Nikki Haskell: A Force To Be Reckoned With

All Photos:  Alan Mercer    Lighting: Eric V.

Nikki Haskell is an internationally recognized socialite hosting parties in New York, Los Angeles, Cannes, Miami and other international cities, and best known for her 'StarShapes' diet system which has taken over all of Hollywood. She divides her time between New York and Los Angeles.

Nikki was one of the first female stockbrokers on Wall Street working for Drexel Burnham Lambert and was named "Stockbroker of the Year." She then moved on to the entertainment industry creating 'The Nikki Haskell Show,' which she also produced and hosted for 300 episodes on early cable television and is considered a forerunner to shows like 'Entertainment Tonight' and 'Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous.' The show was on location in countries around the world covering Carnivale in Rio, where Nikki danced with a massive headdress high atop a float in the Samba School Parade, the Cannes Film Festival, and was one of the first shows to cover the fashion shows of Carolina Herrera, Bill Blass, Oscar de la Renta, and Calvin Klein.

Nikki also interviewed dozens of celebrities and international figures including Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos, Liza Minnelli, and Joan Collins to name a few. Many episdodes were shot in the world famous 'Studio 54,' 'The Nikki Haskell Show' was the only show ever allowed to shoot at the club, where Nikki hosted many parties including ones for Michael Jackson and Liza Minnelli.
Many articles have been written about her including the front page of 'The Wall Street Journal,' articles in 'The New York Times,' 'Time Magazine,' 'People,' 'Newsweek,' 'The Los Angeles Times,' and many tabloids. Nikki is a frequent talk/entertainment/news show guest on shows like 'David Letterman,' 'The Joan Rivers Show,' '20/20,' 'Extra!,' and 'Access Hollywood.' She has made many appearances on 'The E! True Hollywood Story' series speaking on a variety of topics including Studio 54, Donald Trump, Robert Evans, The Village People.

Nikki Haskell is the author of the 'Star Diet Book,' now in its third printing. She is also well known for her billboards touting 'StarShapes' on Sunset Boulevard which have been a staple of the Sunset Strip since 1991. The billboards feature Nikki sitting atop the StarShapes letters which are spelled out to look like the Hollywood Sign. She won the 2001 Sunset Strip Star Billboard Award.

Eric Venturo and I LOVED working with Nikki! She is fascinating and fun, fun fun! I really could have talked to her all day and night! Her beautiful Sunset Strip Highrise made a perfect setting for the glamorous photos you see here. Nikki's home is filled with lots of photographs and art, including some of her own, along with several LeRoy Neiman originals. She also has this amazing view of Los Angeles following Sunset Blvd. all the way downtown.  Nikki Haskell is charming, full of life, love and laughter...and she's a world class beauty.

AM: Nikki you are the queen of Sunset Strip Billboards aren't you?

NH: I am. This is my twentieth billboard! You know people all over the world actually stop me and ask where my billboard is. I'm just expected to have a billboard on Sunset.

AM: You mostly do have them don't you?

NH: The first one I had was in 1991. Whenever I get inspired with a new product or a new photo shoot or whatever it is, I get a billboard!

AM: Well how fabulous is that?

NH: I won the Sunset Strip Billboard award and I got a call saying they were going to throw it out one day and I said, "No, no, can't we keep it?" They told me it was all torn up....Wouldn't it be great if I had a huge piece of property and I could stick the billboards all over the property? That might be too much, but you never know. Too much is never enough! (We are all laughing)

AM: I love your famous quote!

NH: "If I can't do it in high heels I'm not interested."

AM: I love that!

NH: That's always been my motto.

AM: I knew Andy Warhol a tiny bit. Can you tell me about your relationship with Andy?

NH: My relationship with Andy started long before I met Andy.

AM: How is that?

NH: I was an art major and I was totally influenced by Andy Warhol. You see most of my paintings are very pop art-ish. I always do something and think to myself, "Would Andy have liked this?" I always had a lot of fun with Andy.

AM: Did you like him immediately?

