Tweet

On the night in question at the Getty, with fires raging all around Los Angeles, Kenneth Anger mounted that stage with his colleagues and both he and Curtis shined in a shared spotlight. Afterwards there was a reception and we all posed for pictures, and the two vieux copains were joyously macabre and seemingly on the best of terms. In a perfect world this would have been the beginning of a dialogue between the two of them on the art of survival, having known each other since they were fourteen years old. Kenneth had been very bitchy regarding Curtis’s last project, which would also prove to be his last film, USHER. After Curtis sent a copy to Kenneth, I got a call from Kenneth, who was having a fit about how Curtis could not return to the avant garde any old time he wanted to create art. ‘If Curtis thinks this little film will restore his reputation he can just think again.” So you can imagine my relief when this night of nights arrived and the two of them chose very wisely to let bygones be just that. The Gods were kind to both of them that evening, a treasured moment in time for two very talented men.

There have been so many moments in the past thirty years involving my memories of Curtis that I cannot possibly remember them all in this essay, yet I always come back to a very special afternoon when Curtis was invited to join me for an afternoon brunch in Chatsworth with composer Les Baxter. Les wanted Curtis there to try and convince him to use his music in his next film. Unfortunately these two men had more in common than they realized, since neither one of them was in line for an assignment in films. In fact, Les had become so overwrought with anxiety that he went out and engaged the services of a male model to represent his new compositions. The model in question was telling the music executives that he was the composer…very Phantom of the Opera.

What makes this day stick in my mind was the drive up to Les’ compound, which was in a mountain area and very isolated. Right across the way from Les Baxter’s house is a cemetery. As we were driving towards the Baxter home, Curtis suggested we pause for a moment and go into the graveyard, the reason being that both of Curtis Harrington’s parents are buried there and he had yet to purchase gravestones for them. So before we arrived at this luncheon where poor Les Baxter was hoping for a change in his luck, we were across the street picking out markers for the authors of Curtis Harrington’s being. The lunch itself was stellar, with both men seeming to enjoy each other’s company, and as we were readying ourselves to leave, Les handed Curtis a cassette of some of his music. As we wound our way down the road and out to the freeway, Curtis let the tape fall out the window, saying to me “Can you imagine the gall of that man, thinking I would even consider using any of his compositions when they are so déclassé…” It was moments like this that created that iron-clad rule – never talk about jobs socially. Nothing good can ever come of it.

One of the very last times I saw Curtis was at the memorial they gave Gary Graver (the writer/director/cameraman who worked on all of Orson Welles’ films at the end of his career) at the American Cinemateque in Hollywood. Curtis was sitting by himself at one of those metal tables in front of the ice cream and candy shop in the courtyard of the Egyptian theater. Curtis was like a magnificent ruin, covered in liver spots and not wearing his partial for his lower teeth. I don’t think he cared how he looked anymore and it gave him a sense of serenity that was almost otherworldly. We spoke for the better part of an hour and he told me that he was very happy with his lot in life, and the traveling he had done in the last couple of years, screening his short film USHER at festivals, made him comfortable in his own skin. “I will be remembered for my work, this I know, my legacy is assured.” It was great hearing him talk this way and we parted with the understanding I would come to spend some time with him on my next visit into town. At the memorial, many of Gravers’ co-workers and friends spoke in between film clips, but none were as eloquent as Curtis Harrington, who broke down during his speech as he described the way a native culture releases the spirit of their loved ones, and managed to break everyone’s heart in the process. That they should pass away within months of each other is in itself a kind of tribute to their working collaboration, which was based on mutual respect and love.

Personally I have lost not only a great and loyal friend; cinema has lost something as well. The kind of intellect and grace that came so easily to Curtis, the style and polish with which he framed a scene, his wit and humor in the face of Hollywood indifference. These qualities may not appear again in my lifetime, and not, I fear, in Hollywood. I now cherish the two video interviews we did together. One is still available from VCI Entertainment with the uncut version of RUBY, which was a film Curtis disowned for many years because of interference from producer Steve Krantz, the husband of soap queen author Judith Krantz. It still makes me laugh to remember getting a call from Curtis when he found out Steve had died. Curtis said “I feel like getting some Jack Daniels and heading over to the cemetery to watch the gravediggers cover him up.” The second interview was for my cable access show SINISTER IMAGE, and that interview will soon be released in a boxed set with all my conversations done at that studio for a company in the UK in the next year. We had a wonderful time discussing his up and downs in nearly half a century in Hollywood.

