An Underground Survivor at the Oscars: Holly Woodlawn, Puerto
Rican Actor
Today Mediático presents another Oscars-themed reflection by regular contributor Roberto
Ortiz, independent scholar, on the career of Holly Woodlawn, Puerto Rican transgender
actor, pioneer, and Warhol superstar, mythicized in the opening lines of Lou Reed’s “Walk
on the Wild Side” and included in the “In Memoriam” section of the 88th Academy Award’s
ceremony. Ortiz explores the significance of Woodlawn’s career and the terms on which she
was memorialized at the Oscars suggesting that although it reflects the U.S. mainstream’s
attempts at inclusivity with respect to trans people there’s a continuing exclusion of
performers who, like Woodlawn, defy fixed identity categories and are still not welcome
among the predominantly white, wealthy, hetero and homonormative Oscars ceremony
audience.
I’m not afraid of playing a man; I was born a man.
And I’m not afraid of being a woman. I love women.
Too much is made of gender. I want people to say of me,
‘Here is a person who has something to offer besides gender.’
– Holly Woodlawn in The New York Times, 1970
…some little queens told me they had read my book,
adding that if it weren’t for me, they couldn’t do it…
What do you say when somebody tells you you’re Lana Turner?
– Holly Woodlawn in The Advocate, 2000
She was called a superstar though in truth she was more of a starlet. The caption on a
publicity photo for her 1970 film debut described her beauty as “either original or freakish.”
Her looks – androgynously thin, light-skinned, with green eyes, prominent nose and overbite
– didn’t fit Latino stereotypes. The press termed her a drag queen, transvestite or female
impersonator, but she resisted labels and was flippant about suitable gender-specific
pronouns. She identified as an actor, but most thought she only played herself. Her most
famous scenes showed her masturbating with a beer bottle and faking pregnancy with a
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An Underground Survivor at the Oscars: Holly Woodlawn, Puerto
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pillow to collect welfare. She was considered an Underground Legend, Transgender
Pioneer, Lou Reed Muse, and Warhol Superstar.
The “In Memoriam” video during the 2016 Academy Awards ceremony featured a
bittersweet surprise: the inclusion of Holly Woodlawn (1946 – 2015), an underground
cinema actor best remembered for her debut in the Andy Warhol presentation/ production
Trash [https://vimeo.com/103046694] (Paul Morrissey, 1970). Unfamiliar to mainstream
audiences, the Puerto Rican performer had a brief moment of posthumous recognition after
her death from cancer complications on December 6, 2015, which was announced by her
Trash co-star and friend Joe Dallesandro through his Facebook page. There were obituaries
in major newspapers and trade publications, several online tributes, and Facebook shares
from fans and friends. Many posts repeated the “immortalized” version of her story,
reducing the 69-year-old’s life to the opening lyrics of the 1972 song “Walk on the Walk
Side” and to her acclaimed performance in Trash, on which she only worked for six days in
late 1969, earning 25 dollars per day. She was described as Andy Warhol’s and/or Lou
Reed’s muse, two misleading labels that suggested close creative relationships. However,
she hadn’t met Reed when he wrote “Walk on the Wild Side,” a song that offered snapshots
of people associated with Warhol’s studio (the Factory) based on hearsay. And it was
director Paul Morrissey, not Andy Warhol, who “discovered” Holly Woodlawn and turned
her into a Warhol Superstar by casting her in Trash.
As Frances Negrón Muntaner (2004 & 2015) has argued, there was more to Holly
Woodlawn than the Warhol Superstar label. Her involvement with Warhol’s Factory was
actually brief. She only “starred” in two largely improvised Warhol productions, in which
her co-stars were the main attractions. Trash’s real star was the very young, buff and oftnude Joe Dallesandro, who appeared shirtless on the poster, and the publicity for Women in
Revolt (Morrissey, 1971, which began filming before Trash’s release), including the DVD
release cover art, privileged co-star Candy Darling, who dominated the film with Jackie
Curtis. Despite irregular – and usually short – appearances in underground or independent
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An Underground Survivor at the Oscars: Holly Woodlawn, Puerto
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cinema between 1970 and 2012, Holly Woodlawn spent more time performing on stage than
acting in movies. However, cinema and music had the power to create her most enduring
images (echoes of what happened to Carmen Miranda during the 1940s and 50s) and, like
an aging classic Hollywood star, during her last decades she retold stories from her Factory
days, gamely playing what became her longest role: surviving Warhol Superstar.
