ON THIS DAY...

MAY 15th

Profiles in Greatness: Corky St. Clair

CORKY ST. CLAIR
in
WAITING FOR GUFFMAN (1996)

"Corky, without you there's no show. Without the show there's no celebration. Without celebration there's no Blaine. So you see how it's a domino effect... Y'know how dominoes do that? Without Blaine - I got news for ya - there's no Missouri! Blaine is the heart of Missouri. What happens if Missouri goes down? You tell me..."

On getting his start...

"I had been living in New York and working there as an actor, and I really felt I needed a change. I imagined, in my fantasy I suppose, that when I came here I would have a completely different life. Perhaps a construction worker or one of those guys that works on those high wire things that-- With the hard hat. Y'know, with that sweeping sort of hat. And, uhh... with the chaps. But that didn't really work out. I began to realize, I guess, that the theatre was still in my blood. And what I had to do was make use of that so... I offered my services to the high school here and they accepted. And I began to teach DRAMA. And within about six months I had formed the Blaine Community Players."

On his career highlight...

"My production on the stage of "Backdraft" was what really got them excited. This whole idea of "in your face" theatre really affected them. The conceptualization, the whole abstraction, the obtuseness of this production... To me was what was interesting. I wanted the audience to feel the heat from the fire, the fear -- because people don't like fire poked -- POKED in their noses. You know when you get a cinder from a barbecue right on the end of your nose and you kinda make that little face...? That's not a good thing. I wanted to have them -- The sense memory of that. So during the show I had someone burn newspapers and send it through the vents in the theatre. Well... they freaked out. Of course the fire marshal came over and they shut us down for a couple of days."

On rejection...

"Well, then, I just hate you... and I hate your... ass FACE!"

On being a struggling artist...

"So what I'm understanding here - correct me if I'm wrong - is that you're not givin' me any money. So now I'm left basically with nothin', I'm... left with ZERO, in which, in which -- What can I do with zero, y'know? What can I -- I can't do anythin' with it! This is my life here we're talkin' about here, all right? We're not just talkin' about... somethin' else. We're talkin' about my life, you know? It's forcing me to do somethin' I don't want to do. To leave. To go out and just leave and go home and say - make a clean cut here - and say, "No way, Corky! You're not puttin' up with these people!" And I'll tell you why I can't put up with you people. Because you're BASTARD people. That's what you are. You're just bastard people. And I'm goin' home and I'm gonna bite my pillow, is what I'm gonna do!"

On casting...

"I was shopping for my wife Bonnie. I buy most of her clothes. And Mrs. Pearl was in the same shop. And it was just an accident. We started talking... about pantyhose. She was saying -- Whatever... That's not the point of the story. But what the point is was that through this accidental meeting -- It's like, y'know... It's like a Hitchcock movie where, y'know, you're thrown into a rubber bag and put in the trunk of a car... You find people. You find them. Something... Is it karma? Maybe... But we found him, that's the important thing. And I got Bonnie a wonderful pantsuit."

On accepting a challenge...

"In a funny way, what the City Council did really gave me a challenge. And it's a challenge that I am going to accept. It's like in the olden days, when the... The days in France when the men would slap each other with their gloves and say, y'know, "D'Artagnan!" ... Y'know, "How do you talk to me like that, you?" And SMACK him."

On directing...

"Casting a show is really only the beginning of the process. There's also the whole design concept. What fabrics will work for the costumes. The lighting. And it really becomes a rasslin' match, I guess, between me and the muse of theatre. And most of all dance."

On preparation...

"I'd like you to close your eyes now and try something, all right? What are you thinking? What are you feeling right now with your eyes closed? ...Your first feeling was not that I was blowing on you, it was more like... Virgin Isles or Baha-manian. Or Arubian."

On remembering lines...

"What I'm saying is, if they're gonna forget it anyway, then what difference does it make? I mean -- You see what I mean? It's like one of those... It's like a... It's like a... a zen... thing! It's like, y'know... Y'know, how many babies fit in the, in the... tire... thing. That whole joke, y'know."

On nerves...

"This is like when you're getting your legs waxed and they rip that thing off real fast. That's what this is like."

On the future...

"'The Guffman News' is really big and I don't, truthfully, think that the cast understands how big. They don't know the New York thing. They haven't been through it and I have. Y'know, so it's kind of on my shoulders. And going to the Big Apple for the first time, y'know, is... such an experience. You never forget it. It stays with you for your whole life. Me, y'know, right out of the Navy. Fresh off a destroyer. With a dance belt and a tube of chapstick, basically. Y'know, not really much to call my own, and then basically being slammed down for ten or so years, y'know... Off off off off Broadway. And then enough is enough, okay? I get the joke. And... is that going to happen again? I don't know. And, I mean, I don't want it to happen again. In my deepest, deepest of hearts, I do not want it to happen again. Mr. Guffman brings with him a reputation. Something bigger than anyone in this town has ever known. And if I am to get back to New York City on my terms, I cannot deliver him a stinky product. I really have to be presenting him a package. A beautifully wrapped, glossy, sweet smelling show."

