a
modeling agency for.
Speaker 1 (00:47):
High fashion runway models.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
This guy with a bad haircut now walking down this
semi decent hotel hallway is representing some of the most
beautiful women on the planet and making a buck. But
today is not a good day for Paul. A few
hours before he came back to the Wellington Hotel, Paul
(01:10):
decided to make a phone call, one that he'd been dreading.
It was to the backer of his modeling agency, the
guy putting up the money. This guy's name is Larry Lynd,
and Paul says he's quite on savory.
Speaker 3 (01:27):
I've seen Larry and his boys hurt people badly, badly, badly,
put him in the hospital. And there was always a pattern.
First he'd smile, they would think that it's cool, he's okay,
and then he would send the boys in and they
would just fucking knock the kids out.
Speaker 4 (01:47):
I watched the shit. That's part of it.
Speaker 2 (01:53):
Paul doesn't want to be at Larry's modeling agency anymore.
They've been friends, brawlers at each other's side, both not
developing the best reputations, and now Paul wants to go
off on his own, to go legit, to conquer the
modeling industry on his terms without Larry. So earlier this
(02:14):
day he made that call.
Speaker 3 (02:18):
I told Larry, I said, hey, man, I love you,
and I care about you, and you're my brother, and
I love you, but and I appreciate you so much
for turning me onto this world. But I gotta do
this myself. You gotta let me go. You gotta let
me do my thing.
Speaker 4 (02:35):
Brother. I'm good at this shit. You gotta let me
do it. And I'm begging you. You gotta let me out,
you gotta you gotta you.
Speaker 3 (02:43):
Say you care about me. You got let me. Let
me do this. And he said okay, Fish, you got it.
You got it, man. You go do your own thing.
Pack your shit, go do your own thing, start your
own thing. I'll have somebody else come in and run
this shit. Go do it, man. It's okay. I feel you.
I care for you now. I don't know problem. I
(03:09):
got off the phone. I pissed my pants. I knew
it he was coming after me.
Speaker 1 (03:15):
It's a tense moment for Paul.
Speaker 2 (03:17):
And after he hung up, he went to blow off
some steam at one of New York's hottest night clubs,
a CNB scene and fucking b fucked place called Area Bianca.
Jagger could be on the dance floor. Andy Warhol standing
by in a booth. It's a place a guy like
Paul Fisher would love to spend his last night on Earth.
But he had to go back to his hotel sometime.
Speaker 3 (03:42):
And then I came home to my hotel room that night.
It's a Wellington hotel and five of Larry's that I knew.
Real well goons came out of the closets and they
put me down on the ground, and they took down
(04:02):
my pants, and they took a gun and they shoved
it in my fucking ass. I was scared out of
my fucking minds. And then the final door opened and
it was Larry.
Speaker 2 (04:18):
Larry's a big guy, a former football player. Paul knows
he was an idiot to think he could get out
of business with him so easy. Paul's future, if he
has one, is working for and finding women for Larry
lent from iHeart Podcasts and Campside Media. I'm Vanessa Grigoriatis
(04:42):
and this is Model Wars. This is Paul Fisher's story,
but it's also the untold story of what the modeling
(05:02):
industry is really like, the ugly business of beauty. It's
full of competition, backstabbing, abuse and violence. It's the background
clashes behind famous models strutting on runways, posing in magazines
and catalogs, being in movies and television, getting displayed on
(05:23):
the racks in the checkout aisle of the supermarket, so
that even some poor sucker who just wants to buy
a box of cheerios in nineteen eighty two knows exactly
what true beauty is supposed to look like. As a
journalist for Vanity Fair, who knows her way around a nightclub,
(05:43):
I've been around the modeling industry for a long time.
I've met the huge models that Paul would eventually sign,
Stephanie Seymour, Naomi Campbell, Carrie Young. Even as big as
they were, they still needed someone like Paul Fisher to
get them on the cover of Vogue or land them
a Chanel ad. You had to have an agent like
(06:06):
Paul and be in the right place at the right
time to reach the mountaintop. Today you could say that
search for perfection in the female form has migrated to Instagram,
everyone firing up their iPhones and launching themselves into the
void that is the Internet. But that classic hunt to
define beauty and profit from your version of it is
(06:29):
the same. It makes sense the Paul Fisher would go
on to become a powerful model agent. Models set the
mark for what we're aspiring to as a culture. They
reflecting back are aspirations and desires, and Paul has always
just been so attuned to what the culture wants. He's
(06:50):
such a product of his era and its values. He
grew up in fertile ground for a model agent, the
San Fernando Valley in Los Angeles.
Speaker 1 (07:02):
This was in the nineteen seventies and.
Speaker 2 (07:05):
The valley was a vapid superficial consumerist paradise. It's hot
on the asphalt and there's lots of strip malls now.
Frank Sabba put out his song Valley Girl as an
anti consumerist anthem in nineteen eighty two, but no one
got the message.
Speaker 1 (07:23):
The song became a chart topping hit, and.
Speaker 2 (07:25):
It spread the insane wingo of the valley far and wide.
God Fast Times at Ridgemont High came out that same
year and solidified the valley's reputation for casual sex and
good times at all costs.
Speaker 1 (07:40):
Head Paul grew up in a modest home of the valley,
you know, at.
Speaker 3 (07:47):
The time of valley girls and valley boys and all.
You know, that's where I think I got my mullet.
Speaker 2 (07:53):
The Jewish kid with a curly mullet. Thank God, every
fashion comes back around again, so this haircut won't be
lost to history.
Speaker 3 (08:00):
We didn't grow up with money, that's for sure. We
had no cash. There were you know, my mom and dad,
they were always struggling for.
Speaker 1 (08:08):
Money, mullet and all.
Speaker 2 (08:10):
Paul was a true classic American high school archetype, the
star baseball player dating the prettiest girl in school.
Speaker 1 (08:18):
Her name was Sue.
Speaker 3 (08:19):
We won class couple in junior high school and high school.
She was my girlfriend for like five years, and she
was in junior high school. She was definitely the prettiest
girl in high school. Everybody wanted to meet Sue. She
was really beautiful.
Speaker 2 (08:33):
As will learn, Paul is persistent when it comes to women,
and he snuck into Sue's house enough and was likable
enough with the family that they just eventually let him
stay over. But if all this is sounding wholesome, don't worry.
Speaker 3 (08:48):
Excuse my language, you guys. I hate saying this word
in front of you. I was banging every girl on
the planet.
Speaker 2 (08:53):
Paul was not faithful to his class couple running me,
and this gets an early paradox of Paul's life with women.
He was the devoted, protective older brother to two younger sisters.
Speaker 3 (09:04):
I would treat my sisters different that I would treat
other girls. And you know, I was a pig in
high school. The whole in high school. I didn't care.
I didn't care about anything except, you know, my own
selfish desires.
Speaker 1 (09:18):
And Paul turned out this way despite having a saint
of a mother.
Speaker 5 (09:22):
My name is Monica Fisher. I'm eight or seventy seven
years old. Eighty seven. Oh, I forgot, I forgot how
old I was. It's wishful thinking.
Speaker 2 (09:33):
Frankly, Monica knew that Paul was going to be a
challenge from the beginning.
Speaker 5 (09:38):
Where my older son was very quiet and reserved and
like to read and was just very easy, Paul was
all over the place. He climbed, he didn't stop moving
and chattering.
Speaker 2 (09:51):
Paul had his own sense of justice, especially when his
mother and father, a wholesale liquor distributor with a temper,
were fighting.
Speaker 5 (10:00):
I didn't know how to get out of my marriage.
I was scared to death and scared of him.
Speaker 2 (10:04):
Probably, Paul was always getting disciplined at school, but his
mom tried to let it slide because he was getting
good grades. This trade off is familiar to anyone in
the modeling industry. You present yourself a certain way as intelligent, beautiful, whatever,
and as long as you perform that ideal version of
yourself for the camera, you can get up to all
(10:26):
sorts of antics behind the scenes. It's working well for Paul,
these good grades in exchange for permission to act out.
But then one day Monica gets called by one of
Paul's teachers for the one millionth time, and.
Speaker 5 (10:41):
He says to me his grades were not good, and
he would come in and entertain the kids, you know,
and interrupt the class and etc.
Speaker 6 (10:52):
Etc. And I said, well, I don't know why his
grades sound good. His grade.
Speaker 5 (10:55):
I get his report cards and he's on the honors list.
