Music to Make Horror Movies By: Lillias White

Published January 28, 2025 by biggayhorrorfan

She’s won acclaim for her legendary stage work, sung background for Madonna in that icon’s heyday and now, with her scintillating appearance on Grotesquerie, she’s finally entered Ryan Murphy’s stable of talented femmes. Naturally, I can only be writing of the divine Lillias White.

Since the beginning, with her portrayal of Dorothy on the original tour of The Wiz, White has been a force. Proof of this power came with a Tony Award for her performance in The Life and a resume filled with consistent hits has followed that prime acknowledgement in the many years since.

Her versatility is also impeachable. While Glorious McKall, her character in Murphy’s latest horror piece, is definitely of the gun blazingly criminally minded, her first solo recording Get Yourself Some Happy is all about joy, and the tunes featured include one of the songs that (our high priestess) Judy Garland brought to celluloid heights at her home studio, MGM.

More information on Lillias and her spectacularly upbeat recording can be found at http://www.lilliaswhite.com.

Until the next time, SWEET love and pink GRUE, Big Gay Horror Fan!

http://www.facebook.com/biggayhorrorfan

Miss Hannigan: Stefanie Londino’s Villainous Triumph

Published November 30, 2024 by biggayhorrorfan

As a theater loving grade schooler, I spent many a weekend afternoon spinning my Annie Original Broadway Cast album. Unbeknownst to me, those tunes must have found a way into the fabric of my soul.

Decades later, when a river of nostalgia carried me to a downtown Chicago theater to witness the 2023 touring production of the show, the lyrics of those songs came, instantly, back to me in waves of sonic glory. I was also surprised to rediscover how sharply humorous and grimy some of the show’s most celebrated numbers are. It’s A Hard Knock Life and We’d Like To Thank You Herbert Hoover, for instance, contain some truly black imagery.

Even more surprisingly, I had forgotten that Miss Hannigan and her criminal cohorts planned to kill Annie as part of their plan to abscond with Daddy Warbucks’ reward money. Thus, Hannigan’s comic villainy is shadowed throughout with a truly dark core. This revelation led me to further reevaluate the show and led me back to the theater when it returned to Chicago this winter.

Nicely, actress Stefanie Londino, who has played the role in the last two tour settings, also adds a bit of rock ‘n roll heart to the character, playing her with a combination of Patti Smith grit and Dorothy Loudon grease paint pizzaz. Her take is definitely a little leaner and meaner…and sexier than such former portrayers as Marcia Lewis and Alice Ghostley. One can even believe that Bundles, the laundry man who is part of a pivotal orphanage-based plot point in this show, would have gladly taken Londino’s Hannigan for a clean sweep across his sheets – a rather new factor for audiences, experience-wise.

Indeed, by adding a bit of saucy modernity here, Londino helps leaven the show’s occasional sentimentality. That bite is sure to appeal to people unfamiliar with it and its seemingly too sweet legacy as this production winds its way across the US until the spring of 2025.

More information on Londino and the tour, itself, is available at https://annietour.com/tour/.

More on this eclectic performer, who also fronts a band called West Side Waltz, can be found at http://www.stefanielondino.com/, as well.

Until the next time, SWEET love and pink GRUE, Big Gay Horror Fan!

Death Becomes…Us!

Published June 3, 2024 by biggayhorrorfan

In her 2010 documentary I Am Nancy, actress Heather Langenkamp examined why the male monsters in horror, specifically Freddy Krueger, receive the lion’s share of fandom, including merchandising, while iconic heroines, such as the character she portrayed, are often given short shrift. As a gay horror fan, who definitely feels intense kinship with the sensitive yet thrifty survivors of these bloody epics, I have often felt the same sort of dejected curiosity. It’s definitely a straight ghoul’s world. Even when there is alternative abundance, it is often tempered. As part of the writing team of McFarland’s upcoming Queer Horror: A Film Guide, I excitedly found gay characters and lavender subtext throughout decades of film, but overwhelmingly, the LGBTQIA characters were often not at the forefront of the action.

There are victories, though. 1992’s diva-licious, camp-tastic Death Becomes Her, a favorite among queer horror fans and creators, has recently been adapted into a musical, with a Broadway opening slated for the fall of 2024. It’s pre-White Way try-out in Chicago, garnered enthusiastic reviews & fueled awareness that the book writer (Marco Pennette) and the lyricists (Julia Mattison & Noel Carey) are well attuned to what crowd has kept this thirty some year old cult property in the public consciousness. From the jokes to the musicalized rhymes, this is a show for every queen who worshipped at the fabulously catty altar laid out by Goldie Hawn and Meryl Streep in the Robert Zemekis film.