NH: When I first met him I was so impressed with his ability as an artist, much more so than most people were. Most people took him as a socialite that painted. I always knew that Andy's works would be worth millions and millions of dollars. Unfortunately in those days I couldn't really afford it. There was another problem because Andy had a show and I had a show.

AM: Yes I remember them well.

NH: His show was called 'Famous For Fifteen Minutes.' It wasn't very popular. It was very avant guard. My show was about parties in the South of France and Carnivale in Rio and things like that.

AM: So you and Andy were a natural pair of friends.

NH: The Andy Warhol Camp really didn't like me. They felt I was infringing on the fact that we both had shows, but Andy loved me. He used to call me and say, "Gee I saw your show on Rio De Janeiro." I always thought, "Wouldn't it be great if Andy and I could do a show together?" Of course that never did materialize.

AM: When was the last time you saw him?

NH: I gave a party in New York for Dionne Warwick when she launched her perfume and Andy came to the party. The next day he went into the hospital and died so this was the last party he was ever at.

AM: But you really liked him as a person didn't you?

NH: He was great. I found him very inspirational. Now people look at his work and it's so "of the time" but most people didn't respect him as an artist the way they do now. You could buy two portraits for $25,000.00 back then.

AM: Do you think that Artists have to die to be appreciated?

NH: Yes, I hate to say this because it sounds so cliché. The sixties, seventies and eighties produced the best artists, Roy Lichtenstein, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Andy and LeRoy Neiman, who is still alive.

AM: You are obviously a big fan of LeRoy Neiman.

NH: I love LeRoy! He is one of my closest friends.

AM: How did you meet him?

NH: When I quit being a stock broker I went to a head hunter and they asked me if I wanted to be LeRoy Neiman's assistant. I went to meet him and he was signing these South of France paintings he had done. I sat with him for about two hours and three weeks later Prince Egon Von Furstenberg and I decided to do a television show and LeRoy came on as my first guest. He used to come to all my parties. I never gave a party that he didn't come to. We always had the most hysterical times. We went to Rio De Janeiro together when he did his Carnivale book. He's done quite a few paintings of me in my Carnivale costumes. He's painted my birthday invitations every year since 1980.

AM: Since you are such an artistic person, I'm curious how you ended up being a big shot on Wall Street?

NH: OK, I'll give you the whole story. I was born in Chicago and brought up in Beverly Hills from the time I was twelve years old. We originally came out here after my father was in an automobile accident, to visit friends of my parents. On the first day of school in the Eighth Grade my father drove me to school in the morning and died that night.

AM: Whoa! Talk about a new life!

NH: So hear I was in a totally different environment living in Los Angeles, but it was really great. You know I see all these movies where kids start in a new school and they are being harassed. They never did that with me. We used to go to the Beverly Theater every Saturday and the first day that I went, they were chanting my name. The word had gotten out that I was this new hot kid from Chicago. I was popular immediately.

AM: I don't think I've ever heard anything like this before!

NH: I was very lucky. My first best friend was Barry Diller. I had great friends and I'm friendly with almost all of them to this day. A few of them have fallen by the way side, but basically I'm friendly with all of them. I went to Beverly Hills High School. I was just going to grow up, get married and live happily ever after so I was never really equipped to do anything. I was an artist looking for a husband.

AM: Were you a little different than your friends?

NH: All my girlfriends were married by the time they were eighteen. I was the last one to get married and I got married and divorced twice to the same person. He was in the real estate business, but I had my real estate license by the time I met him. My ex-husband developed Lancaster, California. Then we got divorced and I took $18,000.00 and I ran it into millions of dollars in the stock market. Then we got married again and I gave him the money which was the dumbest thing I ever did.

AM: Why did you do that?

NH: I didn't realize how hard it was to make two million dollars! It seemed easy at the time. Oh this is a piece of cake. I could do this every day. So we moved to New York and my husband was writing a book. He said, "Why don't you get a job? I thought, "Get a job!?! Why would I want to get a job!?!" I got married so I would never have to work. Then I thought I would become a stock broker. A friend of mine owned a brokerage firm and I went to them. It never entered my mind there were no women on Wall Street.

