Photo illustration by Johansen Peralta
Debi Mazar: ‘I was a disco hustler’
In this repeat episode of 'Brooklyn Magazine: The Podcast,' the 'Goodfellas' actor and Madonna bestie tells stories from a full life
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Debi Mazar had a wild 2020. The “Goodfellas” actor and Madonna bestie was back in Brooklyn last November—after having moved to Italy with her family earlier in the year—to shoot the final episodes of the hit Darren Star show “Younger.”
This, on the heels of having contracted a particularly brutal (and funny) case of covid.
She knows how to keep busy.
“At this point in my life, I’ll act in anything except porn,” she says. “I don’t care how bad it is; I like making money.”
Mazar was the second guest on “Brooklyn Magazine: The Podcast,” which launched last December when Brooklyn Magazine itself rebooted. It is to date one of the more entertaining interviews and well worth revisiting today, both a reminder of how far we’ve come over the past year—and how incredible her own story is (and continues to be).
Mazar was a self-described “disco hustler,” something of a Forrest Gump of the New York club scene. Born in Queens to a 15-year-old mother and raised upstate, she moved to Long Island by way of a stint in juvie—from which she was ejected after getting into a fight with “hooker” from the Bronx. She moved in with her god parents, who themselves were just 27, and started sneaking out at night to hit the clubs.
“It was the late ‘70s and it was happening,” she says. “There was Studio 54, the Paradise Garage, the Loft, the Peppermint Lounge. The dance scene was amazing. It was a moment where glitter rock had gone out, disco had come in.”
The Studio 54 crowd wasn’t really her people though (“I was young and nobody would give me drugs,” she says), so she granted further downtown where the vibe was grittier and more DIY (though they still wouldn’t give her drugs).
It was at that time that she met Madonna, who was still on the make, as well as established and emerging artists from Andy Warhol—Mazar used to trim his wigs while he wore them—to Keith Haring to Jean-Michel Basquiat and others.
“You know what sucks? Keith Haring, Jean-Michel and a couple other artists painted a refrigerator for me. If I had that refrigerator, I’d be set for life,” she says. “Meanwhile I had a horrible roommate who painted over it. Thank god she moved to Brazil because I think I would have personally killed her.”
Mazar, who swears she’ll write her memoir once life slows down enough, describes how she got into acting, living through the AIDS crisis, moving to Italy last year and how her wild youth informs her parenting today. She also talks about contracting covid early in the course of the pandemic.
“The first thing I noticed was my loss of smell because I farted one night,” she says. “[My husband] came back in the room and was like, ‘damn girl.’ And I’m like, ‘What?’ I didn’t smell anything.”
