Not often is a person consistently described as a
delusional egomaniacal thief equally attributed the love, admiration,
and absolute devotion of their documenters. Yet, this seemingly
contradictory commemoration, portrayed in Craig B. Highberger’s 2004
documentary Superstar in a Housedress: the Life and Legend of Jackie
Curtis (Highberger Media, Inc.), is perfectly consistent with its
subject, Jackie Curtis, who embodied ambiguity and irreverence. Highberger’s film focuses on Curtis’s varied creative life as a poet,
playwright, actor, singer, director, and Warhol Superstar. From
the mid-sixties, Curtis lived and worked in
Highberger’s work is a rather straight documentary, structurally speaking. Vignettes of interviews with Curtis’s friends, family, and creative collaborators are cleverly spliced with photographs, live footage from plays and readings, segments of Warhol/Morrissey films, and presentations of various other memorabilia that illustrate the adventures and affinities of the film’s subject. Beyond metaphorical fade-ins and fade-outs, the cinematography is kept simple. The straight-forward show-and-tell style neither gets in the way nor tries to hide.
All of the alternating fragments of footage are loosely tied together by narrator and interviewee Lily Tomlin. Tomlin seems an odd choice, a notion exacerbated by her mainstream fame and her own admission: “I feel really privileged just…that I… was…part of that whole society at that time, even if it was peripheral.” So, why such a tangential voice sounding off as center for a tribute to this “society”? Perhaps she acts as the mass-appeal validation-glue which holds together the spokes of this wheel of characters committed to life on the fringe.
Many of the other interviewees contributing to the film are
not quite so widely known. All non-blood Curtis associates seem
to be tied together by a deeply sequined adoration of 20’s-40’s movie
star glamour and aesthetics. From the intimate musings of performance
artist Penny Arcade, to the austere recollections of Laura de Coppet,
a self described “benefactor” of Curtis and author of The Art Dealers,
those inspired by Curtis share individual memories from the sweetly
sentimental to the absurd. Each interviewee is shown seated
in what looks like a personal or home setting evocative of their personality
and life. Lily Tomlin perches rather awkwardly on a stool in
a neat well-lit kitchen alcove, centered between a vase of pink roses
and a clean white shelf stocked with DVD sleeves, magazine covers,
and books bearing her own image. In stark contrast, accented drag
star, costumer, and antique dealer Alexis Del Lago holds court on
a leopard print sofa with knickknacks and baubles overflowing around
her. She dawns sweeping gold lame or black velvet dresses—each
of which she “wore in the show” (various Curtis stage productions)—and
gives enthusiastic accounts of Curtis quirks and encounters.
Throughout the film, the respect Curtis’s friends and associates have for the fluid manner in which Curtis perceived his/her own gender and self is evident. Recurring chroniclers use “she” or “he” to describe Curtis, and depending on the timeline of the story or anecdote, the same interviewee might switch pronouns several times. Tomlin, again seeming to represent the outsider’s perspective, expresses her admiration, remembering, “of course you sort of envied someone who…was able to so casually just cross that barrier back and forth and sort of live his life as…a kind of performance art.”
The body of Highberger’s documentary loosely follows the chronology
of Curtis’s life. The subject’s early childhood is revealed
secondhand: more through stories Curtis shared with friends years
after the fact than through first-hand accounts from the few surviving
relatives interviewed. Penny Arcade, who met Curtis as John
Holder Jr. in high school and remained a close friend until Curtis’s
death, describes Jackie’s