Anyone who feels like they missed out by not witnessing the glories bestowed on the theatrical world by such age-old Tony winning powerhouses as Ethel Merman, Mary Martin and Pearl Bailey will find much satisfaction here, as well. From the opening moments of the show, Destiny’s Child’s Michelle Williams electrifies, bringing a Diahann Carroll meets Eartha Kitt energy to the stage. As Viola Van Horne, a more prominent take on the film’s Lisle Von Rhuman (Isabella Rossellini), she emerges from glittery cocoons and ancient sarcophagi, compelling viewers to follow her every magical move. Megan Hilty, taking over as Streep’s self-indulgent Madeline Ashton, and Jennifer Simard, doing a crisp take on Hawn’s Helen Sharp, meanwhile, bring out all the delightful, irreverent, vengeful and awesomely (aka DIVA) fun aspects of the script. Their 11 o’ Clock duet, Alive Together, is a phenomenon – easily achieving and/or surpassing the heights reached by similar female-centric songs in shows like Wicked and Side Show.

So, yes, there may be 12 celluloid variations of Friday the 13th without a single fey gent in sight – but we do finally have this potion-perfect example of a musical to call our very own!

More information on the production and it’s upcoming run in New York City can be found at http://www.deathbecomesher.com.

Until the next time, SWEET love and pink GRUE, Big Gay Horror Fan!

http://www.facebook.com/biggayhorrorfan

Music to Make Horror Movies By: Sam Harris

Published April 5, 2020 by biggayhorrorfan

It wasn’t just rockers like Alice Cooper and Pat Benatar who embraced the asylum esthetic with their recordings. ‘80s pop sensation Sam Harris utilized the strait jacket as a colorful fashion accessory on the back portrait of his debut album, as well.
Such a bad boy move might seem the antithesis of Harris’ colorful reality star beginnings.

But Harris’ biggest hit Sugar Don’t Bite definitely wasn’t playing around. In fact, this track makes being a “bleeder” sound like a sexual position well worth trying out on some hot Saturday night.

Of course, Harris, an openly gay man whose career has encompassed everything from turns on Broadway to penning a memoir called Ham: Slices of a Life, is always serving up the sweet stuff at http://www.samharris.com/.

Until the next time, SWEET love and pink GRUE, Big Gay Horror Fan!

www.facebook.com/biggayhorrorfan

Music to Make Horror Movies By: Lorna Luft

Published December 22, 2019 by biggayhorrorfan

Lorna duo.JPG

Best known for her enthusiastic portrayal of Pink Lady Paulette in Grease 2 and for her famous lineage, Lorna Luft also joined the ranks of horror goddesses with her role in the Tales of the Darkside episode The Shrine.

The veteran of countless musical theater productions, Luft also knows her way around a torch song as evidenced by her take on The Music That Makes Me Dance:

Of course, New Wave enthusiasts are aware that she also backed up the likes of Debbie Harry, most notably on the popular Eat to the Beat track Slow Motion, and Hilly Michaels in the early ‘80s, making this performing dynamo a true delight in almost every entertainment medium imaginable.

https://www.facebook.com/LornaLuftOfficial/

Lorna Luft Tales.jpg

Until the next time, SWEET love and pink GRUE, Big Gay Horror Fan!

www.facebook.com/biggayhorrorfan

Music to Make Horror Movies By: Helen Morgan and Lillian Roth

Published October 8, 2019 by biggayhorrorfan

Helen Morgan’s lovely take on Can’t Help Lovin’ Dat Man from Show Boat is used to grand effect in Alfred Sole’s unusually powerful horror effort Alice, Sweet Alice. Introducing the pivotal presence of Mr. Alphonso, a creepy landlord who antagonistically preys upon the title character, Sole uses this number in the background to illustrate the strange emotional landscape of this sometimes pitiful, always unsavory character.

Morgan (above left), who died of alcoholism at an early age, had two biographies filmed of her life and troubled times. In an interesting coincidence, Sole cast Lillian Roth (above right), a singer and actress in the tradition of Morgan, in a small but pivotal role of a pathologist in the film. In reality, Roth’s path echoed Morgan’s on many levels, adding a nice layer of show business coincidence to this well loved film, which was recently given the deluxe Blu-ray treatment from Arrow Video. As with Morgan, Roth’s life was given a cinematic appraisal by Susan Hayward, who was nominated for an Oscar for her work, in I’ll Cry Tomorrow.