And the teacher looked at me and said, no, it's
not only on his list. Let me show you his
brave missus Fisher, I don't know what you're looking at,
the teacher said to me. And I went in and
it turns out he had gotten blank report forms and
(11:16):
he had fortued him. And I had no idea. He said,
your son, Paul, he's like a green apple. He's tart.
He just makes me chase him all over the place.
The green apple is a pain in the ass.
Speaker 2 (11:28):
Paul may have been tart, and he may have been
a pig, but he was also a good guy. Just
ask his mother.
Speaker 6 (11:35):
He had the best heart going.
Speaker 5 (11:37):
He had such a good heart, and he just was
very very mischievous, very mischievous.
Speaker 2 (11:46):
And if his dad didn't find that irresistible, he'd find
someone who did so.
Speaker 3 (11:50):
Because my house was kind of volatile, and my dad
was kind of volatile. I would go down in the
summertimes in my life in twelfth grade year and my
best friend his dad was in the hair business. The
hair business is the horniest business in the freaking world.
They're freaking fucking perverts. They're pervs. They're working on your hair,
(12:14):
they're pervs. The hair business is full of pervs. He
introduced me to the hair world, and they were just
these older women, and he was banging everybody. And it
was like I watched him and people like him became
like my freaking role model, bringing home different women all
the time. He would just just would teach us, you know,
(12:36):
we'd be smoking pot with them all the time, getting
stole with them all the time, and he'd be just like,
you know, he just was a player.
Speaker 2 (12:42):
Paul learned quickly that getting women wasn't a competition. Teamwork
was encouraged, so he and his friend from high school
got creative.
Speaker 3 (12:52):
He was like the star football player. I was a
star baseball player, and I remember just we would go
home to my house and bring girls home, cheerleaders home
all the time. Sometimes we'd make leup to the same girl.
I remember my dad walked him one day he thought
I was gay.
Speaker 2 (13:11):
Paul and his friend son of the hairdresser, were having
a threesome with a girl.
Speaker 4 (13:16):
And he's like, what the heck are you doing? And
we're like, hey, get out of here.
Speaker 1 (13:20):
Paul's father just never understood him.
Speaker 4 (13:22):
We're not doing each other, We're just with her.
Speaker 2 (13:27):
Getting girls was always Paul's one true talent and his
overall reason for being. This trend persisted when he enrolled
in college at UC Santa Barbara.
Speaker 3 (13:38):
I knew that was the school I wanted to go to.
Why you see Santa Barbara freaking girls?
Speaker 1 (13:45):
David Triton was one of Paul's college pals.
Speaker 7 (13:48):
I think when I met him, he had a book
with like hundreds of names of quote conquests. I don't
want to say how you put it. And I was
shocked when I saw when I saw.
Speaker 2 (14:01):
That some colleges have honors dorms. Paul was in the
honors dorm for fucking.
Speaker 7 (14:07):
There was an off campus dorm called Francisco Torres that
was like a.
Speaker 8 (14:13):
Really cool place. There was a pool. I know he
lived there.
Speaker 7 (14:17):
I couldn't get into that, so I was in another
off campus dorm, but that tower was referred to as
Sodom Goemora Tower by everybody.
Speaker 2 (14:27):
Despite the distractions, Paul does well in college. He makes
it all the way to the final semester of his
senior year.
Speaker 3 (14:34):
I've got twelve units left. I have a three point
nine to six grade point average. I'm going to go
to law school become a freaking lawyer.
Speaker 2 (14:43):
And then one day Paul has David and a few
other friends over to watch a movie.
Speaker 3 (14:48):
And we're watching this guy, Richard Gear in American Jigelow.
And he's like, he's cool. He's like all the girls
like him. He's just he's just a cool cat. He's
like this. He's like he's a player, and people are
paying him for sex. And me and my boys look
at each other and then we go, we could do that.
Speaker 4 (15:11):
We could do that. Let's check it out. Let's go,
let's do that.
Speaker 1 (15:16):
Paul knows he's finally found his calling.
Speaker 2 (15:27):
After watching Richard Gear do his thing in American Jiglow, Paul, David,
and the rest of the boys decide to drive from
Santa Barbara down the coast all the way to La.
Speaker 7 (15:37):
We had a cool yellow Volkswag it with flared wheels.
Speaker 8 (15:40):
It was like very cool for what it was.
Speaker 2 (15:44):
They apparently missed the part of American Jigglow that's a
disturbing meditation on the cost of desire for them. It's
damn near a manifesto, or at least it's a roadmap.
Speaker 8 (15:54):
I think it was.
Speaker 7 (15:54):
Probably something, you know, that's just absolutely consistent with where
his head was, when he was when that movie came out,
and where we were at that time.
Speaker 6 (16:02):
Often in these big hotels you run into women from
the foreign countries who may need a translator or guide.
Speaker 1 (16:10):
How much would you charge me.
Speaker 2 (16:12):
There's this iconic scene in the movie where the Richard
Gear character meets a beautiful older woman who's played by
model turned actress Lauren Hutton. It's set in the lounge
of the Beverly Hills Hotel.
Speaker 3 (16:24):
The famous freaking poll the lounge, which is the same
place that Richard Gear was in the movies. And we're
looking at each other and we're like, we're like, this
is it.
Speaker 8 (16:34):
Man.
Speaker 2 (16:35):
Paul and the boys make ge to the entrance and
they walk through rows of pink banquette booths that have
laced lampshades. There's warm, seductive light shining on the tables.
Speaker 3 (16:47):
It's just class. It's full on class and elegance. And
I'm like, I'm just a kid from I'm living in
Santa Barbara, driving my bike, wearing shorts every day and
cut off T shirt every day, and I'm looking around
going I'm digging this. This is money. Look at this shit.
I grew up, Remember I grew up. My mom's making
hamburger helper every other night. This is money. They're all
(17:10):
looking like money, like they all got money. They all
they got tans, they got you know, boufonp freaking Hairdwes,
they got you know, shirts that are open with gold
in there. We've freaking we've died and gone to heaven.
There's money, and there's older women, and people are all
flirting with each other, you know.
Speaker 2 (17:28):
And right there in the polo lounge, Paul has a revelation.
Speaker 3 (17:33):
I felt like I belong there, like like I was made.
Speaker 4 (17:38):
For this shit.
Speaker 1 (17:40):
And now it's time for Paul to get to work.
Speaker 2 (17:43):
His strategy is rather simple, rather work today, really, but
it's highly effective. You have to knock on one hundred
doors to just get a couple sales.
Speaker 3 (17:52):
I'm going up to every single one because I know
you're not got enough of them, three or four of them,
we're gonna say, you're a really interesting young man, and
let's go to my hotel room. Because you know, maybe
the first four or five where you're going to hear nose,
but sooner or later you're going to hear somebody go yeah.
Speaker 4 (18:07):
I'm in it's a numbers game. That's the that's the game.
Speaker 2 (18:12):
So he's talking to a lot of women. The night's
going well, were having a.
Speaker 3 (18:16):
Great time, and then I see these people staring at me.
I see this table and they're pointing at me and
they're staring at me.
Speaker 1 (18:24):
And it's dudes, not the people Paul is here for.
But they just keep looking at him.
Speaker 4 (18:29):
They got gold on him.
Speaker 3 (18:30):
A couple of the guys were really big, big, big
beefy dudes.
Speaker 1 (18:33):
Like former football player beefy.
Speaker 4 (18:36):
And then one of the.
Speaker 3 (18:36):
Beef dudes walks up to me and he says, hey,
my boss wants to meet you. And I'm like, yeah, yeah, thanks,
Well I'm straight he no, no, no, no, just come on, just
come meet my boss. And I'm like, yeah, that's not
going to happen, man, I'm straight not into it.
Speaker 4 (18:50):
No, no, no, no, no, no.
Speaker 1 (18:51):
But the beefy emissary was persistent.
Speaker 2 (18:55):
He came up to Paul two or three times asking
him to come meet his boss.
Speaker 3 (19:00):
The guy that kept coming up to me, you could
see he's like a bodyguard. He's like a veto looking guy,
like a big, huge freaking animal, which is you know,
gold chain, just a beefcake dude, big freaking dude. And
I just you know, I'm just not into it.
Speaker 2 (19:14):
By then, Paul's ready to call it a night. Not
bad for his first night in the big leagues. The
next day, Paul says he gets back in his yellow Volkswagen.
He's alone this time. He's supposed to go meet one
of the women he met the previous night, about a.
Speaker 3 (19:29):
Mile away from the Beverly Hills Hotel on Sunset Boulevard,
which is like, there's nothing there. The freaking VW breaks down, so.
