Superstar in a Housedress: The Life and Legend of Jackie Curtis by Craig B. Highberger Page B

Warhol’s table in the back and eat, and drink and then walk out on the check. But Jackie said it was alright to do, so we did it. Jackie would do that all the time.
    Holly Woodlawn
    So one afternoon we went over to the factory to visit Andy. Really we arrived unannounced like this because we were there to hit him up for some money, which we had done before. But Pat Hackett who was the secretary stopped us and said that Andy wasn’t there. There was a nice reception area with some chairs so we said we’d just wait but she said he had called and said wasn’t coming in. So we went across the street to the park in Irving Place and sure enough in less than an hour there came a taxi and Andy got out and we saw him go upstairs. So we went back into the building and down into the basement and we found the power panel. It was unlocked and everything was labeled and so we shut off every breaker for Andy’s floor. Then we went upstairs in the elevator and when the door opened we screamed into the dark space “Andy Warhol, you are dead! We know how to use a gun!” and made our exit. The next day our rent was paid.
    What Jackie Learned from Greta Garbo:
    Working with Andy Warhol and being part of his inner circle was like walking into a desert of destroyed egos. It was like being in the cold room where they work with dangerous flammable chemicals, where everything is 20 degrees below zero. You’ve got to have incredible stamina and drive to hang out with them. I was the black sheep of the Warhol crowd. I was definitely not the darling. Candy was the darling. I was the rebel. I could tell from the way I was treated that I was certainly not a welcome addition. But I was one of their hottest properties at the time and I knew it. And I knew what I could demand, just as Greta Garbo did when she was at MGM. Greta Garbo demanded the highest salary and Louis B. Mayer said no and she would just say, “I think I go home,” turn on her heel and leave. That’s what I did and we got along very well after that.
    Penny Arcade
    Jackie and I had an enormous emotional resonant erotic relationship. I don’t mean that it was sexual, it was energizing. We were an incredible team and we patrolled. We were both from working-class immigrant Italian families, matriarchal families, and had a lot in common. We were both highly intelligent, belligerent and lived in a fantasy world. And wanted to love the whole world. Both of us didn’t take no for an answer. I joke with a lot of my gay male friends about their latent bisexuality. Jackie really didn’t have any. Jackie was sort of asexual. Jackie’s relationship was really with Jackie. Jackie wasn’t really looking for a partner. He liked to go to a little park he called the Garden of Meditation and have anonymous sex with guys in the bushes or in the men’s room. I think Jackie was a fairly promiscuous person who went for very long periods of time not having sex at all.
    I remember being somewhere on Madison Avenue uptown in the 80s or 90s going to some rich people’s party. Because as Warhol superstars we were invited to these parties with rich people and the only thing that drag queens like better than drugs and booze is free food. The thing that really impresses drag queens is we’d go to these rich people’s parties and there’d be all this food. And we are all the way uptown and we’ve lost the address. And everybody is frantic we’re going to miss the party. And I remember standing in the middle of Madison Avenue and saying “We can’t miss the fucking party, we ARE the party.” And this was in 1967 and it wasn’t an expression, a slogan, it was the reality, because straight rich people wanted wacky weirdoes like us and the entertainment didn’t happen until the freaks arrived. Actually at one point Warhol realized he had a good thing going and that summer he announced he was starting this “rent a superstar” service for hostesses that wanted to liven up their boring Upper West