The Daily Swarm

Trailer: Did Sid Kill Nancy?

Film Synopsis

On October 12th 1978 Nancy Spungeon, an ex-prostitute, sometimes stripper and heroin addict, was found dead in a bathroom at the Chelsea Hotel in New York. She also happened to be the girlfriend of the Sex Pistols’ bassist Sid Vicious, who was quickly accused of her murder. Less than 6 months later, he died of a heroin overdose and the case was closed.

The death of Sid and Nancy has passed into rock legend and has only added to the controversial and notorious image of the Sex Pistols and punk music.

At the request of Sid’s mother, who committed suicide in 1996, rock author and punk expert Alan Parker has devoted himself to discovering WHO KILLED NANCY? By interviewing 182 people and re-examining NYPD evidence, he investigates what really happened that night in room 100.

Sid Vicious: Little boy lost, from The Guardian , by Jon Savage

The voice is quavery and hesitant, the sound of a frightened, exhausted young man. The trebly nature of the recording – on a cassette, over the telephone – makes him sound old, paper-thin, and accentuates the slight hitch in his voice. For he is talking, quietly and surely, about his own self-destruction: “I can’t drink, I can’t, like the doctor said if I drank anything even remotely like the way I’ve been drinking for the past however long, I’ve got six months at the absolute outside to live.”

It’s 20 January 1978. There is a snowstorm in New York. The previous day, Sid Vicious slipped into a valium and methadone coma during a flight from the west coast and was rushed off the plane into a hospital in Jamaica, Queens, hard by JFK airport. A few days ago, he was the bass player in the Sex Pistols, playing to more than 5,000 people in San Francisco’s Winterland. Now that the group has split up he is all alone, very lonely, and fearful of the future. The only person to contact him is Roberta Bayley – the doorperson at the city’s CBGB club and a successful photographer, with credits including the first Ramones LP, who befriended him during the Sex Pistols US tour.

The blizzard is so severe that no one can get out to Queens from the city, so she calls him, in an act of humanity tinged with the demands of reportage. The Sex Pistols split is big news, so she tapes the conversation, just in case.

Like any reasonable person, Bayley is appalled by Sid’s headlong flight into oblivion. “Oh well, then don’t drink, you asshole,” she chides. “You have to straighten out for a while.” No chance. “I can’t straighten up,” Sid replies, his voice cracking. “I just can’t be straight.”

Later, he simply concludes: “My basic nature is going to kill me in six months.” In fact, Sid lasted double that, dying of a heroin overdose in the early hours of 2 February 1979. He was internationally notorious, and only 21.

I included a transcript of the Bayley tape in my history of punk, England’s Dreaming, but it has never been broadcast before now. You can hear extracts from it – along with fresh interviews – in a new BBC Radio 4 documentary that coincides with the 30th anniversary of Sid Vicious’s death.

A Sid and Nancy Time Magazine Photo Gallery