Speaker 2 (19:37):
Paul says he huffs it to the Polo Lounge to
use the payphone. He's crashed out of the glamorous life.
He got a taste up last night. He's just some
schlub using a payphone looking for some help with his
busted car.
Speaker 4 (19:49):
I'm pissed off. I'm in no mood.
Speaker 3 (19:52):
Who walks up to me, the big freaking bouncer, the
Veto dude. He's like, Hey, I'm like, whoa, whoa, whoa,
I'm on the phone Triple A.
Speaker 8 (19:59):
What what?
Speaker 3 (20:00):
What?
Speaker 4 (20:00):
What? What?
Speaker 3 (20:02):
And he waits, so I'm off the phone. He's very cordial,
he's polite, and he goes, hey, listen, my boss wants
to talk to you.
Speaker 2 (20:09):
But it's what the boss wants to talk to Paul
about that catches his attention.
Speaker 3 (20:14):
He watched you last night, how you were with all
these girls and these women, and you just like you,
like you just would walk up to everybody and anybody,
and he just wants to meet you. Can you meet
the guy? Just just spend five minutes to meet the guy.
And I'm in a pissed off mood. Now I'm waiting
for Triple A. So I said, okay, okay, okay, okay,
who is he? Show me what what? So I walk
up to the Guy's name's Larry.
Speaker 1 (20:34):
Lynde in American Jigglow. In the scene where Richard Gear
meets Lauren Hutton at the Polo Lounge, he takes a
seat at her table and they're framed with that almost smoldering,
low warm light from the lamp. They're like moths to
the flame.
Speaker 6 (20:53):
Mister k like another drink.
Speaker 2 (20:56):
It's that moment when you meet someone and your life
is forever changed. And although Paul is very into women,
exclusively into women, meeting Larry Lynd is kind of a
moment of seduction for Paul because despite being a beefy,
freaking animal with male sexual organs, it turned out that
(21:20):
Larry did have something Paul wanted very badly.
Speaker 3 (21:24):
Now, Larry Lynn looks like an older version of Elvis Presley,
really cool hair. You know, you could see he's put together.
You see he's rich. You could see, you know, the
gold big gold watch. He's got a couple of bodyguards
on each side. And we just start talking and he
just just listened. Come out with me tonight. We'll go
(21:45):
to a couple of clubs. You know, I'll get you eat.
You like pat, I'll get your potty. You're like blow,
I'll get you blow. We'll go out tonight. You'll come
out with me and my bodyguards. We'll go out to
a club I heard about this place called whoah Lah.
You'll walk in, you'll sit with me. We'll have a
couple of drinks, you'll well, we'll talk to the girls.
Just come out with me one night.
Speaker 2 (22:03):
The previous night, Paul had gone and played Make Believe
in the Polo Lounge. He went on vacation in someone
else's life. But this is Larry's life. He can do
this whenever he wants. He holds the key, and he's
inviting Paul along.
Speaker 4 (22:19):
Change my life.
Speaker 3 (22:21):
I never went back, so I went out with him
that night, had a great time, brought girls back to
the Beverly Hills Bungalows. I was doing blow with him,
getting high and ben.
Speaker 1 (22:34):
Somehow things get even better.
Speaker 3 (22:37):
A few hours later, he said, I just bought a
brand new Ferrari three oah gts, it's downstairs. I'm going
to give you five hundred bucks and a plane ticket home.
Speaker 4 (22:48):
Do me a favor.
Speaker 3 (22:48):
Drive my Ferrari to Houston, Texas for me.
Speaker 1 (22:53):
Shockingly, Paul says yes.
Speaker 2 (23:00):
On the long drive from Beverly Hills to Houston, it
may have occurred to Paul that he's now one of
those people who can point to the exact moment he
broke his mother's heart. This joy ride to Texas, conflicted
with Paul's prior obligation, his last semester of college.
Speaker 6 (23:19):
I didn't even go to college.
Speaker 5 (23:21):
I wanted so badly, but girls at that time, no, no,
You learn how to type.
Speaker 6 (23:27):
Go to night school and learn how to type.
Speaker 5 (23:29):
So if your husband when you get married, if you
have if he ever needs help, you can always be
a secretary. That's why I made sure that all my
children were going to go to college.
Speaker 6 (23:40):
No matter what I did.
Speaker 5 (23:42):
And Paul was actually the only one that I was
so disappointed. He was afraid to tell me. He drove
up in this rent I forget what, a Ferrari or
a little red sports car with a friend of his,
and I knew the semester had just started, and he says, Mom,
I'm packing bag, but what are you talking about.
Speaker 6 (24:01):
You're in school.
Speaker 2 (24:03):
But somehow school couldn't compete with Larry Lynd. Paul recruited
his pal David to join him.
Speaker 7 (24:09):
And I came out of lax and there is Paul
Fisher sitting in this brand new Target to Burgundy, red.
Speaker 8 (24:16):
Doesn't even have license plates on it.
Speaker 7 (24:19):
Three toa GTS Ferrari and I get in the car
and he shows me he's got five hundred bucks, He's
got a bag of roll joints, and off we go.
Speaker 3 (24:34):
I was picking up on girls in Santa Barbara on
a forty.
Speaker 4 (24:39):
Dollars bike and an Afro with a mullet.
Speaker 3 (24:44):
Now imagine that same guy with a Ferrari at five
hundred bucks, Like, you kidding me, I'm not going to
take advantage of that.
Speaker 1 (24:55):
Lock up your daughters. First stop camp Arizona.
Speaker 8 (25:00):
We went to this bar and to get some food
and shirt.
Speaker 7 (25:03):
Up he lands this girl who's like a Siamese twin
who just got disengaged from her sister, and she was showing.
Speaker 8 (25:11):
Us a scar. It was like, I mean a beautiful girl.
Speaker 7 (25:14):
Like I'm like, oh, no way, And sure enough you
know he you know, he spends time with her that night.
Speaker 3 (25:21):
Now I got all the tools I need to go
to any bar, any restaurant and do any I mean what,
So we stopped everywhere we stopped. We're getting laid.
Speaker 7 (25:32):
If there's a woman that is so beautiful that most
guys kind of they stare at her, they dribble around,
they don't know what they're doing, right, And his whole
thing was like, instead of looking at her like every
guy would, he would look at her and dismissively put
his head down and then he would stare right back
at her again like with this. And I used to
(25:54):
call this the beam because I've seen her work a
thousand times.
Speaker 8 (25:57):
You know, like, no, I'm not just did he just
like do that?
Speaker 7 (25:59):
And sure, this woman who was surrounded by her boyfriend
and all kinds of dudes at a bar, you know,
like ends up he takes.
Speaker 8 (26:08):
Her out of the bar. In the Ferrari, it was
the gravel road.
Speaker 4 (26:11):
Who were going into bars, pulling girls out of the bars.
Speaker 3 (26:14):
We had boys chasing a freaking cowboys chasing us down
the freaking road because we're pulling their chicks out of
the place, and we're driving away in our Ferrari. It
was the craziest road trip you could ever possibly imagine.
And then we drove into Houston, Texas and got there.
Speaker 8 (26:31):
It was giant. It felt huge.
Speaker 7 (26:33):
There was freeways, it was flat, it was hot. It
was unimpressive from like a social cultural perspective. It was Texas.
It was trucks, it was guys. It was oyster bars
and cold beer and buckets, and it was pretty pretty women.
We have friggin tight dresses and you know, giant booths
(26:57):
sticking out.
Speaker 2 (26:58):
As it turned out, This was the peak Houston's oil boom.
It's been up and down ever since, but at the
time the party was in full swing. They arrived at
Larry's penthouse.
Speaker 7 (27:08):
We get there at the Hook Condo and it's a
freaking beautiful penthouse, top floor, massive. There's a butler, Travis.
There's a maid and service lady.
Speaker 8 (27:20):
Named Mary, sweetest could be. They welcomed to.
Speaker 2 (27:23):
Paul and David go out with some girls that night,
and the next day Larry arrives.
Speaker 3 (27:28):
He says, like, this is Paul Fisher. He's like the
greatest with girls and David's buddy. But you got to
watch Fish. He's going to go out tonight watching with girls.
You never seen anything like it in your life. He'll
walk up to anybody, everybody, He'll create parties for us.
Speaker 4 (27:40):
And I'm like what. He goes, yeah, Yeah, here's what
I want you to do.
