Pamela Rooke
Pamela Rooke, known as Jordan, was an English model, actress, band manager, author and veterinary nurse who helped shape 1970s London punk. She was born on 23 June 1955 in Seaford, East Sussex, England, and died on 3 April 2022 in Seaford at the age of 66.
Rooke became famous for her work with Vivienne Westwood and the Sex boutique on King’s Road and for attending many early Sex Pistols performances. Her striking look—a bleached platinum-blonde bouffant and heavy eye makeup—made her a punk icon, and she is credited with helping create the London punk style alongside Johnny Rotten, Soo Catwoman and Siouxsie Sioux.
She took the stage name Jordan at age 14 in Seaford. She eventually joined the Sex shop in London after arriving with bold style, and she later faced challenges commuting from Seaford to the city.
In the late 1970s she worked as an early manager for Adam and the Ants and recorded the track “Lou” as a guest lead vocalist for BBC Radio 1 DJ John Peel’s Peel Sessions, performing it with the band from mid-1977 to 1978. In the 1980s she managed Wide Boy Awake, whose guitarist was her then-husband Kevin Mooney (a former member of Adam and the Ants).
Rooke appeared in Derek Jarman’s Sebastiane and played the lead role of the punk “anti-historian” Amyl Nitrate in Jubilee. She also appears in Julien Temple’s The Great Rock and Roll Swindle and performed on stage with the Sex Pistols during their first live television performance of “Anarchy in the U.K.” in August 1976. The FX series Pistol features Maisie Williams portraying Rooke’s influence and ethos.
After divorcing Mooney in 1984, she returned to Seaford, bred Burmese cats and worked as a veterinary nurse. Her autobiography, Defying Gravity: Jordan’s Story, written with Cathi Unsworth, was published in 2019.
Pamela Rooke died on 3 April 2022 in East Sussex from cholangiocarcinoma (bile duct cancer).
This page was last edited on 3 February 2026, at 03:14 (CET).