Superstar in a Housedress: The Life and Legend of Jackie Curtis (18 page)

Robert Heide

Jackie was a real dame – in the Busby Berkeley sense of it. I was there when Jackie and Candy and Marie auditioned for the musical
No, No Nanette
. Jackie didn’t look very good in those days. Jackie liked to drink in those Lower East Side holes and was always recovering from some bender. At the auditions I remember Candy Darling was glowing in a 1930s outfit. I think Jackie was just kind of hanging out. I do remember Busby giving Jackie a kind of dirty look at one point because he didn’t think he was right for the chorus. But I don’t think Busby had any idea of what was really going on that day.

Jackie to me always was kind of a sad, glad, rag doll, ragamuffin, street urchin, a stoop-sitter. Jackie was everywhere; she wasn’t holed up somewhere as Candy might be in a fancy restaurant – Bleecker or Beekman Towers or that sort of thing. I think of Jackie as very hard-edged but also very angelic; there was a kind of just behind the façade the confused boy, the kind of charm that could sometimes stab you … with a knife. Also in talking with Jackie, there was a wonderful kind of empathy, not pretentious – I mean Candy was Carole Lombard and Jackie was more the B-Girl, the Barbara Stanwyck, or Gloria Graham type, the Novocain lips covered with glitter. Lisabeth Scott, there’s a little of that, too. I can hear Jackie saying one of my favorite Lisabeth Scott lines, “It’s not that I was old … it’s just that I wasn’t … young anymore.”

Paul Ambrose

Blanche Emerson used to call Jackie the “Oatmeal Woman” because Jackie would paint his face and then it would cake and then he would paint over that and cake, and paint and cake – until the surface was literally an oatmeal texture. I don’t know what he saw in the mirror, but it was not that rough oatmeal texture. Whatever he saw, he thought that he actually could get a job looking like that, or at the very least be interviewed on television. Jackie would go out into the streets in this bright orange crackled oatmeal makeup with his hair tied up in a turban made of torn nylon stockings and an army jacket and black torn tights. This is the way he was dressed in the fall of 1970 when he went to the auditions for the Broadway musical
No, No, Nanette
.

Jackie and Candy Darling and I went to audition together. I was going under the theory that if they just saw me, maybe I’d get a part. That was my only hope, because I knew that I could not dance. Candy Darling said, in her breathy Kim Novak stage whisper when we arrived, “I’m here for a part – I’m here for Flora from Frisco.” And she refused to do anything except walk across the stage and sit down in front and wait for Busby Berkeley to arrive. I wore a very tasteful blue kimono from the 1920s with a giant rhinestone pin holding it together at the side, a big ostrich feather boa, a big blue lace hat and big blue sunglasses. Black tights with a black leotard underneath and a cupid bow mouth, period makeup.

Jackie goes on in the group before me and I’m standing next to the dance directors and they’re the ones who were actually doing the casting – Busby Berkeley was just part of it for the name value. So I hear one of these dance directors say to the other, “Should we give this tired drag queen a chance?” Jackie could dance and they had the girls do the time step and then they called “Next group.” I had been practicing all day and I could not dance. I knew my only hope was to make an impression so I went out to center stage and first I took the boa – fling, into the wings, then the hat, into the wings, the glasses, into the wings. I take the pin; remove it from my hip and the kimono shimmies down to the floor, leaving me in a leotard holding this rhinestone pin above my head. There was nothing but stunned silence. Then from the wings I hear, “You dear, yes, you. You’re too tall.”

Mona Robson

One afternoon in the summer of 1972 Jackie and I went uptown on the subway. We had an appointment with a notorious doctor whose entire practice was giving people vitamin B-12 shots laced with speed. He was also going to write a prescription for amphetamines for Jackie. Absolutely everybody was going to this doctor for drugs. We would make an appointment for early afternoon, go in, he would shoot us up with speed and we would be so high we would walk the sixty blocks back downtown. It was always a real adventure. So we went uptown and got off the subway at 68th Street and as soon as we came upstairs we noticed this woman walking in front of us. She was wearing these very practical men’s slacks with a perfect crease down the center, a black turtleneck, and very large sunglasses. She had a knit cap over her head with her hair peeking out. Jackie said “Oh my God!” and hurried his step up a little to get a peek at her from the side, then he fell back and grabbed my arm and said “Mona, it’s HER! It’s Greta Garbo!” Jackie had met Garbo four years before at a party given by Andy Warhol and he just adored her. I couldn’t believe my eyes, that the divine Garbo was there walking in front of me.

