Superstar in a Housedress: The Life and Legend of Jackie Curtis (6 page)

Lily Tomlin

Sometimes Jackie and Candy would just kind of drop by Jane’s apartment. Or they’d call ahead and say, “we’re in the neighborhood!” One thing that was delightful about Jackie was that you never knew how he was going to show up. When he would come to Jane’s New York apartment he might be dressed as a woman or as a man. You never thought twice about it. You sort of envied someone who was able to casually cross that barrier back and forth, and live his life as a kind of performance art.

Sometimes it was a profound turn on. I would notice everyone getting very sexually disoriented. You weren’t sure how you wanted to relate, either you were absolutely in love, or you were going to be totally protective, you wanted to wait on them hand and foot. And if Jackie was in another incarnation he was like your kid brother.

Harvey Fierstein

Jackie could look beautiful. And Jackie could look very real. I think in
Women in Revolt
there are some scenes where Jackie looks very real. I don’t know what went on in his mind when he would go outside unshaven wearing lipstick. But it was almost like, “I don’t want to look like anybody else, I want to do this my way.”

Alexis del Lago

You know one day Jackie telephoned me and said, “I have to take a break – a vacation, I’m coming over to stay with you.” At that time I had a very big apartment on Riverside Drive and 89th Street. It was an entire floor of a townhouse and it was very fine, high ceilings, chandeliers and it looked like La Belle Epoch. So Jackie arrived with two suitcases of clothes and things. And he had gowns by Yves St. Laurent, and Oscar de la Renta, all these top designer evening gowns – they were only on loan for a photo shoot Jackie had earlier that month. They were not given to him.

Shortly after arriving and unpacking, Jackie said to me, “Alexis, do you have a scissors?” And I said yes, darling, here you are. So in front of my full-length mirror in my dressing room he puts on this exquisite full-length coat by one of these designers and says, “You know, this looks so dumpy” so he takes the scissors and just cut off both sleeves! Then he put on one of the evening gowns, which was floor-length, and he cut about two feet of fabric off the bottom making it short, just above the knee. Then he took another dress and cut it to pieces to make a scarf. Watching this I was wringing my hands, I nearly fainted! He irreparably damaged all these beautiful designer clothes, right before my eyes! I shrieked, “Jackie, what are you doing? How are you going to give them back now?” And he shrugged and said, “Oh don’t worry about it – they look better now!” That was Jackie.

Agosto Machado

One day Jackie just invited herself to Halston’s studio on Fifth Avenue. Halston had the entire floor – way high up in a building overlooking St. Patrick’s Cathedral. And Jackie just walked up to the receptionist and announced, “I’m Jackie Curtis, I’m here to see Halston.” And she did it with such flare, that they were flabbergasted and went and got Halston. He was just finishing his lunch, and ushered Jackie back to his studio, and Jackie said, “I’m doing my new play,
Americka Cleopatra
, and I would love you to come and see it.”

Halston was so caught off guard, that he went and cut a huge length of this gorgeous black material, and Jackie stood there and he draped it around her. It came to Jackie’s wrists. Halston pinned it, and cut it here and there and had one of his seamstresses sew it up and in less than an hour Jackie was walking out of there with an original Halston gown designed especially for
Americka Cleopatra
! Jackie came to the theater and showed it to everyone and said, “It needs something.” He got a pair of scissors and began cutting it off around the knees. Then he looked in the mirror and said, “Oh, that looks too even.” So she just began ripping the fabric. She wore it to Max’s Kansas City, and nobody would believe that it was a Halston, or that it had been a Halston. Well, maybe it was a Halston/Jackie Curtis outfit now.

Barbara Smiley

I met Jackie Curtis while I was a waitress at the Empire Diner. This was during the winter of 1978 through 1979. I was so enamored with him. He’d come in late, probably the grave yard shift, with his wig askew, looking a bit wiped out and we’d talk a bit. I’d go see him perform at his grandmother’s bar … I had a signed copy of one his flyers up on my wall. He was a very sweet person at a time in the 1970s when everyone in New York City seemed a little rough around the edges. I knew nothing of his fame until years later and I never saw him out of drag. Jackie was a very special person.

