POPARCHIVES _ PHOTOGRAPHY BY DUSTIN PITTMAN _ VAIN VICTORY

FROM THE JOURNALS OF PHOTOGRAPHER _ DUSTIN PITTMAN

JACKIE CURTIS' "VAIN VICTORY"_PHOTOGRAPHY BY DUSTIN PITTMAN

                    (as featured in LID MAGAZINE Issue #8)

I first met Jackie Curtis at Max's Kansas City in 1970. I was hanging with Taylor Mead and Sylvia Miles and was making "underground films" with Taylor. Jackie and I hit it off right away and I thought that she was so interesting that I wanted to put her in my films. She usually wore a cheap wig that she would spray with RAID because she was afraid of bugs. Jackie wasn't exactly a transvestite. She would intentionally work of this image of dressing up really fabulously and then she would rip up her stockings and tear her clothes apart to make her "look" more interesting, almost a characature of a drag queen. Her persona was her art.....one day queen the next day James Dean. We started hanging out, and I would go to her loft on 2nd Avenue across the street from Slugger Ann's, which was the bar that her grandmother owned. Her loft was upstairs from an old Yiddish theatre which is now the movie theatre at the corner of 11th street @ 2nd Avenue. We would make our own "underground films", basically no budget films that were all improv. "Cinema Verite, it was all real and of the moment, the Polaroid School of Photography. Getting out of our heads to just play. It's a whole sensibility that doesn't exist anymore. That sort of film making was about trusting your instincts and not worrying about writing and polishing. Jackie was the master of working that way. A true artist who could piece together old Hollywood scripts and songs and craft them into off-off Broadway productions. One day at her loft, Jackie was reading and working on her script for "Vain Victory" which she was planning to put on at LaMamma Theatre in the East Village. I had my camera and tape recorder with me and taped her singing while she worked on her play. She looked up and said "Dustin,

would like you like to be in Vain Victory?" That's how Jackie was. That's how I was.

"If the shoe fits". I think the play ran for about a month, I stayed on for a few weeks, had a great time and captured a lot of amazing photographs. The real story was backstage with Jackie shooting up in the corner, drinking bottles of Southern Comfort while the rest of the cast dressed up, made up and popped pills. The atmosphere fed the manic waves of creative energy so much so that what the audience saw was more like a play within a play. Andy Warhol donated an original cow silk screen to the production which was constantly kicked around, and Larry Rivers did some of the scenic painting. Vain Victory was like Oh! Calcutta! for the downtown set. It was a hot ticket, and opening night was huge for this little theatre on East 4th Street. It was like a Hollywood premiere! Jackie was at her peak, and everyone came out to see her. Bette Midler, Andy Warhol, Lily Tomlin, Truman Capote, Tennessee Williams, and Harvery Fierstein who performed in a few of Jackie's early plays. There's never been anything like it since. It was a sensibility unique to the early 1970's, free of the psychological boundaries and all the Helter Skelter that exists today. Hey, let's get 20 people together and put on a show. It was just that easy. Backstage was madness.... Ondine was pissed off because he didn't have any drugs but then called the cops with a bomb scare, and when the cops came everyone was freaking out trying to hide their stashes. Candy Darling, one of my great loves, was in the play....such a goddess. There were so many distinct an unique personalities, and they were all nuts. Jackie was the ringleader who held it all together and kept everyone grounded. The miracle of that play is the was it was written and designed, everything and everyone was INTERCHANGEABLE. "Candy is here now at 8:15, but she might not be here at 8:25, but the show will go on!" Vain Victory was like rolling out the yellow brick road!

                                   Dustin Pittman - New York City -  2009

                  www,dustinpittman.com