Speaker 1 (27:43):
Larry gives Paul his marching orders.
Speaker 3 (27:45):
You're going to get to Limo. You're going to go
to this place called Bocaccio's. You're gonna go there and
we're going to create a party. Bring back ten girls
back here. I'll get ounces of blow lots of alcohol.
I'm a bartender. We'll have a big party here tonight
because you guys are here in town.
Speaker 4 (28:00):
I could do that.
Speaker 2 (28:03):
So Larry Chauffeur drives them over to Boccaccio's, the highest
of the high end clubs of the Houston Oil Boom.
It's a disco themed mansion with sculptural glass tabletops and
these long, inviting plush booths.
Speaker 1 (28:18):
They just make you want us snuggle.
Speaker 2 (28:20):
Up with dozens of close fronts.
Speaker 3 (28:26):
We're in Houston, Texas. It's nineteen eighty one. They never
seen anything like me in their lives before. These are
freaking cowboys. I got a napro mullet, my shirt pulled
into my jacket, my collar up, and I got two bodyguards,
one on the left, one on the right. I pull
up in a freaking limo. I walk up to the
the red rope and I'm said, I'm here. Let me
(28:47):
open the freaking door. I want that table over there,
bring me a couple of bottles, and you know that's
what I want. It was like like I had done
it a thousand times.
Speaker 1 (28:57):
Paul delivers Larry exactly what he at four.
Speaker 3 (29:00):
I took ten beautiful, beautiful girls that you know I
don't get mad at you guys this with me back then,
I don't know if they could count to ten. They
weren't the bright, sharpest tools in the shed. They were
like Houston Kicks, the for the nineteen eighty. These are
not These are like not like girls from New York City.
Speaker 2 (29:20):
And Larry soon introduces Paul to his business partner, who's
a man named Michael Fitzmorris. Larry's the party guy and
Michael's the business guy. And Michael has an explanation, or
rather a rumor of an explanation for Larry's gold chain
veto mystique.
Speaker 4 (29:38):
I'm just going to put it like this.
Speaker 9 (29:39):
There's a rumor that his family was mob connected, as
a rumor that his great uncle was trying to Costello,
who's the person that they wrote The Godfather about. He's
the one that control all the judges and stuff.
Speaker 4 (29:55):
That's a rumor. I'm not going to verify.
Speaker 1 (29:57):
That's a rumor.
Speaker 2 (29:58):
So that's the org source of all this party money.
Speaker 9 (30:03):
Then all of a sudden, there were women coming in
the office, you know, seven, eight, nine, ten a day,
and then and then at the party apartment across the
street that was filling up every Thursday, Friday and Saturday
night two hundred and fifty to five hundred people to
a thousand people. I mean, it was just unbelievable. And
(30:23):
then Paul brought a couple of his friends and then
what they were doing. They were either in la for
a couple of weeks a month, or they were in
Houston for a couple of weeks a month. And Larry
was bouncing back and forth because he had to deal
with me because I was screaming and yelling saying this
is nuts.
Speaker 7 (30:38):
It was awesome. I mean we thought it was great.
It was like, you know, their party was on all
the time. You know, you wanted to bring a girl
a dozen roses at a bar that you were trying
to Like Larry Lynn thought he saw this girly. Really
really we had a pounding club. Everything's going on. He's
like one to send her some flowers. He would order
(31:01):
out and a person would come with a wheelbarrow was
full of roses and bring the whole wheelbarrow to her.
Speaker 8 (31:09):
It wasn't like you give a dozen flowers to the girl.
Speaker 7 (31:11):
I mean it was that excessive that there was NonStop
whatever you.
Speaker 3 (31:15):
Want, we just start partying every night. That's what he does,
he sends me out, go bring me back ten, bring
back ten.
Speaker 4 (31:21):
Let's have a party. Let's have a party. And that's
what we did for two months.
Speaker 2 (31:26):
You know, the saying, do what you love and have
lots of rumored mob money and you'll never work a
day in your life.
Speaker 9 (31:33):
Larry Lynde had the most amazing eye for women of
any one of them at my life.
Speaker 4 (31:39):
And then Paul showed up.
Speaker 9 (31:41):
And Paul and Larry were like, you know, all they
would do is spend the day criticizing the look of
this one, to criticize the look of that one. If
this one's eyes were you know, a perfect tea and
straight and the forehead and you know they're going through
the whole thing, then you know this this girl would
be prettier. And the Paul was going on meeting girls
in Houston and bringing them in and you know, but
(32:03):
Larry was enjoying that.
Speaker 1 (32:05):
This goes on for a few months.
Speaker 3 (32:07):
I'm having the greatest time of my life. I'm twenty
years old, I'm I'm a freaking I'm doing drugs, I'm
smoking pot. I'm just making love to every beautiful texting girl.
It's like, this is the greatest moment of my life,
and I thought everything was mine.
Speaker 4 (32:28):
Well I've been looking.
Speaker 3 (32:29):
Back, not none of it was mine. I mean, it
was none of it. It was a freaking illusion. And
then one morning Larry wakes up with blow all over
his freaking nose and he walks into the room and
he says, hey, listen, I want you to go to
New York City and open up a modeling agency for
me and Michael. And I'm like, yeah, I don't know
(32:54):
how to spell the word vogue.
Speaker 4 (32:56):
But yeah.
Speaker 2 (32:59):
Maybe Paul could have tuned into the signals that this
wasn't really his life and that going deeper into Larry's
world would only put him further in debt. And maybe
if Paul had finished that last semester of college, he
would have learned the story of Icarus.
Speaker 1 (33:14):
I'm talking about the Greek who.
Speaker 2 (33:16):
Went higher and higher, past the high school threesome, past
the Ferrari road trip, past the Conjoins twin hookup, flying
ever higher over a mountain of cocaine, ignoring the warning
signs of jingling gold chains, of guys with bodyguards. Maybe
he would have learned that Icris eventually had a terrible fall.
Speaker 1 (33:41):
But how could he turn this down.
Speaker 3 (33:43):
My job was trying to figure out what other people
would think is beautiful.
Speaker 8 (33:46):
In the modeling business.
Speaker 2 (33:48):
You can be with any name brand, fancy agency you
want to be with.
Speaker 8 (33:52):
What does your agent love you.
Speaker 6 (33:54):
Till this day?
Speaker 1 (33:55):
Honestly, if I see a measuring tape, I fucking freak out.
Speaker 8 (33:57):
I cringe, like I can't take because it just brought
me so much stress.
Speaker 7 (34:03):
Everybody was concentrating on the stars, quote unquote stars, But
you have all these models that they need to work
every day, they need to pay their bills.
Speaker 9 (34:13):
Book, book, book, book, Come on, let's book, let's nightdeals,
and let's get models in. Let's get go gos.
Speaker 3 (34:20):
It's a freaking war zone. These people are animals. There's
no integrity, there's no loyalty, there's none of that.
Speaker 4 (34:27):
That's all bullshit.
Speaker 3 (34:28):
That's gow.
Speaker 1 (34:30):
That's next on Model Wars.
Speaker 10 (34:36):
Model Wars was a production of iHeart Podcasts and Campside Media.
Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
get your podcasts. Model Wars was executive produced and hosted
by Vanessa Grigoriotis. Our senior writer was Michael Kenyon Meyer.
Speaker 1 (34:52):
Julia K.
Speaker 10 (34:52):
S Levine was our producer and reporter. Our senior producer
was Lily Houston Smith and our assistant editor was Emma Simonov.
We had to and production help from Shoshi Shmulowitz, Ali.
Speaker 1 (35:02):
Haney, and Blake Rook.
Speaker 10 (35:04):
Our production manager was Ashley Warren and our studio recordist
was ewan Lyi Tremuen. Sound design, mix and engineering by
Mark McCadam. iHeart Podcasts executive producers were Jennifer Bassett and
Katrina Norbel. The show was also executive produced by Rachel
winter In. Campside Media's Josh Dean, Adam Hoff, and Matt Share.
If you'd like to access behind the scenes content from
(35:25):
Model Wars and Campside Media, please go to join campside
dot com. That's j O I N C A M
P s I d E dot com. If you enjoyed
Model Wars, please rate and review the show wherever you
get your podcasts.
Speaker 1 (35:39):
Thanks so much for listening.
Campsite Media.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
It's nineteen eighty four and Paul Fisher is in an
elevator at the Wellington Hotel in New York City going
up to his room. He's just a guy from the
other side of the country, a twenty something from Ella's
San Fernando Valley, rocking a Juvro. He doesn't have much
going for him, honestly, he's fueled almost entirely by his
(00:35):
own absurd self confidence.