After Holly Woodlawn’s death, many articles featured one of the black-and-white glamour
portraits, taken by New York Times photographer Jack Mitchell prior to the release of
Trash. They show the young Puerto Rican starlet striking classic Hollywood star poses. With
penciled arched eyebrows and backlighting creating a halo effect on her hair, in one photo
Holly demurely covers her chest with both arms and coyly looks away. In other photos, Holly
seductively holds a cigarette – lips closed or slightly open – while invitingly looking at the
camera. The “In Memoriam” video at the 2016 Oscars showed one of Mitchell’s glamour
shots in which a feather boa frames her face. On the 2002 documentary A Look on the Wild
Side, Holly says she used one of those photos to change the passport of a French
Ambassador’s wife, impersonate her, and withdraw $2,000 from a UN building bank. After a
successful first attempt, Holly returned – drunk – to get more money for drugs, but security
caught her. Initially sent to the Women’s House of Detention, Woodlawn was still in the
Tombs (the men’s prison) when Trash opened to generally positive reviews on October
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An Underground Survivor at the Oscars: Holly Woodlawn, Puerto
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1970. As Holly amusingly tells the story, the multiple masquerades (movie star, French
ambassador’s wife, female prisoner) linked to her glamorous photo illustrate the contrast
between her stardom dreams and her socioeconomic hardships (stealing money for drugs,
imprisoned during the film’s premiere) as a poor, addicted, transgender Puerto Rican young
woman.
Holly Woodlawn’s fleeting appearance at the 2016 Oscars reflected contradictions in the
Academy’s response to the criticisms about lack of diversity among this year’s nominees
that caused the resurfacing and trending of the Twitter hashtag #OscarsSoWhite, created
by April Reign (@ReignOfApril) in response to the 2015 nominations. On the one hand,
memorializing a transgender Latina actor from underground cinema seemed like a gesture
of inclusiveness that compensated for past and present failures to recognize transgender
and Latino actors. After the release of Trash, George Cukor reportedly launched an
unsuccessful campaign that could’ve made Holly Woodlawn the first transgender (and the
second Puerto Rican after Rita Moreno) actor to get an Oscar nomination for Best
Supporting Actress. (Coincidentally, Holly Woodlawn passed away on the same day that the
Kennedy Center Honors gala honored Moreno.) This year, Mya Taylor was overlooked on
that same category for her work in Tangerine (Sean Baker, 2015), an independent comedy
about transgender women of color (like Trash, directed by a white man who drew on
Taylor’s anecdotes to build the screenplay). The award went to Alicia Vikander from the hit
biopic The Danish Girl (Tom Hooper, 2015), which earned cisgender actor Eddie Redmayne
an Oscar nomination for his performance as Danish transgender painter Lili Elbe.
While it was touching to see her glamorized face in a video that also featured classic
Hollywood glamour girls like Maureen O’Hara, Holly Woodlawn’s inclusion on the other
hand creates the false impression that she was part of a film industry that had no place for
her: “The worst was when I went to LA to become an actor but opportunities weren’t there.
I came back to Florida to be a busboy and it was humiliating” (Negrón Muntaner 2015).
Why honor someone whose closest connection to the Oscars was a failed nomination
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An Underground Survivor at the Oscars: Holly Woodlawn, Puerto
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campaign and leave out – among others – a starlet like Joan Leslie, the Warner Brothers
ingénue who starred in the Oscar-winning films Sergeant York (Howard Hawks, 1941) and
Yankee Doodle Dandy (Michael Curtiz, 1942) and who participated in Academy events? Why
offer viewers a glimpse of a deceased transgender actor but exclude transgender performer
Anohni, one of the two vocalists (with South Korean soprano Jo Sumi) not invited to perform
their Oscar-nominated songs during the ceremony? While Holly Woodlawn is recognized as
a transgender pioneer, how many value her as a Puerto Rican actor and see her in relation
to Oscar-winning presenter (but not nominee) Benicio del Toro or to red carpet favorite
Jennifer Lopez (absent from the 2016 ceremony, but very visible in 2015, when she became
part of a widely circulated GIF)?
