Superstar in a Housedress: The Life and Legend of Jackie Curtis (4 page)

Jackie Curtis on being a student:

When I was a teenager, I sought out all the greats in the New York theater world and went to them as a student would go to a master, to learn and work. They recognized my talents and they wanted to help me. But some of them were interested in helping me in other ways. Some of them were interested in special talents. If you get my meaning. They wanted to help me, alright. Help me into the bed. And I’d say, “No. I have to go home to my grandmother now.” And it was true, it wasn’t an alibi. I wanted to work with them, not sleep with them. I was brought up a good Italian Catholic girl by my mother, my aunt, and my grandmother.

Rev. Tim Holder

As an adolescent I came to question my brother’s sexuality, wondering was Jackie gay, was he straight, was he transgendered? And frankly, at first I was very ashamed that such a person was in my family.

Later I myself addressed my own sexuality, having become not too many years ago the first openly gay priest in the diocese of Alabama. I look back in celebration of Jackie’s life and I remember one interview quote in particular. Jackie told a persistent reporter – “I am not gay, I am not straight, I am just me, Jackie.” That was a real proclamation of liberation: do not label me, do not categorize me.

Jackie Curtis on ambition:

I want to hit the heights. I want to be a Broadway star. I don’t want to be just a cheap lady of the chorus who is always yearning for a star on the door and a dressing room full of red roses! I feel like a superstar in a housedress, because all I really care about is my work.

Gretchen Berg

Jackie actually did try to hold office jobs. He did try to have a straight life and earn some money so he wouldn’t have his family supporting him. So he would go to a New York temp agency and they would send him to these clerical jobs. He would go in his P-coat with his shopping bag. He told me he was a great hit with a lot of the offices because “Nobody reads an invoice like Jackie.” He would deliver the mail and answer the phones. He told me that he looked at these jobs as if he had been given a part in a play or a movie said, “I did my best. I played my part. I was wonderful.” However, one day he arrived at one of these jobs wearing a wig and a dress with sequins and delivered the mail in drag. That was the end of that job, and after that I don’t think he spent much time in offices.

Ellen Stewart

Jackie Curtis came to La Mama in 1965 in Tom Eyen’s
Miss Neferititi Regrets
. This was the play that Bette Midler first appeared in as well. She played Miss Neferititi, and Jackie played Tolomy, her brother. Jackie was in many other plays at La Mama as well. In 1970 he wrote and starred in
Heaven Grand in Amber Orbit
, and in 1971 he was in
Vain Victory
. Jackie wrote the show and Andy Warhol performed with Jackie here at La Mama.

Jackie was just a boy when he came to La Mama. And he lived with his grandmother, ‘Slugger Ann’ who had a bar somewhere around 13th Street and 2nd Avenue. He was always extremely talented. In fact, I thought he was a genius. And he created many beautiful things. Jackie was a wonderful writer. And he said that being a drag queen brought him more fame, but he wished that his work as a playwright would establish him as a very great writer.

From the back of Jackie’s 8x10 headshot, 1966:

JACKIE CURTIS

c/o Holder, 34 Orchard St., New York, 2, N.Y.

Age range: 14-21

Eyes: Expressive Brown

Hair: Light Brown

Height: 5’ 11”

Weight: 150-155 lbs.

TRAINING:

Henry Street Settlement (Dance & Drama), Gene Frankel Teenage Theater Workshop, Herbert Berghof Studios (Drama & Musical Comedy), High School of Art & Design (Theatre Arts & Creative Writing)

EXPERIENCE(S):

BROADWAY

FOXY with Bert Lahr, Larry Blyden & John Davidson

AMEN CORNER with Beah Richards & Frank Silvers

FUNNY GIRL with Barbra Striesand & Sydney Chaplin

OFF BROADWAY

SCROOGE (Peter Cratchitt & Fred) Actor’s Playhouse

THIS WAS BURLESQUE (Candy Butcher) Casino East Theatre

HELLO, BURLESQUE (Candy Butcher & Bit Player) Gaiety Theatre

ALL WOMEN ARE ONE Theater Guild Production

THE PADLOCK (Ass’t Stage Manager & Understudy) Theatre 62

APRIL MELODY (Tony) Theatre 62

A LADY NAMED JO (Ned Moffit) Toured NY Public Schools

THE SWAGGERING SOLDIER (4 Slaves) Toured Libraries

ROOM SERVICE (Messenger Boy) ELT Productions

MISS NEFERTITI REGRETS (Ptolemy II) Café La Mama ETC

CHARLIE, PUT YOUR DREAMS AWAY (Charlie) Café Cino

FILMS

LOVE REGAINED … Necrophilliac (Political Satire)

ANDY WARHOL STORY … Andy Warhol … (A Reynolds Wrap Prod.)

