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

Foreword

A Collect for Jackie Curtis

Introduction

Timeline of Jackie Curtis’s Life

Chapter 1 – Youth

Chapter 2 – Drag

Chapter 3 – Films, Plays, and Poetry

Chapter 4 – Antics

Chapter 5 – Drugs and Death

Interviewee Bios

About the Author

For Jackie, whom I adored, and especially for my life partner Andy – and all the friends, both old and new who have shared their private memories of Curtis.

Jackie Curtis, while visiting the author in Pittsburgh, July 1983.
Photo © Craig Highberger

I’m not a boy, not a girl, not a faggot, not a drag queen, not a transsexual – I’m just me, Jackie. —Jackie Curtis

Foreword

In early 2000 when Craig Highberger called to tell me he was making a feature-length biographical documentary on Curtis’s life, it was as if eighteen years of sadness and grief had lifted right out of my body. Since the day Curtis had died, all of his belongings, photographs, scrap books, and diaries had remained boxed up and dormant in my closet waiting for an angel to assemble the detritus of Curtis’s life into both a spectacular film documentary, and a written remembrance. No more perfect an angel than Craig Highberger.

A long time friend of Curtis’s, Craig had documented Curtis’s life since he was in NYU film school back in the ’70s. Curtis was in the prime of his career at that point, and Craig, having the foresight that he did, started rolling his camera creating what would become major “drag world” historical footage. This footage was the foundation of
Superstar
, and instrumental in the revival of Curtis’s
Glamour, Glory & Gold
almost thirty years later.

On behalf of our family, and myself, I sincerely thank Craig and his partner Andy for their exhaustive and loving dedication to Curtis’s life. Their work has been creative, thoughtful, sensitive, and professional. They have brought the surviving friends, relatives, and colleagues of Curtis together again and have introduced his life and work to countless others all over the world. The spirit of God and love certainly reign supreme in the heart of Craig Highberger.

In Loving Memory of my Cousin and Godfather Curtis,

Joe Preston, Executor of the Estate of Jackie Curtis

July 2004

A Collect for Jackie Curtis

Let us pray.

O God, Creator, Redeemer and Sustainer, Mother and Father of all Lower East Side, of Slugger Ann, Jackie, La Mama, Andy and us all, bless, we pray, our Superstar in a Housedress dazzling for all eternity in Angel Gown and Heavenly Glitter. Thank you for blessing the heart and hands of Craig Highberger in the creation of this film and bless this story of a child of your own making, Jackie Curtis, Superstar.

Bless all this night, especially in our city, those who create, yet are given little; those who work day and night, those without employment; those who try to celebrate the life you have given, yet live with addiction and pain. Give us all, we pray, the courage and love you gave Jackie, the courage and love to be who we are, ‘not boy, not girl’ just each your beautiful and distinct child, your creation, your love. Keep us, we ask, with Jackie and all your Stars, in your never ending ‘Glamour, Glory and Gold.’

AMEN.

Introduction

John Holder, Jr. was born in New York City on February 19, 1947. He died of a drug overdose May 15, 1985 at the age of thirty-eight. In his short life, under the name he chose for himself – Jackie Curtis – he became an actor, a singer, a Warhol Superstar, a published poet, a playwright, and a director.

His father, John B. Holder, was a Veterans’ Administration worker, and his mother, whose maiden name was Jean Uglialoro, was a certified public accountant. They met in New York City at a dance hall where Jean, her sister Josie, and Slugger Ann worked as taxi dancers. After marrying, Jean soon became pregnant. After John Junior’s birth the couple moved to John Holder’s hometown, Stony Creek, Tennessee. Jean missed the big city and could not adjust to life in a small town environment. Unfortunately, John had no desire to live in New York, so the couple split up. Jean returned to New York with her infant.

