Your Fifteen Minutes Are Up by Catherine O'Sullivan Shorr

Author:Catherine O'Sullivan Shorr
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Open Road Media
Published: 2015-07-06T21:19:09+00:00

Taylor Mead, exuberant in ‘Imitation of Christ,’ shot in the Meatpacking District, circa 1967. (Photos: Billy Name)

Andy filming ‘Imitation of Christ’

ALL THE LOVELY LADIES

I was born beautiful, and I will die beautiful!

—Jackie Curtis (1947–1985)

As une habitué of Max’s back in the day, I was thrilled to befriend extravagant Holly (Harold Ajzenberg) and sweet Candy (James Slattery). To me they were the real Superstars, because they had to work so hard at being women. As drama queen Ivy Nicholson readily admitted: “When I left, Andy said he had to replace me with drag queens.” True, Warhol felt much safer with them—Mario Montez had been around since the early days—and they were often the only company one wanted to spend time with at four in the morning. In 2004, Craig B. Highberger made a delightful documentary: ‘Superstar in a Housedress, The Jackie Curtis Story.’ He kindly licensed us some of the divine archive footage he dug up. ‘Leee’ Black Childers, who roomed with virtually all of them, also shared his revealing photographs …

* * *

‘Leee’ Black Childers: I started taking pictures here in the Village, mostly of the drag queens and the outrageous people. Some of them were just—well, you could never call Jackie Curtis a drag queen, because she never looked like a woman. There is a knock on my door and there’s Jackie in ripped dress, ripped stockings, worn out old lady shoes, and a little cardboard suitcase, saying “Can I live with you for a day or two?” She was there a month. The first of her fake weddings, she had on the roof of some building around here, and she married the maître d’ from Max’s Kansas City.

* * *

The multi-talented Jackie Curtis sings, dances, prances, performs and generally behaves outlandishly in ‘Superstar in a Housedress.’ Narrated by friend Lily Tomlin, with interviews by Leee Black Childers, Harvey Fierstein, columnist Michael Musto, La Mama’s Ellen Stewart and a glamorous candy box assortment of drag queens, a portrait evolves of a complex personality who switched genders with ease, dressing coquettishly to ‘marry’ a confused Eric Emerson, or channeling a smoldering James Dean in a skin-tight tee, proudly flexing the crude ‘Andy’ tattoo on his biceps. Jackie’s way-off Broadway’s ‘Glamour, Glory and Gold’ debuted in 1967 …

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.