Speaker 1 (00:38):
But Paul's done pretty.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
Well in just a little time in New York. He
might look like a nobody, but he's heading up a
modeling agency for.
Speaker 1 (00:47):
High fashion runway models.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
This guy with a bad haircut now walking down this
semi decent hotel hallway is representing some of the most
beautiful women on the planet and making a buck. But
today is not a good day for Paul. A few
hours before he came back to the Wellington Hotel, Paul
(01:10):
decided to make a phone call, one that he'd been dreading.
It was to the backer of his modeling agency, the
guy putting up the money. This guy's name is Larry Lynd,
and Paul says he's quite on savory.
Speaker 3 (01:27):
I've seen Larry and his boys hurt people badly, badly, badly,
put him in the hospital. And there was always a pattern.
First he'd smile, they would think that it's cool, he's okay,
and then he would send the boys in and they
would just fucking knock the kids out.
Speaker 4 (01:47):
I watched the shit. That's part of it.
Speaker 2 (01:53):
Paul doesn't want to be at Larry's modeling agency anymore.
They've been friends, brawlers at each other's side, both not
developing the best reputations, and now Paul wants to go
off on his own, to go legit, to conquer the
modeling industry on his terms without Larry. So earlier this
(02:14):
day he made that call.
Speaker 3 (02:18):
I told Larry, I said, hey, man, I love you,
and I care about you, and you're my brother, and
I love you, but and I appreciate you so much
for turning me onto this world. But I gotta do
this myself. You gotta let me go. You gotta let
me do my thing.
Speaker 4 (02:35):
Brother. I'm good at this shit. You gotta let me
do it. And I'm begging you. You gotta let me out,
you gotta you gotta you.
Speaker 3 (02:43):
Say you care about me. You got let me. Let
me do this. And he said okay, Fish, you got it.
You got it, man. You go do your own thing.
Pack your shit, go do your own thing, start your
own thing. I'll have somebody else come in and run
this shit. Go do it, man. It's okay. I feel you.
I care for you now. I don't know problem. I
(03:09):
got off the phone. I pissed my pants. I knew
it he was coming after me.
Speaker 1 (03:15):
It's a tense moment for Paul.
Speaker 2 (03:17):
And after he hung up, he went to blow off
some steam at one of New York's hottest night clubs,
a CNB scene and fucking b fucked place called Area Bianca.
Jagger could be on the dance floor. Andy Warhol standing
by in a booth. It's a place a guy like
Paul Fisher would love to spend his last night on Earth.
But he had to go back to his hotel sometime.
Speaker 3 (03:42):
And then I came home to my hotel room that night.
It's a Wellington hotel and five of Larry's that I knew.
Real well goons came out of the closets and they
put me down on the ground, and they took down
(04:02):
my pants, and they took a gun and they shoved
it in my fucking ass. I was scared out of
my fucking minds. And then the final door opened and
it was Larry.
Speaker 2 (04:18):
Larry's a big guy, a former football player. Paul knows
he was an idiot to think he could get out
of business with him so easy. Paul's future, if he
has one, is working for and finding women for Larry
lent from iHeart Podcasts and Campside Media. I'm Vanessa Grigoriatis
(04:42):
and this is Model Wars. This is Paul Fisher's story,
but it's also the untold story of what the modeling
(05:02):
industry is really like, the ugly business of beauty. It's
full of competition, backstabbing, abuse and violence. It's the background
clashes behind famous models strutting on runways, posing in magazines
and catalogs, being in movies and television, getting displayed on
(05:23):
the racks in the checkout aisle of the supermarket, so
that even some poor sucker who just wants to buy
a box of cheerios in nineteen eighty two knows exactly
what true beauty is supposed to look like. As a
journalist for Vanity Fair, who knows her way around a nightclub,
(05:43):
I've been around the modeling industry for a long time.
I've met the huge models that Paul would eventually sign,
Stephanie Seymour, Naomi Campbell, Carrie Young. Even as big as
they were, they still needed someone like Paul Fisher to
get them on the cover of Vogue or land them
a Chanel ad. You had to have an agent like
(06:06):
Paul and be in the right place at the right
time to reach the mountaintop. Today you could say that
search for perfection in the female form has migrated to Instagram,
everyone firing up their iPhones and launching themselves into the
void that is the Internet. But that classic hunt to
define beauty and profit from your version of it is
(06:29):
the same. It makes sense the Paul Fisher would go
on to become a powerful model agent. Models set the
mark for what we're aspiring to as a culture. They
reflecting back are aspirations and desires, and Paul has always
just been so attuned to what the culture wants. He's
(06:50):
such a product of his era and its values. He
grew up in fertile ground for a model agent, the
San Fernando Valley in Los Angeles.
Speaker 1 (07:02):
This was in the nineteen seventies and.
Speaker 2 (07:05):
The valley was a vapid superficial consumerist paradise. It's hot
on the asphalt and there's lots of strip malls now.
Frank Sabba put out his song Valley Girl as an
anti consumerist anthem in nineteen eighty two, but no one
got the message.
Speaker 1 (07:23):
The song became a chart topping hit, and.
Speaker 2 (07:25):
It spread the insane wingo of the valley far and wide.
God Fast Times at Ridgemont High came out that same
year and solidified the valley's reputation for casual sex and
good times at all costs.
Speaker 1 (07:40):
Head Paul grew up in a modest home of the valley,
you know, at.
Speaker 3 (07:47):
The time of valley girls and valley boys and all.
You know, that's where I think I got my mullet.
Speaker 2 (07:53):
The Jewish kid with a curly mullet. Thank God, every
fashion comes back around again, so this haircut won't be
lost to history.
Speaker 3 (08:00):
We didn't grow up with money, that's for sure. We
had no cash. There were you know, my mom and dad,
they were always struggling for.
Speaker 1 (08:08):
Money, mullet and all.
Speaker 2 (08:10):
Paul was a true classic American high school archetype, the
star baseball player dating the prettiest girl in school.
Speaker 1 (08:18):
Her name was Sue.
Speaker 3 (08:19):
We won class couple in junior high school and high school.
She was my girlfriend for like five years, and she
was in junior high school. She was definitely the prettiest
girl in high school. Everybody wanted to meet Sue. She
was really beautiful.
Speaker 2 (08:33):
As will learn, Paul is persistent when it comes to women,
and he snuck into Sue's house enough and was likable
enough with the family that they just eventually let him
stay over. But if all this is sounding wholesome, don't worry.
Speaker 3 (08:48):
Excuse my language, you guys. I hate saying this word
in front of you. I was banging every girl on
the planet.
Speaker 2 (08:53):
Paul was not faithful to his class couple running me,
and this gets an early paradox of Paul's life with women.
He was the devoted, protective older brother to two younger sisters.
Speaker 3 (09:04):
I would treat my sisters different that I would treat
other girls. And you know, I was a pig in
high school. The whole in high school. I didn't care.
I didn't care about anything except, you know, my own
selfish desires.
Speaker 1 (09:18):
And Paul turned out this way despite having a saint
of a mother.
Speaker 5 (09:22):
My name is Monica Fisher. I'm eight or seventy seven
years old. Eighty seven. Oh, I forgot, I forgot how
old I was. It's wishful thinking.
Speaker 2 (09:33):
Frankly, Monica knew that Paul was going to be a
challenge from the beginning.
Speaker 5 (09:38):
Where my older son was very quiet and reserved and
like to read and was just very easy, Paul was
all over the place. He climbed, he didn't stop moving
and chattering.
Speaker 2 (09:51):
Paul had his own sense of justice, especially when his
mother and father, a wholesale liquor distributor with a temper,
were fighting.
Speaker 5 (10:00):
I didn't know how to get out of my marriage.
I was scared to death and scared of him.
Speaker 2 (10:04):
Probably, Paul was always getting disciplined at school, but his
mom tried to let it slide because he was getting
good grades. This trade off is familiar to anyone in
the modeling industry. You present yourself a certain way as intelligent, beautiful, whatever,
and as long as you perform that ideal version of
yourself for the camera, you can get up to all
(10:26):
sorts of antics behind the scenes. It's working well for Paul,
these good grades in exchange for permission to act out.
But then one day Monica gets called by one of
Paul's teachers for the one millionth time, and.
Speaker 5 (10:41):
He says to me his grades were not good, and
he would come in and entertain the kids, you know,
and interrupt the class and etc.