Holly Woodlawn was born Haroldo Santiago Dankahl in Puerto Rico from a short-lived
relationship between Aminta Nilda Rodríguez Franchesci, of the southern town of Juana
Díaz, and a US soldier of German descent. Aminta left her child with her family and
migrated to New York, where she met and married Joseph Ajzenberg, a Jewish Polish
immigrant. After sending for her child, the family moved to Miami, where Holly grew up as
Harold and eventually adopted the Ajzenberg last name. On early 1962, fifteen-year-old
Harold embarked on the journey mythicized by Lou Reed’s “Walk on the Wild Side”: “Holly
came from Miami FLA/ Hitchhiked her way across the USA/ Plucked her eyebrows on the
way/ Shaved her legs and then he was a she.” Once in New York City, Holly lived as a street
kid, started doing drugs and turned tricks for money: “I did what everybody does, you know,
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An Underground Survivor at the Oscars: Holly Woodlawn, Puerto
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because the poor little kids, you know, the things they have to do (…) I had to sell my little
chochita at fifteen…” (“Holly Woodlawn 1992 TV Interview”). She also worked as a stripper,
sales clerk and, “passing” as female, she worked as a model at Saks Fifth Avenue.
During those years, Holly Woodlawn found inspiration, paid close attention and valued the
work of classic movie stars. It wasn’t a passive mode of film fandom. Queer underground
performers like Woodlawn emulated their favorite movie stars, without necessarily
attempting a close physical resemblance, but also mocked them affectionately. They looked
through the heteronormativity and the exoticism of the images (like Hollywood Orientalism)
and creatively appropriated them, without the present-day attitude that demands rejecting
them as sexist cultural appropriations. Female stars symbolized milestones in Holly
Woodlawn’s retellings of her life story. The movies of Spanish folkloric singer Lola Flores
were tied to her early childhood in Puerto Rico, where a gay uncle introduced his nephew to
the pleasures of what can be considered Hispanic camp. Watching the glamorous Lana
Turner costumed as a sexy pagan priestess in The Prodigal (Richard Thorpe, 1955) was a
revelatory moment growing up in Miami. Audrey Hepburn’s character in Breakfast at
Tiffany’s (Blake Edwards, 1961) supplied the name Holly (“because I used to whistle for
cabs, and so did she, in the movie,” she explained on TV in 1979). Elizabeth Taylor’s
Orientalist image as Cleopatra (Joseph Mankiewicz, 1963) inspired her during her early
years in New York City. A Woodlawn Cemeteries sign seen on Lucile Ball’s sitcom allegedly
gave the idea for her last name in 1969. And comparisons to Hollywood stars differentiated
Warhol’s “drag superstars” during the early 1970s: funny redhead Jackie Curtis (Lucille
Ball), elegant blonde Candy Darling (Kim Novak) and exotic brunette Holly Woodlawn (Hedy
Lamarr).
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An Underground Survivor at the Oscars: Holly Woodlawn, Puerto
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Andy Warhol, but her relationship to the Factory began around her time on the chorus of
Heaven Grand in Amber Orbit (1969), written by friend Jackie Curtis and staged by the
underground theater group Playhouse of the Ridiculous. Director Paul Morrissey reportedly
saw an interview on Gay Power in which Woodlawn falsely claimed to have turned down an
offer to be in an Andy Warhol picture. Morrissey, who favored casting non-realistic
performers, asked Woodlawn to participate in his next movie, the follow-up to his very
successful Flesh (1968), a hustler story starring Joe Dallesandro that featured Jackie Curtis
and Candy Darling. Impressed by Woodlawn’s performance, Morrissey expanded her role
and she became the most important female character in the movie.
Trash is structured around the absurd encounters between a young, handsome but impotent
drug addict (Joe) and several women who are briefly interested in him. Usually described as
a comedy, the film’s tone is more ambiguous thanks to the performances, especially Holly
Woodlawn as Holly Santiago, Joe’s trash-collecting girlfriend who devises a scheme with her
pregnant sister to collect welfare. Despite claiming writer credit, director Paul Morrissey
only gave actors rough sketches for the scenes and they took it from there, ad-libbing all or
most of the dialogue. As the title shows, Morrissey had a very low opinion of his characters,
but has been very complimentary of Woodlawn, even though she fit the profile of those he
disregarded as “trash.” Morrissey’s efforts to create humor came from a condescending and
moralistic point of view: “[These lives] were pointless and therefore comical and humorous
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An Underground Survivor at the Oscars: Holly Woodlawn, Puerto
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and I always looked for the ridiculous situation and the strange over-the-top behavior of
people to indicate the point that these were people who were leading what were basically
sad and ultimately worthless lives” (Factory Days, 2006). Humor was a central part in Holly
Woodlawn’s personality, but to different effect. According to Holly, “I wanted to look
ridiculous, to make people laugh. But I also wanted them to feel something for me, to feel
something for that pitiful girl with no future” (Flatley 1970). Her empathy for Holly Santiago
subverts the director’s intentions to make his “outcasts, deadbeats and losers” simply look
“silly” and “idiotic.” During her interactions with Joe Dallesandro’s character, she conveys a
sincerity that disrupts the disregard the director shows for his characters by putting them in
absurd scenarios and by often filming them from unflattering angles. In the film’s most
notorious scene, Holly’s committed performance partly destabilizes the exploitative setup,
which has the stupefied Joe stripping down to his underwear while his girlfriend
masturbates with a beer bottle. She forcefully moves her naked body through the couch
while visibly holding the bottle, moans amusingly incongruous lines (“I want welfare!”), and
extends her other hand to caress Joe’s impotent body, which leads to a surprisingly moving
final gesture of Joe and Holly clutching each other’s hands.