The Top (cough) Ten Movie Characters

A very cruel, consuming meme was just tagged to me called The Top 10 Movie Characters. The person who started this must be a sick individual with an undying love for cinema to equal his loathing of fellow cinephile bloggers. Well I accept his masochistic challenge, although with my usual hearty stipulation. The ten characters I've chosen -- in no particular order -- should not be considered comprehensive even for the next 24 hours. These characters do, however, seem to always pop into my psyche with reckless abandon. But trust that I'm not certifiable, just a bit "eccentric"...Which is also why I've only listed eight. It's not that I'm out of my mind, I just break with the norm.

Mabel Longhetti
(A Woman Under the Influence)

In the revelatory hands of Gena Rowlands, we know Mabel's a bit off-balance, but we can't be sure what exactly is to blame for this potential madness. Her obvious adoration for her husband and children somehow seem stifled by the weight of her responsibilities and too much time alone, but so much remains raw in the backstory of Mabel's maternal breakdown. Her descent into emotional hell, and eventual return home, remains one of the most aching, devastating and wholly-formed portraits of domestic drama ever captured. Go ahead and try not to think of Mabel whenever you see a mother picking up her kids from school. Then try not to cry and have yourself committed.

Betty Elms / Diane Selwyn
(Mulholland Dr.)

Is it fair to include a woman with a split dream persona as a single character? Otherwise it would pretty much be Diane hanging out in her bathrobe and crying... But combine her personalities and this is definitely the girl. Naomi Watts and David Lynch meld forces to form a wide-eyed optimist as mysterious as a locked blue box. She arrives in the city of dreams an amateur actress and jitterbug champ from Deep River, Ontario, and leaves with a hit on her bisexual lover's deceitful head.

For her sweet to smoldering audition, her melancholy masturbation frenzy, her romance drowned in bad espresso, and her guilt-ridden final rest; Betty/Diane is a fractured, funneled bit of innovation that somehow resonates more in all its abstraction. With her purity and innocence drained, Betty/Diane becomes another starlet lost to the Hollywood hills of obscurity; her dreams dashed against the wall behind a Winkies on Sunset Boulevard.

Millie Lammoreaux
(3 Women)

Millie's aim to be thoroughly modern seems to distance everyone around her. She prattles on aimlessly to anyone listening (or not) about magazine articles, recipes, home decor, and her ideas on how to sway a man in the go-go seventies. She's hyper-opinionated and just plain hyper. Shelley Duvall creates so perfectly every little nuance and nitpick of Millie's often-solitary self. As her identity eventually starts to meld/dissolve with her superfan Pinky Rose, Millie's prideful personality gives way to something dark, eerie and ambiguous. So much for her trademark "pigs in a blanket and chocolate puddin' tarts!"

Chow Mo-wan
(In the Mood for Love / 2046)

It's as if all of Chow's lust, longing and loss can be channeled through a millisecond of Tony Leung's affected gaze. His emotions hover over these films like the wafting fog of a chain-smoking binge. In the Mood for Love sees his passions for neighbor Su Li-zhen utterly ignite, just as quickly as they drift into being the sad memories of a divine love lost to the past. Chow's transformation into a closed-off playboy in 2046 only accentuates and echoes his still empty desires, and refusal to commit to another love that would only dissipate with time. So much beautiful and unspoken emotion for a male character, and so much beauty in Tony Leung.

Cuddles Kovinsky
(Polyester)

"How au courant!" Realistically any of Edith Massey's unhinged characters could merit a spot, but her turn as maid/socialite/best friend Cuddles Kovinsky might just be her most quotable and comically outstanding creation. Cuddles is at the top of the world with her debutante ball coming up, but she still finds time for her friend's AA meetings during her introduction into high society. So hysterical, I can only direct you to this post made in my endless adoration. Hurry, Heintz! Hurry!

Corky St. Clair

(Waiting for Guffman)

Because no man does regional theatre with quite the same passion and flair as Corky St. Clair and still finds the time to buy all his wife's clothes.

Amber Waves
(Boogie Nights)

Julianne Moore has her share of characters I'd happily mention (Carol White in Safe, Cathy Whitaker in Far from Heaven), but as Nat put so eloquently in his Top 10 Characters, Amber Waves is the foxiest bitch in the whole world. This was the role where Julianne Moore became something more. To steal from her own loving ode to Dirk Diggler: Amber is a woman of passion and mystery. She is a woman of lust.

What she does for the word "cock" is more than most actresses do with entire monologues. A porn legend and flailing mother whose passions and pathos are channeled by her soft voice and veiled tears behind the courthouse -- Amber makes such sensual waves as she tries to keep her head above water.

Patrick Bateman

(American Psycho)

Patrick's got a body to die for, and unfortunately for many hookers and models in the eighties, such was the case. If you were to take unquestioningly from his subtly off-white business card, you'd think Patrick was the ideal yuppie man. He loves Phil Collins and Whitney Houston, enjoys a night in with The Texas Chain Saw Massacre or Inside Lydia's Ass, and he takes note of real world issues like apartheid and the homeless. The whole serial murder thing still casts a pall perhaps, but the comforting thing is that it might just be all in his head. Comforting like a kitten... being fed to an ATM.


Quite the quality characters, those eight. Sorry to cut the Top Ten so short...

I'm meeting Cliff Huxtable at the Four Seasons and then I have to return some videotapes.

Less is More Acting with Catherine O'Hara

"When you're talking to someone you close your eyes -- and then you look at them when you're not talking to the person. I mean you open your eyes when you're looking away, but then when you talk to the person you go like that -- and you open your eyes -- and then you look back at the person, but you never open your eyes when you're talking to them."