The Filth and The Jury - Alan G. Parker Interview

In the autumn of 1978 Sid Vicious became a killer; this was the verdict of the British press and the New York Police Department’s account of the crime scene at the Chelsea Hotel. Nancy Spungen, the then girlfriend of The Sex Pistols’ bassist, was found dead in the bathroom of The Chelsea with an ultimately fatal stab wound to the abdomen. The police had concluded immediately that Vicious had murdered her in a drug induced trance, despite the fact that he had been unconscious for nearly eight hours in the period that she had died as a result of having consumed a copious amount of a notoriously strong barbiturate, tuinal.

Added to the fact that the NYPD never queried why $20,000 had gone missing from the crime scene at the time of Spungen’s stabbing, the investigation into her death rankles with Alan G. Parker. “It took her two and a half hours to bleed to death; if he stabbed her in that seven and a half hours answer me one question; when did she start bleeding in that first four hours?”

Parker, who is Vicious’ official biographer and has written several books including “Vicious: Too Fast To Live”, stresses that the motivation for his new film, Who Killed Nancy? is an opportunity to exonerate Vicious of his lover’s murder; and also “a chance to try and do something that I promised my friend (Vicious’ mother, Anne Beverley) I’d do in 1996 before she died.

One thing we didn’t want to do was make a movie about The Sex Pistols...if we did mention them, it was vague” explains Parker of his approach to the film, conscious that the story of The Sex Pistols has already been told. On the appeal of Vicious, Parker acknowledges that “Johnny Rotten was the words and mind of The Sex Pistols...but Sid was the sales factor”.

Despite the relatively ubiquitous spread of The Sex Pistols’ legend, Vicious’ and Spungen’s story has remained a mystery to the public, something Parker has been determined to change long before he met Vicious’ mother.

“I met Bev in 1984, and she said to me, ‘don’t worry love, we’ll do the book on my son and in one year’s time you’ll have a chance to get your life back to normal’”. A quarter of a century on, Parker intends Who Killed Nancy? to be the final line that is drawn under the mystery that surrounds the death of Spungen.

Sid Vicious died a matter of months after Spungen, overdosing on a ‘hotshot’; uncut heroin that is too pure for the human body to withstand. Even if he had survived the overdose, Parker is adamant that Vicious was born to die young. “He was that kind of person; he had a stamp on his ticket from the outset”.

‘Who Killed Nancy?’ presents a strong case for Vicious’ innocence, but Parker acknowledges that the movie may still prove polemic. “If you see it and you think we’re right, god bless you. If you think we’ve got it wrong, equally god bless you, because you’ve got an opinion”.

The question of who killed Nancy may never be answered, but Parker believes he is as close as anyone will get to the truth. His investigative skills serve as a chastening indictment of the NYPD and their contribution to the beginning of the end of Sid Vicious.