LOVE ME, LOVE ME … Michael …(3 Star Films, Inc.)

ANGEL RISE, ANGEL FALL … Rutherford Rembrandt … (Independent Film)

STOCK

BYE BYE BIRDIE (Hugo) Barter Theatre, Abingdon, Va.

TELEVISION

COMMUNITY DIALOGUE … Channel 5

CANDID CAMERA … Channel 2

WJHL Bristol, Tenn. … “Gospel Singing Jubilee”

WOR-TV, JOE FRANKLIN SHOW, “DOWN MEMORY LANE” … Regular Guest

RADIO

WKCR-FM … Scrooge Commercial

WNYE-FM … Educational Broadcasting

WCAG-FM … Jackie Curtis in Concert, plus Interview

WOR-AM & FM … THE JOE FRANKLIN SHOW

NIGHTCLUBS

Gaslight, Sniffen Court Inn, Washington Square Room, Guys & Dolls, The Improvisation, Champagne Gallery, The No. 1 Fifth Avenue, and the River Room at the Hendric Hudson Hotel)

MODELLING

Underground Uplift Unlimited (Button Advt.), Christmas Card Sample, Upcoming Book: “The World of Andy Warhol,” NY Times Drama Section & Magazine Supplement, Rodale’s Revue Magazine, Phoenix Theatre Publicity Stunts, Centaur Films, etc.

AUTO-BIO:

I was born on an Ash Wednesday and am on the cusp of Pisces. In 1959 my friend Carol Burnett and I held a nationwide publicized picket to save her show,
Once Upon a Mattress
. I’m crazy for Spanish movies and soap operas, not that I understand a word that they say – they make nice faces. I always wanted to be a Priest until I stopped watching Pat O’Brien movies. I was reviewed in the
Village Voice
,
Daily News
, and
Variety
– and I don’t even have a stage mother. My Broadway credits are for apprenticing, sort of, better than doing stock in Tom’s River. As for my speech pattern – that’s all it is, and I comb my hair differently every day – it all depends upon my speech pattern. In school all the other kids had briefcases, attaché cases, and wore socks. I had a shopping bag. Listen, it lent a lot of character. I don’t have a manager, but wouldn’t deny anyone the position.

I know it’s strange, but I’m not very fond of making the rounds and going to open call auditions and seeing the same faces all the time. But for a while they were my only IN. Then I rebelled. One day at a very open call which required “pictures & resumes” they began handing out little white file cards demanding credits and such. So smart me opened my mouth: “But I brought a resume.” But they insisted the card be filled out, so I wrote my name and address and then: DOWN WITH WOOLWORTHS, SUPPORT THE UNDERGROUND, SEND JOE PYNE TO COLLEGE, JEAN SHRIMPTON IS REALLY A MAN, RIN TIN TIN IS A BITCH, YOU DON’T HAVE TO BE JEWISH TO LOVE ME, SEE RESUME FOR ADDITIONAL INFORMATION. So they HAD to look at my resume, and when they saw it they asked me “How come you’re not on TV, why are you here?” Anyway auditions and interviews most always leave me cold, UNLESS the people are nice. I like nice people, what else can I tell you?

I wasn’t in “Who’s Who” this year, that’s 19 years now. Neither am I a beatnik. That’s someone with long hair, crazy clothes, and strange ideas who needs a bath. I learned more at home than the average kid – for instance, my grandmother used to read palms, cards, tea leaves, bumps on heads, and hold séances. She taught me about reincarnation and astrology and gave me a book on superstitions. I was never allowed to bring a movie magazine into the house or anything like that, so at 16 I moved out and did everything from washing dishes to running elevators.

I’m from the Lower East Side, and don’t know why four of us slept in one bed, we had four rooms and a couch. My childhood was frantic, like a Marx Bros. Movie. My family was frantic, like the Marx Bros. I’m a loner. Independently independent. That’s why I talk so much. I don’t hang out anywhere. I hate hangouts! But I do haunt old bookshops and music stores, because you never know who or what you might find there. One of the best things my grandmother ever told me was: “You’re a cusp, and don’t forget it. C’mon I gotta make a payment at the hock shop.”