Though far from a crowd-pleasing film, Trash became one of the Factory’s most successful
releases, played out-of-competition at the 1971 Cannes Film Festival, and enjoyed a
successful run in Germany. While Holly Woodlawn relished the attention – “When I saw my
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An Underground Survivor at the Oscars: Holly Woodlawn, Puerto
Rican Actor
name in lights… it was like everything I had ever lived for” (“Arena: Tales of Rock ‘N’ Roll,”
1993) – her acquired Warhol superstar label euphemized the reality of being an
underground starlet. During the studio system, starlets were young women who aspired to
become stars. Paradoxically, the quest for stardom required that starlets do what movie
stars refused to do. As Leo Morin notes, the starlet “would like to imitate the star’s
comportment, but she is obliged to do the reverse: whereas the star flees her admirers, the
starlet must look for hers, even create them; whereas the star reveals her soul, the starlet
must exhibit her body” (44). In the studio era, that meant posing for cheesecake photos,
agreeing to publicity stunts, and making personal appearances at public events. Studios
hired, groomed and heavily publicized them as potential box-office attractions, usually
putting starlets on seven-year-long contracts with the option to drop them when they failed
to deliver. They were subject to executive decisions about the course of their careers, but
the studios also provided salary and training (like acting lessons).
Like Hollywood studio starlets, the Warhol superstars were asked to show up at the Factory
and participate in photo shoots for publicity purposes. The Factory, however, didn’t provide
its players with preparation or income. If they needed money, they would call and ask
Warhol to give them some. The Factory also didn’t have any plan to buildup their superstars
with suitable follow-up roles in films. After Trash, Woodlawn played mostly brief parts that
stressed the weirder (or freakier) aspects of her “trashy” starlet/ superstar persona:
initiating orgies as the nymphomaniac in Women in Revolt, giving facetious answers “as
herself” in the mockumentary Is There Sex After Death? (Jeanne Abel and Alan Able, 1971)
or waiting on a gynecological examination table in Heaven Wants Out (Robert Feinberg,
unfinished until 2009). Her only time as the lead was playing the dual roles of “Eve
Harrington” and “Rhett Butler” in the unsuccessful Scarecrow in a Garden of Cucumbers
(Robert J. Kaplan, 1972), a low-budget 16mm film (blown to 35 for theatrical release) that
spoofed classic Hollywood films. Her best post-Trash showcase, however, was Broken
Goddess (Peter Dallas, 1973), a silent short intended for a pre-stardom Bette Midler. The
short premiered on a double bill with Salome (Charles Bryant, 1922) and screened at the
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An Underground Survivor at the Oscars: Holly Woodlawn, Puerto
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start of Woodlawn’s cabaret act in the late 1970s. Unintentionally, although she would play
other small roles in underground or independent movies, Broken Goddess also marked the
end of her early film “stardom,” three years after Trash’s premiere.
Besides the limited opportunities for a transgender Puerto Rican actor who was not
respected as an actor, Holly’s career suffered from her addictions: “At that point I was just
like the loose maniac. I just wanted to get laid and get high, so I’m not making any excuses
for myself. I was having a good time… I just wanted to have a fabulous time” (“Arena: Tales
of Rock ‘N’ Roll,” 1993). Director Peter Dallas left testimony of the challenges that Holly’s
drinking brought to filming: “Holly was a raw talent – fascinating, original, but totally
undisciplined. The Woodlawn persona could be brilliant one moment but unable to recreate
or even recollect it the next. Part of it was the lack of experience; part of it, the booze.”
