Holly Woodlawn Talks Trash
by Steve Pride
Gender-bending pioneer Holly Woodlawn shot to fame in a 1970 Andy Warhol film called Trash. Cast as the offbeat girlfriend of a good-looking junkie played by Warhol favorite Joe Dallesandro, her debut was critically lauded.
It was at the height of Warhol's popularity; the success of Trash thrust underground movies into the light, and they quickly became legitimized as independent film. Holly Woodlawn's performance is made all the more remarkable by the fact that in this film, made shortly after the Stonewall Riots, she completes the job of leading lady with no allusions to her biological male gender.
Now, 30 years later, Trash has been remastered and re-released. I dropped by Holly's West Hollywood apartment for a talk about Trash, Andy Warhol, and her "Walk on the Wild Side" as chronicled in the classic Lou Reed song:
Holly came from Miami, F-L-A,
Hitchhiked herself across the U-S-A.
Plucked her eyebrows on the way,
Shaved her legs, and then he was a she
She says, hey babe, take a walk on the wild side....
Holly Woodlawn: I just wanted to go to New York -- to get out of Florida. I only
had eleven dollars to my name, so I took a bus to a little city outside of Atlanta called Brunswick, where the bus driver threw me off the bus. There was a thunderstorm going on that night, so I sought shelter in this little motel by the side of the road and I was struck by lightning. So the proprietress of the motel gave me a free room that night. That's when I shaved my legs, plucked my eyebrows, and I haven't been the same since.
The next day I stuck my finger out and started hitchhiking. A week later I landed in New York City and five years later I met Andy Warhol. Well, actually, Paul Morrissey. He's the one who filmed Trash.
That year -- 1969! -- a lot of stuff happened: a man on the moon, the Sharon Tate Murders, Stonewall.... That was quite a year for America, and I was right in the middle of it. They were shooting this movie, and I guess I was typecast as a garbage-picking low life. He [Morrissey] asked me to do a scene in the movie and then that scene just blossomed into a costarring role.
I was in jail during the premiere -- that's another story.... But when Trash came out it got these incredible reviews, and the rest is history. Now, 30 years later, it's like watching somebody else. Good memories, though. I was right at the vortex of all that stuff. The underground Warhol, Studio 54, free love and drugs. Decent drugs! And I still survived all that insanity. I feel like a cockroach!
PopcornQ: Tell me about the making of Trash.
HW: I should set the record straight -- Andy Warhol only produced the movies. He put his name to them. Andy was very big on putting his name on things. He did not discover the Campbell's Soup can, even though he sure made a lot of money off of it. But Paul Morrissey was the director and he did everything, except write the script. There wasn't one. Basically what Paul did was to pick people who had character or were fascinating or had something to say on screen, and he'd just roll the camera. Paul would set up the scene, like, "Holly, in this scene you are having sex with a beer bottle because Joe won't sleep with you." And I, being the true method actress that I am, went for it.
PQ: Okay, Trash is on DVD, video, and is back in the theaters. Are you making just tons of money?
HW: [Cough] Oh please, I almost choked on my Coke.... Coca Cola, that is! For the whole movie I made $125. I just signed a release; there was no contract. Meanwhile, when Trash came out it made several million dollars. But that's another story ...
PQ: What made Andy Warhol special?
HW: There was nothing, absolutely nothing, special about Warhol. I mean, Andy Warhol was as transparent and as flimsy as tissue paper. It was the people around him. I guess that's his genius. He was a magnet. He was never the sun in a solar system where he radiated out. Andy was more like a black hole. He just went around saying, "Oh, how glamorous," or, "Oh, do that." He just agreed to everything. Of course, everybody else was on drugs. He wasn't. And if he was,
who wanted that drug?!
Holly's autobiography A Lowlife in High Heels -- once rumored to be in development with Madonna attached to star -- is now back in Holly's hands. One day soon it may still be a major motion picture. But that's another story ...
* Read the PopcornQ review of Trash
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