Michael Musto

Jackie was really a great performer; she really had the audience in the palm of her manicured hand. She just walked on stage and radiated that special something that stars have – I don’t know what it is, it’s indefinable, it’s magic and she had it. And she wasn’t interested in squandering it on small, tiny, silly roles. She only wanted to play the large diva roles. She only wanted to play larger-than-life women. And she never wanted to play a cross-dresser, or a transsexual or a transvestite; she thought that was boring and stupid. She wanted to play women. And back then in the 80s and even before that, it was still a semi-revolutionary idea to do that, to have a man in drag playing a woman. It still had levels of subtext and texture and shock value. This was before the Jerry Springer show, before RuPaul had a TV show. It was a whole other era, and it was still innovative.

If Jackie was still around today, and Lordy, I wish he were – he really could make the drag genre fresh, because he wasn’t just a drag queen – it was theatre, it was subversive. He brought texture, he brought levels to it. It wasn’t just a gimmick. It was a real star up there. And to this day he would be able to carry that off and bring freshness to it, despite the fact that – you know, a man in a dress, ho hum. That’s not what Jackie was. He was a star in a dress. In fact, he said that he was a superstar in a housedress.

Chapter 3 – Films, Plays, and Poetry

Jackie Curtis running through a scene with Director Paul Morrissey and cameraman Andy Warhol during the 1971 filming of
Women in Revolt
.
Photo © Gretchen Berg

Andy Warhol

Jackie Curtis isn’t a drag queen; Jackie is an artist, a pioneer without a frontier.

How Warhol and Curtis Met

There are several versions of how Warhol and Curtis first met. According to an interview that Jackie Curtis gave to Patrick Smith for the book Andy Warhol’s Art and Films, Jackie first met Andy Warhol in 1965 on 42nd Street and 2nd Avenue when he was staying at the YMCA across the street from the silver Factory.

The other version is Andy Warhol’s recollection. He remembered first meeting Jackie Curtis and Candy Darling in 1966 while walking through Greenwich Village with Fred Hughes on his way to pick up a pair of leather pants at the Leather Man.

Jackie was about nineteen, tall and gangly with a Beatles mop top haircut. Walking with him was a tall, sensational blonde drag queen in high heels and a sundress with one strap falling onto her upper arm. Jackie introduced the blonde as Hope Slattery (the name Candy was using in those days – her real name was Jimmy Slattery and she was from Massapequa, Long Island).

Jackie recognized Warhol immediately and asked for his autograph on the shopping bag he was carrying. When Andy asked what was is in the bag, Jackie pulled out several pairs of red satin shorts and told him they were for the tap-dancing scene his new play,
Glamour, Glory and Gold
. Curtis promised to send Warhol tickets to the opening night performance.

Melba LaRose, Jr.

I went in to audition for
Glamour, Glory and Gold
in 1967. In the front row sat the director Ron Link and the playwright Jackie, who was a sweet boy just barely out of high school. It was a cold reading. I was cast in one of the smaller parts first. They told me the part of Nola had been written for Helen Hanst, who was a big star of off-off Broadway at the time. Helen had a job as a switchboard operator at the telephone company and she would always get off late and come in to rehearsal tired and crabby. So one evening we started without her, Ron had me read her part and she walked in and Ron was laughing at my performance. She said, “If you think she’s so funny why don’t you just use her?” And he said, “I think I will!” And she just stormed out and I had three days to learn the part.

The play was a big hit. The critics came opening night and we received a
rave review in the
New York Times
. Dan Sullivan said I was “Jean Harlow down
to the leaden voice and incipient potbelly.” Jackie and Candy played my sidekicks.
Candy Darling was so beautiful and nobody knew at the time that Candy was a man, so
she was reviewed as a woman: “This is the first impersonation of a female
impersonator I have ever seen.” We ran for six months to packed houses. The play was
covered again in a Dan Sullivan article at the end of the season as one of the
highlights of the year.

Jackie had a very boyish look in those days – blond bangs, big shoes, with a
shopping bag parked by his chair. This was his look for some time – on the streets
and in the play. When he appeared on Joe Franklin’s show he took Joe a Halloween
pumpkin in the bag.  Jackie was a master of publicity, so he got news about the
play into all the big gossip columns, on TV, and anywhere else possible. He besieged
them with press releases, phone calls, and visits till they posted something. I
remember we would go uptown to all the Broadway shows and stand in the lobby and
talk up our show. We would say things to each other like “It’s so fabulous, you have
to go downtown, it’s the most incredible show and the newest talent!” The idea was
that people would overhear us and hopefully come and check out our show.