During the next decades, Holly Woodlawn worked primarily as a cabaret performer. Despite
getting good reviews, Woodlawn’s infamous reputation also affected her. In his memoirs,
Continental Baths owner Steve Ostrow (2007) unfavorably compares Holly’s cabaret act to
her contemporaries: “I had no objection to a class drag act like Charles Pierce or Gypsy but
had always resisted putting Holly on as she was usually more stoned than Mount Rushmore,
although in form she could be alluring and had quite a following. (…) With Holly, one never
knew what to expect.” Online videos give us glimpses of her acts during the 1970s and 80s:
her “Cabaret in the Sky” show with Jackie Curtis (1974), her shows at Reno Sweeney’s
Paradise Room (1977) and SNAFU (1980), her covers of 1960s pop songs at downtown
venues (1980s), performing a Cher classic at a Gay Pride Concert or playing Maria in a
parody of The Sound of Music by Scott Wittman (both 1986). Woodlawn’s act was also
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An Underground Survivor at the Oscars: Holly Woodlawn, Puerto
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featured in Resident Alien (Jonathan Nossiter, 1991) a documentary about Quentin Crisp in
which the British queer icon comments: “I think Holly Woodlawn is definitely a star, but at
the moment a mini star because she lacks organization.” Later, Felicity Mason (aka Anne
Cumming) also laments to her friends: “What upsets me… is to see that talent thrown
away.”
Holly Woodlawn’s few moments of mainstream exposure were her appearances in network
TV talk shows. Two of them featured her with trans celebrities who achieved some degree of
mainstream celebrity: Christine Jorgensen and Divine. Trash had premiered on the same
year as two Hollywood films about transsexuals: Myra Breckinridge (Mike Sarne, 1970), a
widely publicized adaptation of Gore Vidal’s novel, starring Raquel Welch, and The Christine
Jorgensen Story (Irving Rapper, 1970), a low-budget biopic about the first celebrity
transsexual. On April 1977, Jorgensen and Woodlawn appeared separately on a Geraldo
Rivera special titled “The Search for Sexual Identity” (Woodlawn’s part starts around
49:30). By adopting an “avowed allegiance to white heteronormativity” (Skinner 2011: 9),
the media savvy Christine Jorgensen successfully built a profitable image as a “good
transsexual” after news of her sex surgery turned her into an instant celebrity in the early
1950s. The “ladylike” Jorgensen serialized her life story for American Weekly (1953),
released an LP with an interview (1958), appeared on talk shows, toured with her nightclub
act, published her autobiography (1967) and lectured on the college circuit in the 1970s. On
the Geraldo special, the middle-aged Jorgensen, wearing a white pantsuit and pearl jewelry,
graciously and articulately responds to Rivera’s questions, projecting a gentle demeanor
and tone. To Rivera’s satisfaction, Jorgensen carefully explains about transsexuals by
drawing on science and sociology. During her segment, however, Woodlawn responds to
questions about transvestites in terms of performance and theatricality (“look at kabuki
theater, Greece… I mean, not the play… but no, Greek theater, all that… that’s what, I, I
guess that’s what I… you could relate me to…”) and her humor belittles Rivera’s pursuit of
“intelligent” answers (GERALDO: “Do you feel you’re a woman trapped in a man’s body?” /
HOLLY: “I’m just trapped”). Rivera tries to get Woodlawn to explain herself in relation to
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An Underground Survivor at the Oscars: Holly Woodlawn, Puerto
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the “transvestite” category. He wants her to act as spokesperson and to produce a specific
type of narrative: “you really have been anguished from time to time and that’s what I
wanna know about (…) I mean, the confusion in yourself. Are you man? Are you woman? Are
you just a man who prefers women’s clothing…?” Woodlawn, however, finishes off his line of
questioning with the brilliantly dismissive: “What difference does it make… as long as you
look fabulous?”
On 1979, Holly Woodlawn appeared with Divine and director Ron Link in Tom Snyder’s
show to promote their play The Neon Woman. Woodlawn compared her infamous beer
bottle scene in Trash to when Divine eats dog shit at the end of Pink Flamingos (John
Waters, 1972). While both actors played characters of limited ambitions (Divine wants to be
the filthiest person alive while Holly hopes to get on welfare) that lived among and were
perceived by society as being trash, Divine and Holly projected very different personalities.
In some of her most famous scenes, Divine owned public spaces with her flagrantly plussized presence, whether walking through Baltimore or talking to journalists dressed in a
tight red dress. By contrast, the very thin Holly spent most of her film inside a basement
apartment and her memorable scenes were bizarre situations that became unexpectedly
moving. Like Geraldo Rivera, Tom Snyder starts off with the need to categorize. During
their interview, the two agree with Holly’s explanation on why they didn’t appear in drag:
“The reason we’re not doing this now is I don’t live in women’s clothing. I do it as a living.”
