John Waters Recalls Seeing Angela Lansbury at 1970s NYC Sex Club

When John Waters visited the Hellfire Club – a popular sex club in New York City's meatpacking district in the 1970s, he remembered seeing celebrities, such as Andy Warhol and Truman Capote (amongst others). But Page Six reported that one night he saw someone he didn't expect: Angela Lansbury.

"In [Waters'] 2019 book, 'Mr. Know-It-All: The Tarnished Wisdom of a Filth Elder,' the King of Camp claims he once saw the 'Murder She Wrote' star 'checking out the scene' at a spot described as a 'dungeon-like sex club' that catered to 'gay and straight perverts alike,'" the "Hairspray" director told Page Six.

Waters is a huge fan of Lansbury, telling Page Six exclusively, "[Angela] was pure class even forty years ago when these kind of clubs were all the rage. It may have been the only night she was ever there, but just her presence made Hellfire a little more welcoming."

The story reappeared courtesy of Ed Gunts from LGBTQ Nation, who recalled in a chapter entitled "One-track mind," Waters described Hellfire as a "dungeon-like sex club" beneath Ninth Avenue that catered to "gay and straight perverts alike," some "mixing together" and others "just plain voyeuring like happy sex tourists." Built underground around an old subway platform, the club was "all the rage for a while."

"Waters subsequently spoke about seeing Lansbury at Hellfire in a virtual book talk organized by Literati Bookstore in Ann Arbor, Michigan," the LGBTQ Nation report said.

During the book store event, interviewer Sam Krowchenko said, "as someone who was raised on 'Murder, She Wrote,' Waters' disclosure that he saw Lansbury at Hellfire 'stopped me in my tracks.' He asked Waters what he remembered about that night."

"Waters put Lansbury in the voyeur category. He said it was in the years before the AIDS epidemic, a time when all kinds of people visited New York's sex clubs," LGBTQ Nation said.

"'Everybody went. She wasn't doing anything,' Waters said. 'It was in Hellfire, and Hellfire was a straight gay bar [where] people had sex. You would be standing there talking about the new novel of Alain Robbe-Grillet, and a [penis] would come through a glory hole and – ha ha ha – then you just move down' to a different location in the club," LGBTQ Nation quoted Waters saying.

The Hellfire Club was one of the numerous BSDM/sex clubs scattered throughout in the warehouse district in the 1970s, which also included The Anvil and the Mineshaft, where Robert Mapplethorpe often photographed the goings-on. What made the Hellfire Club different is that it catered to both straights and gays alike.