Superstar in a Housedress: The Life and Legend of Jackie Curtis (5 page)

Opposites attract.

They became close and in no time

were on their way to A Church Wedding – wedding.

Glancing my way

in the gray of the dawn

and always your smile

holds that strange INVITATION

They were altar bound, within a warm Cathedral …

now ‘they’ would march as ‘one’.

Where they gathered in the sight of God, toward tomorrow,

they would become enveloped

in the only bonds they would leave the War with,

the bonds of Holy Matrimony.

To Love, Honor, Obey … to Cherish, in sickness and in Health.

There they stood on this cynical threshold

this very certified sacrament having been ‘serialized’

by the second bona fide battle our country had begun.

This cliff banging Hero and his Lady Fair!

Love had been encouraged so as to have been ‘swept’ clear … across the country!!

Meanwhile, Uncle Sam pointed imperiously at red-blooded all American Men

indicating the now famous logo (“UNCLE SAM WANTS YOU!”)

It even rhymes with, WORLD WAR TWO!!!

Never mind OVER THERE. My Mother to be,

her Husband to be, A Sailor once again

would casually be shipping out to sea for an anticipated Victory,

was presently taking the gigantic giant step into MARRIAGE …

by way of the stunning triumph of love, please, leave us not forget

one of the most oversold commodities of the forties … LOVE!

There they were, saying I Do

inside of a Roman CATHOLIC church

as if TIME! had been called.

He, off the ship on Liberty

being spent on the Northern shore with a Northern Sweetheart,

it was then that the clergyman pronounced them, quite succinctly I am sure,

MAN AND WIFE.

It is precisely at this moment we have been educated to learn

that said RING goes on THAT finger, preceding the very exciting five words,

“YOU MAY KISS THE BRIDE.”

This is the kiss at this time that makes it all too clear

that time (I am referring to the War)

is running the ship, time is running a TIGHT SHIP,

as a matter of fact, they will set sails upon uncharted waters,

rushed is this My Mom’s maiden voyage.

A romance so rude, whisked beyond white lace

becoming something even more vulgar than converted rice,

making haste for the heart’s desire.

All of a simpering sudden, the simplest(!) and sacred most sensitive soul

To say nothing of the soul that is not half so inclined

and seems to have suffered the worst of disillusions

somewhere at sea, or dismantled perfection

from perhaps underneath the briny foam

atop the snow capped waves

above the water which floats majestically

across seven of them,

seas, that is.

Vous Comprendez?

(I am referring to the possible mythological

wherein we would have to go below where Poseidon

or perhaps Neptune would indeed intervene,

and only in MY CASE …

which as I heard it was the NEXT CASE!) …

And like the myths of this particular spirit,

likened earlier to that of Neptune (et al)

conceiving of some silly Shanghai-honeymoon at sea,

mind you, in a bunk bed while the world raged on within the confines of war(II),

and don’t tell me it was not confined …

on Land, in the Air, and at Sea along with such nautical appliances as:

Submarines, Periscopes (UP? did you say?)

Sailors at hand on Deck

while down below they are dealing the deadly torpedoes

along with the MayDays of the Day …

the Newlyweds (My incipient parents)

having to do severely WITHOUT our sweet, pristine world

where the wedding bells have been known to break out the news

from a way atop (and on high!)

that the New World’s Man

(So you should now and forever know that I do not harbor fantasies

that my Pa is from another galaxy) and wife (this non-fantasy includes My Ma!)

serene in sumptuous Navy Splendor …

not a dream or whimsical make believe

(don’t you think I’d like to say to someone some day, SMILE! I WAS BORN IN A HOSPITAL TOO!!)

Even though (and here’s the juicy part people)

my Pa (Oh, my Pa Pa!) took a powder when I was two.

It is time for the throngs of relatives to be wishing them

(this goes for the Ma Ma ! remember, as well … and may she always be so!)

well,

wishing well for them upon the r-r-r-road

they had so long ago embarked upon

beginning anew.

Alone

with the rest of their lives to make it all come true,

all right,

in loveland.