They also agree with rejecting the labels “transvestite” because (“that’s someone who lives
in drag,” explains Divine) and “female impersonator.” Woodlawn then explains that she
went from wanting a sex change to wanting to perform as woman: “What I really wanted do
is… I enjoy the idea, the whole thing of fabulous women.” Also, John Waters wrote other
roles that expanded Divine’s Pink Flamingos screen persona, including her mainstream
breakthrough in Hairspray (1988), whereas Paul Morrissey didn’t cast Woodlawn in other
movies after her ad-libbed performances in Trash and Women in Revolt.
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An Underground Survivor at the Oscars: Holly Woodlawn, Puerto
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The Geraldo Rivera interview is particularly interesting because he, like Woodlawn, is
Puerto Rican with a Jewish background (or “JewRican,” as he self-describes). Rivera starts
the segment by categorically stating: “Holly Woodlawn is a man, a man who does a
nightclub act as a woman…” As introduced, their exchange about sexuality is between two
men from the same generation who share a similar ethnic heritage that is never addressed.
The “transvestite” label separates them and erases the shared “Puerto Rican man” identity.
That separation of identities is consistent with the ways in which LGBTQ histories have
usually been told in the United States. Writing about the role that trans activist Sylvia
Rivera, of Puerto Rican and Venezuelan heritage, plays within the Stonewall imaginary, Jessi
Gan notes that, “Rivera was poor and Latina, while some transgender activists making
political claims on the basis of her history were white and middle-class. She was being
praised for becoming visible and transgender while her racial and class visibility were being
simultaneously concealed” (2007: 127). Despite the growing awareness and popularization
of “intersectional studies,” the elision or downplaying of Holly Woodlawn’s ethnic heritage
could still be seen in posthumous online tributes (such as this one by Transparent producer
Zachary Drucker) that recognized her as transgender pioneer without fully addressing her
Puerto Rican identity or background.
Given their “unruly” behavior, intersectional identities and rejection of fixed categories,
translatinas like Holly Woodlawn and Sylvia Rivera can be more challenging to claim for
current transgender politics. Rivera disliked being defined solely by gender-based
categorizations: “I’m tired of being labeled. I don’t even like the label transgender” (Quoted
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An Underground Survivor at the Oscars: Holly Woodlawn, Puerto
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in Gan 2007: 135). Woodlawn also rejected categorizations, not only from straight TV
interviewers like Geraldo Rivera but also from gay media: “Categorize myself? I don’t… no.
It goes beyond that, ‘cause I don’t really categorize myself because once I start thinking of
categorizing myself then I really get stuck in a rut” (“Holly Woodland at Reno Sweeney from
Emerald City TV 1977”). Her semi-exploitative roles in underground cinema didn’t precisely
offer “positive images” of women and she would identify in interviews as a man: “The truth
is that I am a boy. It’s only on stage that I dress as a woman and wear woman’s clothes. The
person that I invented is a very glamorous female one. But I have no intentions of getting a
sex change or any of that stuff” (Sutclife 1978). As Penny Arcade (2015) noted: “In this
period where many transgender women and their advocates are delicate, touchy and prissy,
it would behoove them to understand a Holly Woodlawn, rough and ready, not bothered by
pronouns, not bothered if her beard was showing.”
The publication of A Low Life in High Heels (1991) put Holly Woodlawn back on the
spotlight as a Warhol Superstar survivor. (Mario Montez, the other Puerto Rican Warhol
Superstar, was living in Florida and was even presumed dead by some. See my reflections
on her career here) Although Madonna – who put her in the background of her “Deeper and
Deeper” video (1992) while she paraded dressed as Edie Sedgwick and Udo Kier emoted –
expressed interest for a film adaptation, her memoir was largely overlooked: “Unfortunately,
the book did not do well. I had to do my own book tour! But it was worth it. I just wanted
people to hear my voice” (Negrón-Muntaner 2015). During the next decades, Holly
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An Underground Survivor at the Oscars: Holly Woodlawn, Puerto
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Woodlawn’s main role became that of surviving superstar, appearing in documentaries that
honored former colleagues: Andy Warhol, Jack Smith, Lou Reed, Candy Darling, Jackie
Curtis and Divine, among others. Despite health problems, during her last decades
Woodlawn performed in cabaret, played cameo roles in independent movies, and goodhumoredly granted interviews about her years in the underground scene. She also posed on
2006 for British artist Sadie Lee, who made a series of oil portraits about Woodlawn’s aged
body.