Drugs were not a big thing in 1967. It was the debut production for Jackie,
Candy & myself. We were like young children playing together. Some cast members
were taking Dexamyl sometimes because we needed high energy for this show – I was
constantly onstage and the role was demanding both vocally and physically – many
times I nearly lost my voice.  We did drink some wine backstage, but things had
not gotten out of hand.  It was later that that came into play.  Drugs
were the cause of Candy’s teeth becoming so bad, but I don’t know when exactly she
started using – in the ’70s. Andy paid for caps, but it was a poor dentist and they
kept falling out.  There are many funny stories about that.

In one scene I was having a fit in a Hollywood dressing room and I was to just randomly throw things.  One night by accident, I picked up a wooden hanger and hurled it and it hit Candy Darling right in the middle of the back as she exited to the dressing room.  I could not show a reaction – but it I was paralyzed, thinking I had seriously injured Candy.  At the end of the show, I ran offstage in horror to see if Candy was all right – but she had been worried about ME all the time.  She claimed she wasn’t hurt, but thought how horrible that Melba has to continue her part when she must be so upset!

Andrew Amic-Angelo

I played three male roles in the 1974 revival of
Glamour, Glory and Gold
opposite Jackie. Two of these were small roles: Lefty, a one-armed tuba player, and a mobster named Johnny Apollo. I also played Arnie the film director, which was the male lead in the entire second half of the play.

The first day of rehearsals Jackie wasn’t really in drag. He had on a crewneck sweater, blue jeans and high heels. He was growing his hair out for the show, but it was in pin curls with bobby pins all over. He had on a little pancake makeup with 5 o’clock shadow showing through. Very subtle, for Jackie. We were reading through the script with blocking for the first time and as Johnny Apollo in one scene I had to put my arm around Nola. And I noticed Jackie, or Jackie’s sweater had this odd smell. It wasn’t body odor or perfume. It was a scent I couldn’t place. And during the next break he said to me, “Oh by the way, my girlfriend Mona took this sweater and rubbed it all over her pussy.” And I said, “Oh I was wondering what that odor was!” It sounds insane but it was Jackie’s novel way to get into character. And after rehearsal he took off the sweater and put it in a big plastic bag and twisted it shut to preserve it until next time. It was his Nola Noonan rehearsal sweater, and we all had to get used to it because this female-scented sweater was kind of a talisman that helped him assume the role of this sex goddess.

We rehearsed for months. And in those days they broadcast two episodes of
I Love Lucy
every afternoon and this was Jackie’s favorite show so the rehearsals would be set according to the schedule of the
I Love Lucy
show. And during my key scene as the director Arnie, we actually wrote a line into the script … “Look at you. You are such a pig! All you do all day long is sit around on your ass watching
I Love Lucy
.”

The story line of the play follows Nola Noonan. It’s kind of a rags-to-riches to Hollywood has-been story. And I really think Jackie and Candy Darling and Holly Woodlawn lived that almost every day. They started their day all living together in a tenement on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, looking for handouts, scrounging meals from friends, but by evening they were all dolled up and they were off to some opening or to some rich person’s party. They were real celebrities, but like Cinderella at the end of the night reality returned, and they went back to a life of poverty on the Lower East Side.

At one point we had to stop rehearsing at the Fortune Theater because they rented it out for a month as one of the settings for the movie
Godfather II
. They really fixed it up nice with a new paint job with frescos on the walls. But we had left our props and costumes and the stupid production manager just took everything when they finished shooting. Jackie was frantic because his scented sweater was gone and they took a bunch of hats and props and other things. Our director Ron Link was furious and got on the phone and later that day they let us go to the closed set at the Filmore East and we were allowed to go through the wardrobe and property trailers and take whatever belonged to our show. Of course Jackie, and Estelle, and Madeline and I didn’t bother searching for our old things. We went through the racks and picked out the best things we could find. So our show with the shoestring budget had some wonderful period costumes and hats unknowingly provided by Paramount Studios, Hollywood.