Among the many films that Curtis and I enjoyed together over the years, one of our all time favorites was a not-too-well regarded all-star black comedy on the funeral business in Los Angeles (based on a highly regarded novel by Evelyn Waugh). We are of course referring to Tony Richardson’s film of THE LOVED ONE. This film has been much on my mind of late because of the macabre nature of what took place at Curtis Harrington’s funeral in the HOLLYWOOD FOREVER CEMETARY on Santa Monica Blvd in West Hollywood. Valentino is interred there, complete with yearly visits from the “Woman in Black,” and films are run graveside on weekends. So you can see the connection with Waugh’s observations, which are truer now than when he penned the novel decades before. The day of Curtis’s service, with his body on display prior to his cremation, Kenneth Anger arrived with a makeshift film crew and began filming away at Curtis’s mortal remains, including two alternate takes of Kenneth kissing Curtis on the forehead. Not even the other Ken – Russell that is – could top this sideshow behavior (not unlike Russell’s film of VALENTINO which incidentally I saw with Curtis when it came out).

At one point, before Jack Larson (the openly gay actor who once played Jimmy Olson in the George Reeves SUPERMAN TV series) could begin the eulogy, Kenneth took front row center where he did what amounted to an audio commentary of Curtis’s funeral in progress. In 2005 Kenneth interrupted a screening of USHER at the Arch Light Theater by rising up from the audience and doing a monologue on Curtis Harrington as a child while Curtis sat quietly fuming since, as Curtis said later, “Kenneth knows fuck all about my childhood, and he is just more bad news then it is worth to fuck with him anymore.”

Whether or not Curtis would have been amused at this, I think the answer would be a resounding ‘no,’ since just a few months ago I was visiting Curtis at his home when we began a conversation about his lifelong relationship with Anger. Curtis was very disappointed that after all this time Kenneth could not finally, in his final years, appreciate his celebrity. Curtis said “You know they write about his work as if he is a genius like Cocteau, and still he spends his life in torment over trifles, even to the point of putting my little short film down as if any of this shit really matters. As far as I’m concerned life is too fucking short to spend it on Kenneth Fucking Anger.” So I am sure that all this attention paid to Anger was not what Curtis had in mind for his final goodbye to his friends.

None of this really matters in the wake of losing such an irreplaceable personality like Curtis. I will always maintain a treasure trove of memories involving him, sharing films and enjoying all the amazing people we met in the course of three decades. Hurd Hatfield flying in from Ireland, a survivor of the studio system and a real hoot to know. Watching Curtis roll his eyes as Hurd tried one more time to convince a hunky waiter to drop everything and go to Ireland with him. Escorting Gale Sondergarrd to a Sherlock Holmes screening only to find they could not find a print of SHERLOCK HOLMES AND THE SPIDER WOMAN. Curtis hosting an impromptu dinner party for my little Lovecraft group even though they were total strangers to him, Trying to get Samson DeBrier out of a party before the host punched him out for a slip of the tongue. Curtis enjoying my attempts to tell Yvonne Furneux what a goddess she was in the Hammer version of THE MUMMY. At first she told Curtis she was throwing me in his swimming pool, however we wound up at each other homes, another friendship begun at the House of Harrington. There is a line in John Ford’s THE LAST HURRAH where Spencer Tracey is dying, so his old friends gather around for one last Hurrah, Tracey observes “How can you thank a man for a lifetime of laughs?” well you can’t! All you can do is keep the departed close to your heart and cherish those memories, and they will never be forgotten…

I believe Curtis would have appreciated these lines by the Divine Edgar as a fitting fare well to a true gentleman….

AND MY SOUL FROM OUT THAT SHADOW THAT LIES FLOATING ON THE FLOOR SHALL BE LIFTED……..NEVERMORE

Continue to page: 1 2 3