Jackie Curtis

He subsequently wrote several off-off Broadway plays, including Glamour, Glory and Gold (1967), Vain Victory: Vicissitudes of the Damned (1971), and Amerika Cleopatra (1972). Curtis appeared in the film Andy Warhol's Flesh (1968), directed by Paul Morrissey, and starred in Women in Revolt (1971), a comedic spoof of the women's liberation movement. While performing in drag on stage and screen, Curtis would typically wear lipstick, glitter, bright red hair, ripped dresses, and stockings. Curtis pioneered this combination of camp trashy glamour as a style that inspired many entertainers, including Jayne County, the New York Dolls, and glam rock performers such as David Bowie, Iggy Pop, Gary Glitter, and Mott the Hoople.

• Name — Jackie Curtis • Other Names — Shannon Montgomery • Birth Name — John Curtis Holder Jr. • Born — 19 February 1947 • Birthplace — New York City, US • Died — 15 May 1985 • Place of death — New York City, US • Resting Place — Rose Hills Memorial Park, Putnam Valley, New York • Occupation — Actor, writer, singer • Relatives — Slugger Ann (grandmother)

Jackie Curtis was born John Curtis Holder Jr. in New York City to singer John Holder and Jenevive Uglialoro and had one sibling, half-brother Timothy Holder, who is an openly gay Episcopal priest. Their parents divorced and Curtis was mostly raised by maternal grandmother Slugger Ann (Ann Uglialoro), an East Village bar owner. Curtis reportedly graduated from Hunter College in 1975, but this cannot be confirmed because no diploma has been found.

In 1965, Curtis appeared in Tom Eyen's play Miss Nefertiti Regrets at La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club along with fellow newcomer Bette Midler. Curtis reprised the role as Ptolemy II. Curtis' play Glamour, Glory and Gold, which chronicled the ascent and decline of a female film star, debuted in an East Village basement in 1967. The play starred Candy Darling, Melba LaRose Jr., and Robert De Niro in his first appearance on stage, playing several roles. Curtis played a supporting part as a witty chorus dancer. The program notes explained that Curtis was an emergency fill-in since the girl cast in the part had abruptly quit. "This seemed to account for the strangely amorphous portrayal, neither male nor female, but a comedic talent" said Ernest Leogrande of the New York Daily News. Curtis took the starring roles in his following plays. He followed up his theatrical debut with a musical called Lucky Wonderful (1968) featuring Candy Darling, Paul Serrato, Holly Woodlawn, and Melba LaRose. The playboy socialite Tommy Manville, who had a number of odd and exotic spouses, served as the inspiration for the play. In 1969, Curtis performed with the Playhouse of the Ridiculous in Tom Murrin's Cock-Strong alongside Penny Arcade, Anthony Ingrassia, and others. Music for the production was written by Ralph Czitrom and performed by the Silver Apples. In 1968, Curtis was cast in the Warhol-produced film Flesh, which was directed by Paul Morrissey. Curtis then starred in Women in Revolt (1971) with fellow Warhol superstars Candy Darling and Holly Woodlawn, which satirizes the Women's Liberation Movement and alludes to Valerie Solanas and her SCUM Manifesto. Richard Avedon photographed Curtis with Woodlawn and Darling for the June 1972 issue of Vogue magazine. Warhol said of Curtis: "Jackie Curtis is not a drag queen. Jackie is an artist. A pioneer without a frontier." Years later, when Warhol attended a Boy George concert, he remarked, "I just couldn't like him because it reminded me of what Jackie Curtis could have been." In between filming with Warhol and Morrissey, Curtis continued to write plays. The play Heaven Grand in Amber Orbit (1970) with Ruby Lynn Reyner and Holly Woodlawn ran at the Playhouse of the Ridiculous for weeks. Another play, Femme Fatale (1970) starred Patti Smith, Jayne County and Penny Arcade. • Illustration — Painting by Gary LeGault of Jackie Curtis at SNAFU in 1980 Curtis wrote Vain Victory: The Vicissitudes Of The Damned and co-directed a production of the play at the La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club and the WPA Theatre in 1971. The play starred Candy Darling and Mario Montez, amongst others. In 1972, Amerika Cleopatra, written by Curtis under the direction of Harvey Tavel, ran at the WPA Theatre. The play featured Alexis Del Lago as Charmn Gale and Agosto Machado as Lady Iras. Dick Brukenfeld of the Village Voice gave Americka Cleopatra a mixed review, describing parts of the first act as "diverting" but arguing that the play "had nowhere to go." He criticized the work for presenting transsexual fantasies as "nothing more than an exhibit" and contended that the material required "further elaboration and shaping" to make it compelling. In 1974, Curtis and Holly Woodlawn performed together in "Cabaret in the Sky: An Evening with Holly Woodlawn and Jackie Curtis" at the New York Cultural Center. The poster for the show was designed by Interview magazine illustrator Richard Bernstein. Curtis's poem "B-Girls", much of which is based on observations of people who visited grandmother Slugger Ann's bar, was included in the 1979 book The Poets' Encyclopedia. At eight pages long, it was the longest poem in the book. Curtis directed and performed in Nick Markovich's I Died Yesterday at La MaMa in 1983. Curtis portrayed a nurse in the documentary film Burroughs (1983). Curtis's final play Champagne ran at La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club January 3–27, 1985 and featured George Abagnalo as the male lead. In 1985, Curtis used the name Shannon Montgomery and started going to the HB Studio for acting classes. Photographer Francesco Scavullo took new headshots of Curtis and he began to audition for male parts in soap operas and plays in New York.