I love when people say I talk in the stream of consciousness – that means they’re listening. I should be the first male to play PETER PAN, what can I say? (See my Resume for Additional Information.)

Gretchen Berg

Jackie would come up to my hotel, the Wellington, at 7th Avenue and 55th Street and we would hang out. In those days he always wore a P-coat, and carried a shopping bag full of magazines, records and clippings – all kinds of interesting things. Jackie was starting his career and he went to all the open call auditions and met a lot of celebrities from the New York theater world. He told me he asked Edith Head to design him a tie clip, and asked Milton Berle to write material for him.

Jackie told me that he was fat and bullied as a child, but he developed a way of dealing with the bullies by cursing a blue streak at them. They reacted by saying “What a dirty mouth he has, don’t have anything to do with him.” So he cursed and swore and everybody kept away from him. Jackie grew into a very good-looking young man, but I could always see that tragic air about him.

We used to go down to Times Square, to 42nd Street when it was 42nd Street, not the very cleaned up nice place it is today, it was really raunchy with lots of porno theaters and strip joints. We’d go to the movie theatres all day, there were dozens of them in those days and some of them just ran old films. I remember watching Sam Fuller’s
Pickup on South Street
with Jackie, which is a really rough film noir. He got very excited and said to me, “This is the way adults really are, and if we get to know how they move, how they act, how they think, we’ll really be able to handle them.” So we stayed and watched it three times. You could do that on one admission in those days.

We were in the balcony of one of the fleabag theaters on 42nd St. when a young man who was watching us came and sat in the row behind us. He leaned forward and said to Jackie, “Hi, cutie, I’ve got a word for you.” Jackie replied, “I’ve got a word for you, too, but there’s a lady present.” The young man stood up and walked away.

Jackie was always trying to come up with money to go to the movies. He fell asleep one night in the balcony and woke up to Judy Garland singing the “Trolley Song.” Jackie told me one time he came home from a day at the movies and his grandmother was really angry and said, “What are we going to do with you, sitting in the movies all day long eating popcorn and candy, getting your head filled up with dreams?” But Jackie said, “Listen, I like dreams. They’re better than what I’m getting.”

Jackie on What’s Wrong with Television:

I think the violent films on television are offensive:
Thunder Kick
,
Punch of Death
,
God’s X-ray Vision
, you know, they come flying at you and crack a Coke bottle over your head and then someone comes on and does an Uncola commercial. There is no more empathy in modern entertainment. Why would I want to put myself in the place of a high priced call girl that I saw on medical center who’s going to lose one breast and she feels no one will pay five hundred dollars to make love to half a woman? Now granted in the context of this sixty minute drama that turned out to be irrelevant. It turned into a Cinderella story. She still lost the breast, but she fell in love with one of her doctors and they walked off into the sunset together – she in her misshapen bathrobe, he in his white jacket. It’s completely erratic; it’s like a soap opera on channel 47. I mean, talk about your UFO’s, there they are.

Mom Eternal – poem by Jackie Curtis

“It is the work one does himself,”

my Mother told me,

“and not what is handed to him ready made

that has the constructive power.”

My Mother’s name is Jenny and my Father’s name is Johnny.

He was a Sailor

and She was a Singer.

Somewhere in the forties in New York,

a band started playing My Mother’s favorite song …

You and your smile hold a strange INVITATION

A song she’d heard in an MGM movie with the same name.

It starred Dorothy McGuire and Van Johnson.

My Mother had a voice with a subtle allure

beckoning beyond the veil of rhythm and blues

without leaving the rooms of heaven,

heralded by trumpets

while a band of angels proclaimed her presence …

Somehow it seems

we’ve shared our dreams

but where?

Indeed? Where?

It was The Great White Way and the journey toward

American Victory was everyone’s aim without a doubt,

and without a song the day would never end

the War our country waged

like a temporary loneliness longing for the solitude

of United States of America’s stationary

Orbit in Victory’s Garden of Eden where

Ladies and Gentlemen all out were told,

“The choicest life is the life this Country Can Lead

Time after time

in a room full of strangers

our love will bloom

suddenly you are there

And there he was,

like an early morning glory

not at all cluttering up the vine …

On Liberty from the Navy (They Got the Gravy)

My Mother was first attracted to my Father

because he so resembled her favorite popular singer,

BING CROSBY.

Where ever I go

you’re the glow of temptation

He was a Southerner, a Rebel.

She was a Northerner, A Yankee.