AM: You really didn't know this?

NH: I just never really thought about it. It wouldn't have made any difference to me one way or the other. They sent me to school and I passed my exam. I got divorced and worked on Wall Street. I went from living on Park Avenue to making seventy-five dollars a week as a trainee before I became a stock broker. I did that for ten years. I hated it and left and started my television show.

AM: But you were applauded as a Star on Wall Street weren't you?

NH: Absolutely. I was a force to be reckoned with.....as I always am. I was really ahead of the curve because there were no women on Wall Street. I went to restaurants where they didn't let women in. That never affected me.

AM: Did you have any problems being a woman on Wall Street?

NH: Well first they embraced me as a mascot who was nice and fun to be with, then when I started getting all the business with million share orders, they didn't like me so much.

AM: Well that isn't very nice.

NH: They kept accusing me of doing business on my back. They'd say things like, "Who did you have to sleep with to get that order?" After a while I said, "I've had enough of this."

AM: Were you ready to not be working anymore?

NH: The problem is I like to get up every morning and be responsible for my life. I'm very creative. When you're a stock broker you're at the world's mercy. I was also running millions and millions of dollars of other people's money and I didn't want to be responsible for that anymore.

AM: That's too much responsibility.

NH: I did make a lot of money for a lot of people, but there were people who lost money too and I don't like that. I'd much rather do something that is creative. When I got the opportunity to have a television show I jumped on it. I wanted to shoot at Studio 54.

AM: You're the only show that was ever allowed in there right?

NH: The only show was me. There were no other shows. My show was every Friday night where I would give a party at a club and they would pay me $5,000.00 for something like a Movie Premiere or a Record Launch or like when Whitney Houston's album went triple platinum I gave a party for Clive Davis.

AM: Your show also featured fashion designers didn't it?

NH: I was shooting the fashion shows and putting in a different designer. I was the first show that ever did that. The great thing about my television show was that I created my own events.

AM: Tell me about some of your legendary parties.

NH: I gave a party for Eric Estrada one time and Harley Davidson gave me twenty Harleys and we hung them from the ceiling into the middle of flower arrangements. Another time I gave a party for Allan Carr for 'Where The Boys Are' and we totally redid the entrance to Studio 54 with a boardwalk and body builders, boats and sand, it was fabulous!

AM: Do you have a favorite party?

NH: The best party I ever gave was for Yul Brenner...and Michael Jackson came. That's when I became friendly with Michael Jackson. We launched 'Thriller' on the bridge of Studio 54. I gave a party for Cher. I gave a lot of parties in the South of France. I gave parties all over the world. That was fun, great fun. It was a lot more fun than just hanging out in Beverly Hills.

AM: Do people still party like that now?

NH: Everything runs in cycles. There will never be another Studio 54, but there'll never be another Copacabana. I'm doing a documentary on the Sunset Strip.

AM: This is one of your current projects?

NH: Yes but it's not my creation. They brought me in because when I grew up in Los Angeles, I was going to nightclubs since I was three years old. My parents took me out ever single weekend with them. I guess they didn't have a babysitter, so I was used to going out.

AM: What is it like when you are five years old to be out clubbing?

NH: I used to see Carmen Miranda, Jimmy Durante and Milton Berle all in Chicago at the Chez Paris or Mr. Kelly's where all the comediennes played. I've known Don Rickles, and Shecky Green, all of them, since I was six years old!

AM: That's remarkable!

NH: Allan Carr gave me a birthday party and my dear friend Suzanne Plechette said she'd known me the longest and Jill St. John said , "I've known Nikki since she was in High School'" and then Milton Berle said, "I've known Nikki since she was six years old." I got an early start. That's why I know so many people.

AM: Were your parents in show business?

