Superstar in a Housedress: The Life and Legend of Jackie Curtis (21 page)

Rose Royalle

One night Jackie invited me out, because I guess she couldn’t get anybody else on such short notice – Eric Emerson was busy or something. At that time my persona was my original born gender, so we looked like a couple. She had an invitation for two to cocktails and a fancy dinner at the Rainbow Room. It was a benefit for the Kidney Association and Andy Warhol had received an invitation with two tickets and gave them to Curtis because he didn’t want to go. We were Lower East Side kids and we sure didn’t want to pass up the chance for free drinks and dinner at the Rainbow Room. So Curtis got all dolled up in all her spangles. She gave me a jacket to wear because at that time I didn’t really know how to clean up. I remember sitting next to her at this dinner table of all these fancy-smantzy people and Curtis suddenly saying, “Eddie, my kidneys are killing me – Eddie, my kidneys are killing me!” And she said this REALLY loud in front of all these very proper people during a Kidney Association benefit! It just totally cracked me up; I’ll never forget it.

I did go back to her apartment and spent the night there. I was probably so bombed that I just passed out. There was some stubble rubbing. There was very little pocketbook banging. If there was, I don’t remember it. I thought it was humorous that I was even there overnight. But then in the morning I’ll never forget Curtis going to the window and lighting sparklers, right in the window – to attract all the pretty Latino boys on the street. And that was a riot. Only Curtis could do that.

I think out of the entire crowd she was the most creative, she was doing plays and writing things. You know Candy was the great beauty, and Holly was the Hollywood type. Jackie didn’t care if she had stubble showing, or ripped stockings. That’s what I think of when I think of Curtis. My stockings were ripped today and I thought, “That’s very Curtis.”

Leee Black Childers

One morning I had been out until 5 am at a club called “The Sewer” with a creature called International Crisis who was a drag queen and Judy Garland, who wished that she was a drag queen. And I walk in and there’s Jackie and she’s in her old lady dress, her black stockings with runs all up and down them. She’d been on speed, slapping glitter on everything, teasing her hair, going crazy and then I walk in the door and I was the willing victim and she whirls around and screams “HA, HA, someday everyone will look like ME!” And you know what? It came true. You can wear rags pinned together and glitter and smell and still be everyone’s idol.

Holly Woodlawn

Someone had to earn some money, so I applied for and got a position as a sales girl at the boutique “Seventh Heaven” on the seventh floor of Saks Fifth Avenue. They had no clue as to who I was or what I was. So I called Candy and Jackie and said get over here honey – it’s winter, wear a big coat, take things into the dressing room try things on and put the coat on over it and leave. Don’t worry, I’m the sales girl, I’m not going to call security! So that’s what they did and they went across the street to a cheap bar and I met them there and we had a martini and they opened their coats and you would not believe how many dresses they had on – at least four apiece! And Jackie immediately would rip every one of them up. And I’m talking about designer dresses, real chiffon, not cheap shit.

Chapter 5 – Drugs and Death

Jackie in St. Vincent’s Hospital receiving an injection in 1974 after losing a kidney due to a mugging. Ten years later he would be admitted after overdosing on heroin less than a year before his death.
Photo © Craig Highberger

Craig Highberger

One night after a performance of
Glamour, Glory and Gold
, Jackie and Estelle decided to wear their costumes and full makeup home. They had the cash from the night’s performance. (The show was considered a “showcase” and so admission was free, but the actors stood at the door after the show and collected donation in a hat, which were divided among cast and crew.) They decided to save cab fare and walk, stopping in every Lower East Side dive for a drink along the way.

At some point three Puerto Rican youths started hassling the girls and one had a switchblade, which he held against Jackie’s bare back. The knife nicked Jackie. The wound, which was small and seemed to heal quickly, actually caused an internal infection. Jackie hated doctors and did not go to one, even when blood appeared in his urine a week later. Several nights later he collapsed on stage during a performance and was taken to the emergency room. After running some tests a surgeon performed emergency surgery to remove one of Jackie’s kidneys, which had been destroyed by infection.

Don Herron

In 1976 I was living in California and I started photographing people in their bathtubs and I came to New York City and was introduced to Jackie Curtis. Because at that time he shared an apartment with a relative, he came to my studio to be photographed in my bathtub. He showed up around lunchtime with a big suitcase and two bottles of vodka. It took him four hours to do the makeup and hair and during that time he drank all the vodka and I had to practically put him in the tub. Luckily we did get a series of good photographs.

Holly Woodlawn

I remember one Friday afternoon, Jackie and I had been doing a lot of speed and we decided to get dressed and do our makeup and go to Max’s Kansas City. Jackie used one mirror, I went to another. I started making up one eye and three hours later I was still working on it. My arm became so tired I couldn’t hold it up anymore so we sat down on the couch and worked on each other’s faces. By the time we finally got our faces made up to our satisfaction, we looked at the clock and realized Max’s was closed because it was 4:30 A.M. So we just stayed home and listened to Barbra Streisand albums and the rest is history.

