An Interview with a Village Person
By Mo Jaxon

Even if you were just a twinkle in your daddy’s eye when the Village People set the disco world on fire during the late 70s, you’re not immune to their musical influence. Their trademark hits “Y.M.C.A.,” “Macho Man” and “In the Navy” are still heard around the world in various formats, from workout CDs and DVDs to commercials to the ever-popular disco revival compilations. And if you’re a gay man, you’re probably genetically predisposed to “Go West” in search of the six characters who made up the concept disco group: the Police Officer, American Indian Chief, Cowboy, Leatherman, Military Man and Construction Worker. Ah, good times, good times.
On Saturday, October 11 at 7 pm you can travel back down that nostalgic lane when Mark Lee, a former member of the iconic group, performs at Streetbar in Palm Springs.
Streetbar is one of the city’s most popular gay watering holes and is the ideal locale for a fun, intimate show featuring this personable hunk of a man who stepped into the boots of original Village People Construction Worker David Hodo after he left the group in the early ’80s. The tale of how he was discovered has all the markings of a made-for-TV movie, but definitely Logo not Lifetime.
Mark was attending UCLA with the intent of studying architecture while bartending at the Blue Parrot, one of the hippest gay bars in Los Angeles at the time. The year was 1981. As the story goes, Mark got a gig working as a gofer for an architect who was doing a home for Marc Simon, the VP of Casablanca Records, which was the hot disco label of the era. At a party held after the house was done, Mark, who was a child prodigy on the piano, got coerced into singing a couple of songs after disco star Sylvester spotted him tinkling the ivories out in the garden after the hired entertainment went home. But this party wasn’t your typical housewarming potluck in suburbia; it was a high profile L.A. bash.
“Everybody was there,” Mark recalls during a recent interview where he showed up with his adorable dog Jackson in tow. “I mean EVERYBODY. The guys from the Village People, Sister Sledge, Sylvester—all these people.” Most serendipitously, Jacques Morali was there, the French creative visionary who originally formed the Village People. And when Mark began singing, Jacques made his move. “I remember seeing him through the corner of my eye … and the first thing he said was, ‘Do you want to be in the Village People?’ And I thought, yeah right. It was Hollywood. It was such a common thing, and I guess I was smart enough even then to know the score. But he took my number and he called me and said, ‘Quit your job. You’re going to replace David Hodo [who played the Construction Worker persona]. Get ready in two weeks.’  But I didn’t trust him. And sure enough, he never called back.”
Mark didn’t hear from Jacques for two years, and life, as it does, went on. Mark was still contemplating architecture and still working at the bar. “I remember going to the gym on a Sunday afternoon—which I never do—it was very dead that day. And all of a sudden I saw him and his lover come to the front desk, they were going to work out that day. They were still auditioning to replace David Hodo, and they had auditions in New York. I guess all they were getting were Broadway-type boys, you know, singers and dancers. So his lover spots me and I saw them talking and they both come running over. ‘Remember us? We want you in the Village People.’ By then I had grown up a little bit and basically said, ‘Send me a contract and we’ll talk.’”
Jacques called Mark a few days later and asked if he would consider meeting at the Record Plant on 3rd Street, where they had Mark do a sample recording session, complete with a woman measuring him for costumes. This was followed by dinner with the money man behind the group, and within a matter of days, Mark received a 13-page contract in the mail. He had a buddy at the gym, an entertainment attorney, who reviewed the contract and gave it a thumbs up. So Mark signed it and shipped it back. The following Monday, they sent him $10,000.
“At the time, for me, that was pretty impressive, you know?” Mark remembers. His newfound stardom also netted him interview requests from Variety and People magazine. A plane ticket to New York to begin rehearsing followed, and that’s when the proverbial shit began to hit the fan—Jacques’ true nature and conditional mentorship kicked in. “I didn’t know a soul in New York, and this is where the harassment started,” Mark says. “He [Jacques] didn’t book me a hotel in New York; he wanted me to stay with him.”
Jacques Morali did not let up. For the six years that Mark was with the Village People he had to endure the malice of a man scorned. Morali’s sexual advances went unanswered and Mark paid a price for keeping his integrity.
“Today I would’ve taken him to court for sexual harassment,” Mark says. “When I got the chance [to be in the Village People], it was such a big deal for me. I hadn’t even been out of California. I was just a dumb Christian church kid who got the job because I looked like the character and I could sing. And when the pressure started getting on, I was so afraid of losing the chance. ... And I have to be totally honest with you; there were times when I thought, I’m just going to do this with him to keep this incredible thing. But when it came down to it, I couldn’t do it. It just wasn’t in me. I think some people have the ability to do that, sleep with someone for money, but I just didn’t have it in me. I just realized this was not going to happen and if he was going to kick me out, he was going to kick me out. He went to great extremes to make my life just miserable.”
But while Jacques Morali was a grade A asshole, he was a brilliant one, and came up with the idea for the Village People while exploring the streets and gay bars of New York’s Greenwich Village.
“At the time, gay men were wearing hard hats out, because of the macho thing,” Mark recalls. “There were guys wearing leather; there were guys in cowboy hats. And that was really true in the ’70s. That was a part of the macho gay culture, the outfits to wear. The Indian was literally a bar dancer, and that’s how Jacques found him. He’s actually Puerto Rican, but his schtick as a stripper was to wear the headdress. Jacques thought this all was so fascinating as a French man, because they were American ideals. He was just mesmerized by them and decided that he was going to start a boy group and put all these sexy characters as the singers. So the whole idea started way before the music did or anything. It’s funny. It’s cheesy.” And it’s so queer. In fact, all but one of the six singers, the characters who made up the Village People, were gay, Mark acknowledged.
Even though he lived under the constant threat of harassment and vilification from Jacques, Mark stayed with the Village People for six years, and had one hell of a ride. Three weeks after signing the contract, he opened with the Village People at the Riviera Hotel in Las Vegas. “I hadn’t danced in my life, and I learned like 14 dance routines,” he recalls. “They died my hair blond so I’d look like the original guy. Everybody at the bar [he had worked at in L.A.] rented a big bus and they surprised me the night that I opened. The whole gang of bartenders were right in the front row. After that, my life changed over night. I think after Vegas—we did three weeks in Vegas—we did South Africa, Egypt, Italy for three weeks; it was  almost a year of traveling. But for someone who hadn’t even planned on being in show business, it was being in the right place at the right time.”
Eventually, his stint as a Village Person came to an end. Lack of interest, the death of disco and a creative director who contracted AIDS all contributed to the group’s gradual descent into relative obscurity, soon relegated to playing third-tier hotels and casinos, which brought  Mark back to the arena of his original love.
“While I decided I didn’t want to be an architect, I did work for many years as a project manager for architectural firms that specialized in hotel design and innovation,” he says. “And the funny thing was, we got the Hilton International account. I was the project manager for that, and I went back to several of the places where I sang, which was such a trip. I did that for many years until I came down to Palm Springs five years ago. And I love it. It’s a very spiritual place for me. It quiets me. I came down to be a real estate agent because my friend was making great money out here,” he adds with a sardonic laugh, “and then the market crashed. So I’ve pretty much just been running my little business, and it’s all right.”

If You Go
Mark Lee, Saturday, October 11 at 7 pm at Streetbar, 224 E. Arenas Road, Palm Springs, 760.320.1266. psstreetbar.com/