Speaker 6 (10:52):
Etc. And I said, well, I don't know why his
grades sound good. His grade.
Speaker 5 (10:55):
I get his report cards and he's on the honors list.
And the teacher looked at me and said, no, it's
not only on his list. Let me show you his
brave missus Fisher, I don't know what you're looking at,
the teacher said to me. And I went in and
it turns out he had gotten blank report forms and
(11:16):
he had fortued him. And I had no idea. He said,
your son, Paul, he's like a green apple. He's tart.
He just makes me chase him all over the place.
The green apple is a pain in the ass.
Speaker 2 (11:28):
Paul may have been tart, and he may have been
a pig, but he was also a good guy. Just
ask his mother.
Speaker 6 (11:35):
He had the best heart going.
Speaker 5 (11:37):
He had such a good heart, and he just was
very very mischievous, very mischievous.
Speaker 2 (11:46):
And if his dad didn't find that irresistible, he'd find
someone who did so.
Speaker 3 (11:50):
Because my house was kind of volatile, and my dad
was kind of volatile. I would go down in the
summertimes in my life in twelfth grade year and my
best friend his dad was in the hair business. The
hair business is the horniest business in the freaking world.
They're freaking fucking perverts. They're pervs. They're working on your hair,
(12:14):
they're pervs. The hair business is full of pervs. He
introduced me to the hair world, and they were just
these older women, and he was banging everybody. And it
was like I watched him and people like him became
like my freaking role model, bringing home different women all
the time. He would just just would teach us, you know,
(12:36):
we'd be smoking pot with them all the time, getting
stole with them all the time, and he'd be just like,
you know, he just was a player.
Speaker 2 (12:42):
Paul learned quickly that getting women wasn't a competition. Teamwork
was encouraged, so he and his friend from high school
got creative.
Speaker 3 (12:52):
He was like the star football player. I was a
star baseball player, and I remember just we would go
home to my house and bring girls home, cheerleaders home
all the time. Sometimes we'd make leup to the same girl.
I remember my dad walked him one day he thought
I was gay.
Speaker 2 (13:11):
Paul and his friend son of the hairdresser, were having
a threesome with a girl.
Speaker 4 (13:16):
And he's like, what the heck are you doing? And
we're like, hey, get out of here.
Speaker 1 (13:20):
Paul's father just never understood him.
Speaker 4 (13:22):
We're not doing each other, We're just with her.
Speaker 2 (13:27):
Getting girls was always Paul's one true talent and his
overall reason for being. This trend persisted when he enrolled
in college at UC Santa Barbara.
Speaker 3 (13:38):
I knew that was the school I wanted to go to.
Why you see Santa Barbara freaking girls?
Speaker 1 (13:45):
David Triton was one of Paul's college pals.
Speaker 7 (13:48):
I think when I met him, he had a book
with like hundreds of names of quote conquests. I don't
want to say how you put it. And I was
shocked when I saw when I saw.
Speaker 2 (14:01):
That some colleges have honors dorms. Paul was in the
honors dorm for fucking.
Speaker 7 (14:07):
There was an off campus dorm called Francisco Torres that
was like a.
Speaker 8 (14:13):
Really cool place. There was a pool. I know he
lived there.
Speaker 7 (14:17):
I couldn't get into that, so I was in another
off campus dorm, but that tower was referred to as
Sodom Goemora Tower by everybody.
Speaker 2 (14:27):
Despite the distractions, Paul does well in college. He makes
it all the way to the final semester of his
senior year.
Speaker 3 (14:34):
I've got twelve units left. I have a three point
nine to six grade point average. I'm going to go
to law school become a freaking lawyer.
Speaker 2 (14:43):
And then one day Paul has David and a few
other friends over to watch a movie.
Speaker 3 (14:48):
And we're watching this guy, Richard Gear in American Jigelow.
And he's like, he's cool. He's like all the girls
like him. He's just he's just a cool cat. He's
like this. He's like he's a player, and people are
paying him for sex. And me and my boys look
at each other and then we go, we could do that.
Speaker 4 (15:11):
We could do that. Let's check it out. Let's go,
let's do that.
Speaker 1 (15:16):
Paul knows he's finally found his calling.
Speaker 2 (15:27):
After watching Richard Gear do his thing in American Jiglow, Paul, David,
and the rest of the boys decide to drive from
Santa Barbara down the coast all the way to La.
Speaker 7 (15:37):
We had a cool yellow Volkswag it with flared wheels.
Speaker 8 (15:40):
It was like very cool for what it was.
Speaker 2 (15:44):
They apparently missed the part of American Jigglow that's a
disturbing meditation on the cost of desire for them. It's
damn near a manifesto, or at least it's a roadmap.
Speaker 8 (15:54):
I think it was.
Speaker 7 (15:54):
Probably something, you know, that's just absolutely consistent with where
his head was, when he was when that movie came out,
and where we were at that time.
Speaker 6 (16:02):
Often in these big hotels you run into women from
the foreign countries who may need a translator or guide.
Speaker 1 (16:10):
How much would you charge me.
Speaker 2 (16:12):
There's this iconic scene in the movie where the Richard
Gear character meets a beautiful older woman who's played by
model turned actress Lauren Hutton. It's set in the lounge
of the Beverly Hills Hotel.
Speaker 3 (16:24):
The famous freaking poll the lounge, which is the same
place that Richard Gear was in the movies. And we're
looking at each other and we're like, we're like, this
is it.
Speaker 8 (16:34):
Man.
Speaker 2 (16:35):
Paul and the boys make ge to the entrance and
they walk through rows of pink banquette booths that have
laced lampshades. There's warm, seductive light shining on the tables.
Speaker 3 (16:47):
It's just class. It's full on class and elegance. And
I'm like, I'm just a kid from I'm living in
Santa Barbara, driving my bike, wearing shorts every day and
cut off T shirt every day, and I'm looking around
going I'm digging this. This is money. Look at this shit.
I grew up, Remember I grew up. My mom's making
hamburger helper every other night. This is money. They're all
(17:10):
looking like money, like they all got money. They all
they got tans, they got you know, boufonp freaking Hairdwes,
they got you know, shirts that are open with gold
in there. We've freaking we've died and gone to heaven.
There's money, and there's older women, and people are all
flirting with each other, you know.
Speaker 2 (17:28):
And right there in the polo lounge, Paul has a revelation.
Speaker 3 (17:33):
I felt like I belong there, like like I was made.
Speaker 4 (17:38):
For this shit.
Speaker 1 (17:40):
And now it's time for Paul to get to work.
Speaker 2 (17:43):
His strategy is rather simple, rather work today, really, but
it's highly effective. You have to knock on one hundred
doors to just get a couple sales.
Speaker 3 (17:52):
I'm going up to every single one because I know
you're not got enough of them, three or four of them,
we're gonna say, you're a really interesting young man, and
let's go to my hotel room. Because you know, maybe
the first four or five where you're going to hear nose,
but sooner or later you're going to hear somebody go yeah.
Speaker 4 (18:07):
I'm in it's a numbers game. That's the that's the game.
Speaker 2 (18:12):
So he's talking to a lot of women. The night's
going well, were having a.
Speaker 3 (18:16):
Great time, and then I see these people staring at me.
I see this table and they're pointing at me and
they're staring at me.
Speaker 1 (18:24):
And it's dudes, not the people Paul is here for.
But they just keep looking at him.
Speaker 4 (18:29):
They got gold on him.
Speaker 3 (18:30):
A couple of the guys were really big, big, big
beefy dudes.
Speaker 1 (18:33):
Like former football player beefy.
Speaker 4 (18:36):
And then one of the.
Speaker 3 (18:36):
Beef dudes walks up to me and he says, hey,
my boss wants to meet you. And I'm like, yeah, yeah, thanks,
Well I'm straight he no, no, no, no, just come on, just
come meet my boss. And I'm like, yeah, that's not
going to happen, man, I'm straight not into it.
Speaker 4 (18:50):
No, no, no, no, no, no.
Speaker 1 (18:51):
But the beefy emissary was persistent.
Speaker 2 (18:55):
He came up to Paul two or three times asking
him to come meet his boss.
Speaker 3 (19:00):
The guy that kept coming up to me, you could
see he's like a bodyguard. He's like a veto looking guy,
like a big, huge freaking animal, which is you know,
gold chain, just a beefcake dude, big freaking dude. And
I just you know, I'm just not into it.
Speaker 2 (19:14):
By then, Paul's ready to call it a night. Not
bad for his first night in the big leagues. The
next day, Paul says he gets back in his yellow Volkswagen.
