Superstar in a Housedress: The Life and Legend of Jackie Curtis (11 page)

Why didn’t you go to the school of performing arts?

I wanted to go to performing arts, I really did. But my mother said if I went to performing arts I’d only be an actor. And if I was only an actor, what would happen during those times when I didn’t get a job? She wanted me to have something to fall back on. So I went to art and design, but I didn’t pay too much attention to art.

Were you a good student?

I fared very well. I remember one teacher that taught American History. He really liked me. There was this test about the American Revolution and the war. And the Tories and the Whigs, and Betsy Ross and her little mousy friend Molly Pitcher who helped her sew the flag. And there was an essay question ‘why did these men win the war’, and I answered because these men fought very hard. They got up in the morning. They made each other coffee. They patted each other on the back, they read each other letters and they said we’ve got to go out there and get the enemy, want to get them? No, we’ll get them tomorrow. Today let’s just scare them. What will our mothers say if we lose the war? What will our wives and children say? What are we going to do about our oak paneling, and the mahogany on the door? How are we ever going to have teas again? And what about the fine old lace? And this teacher just liked the attitude. I had a very strong sense of America and history. I still do. I always mention Amelia Earhart luggage in every play I write.

You were a teenager when you wrote your first play,
Glamour, Glory and Gold
. How did you get it produced?

I fought and clawed every inch of the dirty way. Actually, I was writing my play and hanging around at the Café La Mama and I was shy and nobody wanted to know me. Then I met Ron Link who was a director and a packer of many bags. And I told him about my play and asked him if he wanted to direct it – and I hadn’t even completed it yet. And I actually finished writing
Glamour, Glory and Gold
on his bed on east 4th street. But nobody would do it; Ellen Stewart wouldn’t do it at La Mama. So took it to Bastiano’s playwright’s workshop. And he played very hard to get, but there wasn’t anything very hard to get there because he had no play on. So that is where we premiered. To great acclaim.

How did you come up with the title?

I went to the opening night of the opera, Aida. Leontyne Price was doing Cleopatra. Of course I couldn’t afford a ticket, but I went to Lincoln Center to hang around in the lobby and see the rich people arriving in all their finery. It turned out Lady Bird Johnson was there and she came out during intermission and was screaming, “How glamorous, all that glitter, and all that gold!” and I though fabulous there’s my title,
Glamour, Glory and Gold
.

You’ve said you feel you are the reincarnation of James Dean. How did that happen?

People told me I looked like James Dean, even when I was in drag. And strangely enough there on my birthday in 1973 there was this theater in the Village showing his films. And I got to see all of them and I realized how much I looked like him. And I went home and looked in the mirror and started becoming James Dean. I thought they wanted me to do that. I thought that’s what they want – you know, the Gods from the great beyond. I thought they were tapping me on the shoulder and saying, “if you do this for the rest of your life you’ll be in, you’ll be untouchable, you’ll be invisible – you can do whatever you want. We know that you’re great, but if you can do this then you can marry the princess, and have the King’s gold, and ride the white horse into the sunset.”

Michael Arian

I knew Jackie from working with John Vaccaro’s Playhouse of the Ridiculous in the late 60s and early 70s. I worked with him on a play that Jackie wrote called
Heaven Grand in Amber Orbit
, which, like the times in which we lived at that point was totally inspired by and fueled by drug use. And the legend goes that Jackie had found a wallpaper sample book in the garbage, had taken it home, and taken massive amounts of speed and written a play that pulled lines from movies, from other plays, and put it together as a long string of non sequiturs, that when I first saw it as an audience member, I had never seen anything as funny in my entire life. I had to meet the director, and the company, which I did – and I got to work with this company, the Playhouse of the Ridiculous.

Craig Highberger

Written over the course of two years (1967–68)
Heaven Grand in Amber Orbit
is an experimental work of genius. It is to the stage play form what William Burroughs’ “cut up” work was to the novel. Burroughs cut up printed materials and rearranged the lines and segments to create a new work.

For
Heaven Grand in Amber Orbit
, Jackie Curtis, fueled by copious amounts of amphetamine, took lines and dialog fragments from old movies, television commercials, songs, novels, and other plays and pulled it all together into a manic stage play that stunned audiences. Even the play title is derivative – taken from an edition of The Racing Form: “Heaven Grand” was the name of one racehorse; “Amber Orbit” was another.