We followed her, but stayed back at a respectful distance so she wouldn’t think we were stalkers. Over on Lexington Avenue she stopped at a florist shop to admire the flowers displayed outside on the sidewalk. I was really shy and stayed back kind of hiding behind a lamppost, but Jackie went right up to her. And Garbo turned around, startled and said “Why Jackie Curtis! What have you been doing with yourself lately?” And Jackie said “Oh not much, I’d like you to meet my best friend Mona,” and made me come up to meet her and I was just speechless. Garbo was so beautiful and here she was talking to us! Jackie said, “We’d like to buy you some flowers, which ones are your favorite?” And Garbo said, “Oh that is so sweet of you, but I’m just really window shopping today.” And we were kind of grateful because we would have gladly spent all of our speed money on flowers for Garbo.

Paul Serrato

In the late 1970s they were going to make a movie or a TV movie about James Dean and Jackie considered himself the most likely candidate to play the role. So he went out to Hollywood hoping to land a part in one of those projects. It didn’t work out that way and Jackie went back to affecting drag and landed a part on the
Rhoda
TV show. It’s an episode where I believe her sister Brenda puts an ad in the paper for a roommate. The doorbell rings and in walks Jackie in drag. Unfortunately the scene was cut from the show, probably because it was too extreme. Remember this was around the time of the Anita Bryant anti-gay crusade.

A Letter from Jackie Curtis to Mona Robson:

Jackie Curtis

7606 & One Half Fountain Ave.

West Hollywood, CA 90046

October 7, 1975

Dearest Mona:

It is Tuesday night and it is about 20 after 10 by now. Well this looks like the final stretch. They have begun the casting for JAMES DEAN: PORTRAIT OF A FRIEND. Here’s something about how it’s going. William Bast (Jimmy’s friend and roommate of about six years) is the writer director & coproducer. He writes the teleplay and a production company JOZAK down at BURBANK STUDIOS is hired to handle the production end of everything. William Bast waits for NBC TV to give a firm picture commitment so that he can retain most of the control over the project. NBC TV finally agrees that William Bast has control. All during this long debate over what will finally go on the screen; an actor from New York City makes his way out to Hollywood. His name is JACKIE CURTIS. He arrives June first because they tell him casting will begin at the end of June. No such luck. But meanwhile Jackie lands a job on
Rhoda
which of course enables him to join Screen Actors Guild which we know will help Jackie in the long run with James Dean. Or James Dean is helping Jackie to prepare for the long run, or SOMEBODY is helping Jackie besides Jackie! Thank you somebody! All you some bodies!

Next story (same theme): Barbara Malarek arrives. She is a writer. She is also well acquainted with Jackie Curtis having talked with him when she and David Dalton were getting the James Dean THE MUTANT KING book together so she knows why Jackie has come to Hollywood. Barbara has already sent Bill Bast a telegram and a photo of Jackie signaling his arrival. So aside from this one “In” and this first initial mail to Bill Bast, Jackie has been loyally playing the game by submitting his picture and resume, proof sheets and color photographs of himself every other week as time passed while he was laying low in Hollywood. And time passed. And as time passed Barbara arrives. We learn of the firm picture commitment from NBC before
The Hollywood Reporter
or anybody because Barbara can calls him up because she was at Bill’s house with David Dalton to interview him for the book too. Bill Bast tells Barbara, “We have to see Jackie Curtis because I am SO aware of Jackie because everywhere I go friends and people I know keep saying, ‘Have you seen Jackie Curtis yet?’ or ‘Have you met Jackie Curtis yet?’ so there’s no question about seeing this young man. But still when I call the production company they say, ‘The casting is now out of our hands and we suggest you get yourself an agent to submit you to the casting director because an agent will make you seem more important and that’s the only way the casting director will see you Jackie.’ So now I am involved in a frantic search for an agent or a manager.