Jackie Curtis – the product of this love

—Jackie Curtis © 1985 The Estate of Jackie Curtis

Jackie on Sexual Identity:

My parents were divorced when I was a child. I was a Tennessee Baptist six months of the year and a New York Roman Catholic the rest of the year. And to go into what that would do to a child’s mind, I’m still trying to figure it out. It was very hard to find myself as a boy. When I was an adolescent and went to the movies, I realized that I identified with the female characters. And then the lights would come up and I was attracted to people of the same sex. I don’t think of myself as gay, although I do sleep exclusively with men. But sex is not my main goal, either. Sexual relations don’t play the largest part in my makeup. My makeup doesn’t play the largest part, either. Most drag queens stuff their brassieres, and pad their buns – I don’t think I need that. My body is proportioned just the way it is supposed to be. Anything else would make me feel off balance. And already I’m disconnected enough.

Chapter 2 – Drag

Jackie as Nola Noonan and Andrew Amic-Angelo as Johnny Apollo in the 1974 revival of
Glamour, Glory and Gold
on stage at the Fortune Theater, New York.
Photo © Craig Highberger

Penny Arcade

Curtis was one of the most magical people I’ve ever known, and I have known a lot of magical people. Curtis was like the Little Prince. That’s who Jackie always reminded me of because he had this incredible idealism, bravura, childish self-centeredness, and make-believe. Very few people maintain that spontaneity, that magic, that joy, that is every person’s birthright. Very few people maintain that past the age of four and Curtis was one of them. When you were in his presence you were in the presence of magic, and you knew it and Jackie brought out your magic. But I think that was ultimately Jackie’s downfall, because Jackie created this charmed world that he couldn’t really come out of. He couldn’t translate to the real world. He somehow was like a fish out of the ocean when he went into the real world.

When I met Jackie I was heavily involved with the downtown drug scene, with the quintessential non-hippie, black, gay, criminal, junkie culture of downtown New York. I was shooting speed, I was shooting heroin, but I was mostly shooting speed. And I was wacked. I’m 51 now, so it’s very hard for me to remember what I was like at 18, but I was a force of nature, let us say. That was at a time when most girls didn’t consort with homosexuals or drag queens to the extent that I did. One of my big jokes is that in 1967 when I was 17 in Provincetown, it was widely believed that I was a sex change. Today we might expect David Letterman to use the expression “what’s the dish on that,” but at that time it was a very private language, the gay language was an argot, a slang that was not known to everybody.

I’d be at a party in Provincetown in 1967 – there’d be 75 gay men and me. And somebody would come up to me and say, “is she real” and I would go – “I did not spend seventy-five thousand dollars and three months in Casablanca to have you ask me if I am real”! So this rumor went around Boston, P-Town, and New York City for years and years that I was a sex change.

Jackie once said to me “the girls get all the good parts,” referring actually to Bette Midler. They had done a play together at La Mama called
Miss Neferititi Regrets
, and Jackie was pissed because the girl role was the fabulous role. Bette Midler played Miss Neferititi and Jackie played her brother. I met Jackie as a boy and zipped Jackie into his first dress. Actually, what drag queens and fag hags had in common was a great love for 30s dresses. That’s how we dressed. Curtis and I were always going looking for clothes at thrift shops. And Jackie started dressing like I did – in old-lady lace-up shoes that had the big thick Cuban heel, thirties dresses, and black tights. The tights were always shredded cause we couldn’t afford to buy them all the time and we just didn’t give a shit. And I always wore glitter at night, offstage.

When Curtis started doing drag, it was the over the top “Playhouse of the Ridiculous” drag. One of Jackie’s lines in GGG is “the duke wants to see the big face” it was all about the big lips, big face, big eyes … and three pairs of false eyelashes. Jackie didn’t have great hygiene, which is the mark of a real drag queen. Also from doing so many drugs, he’d be up three straight days and nights, not changing that dress. There’d always be huge stains under the armpits. Remember Jackie was Sicilian and Swedish, Jackie was six foot two, the body of a linebacker, Jackie had a very big frame. Jackie was not a delicate creature, and had the stubble, the glitter.

Jackie ushered in that period of not trying to look real. What everybody was going for in drag up until Jackie Curtis was realness. That was the criterion, how “real” did you look? Jackie could never hope to look real. It was never going to happen. So Jackie didn’t use falsies. Jackie used his own eroticism.