John Vaccaro, founder and director of the “Play-House of the Ridiculous” first produced and directed the work at in November 1969. It was an immediate smash hit. Vaccaro was recognized as one of the mad geniuses of the American theater. Jackie started the run of the play in the lead role of Heaven Grand. Holly Woodlawn played a Moon Reindeer Girl, and remembers they had to slather her entire body with Vaseline Petroleum Jelly, which was then covered in silver glitter. Many members of the cast were using speed and other intoxicating agents during the performance. Many people remember the infamous night when Holly was so high she simply could not articulate her lines – so whenever one of her lines came up another player would nudge her and Holly, instead of delivering the line simply went: “WA – WA – WA – WA – WA – WA – WA – WA – WA!” kind of an insane riff on the concluding Patty Duke/Anne Bancroft scene from
The Miracle Worker
, the movie of Helen Keller’s life. Both the audience and the players went into hysterics because Holly was so obviously and hilariously inebriated.

From the very beginning Jackie Curtis and John Vaccaro had serious disagreements about the play that quickly escalated into arguments. One day in a fit of anger Vaccaro ripped Jackie’s costume to shreds, and fired him from the production. Ruby Lynn Reyner was Curtis’s replacement.

Vaccaro turned the play into a musical. He added hilarious touches – Jackie’s royal matriarch character named “Lady Galaxy” was originally to occupy an onstage throne throughout the play – Vaccaro replaced it with an old discarded toilet found in the trash. Jackie’s genius as a playwright and Vaccaro’s aplomb as a director combined to make a unique work that played several months in New York to packed houses. Eventually Vaccaro took the play on tour in Europe (sans Jackie) for more than a year.

Heaven Grand in Amber Orbit: the Cab Fare Girl

A comedy by Jackie Curtis

© 1985 The Estate of Jackie Curtis

Cast of Characters

Heaven Grand in Amber Orbit, the Heroine.

Nightcloud, the Hero.

The Rouge Frolic, a mad menace.

Lady Galaxy, ruler of Casio Octavio.

Lord Pass-the-Hat, (pass-the-hat).

Princess Ninga Flinga Dung, the Queen of Song.

Glamour Man, behind those foster grants.

Rumba Line Sam, the barker.

Midnight Marie, a lady of the evening.

Millie Mae, ditto.

Madcap Betty, ditto.

Classie Gravesend, a henchman.

Dapper Dare, a John.

Crystal Palace, a Madame.

Shinola, a maid.

Sacra Via, the sex change. A token.

Terra Rubra, the nice nurse.

Tourists, old women.

And introducing Eve Harrington as Margo Channing.

Scene Excerpt – ACT I:

MILLIE MAE, MADCAP BETTY & MIDNITE MARIE, three ladies of the evening, enter in the guise of musicians, each with their own instrument. THEY seat themselves and LADY GALAXY has her musicale.

LADY GALAXY

I don’t feel it beneath me to judge value the girl, ladies …

MILLIE MAE

But …

MADCAP BETTY

Yes?

MIDNITE MARIE

Don’t let us stop you, Lady Galaxy. It’ll be a long time from now when we ever stop YOU, Lady Galaxy. You are the ruler of Casio Octavio. You wanna judge value, judge value!

LADY GALAXY

(A nod to each GIRL as SHE acknowledges them. Nod)

Millie Mae!

(Nod)

Madcap Betty!

(Nod)

Midnite Marie!

(Enraged)

Heaven Grand in Amber Orbit will PAY for this!

(LORD PASS THE HAT enters)

LORD

Pass the hat!

THE ROUGE FROLIC and CLASSIE GRAVESEND enter with PRINCESS NINGA FLINGA DUNG, THEY throw her down at LADY GALAXY’s feet

ROUGE

We discovered her outside your window, my Lady.

PRINCESS

(Crying)

Sacra Via is coming! Sacra Via is coming!

CLASSIE

She is delirious, my Lady.

ROUGE

The village sun has set her brain on fire!

LADY GALAXY

Well, Lord Pass the Hat, have you met Princess Ninga Flinga Dung? The Queen of Song? She is transformed into a town crier before our very eyes!

PRINCESS

(Stops crying)

If this is your idea of a joke, Lady Galaxy, I …

LADY GALAXY

You WHAT?

PRINCESS

I find it extremely difficult to laugh.

(She tries a few laughs, unsuccessfully)

LADY GALAXY

(To ROUGE FROLIC and CLASSIE GRAVESEND)

Chain the girl – she is a very swift pain, I find.