I just joined the Beverly Hills Health Club to maintain my movie star physique along with Charleton Heston and Burt Reynolds. I am in MOTION PICTURE MAGAZINE this month, Janet Charleton’s INFO MANIA GOSSIP COLUMN, and tomorrow when the Village Voice comes out (Wednesday) you will all read about me in BLAIR SABOL’S OUTSIDE FASHION column. What more do they want? Yes I know. They told me. An agent. I’d call Sue Mengers but she’s handling some important business matters with Andy concerning the new movie BAD. So already I have a new movie looming large in my future.

I just finished writing George Cukor about my predicament and asked him whom I should see since I met him a few years ago over dinner. I am racking my brains over this! Please Mona help me keep this thing alive! I want you to alert all the keepers of the flame, anyone who is involved in silent prayer and who has been keeping the faith. I am not about to let this thing die. I will not kiss the prospect of landing this role good-bye before I can kiss it hello and breathe into it some sort of real life’s blood. Help us back from the grave. I am serious.

Otherwise the weather is gorgeous and REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE will be showing a week after WR MYSTERIES OF THE ORGANISM out here. I love you and miss you very much and hear you are now a redhead! I hope you are being a good girl and taking special care of your sanity. Give all my love to New York. Now PRAY and remember THOUGHTS ARE THINGS.

I love you Mona, JACKIE

Styles Caldwell

When Jackie came out to Hollywood he started taking male hormones and working out at the Beverly Hills Health Club. I remember he went around in a sailor outfit he bought at an Army Navy Store and he looked very masculine and sexy. He was away from New York City for the first time and he felt really free, like he was starting over completely. Jackie and I moved into this apartment down on Fairfax with this guy who went by the nickname DDT, those were his initials. DDT’s mother was an MGM contract dancer and his father was a cameraman, and Jackie thought that was fabulous and said, “DDT you are a true child of Hollywood.” We both fell in love with him. Jackie was greedy he wanted him to himself, but Jackie liked a lot of different men. Here was an entirely new city to explore and Jackie ran around a lot and he was very annoyed that I moved in on DDT. He’d come in and find the two of us fast asleep in the same bed and you could just tell it made him jealous.

Jackie sought out Vampira, she had some kind of shop in West Hollywood where she sold stuff. Vampira had been a friend of James Dean and Jackie wanted to hear everything about him. Jackie also became friends with Jo Van Fleet who had played James Dean’s whore-mother in
East of Eden
. But things didn’t work out. Jackie went to the audition and didn’t get the part and it really broke his heart. He believed in miracles and magic and reincarnation and he really believed he was destined to play James Dean and it didn’t happen and I felt very, very bad for him.

We were invited to this big party at the home of a famous movie producer from the 1930s. Andy Warhol was the guest of honor. Everyone was there, Verushka, Pat Ast, Jack Nicholson, everybody. Jackie worshipped Andy but Andy was not very friendly that night. He didn’t act surprised or happy to see Jackie. But Jackie met a casting agent at the party and she got him a part on the sitcom Rhoda. Jackie had this great scene with Julie Kavner who played Brenda, and Valerie Harper and Nancy Walker. The episode was “Brenda Gets a Roommate.” He played this odd character that was obviously a man in drag. I was in the studio audience for the taping and it was hilarious. Valerie Harper gave him an 8x10 of herself that she signed, “It was wonderful working with you, Valerie Harper” that he was very proud of. But they cut his part completely out of the episode and nobody bothered to call and tell him. Jackie was terribly embarrassed because he had told all his friends and relatives and even called Andy Warhol and told him when to tune in. Shortly after that humiliation Jackie gave up on Hollywood and moved back to New York City.

Note slipped under Paul Serrato’s New York apartment door by Jackie Curtis on a Wednesday afternoon in the spring of 1977 when he was readying his cabaret act:

Dear Paul,

Here I am, it’s somewhere between 2 and 2:30 P.M. Wednesday. For some reason I was absolutely positive our rehearsal was this afternoon. Now that I am sitting here and find that you are not in, I am faced with the horrible fact that I made a boo-boo. Or else you are out walking Gretel. In the event of my making a boo-boo I guess it’s because Monday and Tuesday things just seemed to be happening non-stop and without checking I raced up here with the same pace as the last two days. Now I realize our appointment must have been Thursday at 2 P.M. and I could have rested today. For myself it isn’t so bad but I asked my guitar player to meet me here and only gave him your phone number because I am forever forgetting “325” as in 325 W 22 St. I am really a dope! Anyway while I sit here God knows what he may be thinking.