Craig Highberger

Jackie’s play
Glamour, Glory and Gold: the Life and Legend of Nola
Noonan, Goddess and Star!
(which has to be the longest title ever) was
written and originally produced in 1967 and also 1968 featuring Candy Darling and
Robert DeNiro in their first major roles on the stage. The 1974 revival at the
Fortune Theater opened the night of Candy Darling’s wake – she had died of cancer
the night before. The play is very derivative of old movies, but is at times both a
satire and a tribute. The lead character Nola Noonan tastes of fame and is
immediately hopelessly addicted (which is really Jackie’s story).

In the 1974 revival, Jackie played Nola and Douglas Fisher (billed as Estelle R. Dallas) played her sidekick, Toulouse de la Beaupres. Ron Link, who directed Jackie in
Glamour, Glory and Gold
and in
Cabaret in the Sky
was from Columbus, Ohio and was an extra in a scene shot at the gay bar Julius for the film version of
Boys in the Band
. Ron, who was also known for directing Divine in
Neon Woman
, left New York for Hollywood in the 1980s where he directed plays. He died tragically in 1999 after routine gall bladder surgery.

I was fortunate to have had the opportunity to videotape the entire play over several nights in May 1974. Jackie’s stage presence was phenomenal. With his hair grown out and died red, some pancake makeup, false eyelashes and lipstick and a 1930s thrift shop dress Jackie became a completely believable feminine presence. The revival opened to glowing reviews. Critics praised Jackie’s performance as perfectly nuanced and the script as worshipful, understanding and devastating honest about its source material. One reviewer called the show a penetrating analysis of what it’s really like to live a dream 24 hours a day, never quite reaching the ring on the merry-go-round. That was Jackie’s life and it is very sad that the play hasn’t been performed in more than two decades.

I went out with Jackie and Douglas many times for late night partying after performances of
Glamour, Glory and Gold
. Jackie was a powerhouse of energy holding court at Max’s Kansas City’s backroom – maybe he was high on amphetamine or something other than booze, maybe he was over-the-top loud and boisterous sometimes, but who cared? Jackie was the best live entertainment in the world and swept you up in his magic. Both men and women were attracted to Jackie, but when he was not in drag many straight men were put off by his feminine qualities. However, when Jackie was in drag they wouldn’t hesitate to interact with him.

Scene Excerpt

Glamour, Glory and Gold: the Life and Legend of Nola Noonan, Goddess and Star

A comedy by

JACKIE CURTIS

© 1985 The Estate of Jackie Curtis

(From Act I – Nola Noonan has just decided to leave her lover Peter Billings, the cop that put her previous lover Johnny Apollo in jail.)

NOLA

(Packing furiously between puffs on a cigarette.)

Whaddya want from my life? I tried it your way. I made an attempt, and everything. I stuck my neck out on a lotta limbs for you. I reached out and everything. I fed you hot coffee on the bad nights, and cold beer on the good nights. You know how I tried.

I been busting my chops left and right, smiling at all your cop friends. The same flat feet that stuck Johnny Apollo away to rot for twenty years. Well, I’ve run outta smiles.

(HE gets close to her. A touch.)

No, Peter, don’t.

PETER

Why?

NOLA

You’re on duty …

PETER

Look, Nola, you never stopped to think why they stuck Apollo away, and you certainly didn’t care when it happened.

NOLA

(Fingering her necklace.)

Boy, you got a bad habit of bringing up the past. Well, I can’t live in the past. Peter, I tried to be sophisticated. All these months, didn’t I peddle tickets for the policeman’s ball? That drag!

And didn’t I perform at the damn thing? You think special material comes cheap? And how about me serving punch to all those cops and their wives! And your perverted commissioner grabbing my ass backstage. Just so you could get a raise. Peter, I never said anything … I Just grinned and beared it.

But you don’t care if I never become a movie star. You wanna see me rot away here. You’d like to see me fall away here in this railroad flat with you and Toulouse and that second-hand hot plate!

PETER

All right, Nola, all right.

NOLA

No, it’s not all right, Nola, it’s not all right! I haven’t been to the beauty parlor in months! And when I do one tiny little innocent thing like hire a speech teacher to help me with my “t’s,” you blow up!