LORD

(To MIDNITE MARIE)

Thieving hussey! Gimme my hat, you bitch! I caught you taking my hard-earned pennies! I am Lord Pass the Hat, I have majored in Ethiopian Epigrams, sold emery boards in the snow, and am given to hives on Halloween!

MARIE

Oh?

LORD

What have YOU ever done?

NIGHTCLOUD

(To HEAVEN)

Why do you go on like this?

HEAVEN

(Into PHONE)

Room service! ROOM service!

RHUMBA LINE SAM enters and lines up with MILLIE MAE, MADCAP BETTY, and MIDNITE MARIE

SAM

Ladies, ladies, ladies!

MARIE

No wisecracks, huh?

SAM

Crystal Palace just got word from Silver Mayking, Sacra Via IS coming!

MILLIE MAE

Sacra Via is coming!

MADCAP BETTY

Sacra Via is coming!

MIDNITE MARIE

My ass itches, Rhumba Line Sam. Where’s my foot powder?

PRINCESS

I TOLD you, Sacra Via is coming!

LORD

(To PRINCESS)

Nobody asked you!

SAM

I sent for her!

LADY GALAXY

YOU?! You, who never even sent out for a container of coffee? Tell me – why?

SAM

Why Lady Galaxy, she is the sun, the moon, and the stars.

LADY GALAXY

She is a sex change, if she exists!

SAM

She is my wife.

PRINCESS

(Overcome)

The IRONY of it all! The IRONY of it all! Sacra Via is coming! Sacra Via is coming! SHE will save Heaven Grand in Amber Orbit!

NIGHTCLOUD

Save me the drumstick.

SAM

Shinola, Shinola!

(SHINOLA, a maid, enters)

SHINOLA

Yes’m?

SAM

Save Nightcloud the drumstick.

SHINOLA

Oh, yes’m.

(SHE starts to exit, but pauses and turns back)

But Rhumba Line Sam, even a pimp knows it isn’t Thanksgiving. There is no turkey at our table.

SAM

You mean?

(SHINOLA nods yes and SHE exits)

Nightcloud, what grade are you in?

NIGHTCLOUD

Grade A.

SAM

Grade A?

NIGHTCLOUD

Vitamin D, Stretch one!

LADY GALAXY

Milk for Nightcloud!

MILLIE MAE

She looks after that young man too closely.

BETTY

For someone, even Lady Galaxy who claims no kin to the boy, ordering milk is no airy task.

MARIE

(Holding a KNIFE. To RHUMBA LINE SAM)

The next time you stand me up …

(SHE holds the KNIFE to his privates)

I’ll cut your head off!

SAM

I’ve got a hard on. Marry me?

MARIE

I beg your pard-on?

SAM

Hard on. HARD ON!

MARIE

Lucky for you I majored in English.

SAM

You too, Midnite Marie?

MARIE

Do you … still … wanna marry me Rhumba Line Sam?

SAM

I lost my hard on.

MARIE

I’m going to jump completely out of character and say this much – that’s what I go for, a straight yes or no answer!

THE MOON REINDEER GIRLS enter

MOON REINDEER GIRLS

(Chanting)

Ole-o, le-oleum. Ole-o, le-oleum. Ole-o, le-oleum. Ole-o, le-oleum. Ole-o, le-oleum. Ole-o, le-oleum.

PRINCESS

(Singing)

Nobody knows the trouble I’ve seen. Nobody knows the trouble I’ve seen. Nobody knows the trouble I’ve seen.

HEAVEN

Heartbreak Hotel!

NIGHTCLOUD

Room service! Room service!

LORD

(Hands on HEAVEN)

If you don’t let me fuck you, Heaven Grand in Amber Orbit, you can at least let me use your bathroom.

HEAVEN

Oh Lord Pass the Hat, a person with your Ilka Chase doesn’t deserve a second chance.

LORD

Whose side are you on?

NIGHTCLOUD

A side of French!

LORD

French fries, I’ll wager.

NIGHTCLOUD

If such a wager be waged. Be it so. Yes, a side of french fries, if you must know.

HEAVEN

I’m on the Lord’s side now, if anyone’s still interested. I checked into this hotel under an assumed name, it’s true, but that’s half the battle – admitting it, isn’t it? Isn’t it?

(Hysterical, SHE breaks down and cries)

LORD

(To NIGHTCLOUD)

How long you been hung like this?

NIGHTCLOUD

Ask me no questions, I’ll tell you no lies.