Lily Tomlin

Jackie tried not to look perfect – that whole thing of exaggerating the look and the torn stockings, it was just original and wonderful. Jackie didn’t have a particularly feminine face, as Candy did and that is what made his appearance more striking. Jackie and all of those wonderful artists at that time, and Jackie was really in the vanguard – they were outsiders and they had that incredible sense of the absurdity of the whole culture. They’re innovators, but as Jane would say they’re also preservationists.

I got Candy Darling an audition at the Upstairs at the Downstairs. I thought Candy was so gorgeous and I thought Rod Warren would cast her, and that he wouldn’t even realize that Candy is a man dressing as a woman, but he didn’t hire her. Later in 1972 Candy was cast in Tennessee Williams’
Small Craft Warnings
off-Broadway. I heard that the male actors wouldn’t allow her in their dressing room, and neither would the women which was just terrible. After I got famous on Rowan and Martin’s
Laugh-In
I always fantasized about doing a special with Candy and Jackie. Too bad I never did.

Leee Black Childers

Jackie was living with me on 13th Street and there was a very old lady name Rosie who lived right next door. She was a very sweet little old Italian widow and we saw her all the time. And Rosie died. She was ninety. No sooner than they had the body out of the apartment, Jackie got out of our window, clinging to the building, shuffling along the ledge next to the fire escape until she got to Rosie’s window, which was open a bit. She got the window open with her foot and got inside. She stole all of Rosie’s clothes, and then she shuffled back along the ledge with them, instead of just opening Rosie’s door. And they were these black crepe dresses – she was an old Italian widow. If you look at pictures taken of Jackie at that time she’s wearing Rosie’s clothes! But then of course, unlike Rosie, she didn’t bother to launder them. So they would become these really rotten garments falling apart on her.

Michael Arian

Jackie was always safety-pinned together, and had a way of using fabric or tablecloths or scarves in a way that most human beings would never consider using them. Jackie made the most elegant gown you’ve ever seen out of a big square tablecloth that had fringe on it.

Jackie either could make the room hate her, or love her. Jackie could entertain in the backroom of Max’s Kansas City like no one in history could – and it wasn’t always by bringing unwanted attention to herself. Likely as not it would be some meth amphetamine sparked run that would cause it – but Jackie could be very entertaining. She could also be very repellant at the same time. You could smell Jackie beneath the glamour.

Sasha McCaffrey

When I met Jackie Curtis, Holly Woodlawn, Candy Darling and Taffy Tits they had all just started living in drag 24 hours a day. Candy had crooked teeth and brown hair, Holly looked completely zany. I was looking for an apartment and they had this little furnished rent controlled place. I had a job, so they encouraged me to move in with them. It turned out I was the only one working so I was the one paying all the rent. They would go out all night so I would get the bed. They would wait until morning and then they would sleep when I got up to go to work.

They appeared to be women, so I really believed that they were women. For the first three months I actually did not know that these were not real girls. I mean, I don’t peek. One day I did ask Holly, “Why does Taffy wear all that heavy pancake makeup”? And Holly said, “Well she’s Sicilian. So like a lot of Sicilian women, she has to shave twice a day and wear lots of pancake makeup.” It made sense to me. I was nineteen. What did I know about Sicilian women?

Holly would help get Candy ready for her dates. Back in those days, in the sixties you could still buy real nylon stockings with seams in them, they were very stylish but they were also very expensive. I came home one night and Candy was standing on a chair in the kitchen. She was holding her skirt up and Holly was standing behind her with a black eyebrow pencil, slowly drawing a straight line down her naked leg, “Don’t move, Candy.” “You sure they’re going to look like real nylon stockings?” Candy said. “They look so fabulous,” Holly told her. “Just don’t cross your legs, or you’ll look like you’re half black and half white. They won’t know what you are.” “Oh, they don’t know what I am now,” sighed Candy. “I’m Jeanne Eagles.”

Taylor Mead

Holly Woodlawn and Jackie Curtis would wander all over Manhattan dressed in the most tasteless drag imaginable. It was obvious that they were male, not female. And they had these awful dresses; it looked like they were wearing carpets carved out like dresses. But I admired them tremendously, I thought what nerve it must take to do that. And I always wanted to go out in drag as a nun or something, but I never had the nerve to do it.

