With five UK Top Ten hits in the 1970s and a unique ability to rock a leather jumpsuit, Suzi Quatro became one of the UK’s favourite adopted Americans. After playing Leather Tuscadero in Happy Days, Quatro also appeared in Minder, Absolutely Fabulous and was a regular on TV quiz shows.
She has two children from her first marriage to the guitarist and producer Len Tuckey, and two grandchildren. Now 71, Quatro lives in an Elizabethan manor house in Essex and is married to the music promoter Rainer Haas, who lives in Germany. The couple count Mallorca as their neutral zone.
How much is in your wallet?
About £200. I also keep euros because my husband lives in Hamburg, so we go back and forth. If I’m going for a couple of weeks I’ll take €500 or maybe €1,000.
Which cards do you use?
I have a Visa debit, a Mastercard for personal use, and for business a black Mastercard.
Are you a saver or a spender?
I was one of five kids, so my mother was thrifty. We lived great, but she wouldn’t waste anything, so I have a bit of that in me. I like a good life but I don’t like to waste.
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Do you own a property?
I’ve lived in my home in Essex since 1980, when I bought it for £123,000. It’s a 15th-century, grade II listed manor house, set in three and a half acres. It has three floors, a huge patio, an orchard and a poplar-lined driveway. Every time I drive up I get an intake of breath because it’s gorgeous. I fell in love with it as soon as I saw it and still love it now. It was sold as a nine-bedroom house, but I converted one room into an office for my husband, one is a guitar room, and I also have an ego room on the third floor. There’s a plaque on the door that says “Ego room — mind your head” and it’s my entire career in one room. The walls and the ceiling are covered with my posters and it’s filled with my scrapbooks, awards, bass guitars and stage clothes. I’ve had my jumpsuits made for me right from the start. You can’t get those things anywhere, so since 1973 they’ve been made for me by designers. They don’t last long because you’re soaking wet in them and they finally just disintegrate. I get a couple of new ones every five or six years, then the old ones get retired. I had the last ones made in Hamburg. They cost €800 or €900. Not that much.
Are you better off than your parents?
My dad did well, but overall I’d say yes. I grew up in a very nice four-bedroom house in a suburb of Detroit, but I was one of five, so I never knew what having my own bedroom was like until I grew up. My mother was the quintessential mother. She raised us wonderfully and, boy oh boy, you could eat off the floor. My dad was an engineer at General Motors and had a music agency, so he booked bands, and in the evening he played in them. He loved music — but it also made a good living.
How much did you earn last year?
I have no idea, but it wasn’t a normal year. I had 85 shows in the book and all except four were cancelled.
Have you ever been hard-up?
I was touring in bands from 14, and there was a time when we slept on mattresses in a van. We were lucky if we got a hamburger a day. You suffer for your art, I tell you. When I first came to England in 1971 I lived near Earls Court Tube station in a small room with a single bed and no toilet. It wasn’t the best, but 18 months later I had my first No 1.
What was your most lucrative work?
In 1966, when I was 16, I would take home $1,000 a week. My eldest sister’s first husband managed the band. He had three kids to support with whatever he earnt, so he got our money up. It didn’t last long, because they got divorced, but at the time we were in New York, playing five shows a night, seven nights a week. It was real hard work but I remember he put that in my hand, and I went: “Wow.” $1,000 a week was unheard of in 1966.
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Do you invest in shares?
No. Never done that. It’s not something I understand, so I don’t want to chance it.
What has been your best investment?
The house. I haven’t had it valued for years, but it will continue to go up. I’m constantly doing repairs. I’m conscious that I’m caretaker of a listed property, and I make sure it stays in the condition it should. At one point I was thinking of building a conservatory. Somebody from the council came and pointed out that the windows were meant to be leaded light, but somebody had taken them out before I moved in. I haven’t a clue how much that cost, but I know was angry.
Your worst investment?
I’m so careful I can’t think of one. I learnt the difference between cheap and quality quite young. I learnt that it’s not worth buying cheap jeans or a cheap leather jacket because they fall to pieces. I go to Diesel or Zadig & Voltaire and of course Levi. I have snakeskin boots with a Cuban heel that I had made at a cowboy store in Miami. I have a brown pair and a blue pair, and they each have a matching belt with a beautiful silver buckle. They are gorgeous. I paid about $2,500 for each pair. I can hear my mother’s voice, up there in heaven, disapproving. She’s saying, “Susan!” But I’ve had them since around 1998. They still look beautiful and they’ll last a lifetime. You wear them and you feel like a million dollars.
What’s your money weakness?
Vintage Krug and good wine. You can’t beat Château Margaux 1982. I have no idea how much it is, I just know it’s expensive [it’s nearly £1,000 a bottle]. I’ll have a case of it at any given time, and if I run out I buy another one because it’s my favourite red. When I met my husband he took me to La Tante Claire, which was a three-Michelin-star restaurant in London. He bought a bottle of Château Lafite Rothschild. It’s one of the best you can buy and he paid over £1,000. This was back in 1993, so that was expensive. I was 43, he was 48, and when you get to that age you know what you want. He wanted to impress me and he did. It was only three months from the first kiss to the marriage.
I also have a “suite tooth” for hotel rooms. I’ve slept in a van, so when I got successful I decided I’m damned if I’m sleeping in anything other than a suite. I’ve worked all my life and I’ve got a beautiful home, so why should I stay in a small room? I hate small rooms.
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Often the hotel will upgrade me. In Detroit I stayed in a suite the size of a football field. It was my 60th birthday and I’d flown everybody over and taken over the top floor of the discotheque. I’d booked a nice suite, but they upgraded it and when my granddaughter walked in she went: “Oh, Grandma! Can I be upgraded?” I said: “One day, honey.”
Flying first class is my indulgence. I first flew first class in 1977, when I was living in England and filming Happy Days in LA. It was in my contract that they flew me back and forth first class and that gave me a taste for it. I’m not a great flyer, so being in first class makes it a completely different trip. And of course I like the champagne — that’s a no-brainer.
Your most extravagant purchase?
The most expensive thing I bought, at the time, was a mink coat. It was 1975, so it was allowed back then. I wanted a mink coat, so I went to a furrier with my ex, Lenny. I was earning good money, but this was £5,500 made-to-measure. It’s pretty much full-length and it’s beautiful. I still have it. It’s not politically correct any more, but I do love it.
What’s better for retirement, property or pension?
Property. I don’t think you can lose with property. It always goes up. I have the state pension. I also have a pension I took out years ago. I haven’t a clue what it is, it’s whatever my accountant recommended. This was after my first No 1, Can the Can. That record was huge. It sold two and a half million copies. Mickie Most [the producer] told us to get an accountant. He didn’t want us to ever say: “You’ve cheated us.” So we did. It was good advice.
Suzi Quatro performs at the Royal Albert Hall on April 20; suziquatro.com