A posthumous appreciation in The New York Times affirmed that Holly Woodlawn’s
performances were “never really an act. Holly was that loopy in life” (Trebay 2015).
According to Quentin Crisp: “Holly Woodlawn is a success at being Holly Woodlawn which is
the Andy Warhol principle” (Resident Alien, 1991). The blurring of on and off-screen images,
while longing to be taken seriously as an actor, brings to mind the three Latina stars from
classic Hollywood cinema that became camp icons in the 1960s: Dominican Maria Montez,
Mexican Lupe Velez and Brazilian Carmen Miranda. Many have insisted – and some still
insist – that their screen performances were also “never really an act,” even though they
followed scripts and there is ample evidence that they were very self-conscious performers.
While most movie stars end up “playing themselves,” Latina actress were typecast into
playing their own persona from the start, with little to no possibility for reinvention. In
terms of attitude, Holly Woodlawn had more in common with Dominican movie star Maria
Montez than Mario Montez (see my earlier Mediático post on Maria and Mario here). Holly
and Maria self-proclaimed their stardom ahead of time and their interviews reveal their wit
and self-awareness. However, during her short life, Maria was able to marry French actor
Jean-Pierre Aumont and attempt to renovate her exotic star image as a postwar wife and
mother. Her marital connections also helped launch a European film career that sought to
showcase her as an actor, not just a sex symbol. (And, while they don’t reveal a great
actress, the better ones show that Montez could deliver more expressive screen
performances.)
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An Underground Survivor at the Oscars: Holly Woodlawn, Puerto
Rican Actor
When Life featured photos of Maria Montez in costume for her star-making role in Arabian
Nights (John Rawlins, 1942), the magazine noted: “Her part also requires her to be
imprisoned in a harem guarded by leopards, and to escape with Jon Hall on horseback over
a 24-ft. bed. By such feats, Maria says she is determined to win an Academy Award in the
next five years.” That teasing comment is symptomatic of how Latina performers were
perceived during the studio era. They could become minor stars and be guests at Academy
Awards dinners, but the idea of them winning awards for their stereotyped roles (Mexican
Spitfire, Brazilian Bombshell, Queen of Technicolor) was ridiculous. The contrary demands
between fulfilling a bankable Latino stereotype and “acting” in a way that the Academy
considered “award-worthy” was reflected in the careers of the first Oscar-winning Puerto
Rican actors. The Princeton-educated and Tony-winning actor-director-producer José Ferrer
didn’t fit Hollywood’s “tall, dark and handsome” Latin lover stereotypes. Ferrer won his
Oscar for floridly reciting verse as a long-nosed French nobleman in the costume drama
Cyrano de Bergerac (Michael Gordon, 1950). His other nominations were also for playing
Frenchmen in costume dramas: Joan of Arc (Victor Fleming, 1948) and Moulin Rouge (John
Houston, 1952). However, his acclaimed transformative roles (which required strapping his
legs and walking on kneepads as Toulouse-Lautrec) didn’t lead to film stardom, though
there were some opportunities as film director. Unlike José Ferrer, Rita Moreno paid her
dues by taking the studio publicity buildup route, with obligatory cheesecake photos,
stereotyped publicity as a Latina starlet and secondary ethnic roles. She got her first and
only Oscar nomination for playing Puerto Rican, with darkened skin and dubbed singing
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An Underground Survivor at the Oscars: Holly Woodlawn, Puerto
Rican Actor
voice, in West Side Story (Robert Wise and Jerome Robbins, 1961), but the award win didn’t
generate the non-stereotypical opportunities she hoped for. By the time Holly Woodlawn
made her film debut in Trash, Moreno’s latest part had been as one of the women in
Marlowe (Paul Bogart, 1969).
The prospect that a transgender performer in underground cinema who found inspiration in
Maria Montez-style roles could’ve been the third Puerto Rican to earn an acting nomination
is now only a queer utopian fantasy. In reality, the third winner was Benicio del Toro, who
reportedly “worked hard” to master a Mexican accent for his role in the crime drama Traffic
(Steven Soderbergh, 2000). Despite the increased visibility and awareness about Latino and
transgender issues, performers who defy fixed identity categories like Holly Woodlawn are
still not welcome among the predominantly white, wealthy, hetero and homonormative
audience at the Oscars ceremony who laughed at Chris Rock’s provocative jokes which
addressed Hollywood’s “diversity problem” in strictly black and white terms. Woodlawn’s
limited filmography is a reminder that the US film industry has had little to no place for
performers like her to develop careers. Their narrow prospects have been in underground
or independent circuits with alternate “star systems,” like the Warhol Superstars or the
“stars” of psychotronic films, which copied, honored, ironized and/or subverted classic
Hollywood stardom without offering the same prestige and financial benefits.