Jackie on the Power of Drag:

I transformed myself into Jackie Curtis because I wasn’t getting enough attention. Nobody took me seriously when I went to auditions. But when I walk in as a girl, I am immediately accepted on a creative level. And that’s true everywhere I go dressed as a girl. I actually put on a woman’s dress, in one sense, to ward off evil spirits. Straight men found me threatening as a boy because they saw something they didn’t like that scared them. When I dress as a girl they can laugh at me if they want to, but they don’t react with revulsion. They can come right up and feel completely comfortable interacting with me as this hard hat did just the other day on 57th street. That kind of thing never happened when I was a boy. I felt completely invisible as a boy – like a ghost.

Holly Woodlawn

In 1965 Jackie had been an usher at Broadway’s Winter Garden where Barbra Streisand was appearing in
Funny Girl
and he was just obsessed with Barbra. So Curtis bought this wig and it was cut and styled just like Barbra Streisand’s hair and he wore it all the time to Max’s Kansas City. Instead of taking it to a hairdresser like normal people do, Jackie would style it himself. One day before we were going out I watched him comb the wig himself and then to set it he sprayed it with this awful smelling stuff. I looked and it was a can of Raid pesticide – roach spray! I said, “Jackie what are you doing?” and he said, “Well, there are cockroaches in this apartment. This way I can kill two birds with one stone.” Apparently Jackie had had the supreme embarrassment one night at Max’s Kansas City of having a cockroach crawl out of his wig and down his back. But really that wig smelled horrible, just like roach spray.

We would go to the laundromat with a handful of quarters. Not Jackie. Jackie would just get into the bathtub wearing her dress and stockings and wiggle around, soaking herself in the suds! I would walk in and see this and say “Jackie, what are you doing?” and she’d say, “I’m not going to spend money on doing laundry.” When she felt that her gown was clean enough, she would just unplug the drain and then stand up and blot herself dry with towels and walk around the apartment dripping water everywhere in this dead dress, which now looked even more horrible!

Ellen Stewart

Jackie was very beautiful. He was like a chameleon. When he transformed himself, he was one of the most beautiful women, charming woman, sexy woman that you would ever have seen. And in fact, Jackie and Candy Darling, when they both were here – modeled clothing and jewelry for both
Vogue
and
Harper’s Bazaar
.

Sylvia Miles

Before I met Jackie I shot some scenes for a detective show, I think it was
Naked City
on location at Slugger Ann’s, her grandmother’s tavern. And during that shoot I met Slugger and I remember she asked me if I had met her grandson Jackie who was an actress.

I shot
Midnight Cowboy
in 1968. There was a scene where Joe Buck and Ratso are invited to a Warhol party. Viva and Paul Morrissey were in that scene and I met them. John Schlesinger was very friendly with Andy and Scavullo and there were a lot of parties during the making of the film. Jackie Curtis and Candy Darling came to every party and I got to know them. That was really my introduction to the Warhol crowd.

Jackie Curtis had her own style. It was the difference between what you might say a sketch and a completed painting. For example, I am wearing pins and rings and a necklace and a watch, and bracelets and a hat with a lot of things I’ve collected over the years, and the ensemble is complete. From whatever angle you catch me I’m a completely dressed female. Jackie would just do little touches, a wig, a little glitter, some lipstick and a dress.

Jackie was like the tough girl with the painted lips and rouge. Like a character out of a pulp fiction novel, a tough one that would say, “Blow off, you geezer!” Jackie always used her own voice. Jackie’s voice was the same whether he was dressed as a man or as a woman. It’s the same voice and the same physicality, the same stride whether he’s a man or a woman. And that was all part of Jackie’s unique style.

Andrew Amic-Angelo

Jackie loved to accompany friends on everyday errands in drag just for fun and one afternoon he came shopping with me. We went into this Greek Market on Bleecker Street in the West Village for some things. Jackie was in his typical androgynous drag and this big macho Greek greengrocer came right up to us and said to Jackie, “What are you? A boy or a girl?” And Jackie instantly and angrily responded, “Don’t be so obtuse!” Which is a nice way of saying don’t be so stupid, but of course that word was not in his vocabulary, he had no idea what Jackie had said and he just laughed and backed down. Jackie was highly intelligent and it was funny to see how he could so easily use his intellect to overcome small-minded bigots and fools.