He's alone this time. He's supposed to go meet one
of the women he met the previous night, about a.
Speaker 3 (19:29):
Mile away from the Beverly Hills Hotel on Sunset Boulevard,
which is like, there's nothing there. The freaking VW breaks down, so.
Speaker 2 (19:37):
Paul says he huffs it to the Polo Lounge to
use the payphone. He's crashed out of the glamorous life.
He got a taste up last night. He's just some
schlub using a payphone looking for some help with his
busted car.
Speaker 4 (19:49):
I'm pissed off. I'm in no mood.
Speaker 3 (19:52):
Who walks up to me, the big freaking bouncer, the
Veto dude. He's like, Hey, I'm like, whoa, whoa, whoa,
I'm on the phone Triple A.
Speaker 8 (19:59):
What what?
Speaker 3 (20:00):
What?
Speaker 4 (20:00):
What? What?
Speaker 3 (20:02):
And he waits, so I'm off the phone. He's very cordial,
he's polite, and he goes, hey, listen, my boss wants
to talk to you.
Speaker 2 (20:09):
But it's what the boss wants to talk to Paul
about that catches his attention.
Speaker 3 (20:14):
He watched you last night, how you were with all
these girls and these women, and you just like you,
like you just would walk up to everybody and anybody,
and he just wants to meet you. Can you meet
the guy? Just just spend five minutes to meet the guy.
And I'm in a pissed off mood. Now I'm waiting
for Triple A. So I said, okay, okay, okay, okay,
who is he? Show me what what? So I walk
up to the Guy's name's Larry.
Speaker 1 (20:34):
Lynde in American Jigglow. In the scene where Richard Gear
meets Lauren Hutton at the Polo Lounge, he takes a
seat at her table and they're framed with that almost smoldering,
low warm light from the lamp. They're like moths to
the flame.
Speaker 6 (20:53):
Mister k like another drink.
Speaker 2 (20:56):
It's that moment when you meet someone and your life
is forever changed. And although Paul is very into women,
exclusively into women, meeting Larry Lynd is kind of a
moment of seduction for Paul because despite being a beefy,
freaking animal with male sexual organs, it turned out that
(21:20):
Larry did have something Paul wanted very badly.
Speaker 3 (21:24):
Now, Larry Lynn looks like an older version of Elvis Presley,
really cool hair. You know, you could see he's put together.
You see he's rich. You could see, you know, the
gold big gold watch. He's got a couple of bodyguards
on each side. And we just start talking and he
just just listened. Come out with me tonight. We'll go
(21:45):
to a couple of clubs. You know, I'll get you eat.
You like pat, I'll get your potty. You're like blow,
I'll get you blow. We'll go out tonight. You'll come
out with me and my bodyguards. We'll go out to
a club I heard about this place called whoah Lah.
You'll walk in, you'll sit with me. We'll have a
couple of drinks, you'll well, we'll talk to the girls.
Just come out with me one night.
Speaker 2 (22:03):
The previous night, Paul had gone and played Make Believe
in the Polo Lounge. He went on vacation in someone
else's life. But this is Larry's life. He can do
this whenever he wants. He holds the key, and he's
inviting Paul along.
Speaker 4 (22:19):
Change my life.
Speaker 3 (22:21):
I never went back, so I went out with him
that night, had a great time, brought girls back to
the Beverly Hills Bungalows. I was doing blow with him,
getting high and ben.
Speaker 1 (22:34):
Somehow things get even better.
Speaker 3 (22:37):
A few hours later, he said, I just bought a
brand new Ferrari three oah gts, it's downstairs. I'm going
to give you five hundred bucks and a plane ticket home.
Speaker 4 (22:48):
Do me a favor.
Speaker 3 (22:48):
Drive my Ferrari to Houston, Texas for me.
Speaker 1 (22:53):
Shockingly, Paul says yes.
Speaker 2 (23:00):
On the long drive from Beverly Hills to Houston, it
may have occurred to Paul that he's now one of
those people who can point to the exact moment he
broke his mother's heart. This joy ride to Texas, conflicted
with Paul's prior obligation, his last semester of college.
Speaker 6 (23:19):
I didn't even go to college.
Speaker 5 (23:21):
I wanted so badly, but girls at that time, no, no,
You learn how to type.
Speaker 6 (23:27):
Go to night school and learn how to type.
Speaker 5 (23:29):
So if your husband when you get married, if you
have if he ever needs help, you can always be
a secretary. That's why I made sure that all my
children were going to go to college.
Speaker 6 (23:40):
No matter what I did.
Speaker 5 (23:42):
And Paul was actually the only one that I was
so disappointed. He was afraid to tell me. He drove
up in this rent I forget what, a Ferrari or
a little red sports car with a friend of his,
and I knew the semester had just started, and he says, Mom,
I'm packing bag, but what are you talking about.
Speaker 6 (24:01):
You're in school.
Speaker 2 (24:03):
But somehow school couldn't compete with Larry Lynd. Paul recruited
his pal David to join him.
Speaker 7 (24:09):
And I came out of lax and there is Paul
Fisher sitting in this brand new Target to Burgundy, red.
Speaker 8 (24:16):
Doesn't even have license plates on it.
Speaker 7 (24:19):
Three toa GTS Ferrari and I get in the car
and he shows me he's got five hundred bucks, He's
got a bag of roll joints, and off we go.
Speaker 3 (24:34):
I was picking up on girls in Santa Barbara on
a forty.
Speaker 4 (24:39):
Dollars bike and an Afro with a mullet.
Speaker 3 (24:44):
Now imagine that same guy with a Ferrari at five
hundred bucks, Like, you kidding me, I'm not going to
take advantage of that.
Speaker 1 (24:55):
Lock up your daughters. First stop camp Arizona.
Speaker 8 (25:00):
We went to this bar and to get some food
and shirt.
Speaker 7 (25:03):
Up he lands this girl who's like a Siamese twin
who just got disengaged from her sister, and she was showing.
Speaker 8 (25:11):
Us a scar. It was like, I mean a beautiful girl.
Speaker 7 (25:14):
Like I'm like, oh, no way, And sure enough you
know he you know, he spends time with her that night.
Speaker 3 (25:21):
Now I got all the tools I need to go
to any bar, any restaurant and do any I mean what,
So we stopped everywhere we stopped. We're getting laid.
Speaker 7 (25:32):
If there's a woman that is so beautiful that most
guys kind of they stare at her, they dribble around,
they don't know what they're doing, right, And his whole
thing was like, instead of looking at her like every
guy would, he would look at her and dismissively put
his head down and then he would stare right back
at her again like with this. And I used to
(25:54):
call this the beam because I've seen her work a
thousand times.
Speaker 8 (25:57):
You know, like, no, I'm not just did he just
like do that?
Speaker 7 (25:59):
And sure, this woman who was surrounded by her boyfriend
and all kinds of dudes at a bar, you know,
like ends up he takes.
Speaker 8 (26:08):
Her out of the bar. In the Ferrari, it was
the gravel road.
Speaker 4 (26:11):
Who were going into bars, pulling girls out of the bars.
Speaker 3 (26:14):
We had boys chasing a freaking cowboys chasing us down
the freaking road because we're pulling their chicks out of
the place, and we're driving away in our Ferrari. It
was the craziest road trip you could ever possibly imagine.
And then we drove into Houston, Texas and got there.
Speaker 8 (26:31):
It was giant. It felt huge.
Speaker 7 (26:33):
There was freeways, it was flat, it was hot. It
was unimpressive from like a social cultural perspective. It was Texas.
It was trucks, it was guys. It was oyster bars
and cold beer and buckets, and it was pretty pretty women.
We have friggin tight dresses and you know, giant booths
(26:57):
sticking out.
Speaker 2 (26:58):
As it turned out, This was the peak Houston's oil boom.
It's been up and down ever since, but at the
time the party was in full swing. They arrived at
Larry's penthouse.
Speaker 7 (27:08):
We get there at the Hook Condo and it's a
freaking beautiful penthouse, top floor, massive. There's a butler, Travis.
There's a maid and service lady.
Speaker 8 (27:20):
Named Mary, sweetest could be. They welcomed to.
Speaker 2 (27:23):
Paul and David go out with some girls that night,
and the next day Larry arrives.
Speaker 3 (27:28):
He says, like, this is Paul Fisher. He's like the
greatest with girls and David's buddy. But you got to
watch Fish. He's going to go out tonight watching with girls.