In 1978, while promoting her cabaret act in London, Holly Woodlawn told the press that she
sought backing for a “sort of autobiographical” screenplay “about an impoverished
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An Underground Survivor at the Oscars: Holly Woodlawn, Puerto
Rican Actor
underground starlet who smuggles dope to make money for a trip to California to see the
Academy Award ceremonies” (Wake). The real-life trip to Los Angeles didn’t result in acting
opportunities or Academy Awards. Despite the disappointments, Woodlawn conveyed an
upbeat and confident attitude that came across as simultaneously loopy and charming in her
multiple interviews through the years, including two that were filmed for European
television. The first interview, from 1996, opens with the glamorized middle-aged Holly
singing wistfully about classic Hollywood stars during her cabaret act. Holly then stands
with the Hollywood sign behind her and gives an abridged version of her story while images
show her walking through the Hollywood Walk of Fame. As the interview cuts back to her
singing “airbrushed… I want to be airbrushed…” there is a mixture of heartfelt longing and
knowing parody that endears while eliciting laughs in the audience. Later, Holly visits what
used to be the Max Factor Museum and meets the petite former MGM star Anita Page, in
her mid 80s, so frail that she needs help on the sidewalk. There is something touching about
watching Page and Woodlawn momentarily standing side-by-side, enjoying the moment,
despite experiencing very different modes of stardom in their lifetimes. Fifteen years later,
in the documentary Girls in Popsong, Woodlawn is the one who needs help to walk inside a
movie theater, where she clearly enjoys sharing anecdotes. Through most of the segment,
however, a blonde Holly Woodlawn is shown reclining like her idol Lana Turner in The
Prodigal, looking glamorous despite slight body shakes. In both interviews, Woodlawn
admits the shortcomings of being a Warhol Superstar and/or Lou Reed muse. However,
rather than lamenting herself, she asserts: “Can I be honest with you? I love it.”
Works Cited
Arcade, Penny. “Penny Arcade Remembers Holly Woodlawn.” Out.com 10 Dec. 2015.
Flatley, Guy. “He Enjoys Being A Girl.” New York Times 15 November 1970: D15.
Gan, Jessi. “ ‘Still At The Back of the Bus’: Sylvia Rivera’s Struggle.” Centro Journal 19.1
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An Underground Survivor at the Oscars: Holly Woodlawn, Puerto
Rican Actor
(2007): 124-139.
“Holly Woodlawn, 1992 TV Interview.” You Tube. 28 Feb. 2016.
“Holly Woodlawn at Reno Sweeney from Emerald City 1977.” You Tube. 7 Dec. 2015.
“Maria Montez – In ‘Arabian Nights’ She Does the Dance of the Single Veil.” Life 28
September 1942: 69-70.
McAuley, J.V. “Sassy Sisters.” The Advocate 817/818 15 August 2000: 93.
Morin, Edgar. The Stars. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota, 2005.
Negrón-Muntaner, Frances. “From Puerto Rico with Trash: Holly Woodlawn’s A Low Life in
High Heels.” Boricua Pop: Puerto Ricans and the Latinization of American Culture. New
York: New York UP, 2004. 87-114.
—. “‘I Just Wanted People To Hear My Voice’: An Interview with Holly Woodlawn.” Public
Books. 11 Dec. 2015.
Ostrow, Steve. Live at the Continental: The Inside Story of the World-Famous Continental
Baths. Philadelphia: Xlibris, 2007.
Skidmore, Emily. “Constructing the “Good Transsexual”: Christine Jorgensen, Whiteness,
and Heteronormativity in the Mid-Twentieth-Century Press.” Feminist Studies 2011
Summer: 270-299.
Sutcliffe, Tom. “Holly Going Lightly.” The Guardian 13 January 1978: 8.
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An Underground Survivor at the Oscars: Holly Woodlawn, Puerto
Rican Actor
Trebay, Guy. “Remembering Holly Woodlawn, a Transgender Star of the Warhol Era.” New
York Times 10 December 2015.
Wake, Veronica. “Human Holly.” The Observer 31 January 1978: 31.
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