As John Holder Jr. grew up, his grandmother Slugger Ann took the predominant matriarchal role in his life. He was a loner as an adolescent and spent as much time as possible at the movies. Carol Burnett was starring in
Once Upon a Mattress
in an off-Broadway theater across the street from where he lived and her performance was a revelation to John, who decided to change his name to Jackie Curtis and become an actor.

Jackie first appeared on stage at the age of seventeen at La Mama Experimental Theater Club in Tom Eyen’s
Miss Neferititi Regrets
(1965). He played Tolomy, but was upset because his costar Bette Midler (who played Miss Neferititi) had the better role. He began dressing in drag and met Andy Warhol and Paul Morrissey, who cast him (as a female) in the films
Flesh
and
Women in Revolt
. Jackie began writing plays, including
Glamour, Glory, and Gold
(1967), which starred Candy Darling and Robert DeNiro in his first stage role, and
Americka Cleopatra
(1972) in which costar Harvey Fierstein played Jackie’s mother. Jackie’s plays
Heaven Grand in Amber Orbit
produced by John Vaccaro’s Play-House of the Ridiculous in 1970, and
Vain Victory: the Vicissitudes of the Damned
(1971) were both huge hits. The
New York Times
,
Newsweek
magazine, and the
Village Voice
described these avant-garde plays as “ridiculous,” “outrageous,” “bizarre,” and “disorienting,” but they sold out for months.

Jackie’s plays frequently lampoon sexuality and make fun of social conventions.
Heaven Grand in Amber Orbit
is a collection of lines and scenes from old B-movies, comic books, TV commercials, Shakespearean sonnets, pulp fiction, and other sources. It had a powerful manic energy and utilized simultaneous action and dialogue in a completely innovative way. In one infamous scene, Heaven Grand (the lead female character originally played by Jackie) reclines, dying at center stage, while one character stands on a toilet seat, lecturing on a variety of topics, and a set of Siamese triplets (joined at the asshole) spin wildly around the stage singing. Needless to say, experimental works like these confounded critics. One prominent New York critic wrote: “The players loud declamations and frenetic staging give the disorienting impression that there must be plot and dialogue that you could follow – if you only knew how.”

Jackie spent years both living and performing in his unique style of drag, which usually included just a wig, foundation makeup with some glitter around the eyes, and a 1930s gown held together with safety pins. Depending upon his mood, he would dress as a man and affect a James Dean persona. You never knew if he would show up as a girl or a boy. But Jackie Curtis created more than just plays, poetry, and entertainment. He created an amazing energetic aura of boundless creativity that drew others to him like moths are drawn to a source of light. Jackie was an artist whose greatest creation was his own persona that constantly amused and astonished those in his magical orbit.

At his wake, friends spontaneously filled Jackie’s casket with photographs and mementos of his career. Several people tucked joints and packs of Kool cigarettes into his suit pockets. One person brought a sequined magic wand and tucked it under Jackie’s arm. Another slipped in a cocktail shaker full of martinis. A group of people sprinkled his face and body with glitter. Later, at the gravesite, friends covered Jackie’s burial mound with so much red glitter that it was visible a half mile away from the highway.

I began the work of documenting Jackie’s life and work more than thirty years ago. I started by videotaping Curtis starring in
Glamour, Glory and Gold
in the summer of 1974. More recently, I spent nearly four years contacting surviving friends and colleagues of Jackie’s and eventually interviewed more than 30 of them for my award-winning feature length biographical documentary
Superstar in a Housedress: the Life and Legend of Jackie Curtis
. This book contains excerpts from all of those interviews, plus many wonderful stories that could not be included because of limitations of form. It also includes excerpts from many interviews conducted after I finished the film, plus poetry, scenes from plays, excerpts from Jackie’s personal letters, journals, and “trip books” (written works created under the influence of amphetamine). I am deeply honored by everyone who shared private memories and tributes to Jackie Curtis with me. Those who had the good fortune to know him will always sorely miss Jackie’s unique talents and spirit.

Craig Highberger

July 2004