You never seen anything like it in your life. He'll
walk up to anybody, everybody, He'll create parties for us.
Speaker 4 (27:40):
And I'm like what. He goes, yeah, Yeah, here's what
I want you to do.
Speaker 1 (27:43):
Larry gives Paul his marching orders.
Speaker 3 (27:45):
You're going to get to Limo. You're going to go
to this place called Bocaccio's. You're gonna go there and
we're going to create a party. Bring back ten girls
back here. I'll get ounces of blow lots of alcohol.
I'm a bartender. We'll have a big party here tonight
because you guys are here in town.
Speaker 4 (28:00):
I could do that.
Speaker 2 (28:03):
So Larry Chauffeur drives them over to Boccaccio's, the highest
of the high end clubs of the Houston Oil Boom.
It's a disco themed mansion with sculptural glass tabletops and
these long, inviting plush booths.
Speaker 1 (28:18):
They just make you want us snuggle.
Speaker 2 (28:20):
Up with dozens of close fronts.
Speaker 3 (28:26):
We're in Houston, Texas. It's nineteen eighty one. They never
seen anything like me in their lives before. These are
freaking cowboys. I got a napro mullet, my shirt pulled
into my jacket, my collar up, and I got two bodyguards,
one on the left, one on the right. I pull
up in a freaking limo. I walk up to the
the red rope and I'm said, I'm here. Let me
(28:47):
open the freaking door. I want that table over there,
bring me a couple of bottles, and you know that's
what I want. It was like like I had done
it a thousand times.
Speaker 1 (28:57):
Paul delivers Larry exactly what he at four.
Speaker 3 (29:00):
I took ten beautiful, beautiful girls that you know I
don't get mad at you guys this with me back then,
I don't know if they could count to ten. They
weren't the bright, sharpest tools in the shed. They were
like Houston Kicks, the for the nineteen eighty. These are
not These are like not like girls from New York City.
Speaker 2 (29:20):
And Larry soon introduces Paul to his business partner, who's
a man named Michael Fitzmorris. Larry's the party guy and
Michael's the business guy. And Michael has an explanation, or
rather a rumor of an explanation for Larry's gold chain
veto mystique.
Speaker 4 (29:38):
I'm just going to put it like this.
Speaker 9 (29:39):
There's a rumor that his family was mob connected, as
a rumor that his great uncle was trying to Costello,
who's the person that they wrote The Godfather about. He's
the one that control all the judges and stuff.
Speaker 4 (29:55):
That's a rumor. I'm not going to verify.
Speaker 1 (29:57):
That's a rumor.
Speaker 2 (29:58):
So that's the org source of all this party money.
Speaker 9 (30:03):
Then all of a sudden, there were women coming in
the office, you know, seven, eight, nine, ten a day,
and then and then at the party apartment across the
street that was filling up every Thursday, Friday and Saturday
night two hundred and fifty to five hundred people to
a thousand people. I mean, it was just unbelievable. And
(30:23):
then Paul brought a couple of his friends and then
what they were doing. They were either in la for
a couple of weeks a month, or they were in
Houston for a couple of weeks a month. And Larry
was bouncing back and forth because he had to deal
with me because I was screaming and yelling saying this
is nuts.
Speaker 7 (30:38):
It was awesome. I mean we thought it was great.
It was like, you know, their party was on all
the time. You know, you wanted to bring a girl
a dozen roses at a bar that you were trying
to Like Larry Lynn thought he saw this girly. Really
really we had a pounding club. Everything's going on. He's
like one to send her some flowers. He would order
(31:01):
out and a person would come with a wheelbarrow was
full of roses and bring the whole wheelbarrow to her.
Speaker 8 (31:09):
It wasn't like you give a dozen flowers to the girl.
Speaker 7 (31:11):
I mean it was that excessive that there was NonStop
whatever you.
Speaker 3 (31:15):
Want, we just start partying every night. That's what he does,
he sends me out, go bring me back ten, bring
back ten.
Speaker 4 (31:21):
Let's have a party. Let's have a party. And that's
what we did for two months.
Speaker 2 (31:26):
You know, the saying, do what you love and have
lots of rumored mob money and you'll never work a
day in your life.
Speaker 9 (31:33):
Larry Lynde had the most amazing eye for women of
any one of them at my life.
Speaker 4 (31:39):
And then Paul showed up.
Speaker 9 (31:41):
And Paul and Larry were like, you know, all they
would do is spend the day criticizing the look of
this one, to criticize the look of that one. If
this one's eyes were you know, a perfect tea and
straight and the forehead and you know they're going through
the whole thing, then you know this this girl would
be prettier. And the Paul was going on meeting girls
in Houston and bringing them in and you know, but
(32:03):
Larry was enjoying that.
Speaker 1 (32:05):
This goes on for a few months.
Speaker 3 (32:07):
I'm having the greatest time of my life. I'm twenty
years old, I'm I'm a freaking I'm doing drugs, I'm
smoking pot. I'm just making love to every beautiful texting girl.
It's like, this is the greatest moment of my life,
and I thought everything was mine.
Speaker 4 (32:28):
Well I've been looking.
Speaker 3 (32:29):
Back, not none of it was mine. I mean, it
was none of it. It was a freaking illusion. And
then one morning Larry wakes up with blow all over
his freaking nose and he walks into the room and
he says, hey, listen, I want you to go to
New York City and open up a modeling agency for
me and Michael. And I'm like, yeah, I don't know
(32:54):
how to spell the word vogue.
Speaker 4 (32:56):
But yeah.
Speaker 2 (32:59):
Maybe Paul could have tuned into the signals that this
wasn't really his life and that going deeper into Larry's
world would only put him further in debt. And maybe
if Paul had finished that last semester of college, he
would have learned the story of Icarus.
Speaker 1 (33:14):
I'm talking about the Greek who.
Speaker 2 (33:16):
Went higher and higher, past the high school threesome, past
the Ferrari road trip, past the Conjoins twin hookup, flying
ever higher over a mountain of cocaine, ignoring the warning
signs of jingling gold chains, of guys with bodyguards. Maybe
he would have learned that Icris eventually had a terrible fall.
Speaker 1 (33:41):
But how could he turn this down.
Speaker 3 (33:43):
My job was trying to figure out what other people
would think is beautiful.
Speaker 8 (33:46):
In the modeling business.
Speaker 2 (33:48):
You can be with any name brand, fancy agency you
want to be with.
Speaker 8 (33:52):
What does your agent love you.
Speaker 6 (33:54):
Till this day?
Speaker 1 (33:55):
Honestly, if I see a measuring tape, I fucking freak out.
Speaker 8 (33:57):
I cringe, like I can't take because it just brought
me so much stress.
Speaker 7 (34:03):
Everybody was concentrating on the stars, quote unquote stars, But
you have all these models that they need to work
every day, they need to pay their bills.
Speaker 9 (34:13):
Book, book, book, book, Come on, let's book, let's nightdeals,
and let's get models in. Let's get go gos.
Speaker 3 (34:20):
It's a freaking war zone. These people are animals. There's
no integrity, there's no loyalty, there's none of that.
Speaker 4 (34:27):
That's all bullshit.
Speaker 3 (34:28):
That's gow.
Speaker 1 (34:30):
That's next on Model Wars.
Speaker 10 (34:36):
Model Wars was a production of iHeart Podcasts and Campside Media.
Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
get your podcasts. Model Wars was executive produced and hosted
by Vanessa Grigoriotis. Our senior writer was Michael Kenyon Meyer.
Speaker 1 (34:52):
Julia K.
Speaker 10 (34:52):
S Levine was our producer and reporter. Our senior producer
was Lily Houston Smith and our assistant editor was Emma Simonov.
We had to and production help from Shoshi Shmulowitz, Ali.
Speaker 1 (35:02):
Haney, and Blake Rook.
Speaker 10 (35:04):
Our production manager was Ashley Warren and our studio recordist
was ewan Lyi Tremuen. Sound design, mix and engineering by
Mark McCadam. iHeart Podcasts executive producers were Jennifer Bassett and
Katrina Norbel. The show was also executive produced by Rachel
winter In. Campside Media's Josh Dean, Adam Hoff, and Matt Share.
If you'd like to access behind the scenes content from
(35:25):
Model Wars and Campside Media, please go to join campside
dot com. That's j O I N C A M
P s I d E dot com. If you enjoyed
Model Wars, please rate and review the show wherever you
get your podcasts.
Speaker 1 (35:39):
Thanks so much for listening.
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