Sr, The heyday of the Warhol Superstars was before my time. I imagine that I was slower to get interested in Curtis than the likes of Candy Darling, Holly Woodlawn , Penny Arcade , Viva, Ultra Violet, et al, because of her fairly quotidian stage name, as compared with theirs. Out of context, when I initially encountered the name I probably would have mistaken her for a black soul singer, mixing up Jackie Wilson and Curtis Mayfield or something. Something about the lyric will stick in the craw of anybody who pays attention.
James DEAN? How ya figure? Jackie is an artist. A pioneer without a frontier. I think it would be fair to call her non-binary. The internet tells me she preferred the female pronoun. But, she was biologically male, and in drag her tendency was to be somewhat androgynous. She tended not to go the whole route in pursuit of the illusion of feminine beauty like Darling.
She might leave whiskers, or acknowledge the wig she was wearing. Her clothing was shabby-chic, and seemingly careless. Said to resemble Mae West , she owned a popular bar near St. Also in that play: a young unknown named Bette Midler! Curtis never formed her own company but from this stage, her work moves in tandem with, and parallel to, the dueling Ridiculous companies of John Vaccaro and Charles Ludlam , and others of the day.
Curtis died unexpectedly in , only 38 years old. The cause was not the scourge of the day, AIDS , but a heroin overdose. You must be logged in to post a comment. February 19, travsd. Like Loading Reblog Subscribe Subscribed. Sign me up. Already have a WordPress. Log in now. Loading Comments