Gretchen Berg

When Jackie was in his early thirties, he was really addicted to some kind of drugs. He told me that he had gone to St. Vincent’s hospital once in the middle of the night. He felt he was having a nervous breakdown, crying and saying, “Please help me, I can’t control myself anymore, I can’t stop.” Once when he came to over to visit me he was so high he was falling down, unable to walk. I had to hold him up. He was talking a mile a minute about things that didn’t seem to be very important. The drugs and alcohol were taking over.

The last time I saw Jackie was a few years before his death. I ran into him on 14th Street. He was dressed as a man. His hair was very short and he was nervously chain-smoking. He was no longer the Jackie I had known. The boy had gone back over the grass of the boarding school, the boy had jumped back into the basket and the swords were plunged in – but this time he did not emerge, and a trickle of blood came from the bottom of the basket.

Jackie Curtis on magical Manhattan:

Last week I walked past a manhole cover and steam was coming out, and I realized that Manhattan really is Brigadoon. It actually is. And now I worry constantly about crossing the line, because I know the spell will be broken forever and I will never be able to return again. I had a special meeting with my psychiatrist and my alcoholic counselor to tell them I’m not panicking.

Laura de Coppet

I have never known anybody as attached to drugs as Curtis was, and particularly amphetamine. He felt that without it he was worthless, or that he couldn’t create. I kept telling him, no, no, Jackie that’s not true! But nothing could convince him otherwise. And somehow I understand that. But it was tragic. Because he was sui generous. They broke the mould after they made Curtis. He was a genius. A hilarious one. I counted him among one of my best friends, although I did know that like all drug addicts, the drug comes first.

Robert Heide

Jackie was into pain. I’m not saying Jackie was a masochist, though I’m sure that was there, but there is the story Jackie told about not just going for electrolysis, but going to someone who pulled the hairs of Jackie’s beard out one by one, and how very much it hurt. While Jackie was telling us this story he was smiling. Suffering for one’s art, or one’s persona. Becoming the image of the star. God knows Jackie was a star, in the firmament of not just Andy Warhol, but off-off Broadway, and Christopher Street, and wherever Jackie turned up.

Jackie was not averse to slumming in gay bars or waterfront holes or trucks – truck stops or diners; I think that’s the kind of
Vain Victory
aspect of Jackie’s life. The last time I saw Jackie was at Boots and Saddles, a bar on Christopher Street. Jackie was James Dean that night. And Jackie was also incoherent that night. There was a little bit of glitter on the face.

Lily Tomlin

Jackie could play a character like Nola Noonan and be histrionic, but in some photographs of Jackie dressed as a woman he has that lingering kind of yearning, that been-there-done-that, but compassionate – not going to be judgmental about you look. It’s the look of someone who has seen the world and is weary of it all, but yet has this sincere sweetness. Those eyes are both innocent and pained, lost and lonely – they reveal the loneliness that an artist like Jackie knows.

Penny Arcade

I spent a year with Jackie, almost every night, helping Jackie not to drink. Hanging out, talking, Jackie trying not to drink, and finally Jackie kicked the booze. Drinking was an enormous, enormous addiction for Jackie. Sugar. Booze. Heroin. Fame. Jackie’s big addictions.

I went to visit Jackie just before the rehearsals had started for
Champagne
. And Jackie had an enormous bruise on the arm where he had Andy’s name tattooed. It was quite hideous looking. Jackie told me that it was from been mugged, and I thought – this is kind of an odd injury from being mugged. It was all swollen and red. And then a few days later I got a phone call from Jackie and he was in St. Vincent’s Hospital. He wanted me to bring him a vanilla shake and three packs of Kool’s, that’s when you could still smoke in a hospital.

It turned out it was an enormous infected abscess. It was loosely bandaged, and they had done some preliminary surgery on it, but it was like looking into the Grand Canyon, you were looking at bone, you were looking at muscle … it was grotesque. I was horrified, and yet Jackie maintained this story. Of course, he knew that I was completely dead-set against him using drugs or alcohol, because of what it did to him. What had happened, I later learned from Margo, is that Jackie had OD’ed, and Margo had given Jackie a salt shot, which is used to revive a person. And it had abscessed. And I said to Jackie – you can’t keep doing this.

About this time I started distancing myself from Jackie. I sort of have a sixth sense that someone is going to die. This has happened to me a number of times, that before a person dies I distance myself from them. About six weeks before he died, I ran into Jackie on the street for what turned out to be the last time. And he was very excited; he said “Penny, I’ve changed my name to Shannon Montgomery.” He was launching a male version of himself as an actor. He was dead serious about it. But it was al make-believe. It wasn’t like; “I’m going to be Jackie Curtis boy now.” It had to have a new name because it was a new identity – it was an act. Jackie was involved in a constant state of make-believe. He told me he thought there was a big future for himself. He said he was auditioning for soap operas. But he had this otherworldly appearance. And somehow I knew that I was never going to see Jackie again.

