Todd Bailey

Dancer, choreographer; trainer; waiter; former prostitute

Comments (0) By Toni Schlesinger Tuesday, Aug 24 1999

Income: $17,000 (1998)
Resides: Village
Health Insurance: $200/mo. covered by employer
Rent/Utilities/Phone: $1,000/mo.
Food: $450/mo.
Transportation: $40/mo.

photo: Michael Sofronski

"I've done a lot of different things for money."

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They should have called him Lazy Bones back in his prostitute days.

"I wasn't that ambitious about it," Todd Bailey, 31, said. "It was a hard job. One time I had to wear rubber shorts. All I could say in my head was 'Oh God.'

"My best night was $1000 for a few hours of work. But I worked so inconsistently. It's an example of how I am with money. At first I had a client every other night. By the end of six months, it was like one a week. Once an escort service senses you're not interested, they stop calling."

Bailey's Holly Golightly period— though for him it was more like breakfast outside Barney's men's store eating a pretzel and staring in the window— began right after dancing to "The Fleet's In" in the Broadway musical revue Dreamin 1997 for $1000 a week."After the show ended, my income was suddenly taken away. I was desperate. When I went into prostitution, I thought it could just be about the money. But it broke through my numbness, broke my spirit.

"I've done a lot of different things for money. My meal ticket has always been as a dancer. At 13 I signed up for ballet with my friend Sherry, right after we saw Fame. Huntington Beach, California. My parents were supportive. I left school a lot to dance— the Miss All Nations pageant in Thailand. I wore like the most tight spandex pants. Then Star Search, with Ed McMahon.

"I came here 11 years ago, studied at the Neighborhood Playhouse. I wanted to be in films like Terms of Endearment, Harold and Maude.

"But when I first came here, I was so scared, I found myself finding the most safe job. I made sandwiches at a comedy club, hobnobbed with Rosie O'Donnell. I waited tables at a little French restaurant that I bet was laundering money, and then at l8th and 8th, the first time I was in a completely gay atmosphere. It was like you were this servant to the gay royalty. I was in the Radio City Christmas show a few years. I played a snowflake, a polar bear. That brought in $1000 a week for sometimes five shows a day." He got the role of a boy touching himself while staring out a window in the 1993 film Chain of Desire that also had Linda Fiorentino having sex with a workman in a church. "I made a $600 flat fee. My royalties were about a dollar.

"Today I'm really at a crossroads. Though I just choreographed a commercial for VH1 for $3000. Last April, I got into a relationship with a lawyer. It's given me a taste of a nice life. We met at Barracuda."

Now he wakes up in their three-bedroom apartment, lounges on the black leather furniture, and watches a little Rosie O'Donnell before he goes off to wait tables, train, and teach dance. "My boyfriend does not take care of me. I pay rent and all. But he's 14 years older, very successful. So people are skeptical. He's taking me to Italy for 10 days. Having somebody pay my way is a little disempowering. But I'm the one who makes sure we're conscious about how much he's spending on me. I keep records when he buys me something or when I pay.

"In my childhood there were so many things that were negative about money, envy of others having nice things. But if I looked around, we had nice things too. My father had a heating and air-conditioning business. Then it went bankrupt. There was always this feeling that money was going to be taken away."

The other day, Bailey went back to his gym locker and everything was gone— "about $1200 worth: my cell phone, my Abercrombie pants, a Diesel wallet— one of the first things I bought with my prostitution money— and The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success by Deepak Chopra. They left me my underwear."