Four decades of control

Angelyne has spent 40 years putting her image exactly where she wants it, on billboards she paid for and approved. Nothing about the persona is accidental.

A handbag crossed the line

Marc Jacobs released a city-themed bag featuring a busty blond caricature that looked a lot like her. Nobody asked her first.

She lawyered up

Her attorney contacted the label and got her paid, plus merchandise. She won't say the number, only that she isn't supposed to.

“My attorney contacted them and they paid me.”

A glitch in the system

She says Jacobs later told her lawyer he loved her and blamed a hired designer who took liberties with the bag.

They burned the stock

The bag quietly disappeared from the website in January and the company never explained why. Angelyne says the leftovers were destroyed.

“They had to burn everything.”

A one-woman licensing desk

Ask how she guards the persona and she recites the paperwork: trademarked name, copyrighted music, art, billboards and screenplays.

“My name is trademarked.”

The actual occasion

Lunch was called to launch SkyAd, Kevin Prince's venture turning formations of lit drones into temporary billboards you rent by the night.

Skeletor set a record

Prince's parent company stages studio drone shows, including a Masters of the Universe display that hung Skeletor over L.A. and broke a brightness record.

The obvious first face

Looking for someone to launch drone advertising, Prince picked the woman who made a career out of buying billboard space for herself.

“We must partner with the original L.A. iconic billboard queen!”

Three hundred drones, fifteen minutes

In July her face and a phone number hovered beside the 101 while the crew shut down an overpass. She showed up in a pink Corvette and drivers honked.

Fifty voicemails and one joke

Callers welcomed her to the new century. She claims Prince paid her a million dollars, he denies it instantly, and the number becomes lunch's running gag.

The strawberry sauce order

At a Hollywood Denny's she requests cheesecake plus a big bowl of nothing but strawberry sauce, then adds ice cubes and eats it like gazpacho.

“I eat strange.”

She directs everything

Prince spent nearly a year on details with her and her longtime collaborator Scott Hennig. Do not call Hennig her artistic director.

“I direct everything. He supplies what I want.”

Heroine Pink is proprietary

She has owned 12 Corvettes and is down to four, each repainted at a North Hollywood body shop in a secret mix of hot pink, metallic pigment and glitter.

Honorary mayor, unlimited parking

Spotting the car in traffic counts as good luck in L.A. She has a key to West Hollywood and says it lets her park anywhere. Even a red curb? No comment.

“I don't want to talk about it.”

Her own version of the story

She rejects the 2017 investigation into her past and the Peacock series it inspired. Her self-produced film, a fantasy pseudo-document, is nearly finished.

“When you see my movie, you'll see who I really am.”

She took the heat first

No doll, no Walk of Fame star, no clothing line. Famous for being famous was an insult when she started, and she thinks today's phone-made personalities are not icons.

“I'm not a publicity whore. I'm seriously specific.”