Curtis had numerous non-legal marriages between 1969 and 1984. Curtis had arranged to marry Warhol superstar Eric Emerson as a publicity stunt on July 21, 1969. When Emerson failed to show up, Curtis married a wedding guest, Stewart Eaglespeed (Stuart Lichtenstein), on the roof at 211 East 11th Street, where Curtis was living. The mock wedding was covered by The Village Voice. On October 29, 1970, Curtis married Archie Dukeshire; they divorced on April 17, 1971. On November 27, 1971, Curtis married Hunter Cayce; they divorced on January 5, 1972. On February 14, 1972, Curtis married actor Hiram Keller; they divorced on March 1, 1973. On June 9, 1973, Curtis married TV personality Lance Loud; they divorced on August 7, 1975. On December 24, 1976, Curtis married Peter Groby; they divorced on May 14, 1978. On July 23, 1980, Curtis married Kevin McPhee; they divorced on September 14, 1981. Curtis had his last wedding ceremony on May 26, 1984, with Gary Majchrzak as the groom and Curtis being given away by art dealer Leo Castelli.

Throughout his adult life, Curtis presented in both masculine and feminine modes, adopting a range of gender expressions. In the year of his death, he had assumed a male persona and was auditioning for male roles. Photographer Peter Hujar documented this complexity in a posthumous image showing Curtis in his casket wearing a suit, placed beside a photograph of himself in drag. In a November 1969 interview with The New York Times, Curtis rejected fixed labels, stating, "Not a boy, not a girl, not a faggot, not a drag queen, not a transsexual—just me, Jackie... I’m not trying to pass as a woman." Journalist Michael Musto described Curtis's evolving self-presentation in a 1986 Village Voice profile, writing, "In 1968, Jackie lived as a woman twenty-four hours a day. She sort of became Marisa Berenson." Musto noted that by 1972, "she/he returned to facial hair." Reflecting on that period in a 1985 conversation with Musto, Curtis said, "I'd say, 'I'm tired of being Jackie Curtis,' and someone would say, 'But you have to be. We need Jackie Curtis.' But it was a chore and I was already turning my auto-suggestive possession into a reincarnation of James Dean. I wanted to play James Dean, so I became him."

Curtis had a heroin addiction and died from an overdose on May 15, 1985. His wake was held at the Andrett Funeral Home, while the funeral service took place in St. Ann Church in New York. Curtis was laid to rest as a man wearing a suit, with a white flower on his lapel and his hair slicked back. A plaque bearing the words "John Holder, a.k.a. Jackie Curtis" and show business mementos were placed inside his coffin. Photographs of Curtis in drag were displayed on poster boards. Upon hearing news of Curtis' death, Warhol recorded in his diary, "It was an awful day... somebody called and said that Jackie Curtis O.D.'d. He's gone. And that wasn't something I wanted to hear". The following week, Warhol said, "Somebody told me that Jackie Curtis had a long obituary in The New York Times. I still keep wanting to think it was a put-on like his weddings".

Curtis appeared on the cover of Gay Power in 1969, "New York's first homosexual newspaper." Curtis is a subject of the painting, Jackie Curtis and Ritta Redd (1970) by artist Alice Neel, which is in the collection of the Cleveland Museum of Art in Cleveland, Ohio. In 1972, Neal also painted the portrait Jackie Curtis as a Boy, which is in the collection of Femmes Artistes du Musée de Mougins in Mougins, France. Curtis is named in Lou Reed's 1972 song "Walk on the Wild Side" which was about the 'superstars' he knew from Warhol's Factory. The verse speaks of her drug addiction and fascination with James Dean: "Jackie is just speeding away / Thought she was James Dean for a day / Then I guess she had to crash / Valium would have helped that bash".

• Glamour, Glory and Gold (1967) • Lucky Wonderful (1968) • Heaven Grand in Amber Orbit (1970) • Femme Fatale: The Three Faces of Gloria (1970) • Vain Victory: Vicissitudes of the Damned (1971) • Amerika Cleopatra (1972) • Tyrone X (1979) • I Died Yesterday (1983) (play written by Nick Markovich with additional dialogue by Curtis) • Champagne (1985)

• Year — Title — Notes • 1968 — Flesh — role as Jackie • 1971 — W.R.: Mysteries of the Organism • 1971 — Women in Revolt — role as Jackie • 1971 — An American Family — 1 episode • 1973 — The Corner Bar — 1 episode • 1980 — Underground U.S.A. — role as a nurse • 1983 — Burroughs — role as a nurse • 2002 — The Cockettes — archival footage • 2004 — Superstar in a Housedress — archival footage • 2010 — Beautiful Darling — archival footage