Jackie Curtis (1981)

Within just a couple of years my mother died, my grandmother died, my Uncle Tony died, and I had to send Uncle Jackie to a state institution. It was just too much for me, so there was nothing else to do but put on the dress and the glamour and the mink and go to the curb and scream “Taxi!” and go to work.

Eddie Snyder

I first saw Jackie at Max’s Kansas City, which was a hangout for the Warhol superstars. I was one of the guys at the bar drinking beer. I didn’t know Jackie Curtis was a guy then, I thought she was some really hot babe. I thought she was too good for me.

In 1981 I had lost my job and at night I was sleeping in a sleeping bag in the Westbeth Theater. I was friends with the owner and he would lock me in there at night. I met Jackie and he told me I could move in with him. He was living in Slugger Ann’s old apartment on 14th Street. She had died and Jackie was taking care of his Uncle Jackie who was schizophrenic and on disability from the Veteran’s Administration. So both Jackie and I became his caretakers. But Uncle Jackie began to get worse and worse, to the point where even with medication he became unmanageable. Aunt Josie came over and saw that the situation was really impossible and Uncle Jackie ended up in the VA Hospital. So this burden was lifted from us.

But it was a difficult time. Jackie was trying to get a project together but nothing was happening. And so the two of us were watching soap operas during the day and Jackie was drinking too much. And this was no good. So he went to de-tox a couple of times. And he went to Cabrini Medical Center and got a good alcoholism counselor and started going to 12-step meetings and really got himself free of dependency. And his friends rallied around him and helped.

While preparing his play
Champagne
for production in late 1984 Jackie started doing heroin. At one time that was my drug of choice and believe me once you start doing heroin, it’s not easy to resist. Jackie overdosed and one of the people she was with, Margo Howard-Howard did not correctly inject the antidote into a vein. The shots went into the muscle and both of Jackie’s arms developed abscesses. She was in St. Vincent’s hospital for about a month, which nearly derailed the production. But it went on.

After the play closed Jackie stopped taking heroin. He realized he needed to transcend his Warhol superstar image and he decided to concentrate on male roles. So he developed a new identity – Shannon Montgomery, and began to live it. He was really gung ho about it. At this time I had moved out to my own place. And a week before Jackie died I visited him and you would not have recognized the apartment. He had completely cleaned it out and had organized the place for the first time. Jackie was transforming into this new person Shannon and the apartment was changing too because he was starting a new life. He never looked better. He had a great attitude. He was excited about the future and ready to work and told me he was going to see his drama teacher’s agent about representation.

But unfortunately he had friends that were using cocaine and heroin. And a he had this drug dealer named Gomadi who adored him and so she was coming over every day and supplying him with the drugs and taking them with him.

Sasha McCaffrey

When Jackie Curtis was doing a show, she lived in another world until the show closed. Her nightlife never ended. Doing the show was nothing. On the stage Jackie was on autopilot, but the maintenance, awaiting that hour on the stage – that was what was difficult. That took a lot of effort. I was one of the people Jackie wanted around her all the time when she was doing a show. When I’m doing a show, I don’t want anyone around me. You can’t see me before the show. We had totally different ways of approaching our craft. Jackie needed an entourage close to her at all times during the run of a show. So the first night she did,
I Died Yesterday
, the Frances Farmer story, I went home with her and was with her constantly until the end of the show. The other bosom buddy during the show was this other drag dream, Margo Howard-Howard who was her spiritual advisor and drama coach. So it was the three of us, the three gay musketeers, jamming into a cab every night, going to the theatre, partying, then coming home together. Sometimes Margo and Jackie would be talking to each other and I would feel totally invisible, like I was watching a scene from a Lana Turner movie. It was flawless.

But there were little things behind the scenes I didn’t notice at first, like the fact that Margo was shooting loads of heroin. One night during our revels, Margo had gone to the bathroom and Jackie and I heard this chilling scream. The next thing we know the bathroom door bursts open, and Margo, comes running across the room at full speed in her underwear. And BAM! She slams into the living room wall, like she didn’t even see it and she just drops to the floor like a stone. Jackie and I looked at each other in total shock.

I went over to Margo. She was unconscious and completely motionless. I touched her face and stomach and was horrified because she was clammy and cold. It looked like she wasn’t breathing. I screamed, “Oh my god! Jackie she’s dead!” And Jackie just dismissively says, “Oh Sasha, Margo is not dead.” And I screamed, “But Jackie, she stopped breathing! She doesn’t have a heartbeat! We have to call an ambulance right now!” So Jackie hurries out of the room to call 911. All this time Margo is still not moving or breathing at all.