Superstar in a Housedress: The Life and Legend of Jackie Curtis

That's a quote used in the movie. And now one of my top 3 favorite quotes to be used forever after. There was so much to like about this person and movie. Jackie was a phenomenal character. She/he was iconic in the strongest sense of the word. Total belief in herself and her plan (mad though it was at times) and such charisma that all around her believed in her and themselves as much as she did. She altered paradigms. This particular subculture fascinates me to no end and it is covered well in this DVD. It's classic David and Goliath except David's gotta push it by wearing a dress. I couldn't respect that in-your-faceness more if I tried. I wish I could better convey what I mean. And it's not a movie about sexual preferences. No agenda is forced on you in any way. It's just completely unique. The fact that this is a documentary and these things really happened and these people really did exist as they did, simply adds to the magic of this movie. Of course, many of those people are still with us and told their tales within. And most of them are extremely interesting as well. It covers more than just Jackie. The world Jackie became famous in is explored in depth as well. Just as a comparison, it is like the Grateful Dead shows. Nothing like this will ever happen in this way ever again - nothing this new, different, odd, and perfect just for what it was, and it's tragic if you think you may have wanted to be part of it in some way, witness it, but didn't. And if you did, you're breathing the rare air.

Jackie Curtis rose to (cult) fame in the 1970s as one of Andy Warhol's innumerable "superstars." But Jackie - born John Holder Jr. in 1947 - stood out even from such curios as International Velvet and Penny Arcade. Jackie was a tall (6'2") charismatic writer and performer built like a linebacker whose crazy antics and complex drag persona transcended even the insanity of the Warhol crowd. She was a drag queen whose couture consisted mostly of shredded gowns, wigs sprayed with Raid, and a noticeable five o'clock shadow. She wrote camp-drenched plays with titles like Glamour, Glory, and Gold and Vain Victory: Vicissitudes of the Damned that garnered good reviews even from the New York Times. She shot amphetamine and heroin, blew firemen in New York's back alleys in exchange for cigarettes, and alternately enchanted and terrorized friends and acquaintances with her demented diva routines that included "rearranging" (trashing) their apartments and drinking all their wine. She's probably best remembered today as the most sophisticated member of that holy trinity of Warhol trannies featured in the 1971 Paul Morrissey film Women in Revolt. (The others were glamorous Candy Darling, who died of leukemia at 25, and snaggle-toothed queen Holly Woodlawn, last seen prancing through West Hollywood.) Author and filmmaker Craig Highberger knew Curtis very well in her heyday and has cobbled together an intriguing biography entirely from interviews with her friends. Superstar in a Housedress, which comes bundled with a DVD of Highberger's excellent film of the same name, is a breezy, often hilarious look at a uniquely uncategorizable personality and the New York homo-art underground typified by the wacky Warholians of the 1960s and `70s. Curtis, as she was usually called, was raised mostly by her granny, Slugger Annie, a bar owner who liked to "wear" seven yapping Chihuahuas in her cleavage. Curtis did her best to top that. According to witnesses like Penny Arcade and Lily Tomlin, she staged endless, very public weddings with grooms who might or might not appear. She faked suicides to friends who dutifully donned mourning veils even though they knew she was just dramatizing. Typically, she'd appear at a fundraiser for the Kidney Foundation and start screaming things like "Eddie, my kidneys are killing me!" Curtis's flirtations with fame are well documented here - friendships with Tomlin and Harvey Fierstein, writing a play that would be Robert De Niro's first stage appearance, guest-starring on the sitcom Rhoda. But she never quite rose to the status of household word, which seemed to bother her less and less as she drifted into amphetamine-fueled fits and heroin fogs. Her actual death in 1985 at age 38 was almost anticlimactic, but Superstar in a Housedress, a phrase she used about herself, will make some readers (not all!) wish she were still here to liven things up.

Yes fierce, fearless and fabulous! The dvd? What a buy! Go back to that Warhol era in New York. Just wish I could have seen it with my own eyes. This book and dvd just about does that! I fell over with Jackie C.............

A fascinating remembrance of a unique artist who could seemingly change sex on a whim. Andy Warhol's quote early in the film: "Jackie Curtis is not a drag queen. Jackie Curtis is an artist , a pioneer without a frontier." says it best. Recalls the Warhol era in New York City which saw wide artistic experimentation in art, underground theater, and experimental film. The film includes archival film and video shot in the late sixties and early seventies and hundreds of photographs. Most interesting is the look inside the apartments of about two dozen interviewees in New York and Hollywood, including surviving superstars Holly Woodlawn and Joe Dallesandro, many obscure artists and famous people like Lily Tomlin and Harvey Fierstein. The book has a lot of material not in the film including scenes from all of Curtis's plays, and interviews with many more colleages and friends of Curtis. The stories they tell are just priceless! Bravo to Highberger for capturing and sharing them all with us in this terrific book/DVD combo.

Today we take gay, lesbian and transgender people for granted. What we don't realize is that in the late 60's and 70's when people were focused on Vietnam that it was truly revolutionary for someone to throw all care about gender perception to the wind, go out into the world and be oneself. But Jackie Curtis was a groundbreaking performer who changed the world the same way Andy Warhol changed art. It is easy to understand why they were soul mates.