NH: No my father was in the millinery business. He made Nikki hats and Stanley hats, but they went out...and took me with them. Mother was very fashionable and always as chic as can be. As soon as I was her height I whipped into her dresses immediately. So when I came to the Sunset Strip at clubs like the 'Cloister' where Bobby Darin and Tony Bennett and a lot of great stars performed, I was already used to it. That's how I met all these people when I was young. You have to start young.

AM: Your show was the predecessor to all these shows like 'Entertainment Tonight.'

NH: Everything! What I don't understand is I had a show when nobody else had a show and now everybody has a show and I don't.

AM: That is weird isn't it?

NH: Isn't that the pits? I hate it.

AM: It's not to your advantage to be ahead of your time.

NH: I've always been ahead of my time. I'm always, always on the cutting edge.

AM: What about writing a book?

NH: I wrote a book called the Star Diet and I just wrote a screenplay called 'Over Dressed When Naked' which is autobiographical. It's a chunk of my life that runs from 1962 to 1977 just before Studio 54 opened. It was during my stock broker days.

AM: Is it a comedy?

NH: It's very funny. I have a very amusing life. Do I think the clubs are over? I went to 'Trousdale' the other night and had the best time of my life! None of my friends want to go because they think it's awful and loud. They didn't really like it that much to begin with. You see I used to like to go dancing every night. That's why I started my television show so it would be my job to go dancing every night. I love it. I could go dancing every night. I do my best thinking on the dance floor.

AM: I love that! How did you get into diet pills?

NH: You never know what I'm going to come up with next! I've been all over the place. I have always been on a diet. My mother put me on a diet from the day I was born. The truth of the matter is if you're not taught to eat properly as a child you're never going to eat properly as an adult. Sixty-seven percent of Americans are over weight. It's because they are eating pizza, pasta, candy and that's what it's all about. They don't know what's right. My mother never gave me anything fattening as a child. We never had a potato or a pizza, nothing.

AM: What did she feed you?

NH: Vegetables, fish, salads, chicken, meat, the things you are supposed to eat.

AM: So you grew up educated on nutrition.

NH: Right. I always ate properly. I am a big cookie, candy, ice cream person but I never have them in the house.

AM: You don't ever over indulge?

NH: The other day I had some candy in the house and I had to throw it down the toilet. I have no control.

AM: What do you think is ahead for you? Do you live life on a day to day basis or do you plan ahead?

NH: Ironically enough I never planned anything. I didn't plan on being a stock broker. I planned on being a wife and of course that never really came to fruition. Then I invented my exercise equipment called the 'Star Cruncher' which I still haven't finished with because I had all this trouble with the football players. I'm doing a dance exercise video called 'Dance With The Star Cruncher' that I invented dancing on the floor of Studio 54! I wanted something that you could exercise with and not have to go to the gym because I hate going to the gym. It's beyond boring.

AM: But you do exercise?

NH: I use my Star Cruncher. I have a trainer and I work out every day a little bit for about a half an hour. I don't kill myself at it. I have to be careful because I have a tendency to over do everything. There's certain things that I planned out in my life.

AM: What creative project are you working on now?

NH: I'm doing a hip hop musical called 'The American Dream.' I discovered this very talented boy by the name of Sayla. He wrote the screenplay and then we worked on it together. He wrote all the music but I directed him, telling him what kind of songs I wanted. There's one song called 'Superstar' where we drop every name like Gucci, Pucci, Ferrari, and all that stuff. It's going to be the next 'West Side Story.' I'm excited about that. I'm working on a lot of different projects. You have to do fifty different things because you never know what's going to click.

AM: You enjoy the internet don't you?

NH: I've been on the internet from the beginning. The first year we were in business with Star Caps we did $35,000.00. The last year we did two million.

AM: Do people ask you for advice?

NH: People ask me for advice on everything!

AM: Do you give it?

NH: Of course! I have an opinion on absolutely everything. Anything you want to know I'll tell you about! (much laughter)

Follow Nikki on Twitter http://twitter.com/#!/NikkiHaskell
Check out the StarShape site here www.starshapeproducts.com