Until the next time, SWEET love and pink GRUE, Big Gay Horror Fan!

www.facebook.com/biggayhorrorfan

Music to Make Horror Movies By: Bruce Davison

Published October 21, 2018 by biggayhorrorfan

bruce davison willard

Beloved by the queer community for his Oscar nominated work in Longtime Companion, an acclaimed look at the effects of the AIDS crisis, the eclectic Bruce Davison has also worked with a number of classic film’s acclaimed divas.

Bruce-Davison-Mame-1974 In the skittering horror of Willard, Davison shared significant screen time with Elsa Lanchester, the Frankenstein Monster’s favored bride. A few years later, he played the nephew of comedic genius Lucille Ball in the celluloid version of the musical Mame. In that project, he added the role of vocalist to the many notches on his creative belt.

Nicely, Davison is still providing layered and passionate support to many of gothic filmdom’s talented divas. His recent work opposite Lin Shaye in Insidious: The Last Key provided both performers with the chance to connect with subtle yet deep emotion. He also provided a glow of kind energy against the more nefarious outpourings of such genre pros as Meg Foster and Dee Wallace in Rob Zombie’s very personal Lords of Salem.

Bruce and me

Until the next time, SWEET love and pink GRUE, Big Gay Horror Fan!

www.facebook.com/biggayhorrorfan

Music to Make Horror Movies By: Elaine Paige

Published July 22, 2018 by biggayhorrorfan

elaine paige 1

Some people may appreciate 1978’s The Boys from Brazil for its mad scientist Frankenstein-ian themes. Those who feel revulsion for the Three Men and a Baby films may enjoy this dark conspiratorial yarn for its swift deposal of Steve Guttenberg’s nosy do-gooder in the opening sequence. Musical theater buffs meanwhile might dive into this horror hybrid because one of its main themes, We’re Home Again, was sung by Elaine Paige, one of the multi-talented, undisputed queens of the ever glittering boards.

Paige has won countless awards for her work on shows like Evita, Cats and Anything Goes. Along with Barbara Dickson, she also introduced the pop world to I Know Him So Well, a powerhouse duet from Chess, co-written by Tim Rice and Abba’s Benny Andersson & Bjorn Ulvaeus.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3hqnfbkxLlo

Paige, who recently celebrated her 50^th anniversary in show business, is forever bringing good protein to the entertainment smorgasbord at www.elainepaige.com and https://www.facebook.com/elainepaigeofficial/.

Boys from Brazil.jpg

Until the next time, SWEET love and pink GRUE, Big Gay Horror Fan!

www.facebook.com/biggayhorrorfan

Music to Make Horror Movies By: Betty Buckley

Published May 27, 2018 by biggayhorrorfan

Betty Carrie

She’s one of Broadway’s reigning divas. Fans of Carrie and Split also claim her as their own. But there are probably few as singular and solitary minded as the exquisitely talented Betty Buckley.

Interestingly (and in a twist of fate as unusual as herself), Buckley who played the kindly Miss Collins in Brian DePalma’s classic adaptation of Stephen King’s novel also played Carrie’s deluded mother Margaret in the widely panned, short lived Broadway adaptation of this beloved horror shocker.

Recent reexamination has given this work a renewed appreciation. But, as evidenced in the video below, Buckley always seemed to know the piece’s worth. Her performance here is deliberate, delicate and captivating.

Buckley, meanwhile, who is releasing a new recording called Hope in June, is always bringing heart and soul to www.facebook.com/BettyBuckley/ and www.bettybuckley.com.

Until the next time, SWEET love and pink GRUE, Big Gay Horror Fan!

www.facebook.com/biggayhorrorfan

Music to Make Horror Movies By: Shirley MacClaine

Published March 25, 2018 by biggayhorrorfan

shirley possession.png

In 1972’s The Possession of Joel Delaney, eclectic hoofer Shirley MacLaine encountered a demonic presence that forever altered the life of Norah, the steadfast mother and sister that the actress gave passionate life to.

Thankfully, as a veteran of such musical comedies as Irma La Douce and Sweet Charity, MacLaine seems to be imbued with something much less sinister in reality…the Gypsy in Her Soul!

Until the next time, SWEET love and pink GRUE, Big Gay Horror Fan!

www.facebook.com/biggayhorrorfan