In our Sex Stars of 1979, we predicted big things for Canadian model D. D. Winters. It took a while, but eventually, she proved our point. As alter ego Vanity, she snagged a stint as Prince's paramour and as the sultry siren of Vanity 6, a trio whose self-titled album spawned the smash hit Nasty Girl. Then came two solo Motown LPs--Wild Animal and Skin on Skin--and movies such as 52 Pick-Up and Berry Gordy's fiery The Last Dragon, in which she played a video jock with an eye for singles. "People are always saying to me, 'Don't move around so much, just stand still,' " she says. "But I have a lot of energy."
Vanity's new movie, Action Jackson, is a thriller co-starring Carl Weathers; she plays a coked-up chanteuse trying frantically to derail from the fast lane. To prepare for the part, the singer-cum-Method actress dived deep into the sordid underbelly of L.A., talking to addicts and pimps ("They're drowsy but real sharp"). "It's the best role I've ever had--I get to be funny, cool, energetic. And I've got a lot of that crazy personality in me already." The film boasts her rendition of a steamy song, Undress Me. It's not a request she usually has to make twice. "I'd like to say, 'Hey, everybody, take your clothes off and relax.' I feel my most comfortable when I'm naked." So we see.
After falling for her at the American Music Awards, Prince dubbed her Vanity. "He's said to me that we were each other in a former life, and I really believe that." Until recently, the king of her heart was Mötley Crüe's flamboyant bassist, Nikki Sixx, who seemed for a time to be doubling on wedding bells. "We definitely plan to marry within a year," Vanity told us when we first talked with her in Rome, where she was hosting the TV variety show Fantastico. The next week, the romance was kaput. But nothing is very likely to slow the vivacious Vanity down. And she's nothing if not versatile. "When I go away to act, my singing misses me; when I make an album, my acting misses me. I've just always been on stage. I think I'm a natural-born performer." Although she feels that her two careers complement each other--and although she's proud of a newly expanded vocal register--she doesn't hesitate to play favorites: "I think that at this point in my life, I'm definitely much better at acting." Vanity relaxes by painting "surrealist" canvases, many of them brazenly erotic. She also intends to write her own film this year and, she says, there's another album in the works. What about another movie? "Definitely." You read it here first.
