Sullivan's Travails

Off the track with the fastest playboy on four wheels

EVEN before Danny Sullivan won the Indianapolis 500 last Memorial Day weekend, Miller beer had built a heady ad campaign around him. The ad boldly proclaimed the relatively unknown Sullivan ''an American legend in the making." An ex-New York taxi driver made good, he is a flashy anomaly among grease monkeys, a rakish glamour puss who lives at warp speed both on and off the asphalt. Sullivan's world, by all accounts, is one of wild nights, playboy antics, and glittery entourages that feature the likes of Christie Brinkley, Susan Anton, and Victoria Principal. Equipped with a beefcake grin and show-biz schmooze, he will soon cruise into an episode of Miami Vice, as well as a racing film being written for him, entitled Yankee Lady.

The American Legend, now officially sanctioned by People magazine, was actually fourteen years in the making: rambunctious scion of a wealthy Kentucky clan flees north to New York and takes many odd jobs, until 1971, when a family friend sends him packing to an English racing school and, eventually, glory.

Sullivan, an open-minded sort, readily agreed to let me trail him for a few days. We met at the Detroit Grand Prix, where he had come not to race but to fraternize. Afterward, I pursued him through a night of partying in New York prior to his competing in the U.S. Grand Prix at the Meadowlands.

The slowest thing about Danny Sullivan is his drawl. He eats fast, sleeps fast, walks fast. He loves to talk nonchalantly about the sensation of driving the length of a football field in one second. Jaded pit crews gathered around him and listened attentively. "The difference between going 208 and 214 miles per hour is very little," he told an oily gaggle. "You don't really feel it."

A smart dresser, he often wears white, highlighting his tan. At night, he favors the loose, linen styles of Gianni Versace. Sullivan's fashion philosophy: "Hell, I'dratherbe naked. " His only physical imperfection is decidedly odd: he has no earlobes. Also, as one female admirer noted, "he's shorter than he ought to be."

He never refuses autographs (always dotting his V s with hollow circles) or photo requests, unless he is asleep. One morning in the coffee shop of his Detroit hotel, he groused: "This goddamn girl I met at the track yesterday called me at two A.M. and asked if she could come upstairs to get a kiss and her picture taken. Then, to make it worse, she woke me up again at seven this morning to apologize."

Sullivan travels, he says, forty-seven weeks a year. He divides spare time between his Aspen condo and the Los Angeles home of interior decorator Julie Nini, whom he calls "my regular girlfriend." Otherwise, he lives out of a suitcase in such plush hotels as the Plaza Ath6nee in New York, getting special rates: "I spend a lot of dough here. I never get out for under one or two grand—and that covers five nights at the most!"

Although he doesn't smoke, Marlboro pays him handsomely to wear clothing bearing its logo. Although he seems to like wine spritzers, he will quickly switch to a Miller High Life whenever photographers prowl. "I don't wanna be an actor," he often stressed, "I wanna be in promotions." Said one racing wag, ''Danny has a rare quality—charisma. He may be the best goodwill ambassador this sport has ever seen. ' '

He's a media magnet. On what was said to have been a ' 'slow' ' day in Detroit, he spoke with two dozen reporters, allowing them anywhere from a moment to a half-hour. Usually, by the fifth question his eyes glazed over. ''He's getting bored with it, " a Sullivan confidant told me. The subject that bores him most is the now famous 360-degree spinout that preceded his crossing the Indy finish line. Second-most: skirt chasing.

Sullivan makes time for anyone . For instance, during a party at the Manhattan video club Private Eyes, he frequently danced with two women simultaneously. Watching this, his physical trainer, Dan Isaacson, shrugged: "See, this playboy image has been blown completely out of proportion."

His primary dance partners that night were a blonde equestrienne named Vicki and Gregory Peck's actress daughter, Cecilia. He exchanged several long, passionate kisses with both, and, later, when escorting Cecilia Peck to her door in Gramercy Park, he instructed his limo driver to circle the block until he reappeared. Climbing back into the car, Sullivan sighed to his fellow passengers: "I got to win me a couple more of these Indy 500s."

Bill Zehme