• Golden Globe Awards

Oral History: Julia Roberts on Dancing in a Dive Bar

For over 40 years the HFPA has recorded famous and celebrated actors, actresses and filmmakers. The world’s largest collection of its kind – over 10,000  items- is now in the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts & Sciences Margaret Herrick Library.In this excerpt from our archives, multiple Golden Globe winner Julia Roberts describes a fun night at New York’s hot spot in the early 1990s – the Hogs and Heifers Saloon, that would go on to inspire the movie Coyote Ugly.” I went with four hockey players to a small club in downtown Manhattan called Hogs and Heifers. We heard it was a great fun place and we took a taxi. It is famous for women customers dancing on top of the bar. No men allowed. It is also famous for having to take off your bra to dance on the bar. So I got a lot of attention and cheers when I got up there. I do not strip as a general rule – I have been offered millions to do it and I wasn’t going to do it for free there. Without taking off my shirt, I loosened my bra and pulled it down underneath – no easy feat – and threw it on the pile. The beat was great, everyone was with it and was having a wonderful time dancing along with the other girls. At some point, a girl was whispering to me so our heads came close together. That’s when a New York Post photographer took our picture.  Next day I’m on the Post’s cover page, our heads together. What does it say? That I tongue kissed her for 30 seconds, the whole nine yards, okay? But if I tongue-kissed her for that long, how come he didn’t get a picture of me doing it?And If I can be in the bar making out with some chick and still leave with four guys -hockey players yet – then nobody is cooler than I am.”