Music to Make Horror Movies By: Thelma Houston

Published December 8, 2024 by biggayhorrorfan

After it illuminated countless dance floors in the mid-70s, the magnificent Thelma Houston may have felt that there was no way to go but down for her iconic disco anthem Don’t Leave Me This Way. Flash forward forty some years, though, and this jumpy lover’s plea found its way into horror nirvana.

Featured at a key moment in Netflix’s very popular Fear Street: Part Two – 1978, this song gained a new life while exposing Houston to many eager young viewers.

17 albums into her career, this was obviously not her first terror film connection. Her song Keep it Light was featured on the soundtrack to Into the Night, one of the films that John Landis directed, post An American Werewolf in London and Twilight Zone: The Movie.

Even more importantly, Houston seems to be a horror fan, herself. She and Bunny Hall, a friend, pulled off a perfect Baby Jane and Blanche Hudson a few Halloween seasons ago.

Frightening up a new sonic spectacle ever year or so, you can also follow her future exploits (while exploring facets of her long ranging career) at https://www.thelmahouston.com/.

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

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Va-Va-Villainess: Alison Arngrim

Published May 26, 2024 by biggayhorrorfan

This took me decades to realize, but it’s so crystal clear now that I am almost embarrassed about my obliviousness. Some aging, glitter flecked homosexual had to have come up with the costume design for Little House on the Prairie‘s drag queen inspiring, all time champion baddie Nellie Oleson. This 19th Century troublemaker looks exactly like the twin to Bette Davis’ iconic Jane in Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? Sealing the deal, portrayer Alison Arngrim intuitively followed the flavor trail of those tresses and dresses, creating an indelible, much beloved (or is that hated?) character.

This perfect combination gave Arngrim’s rich and spoiled Nellie a nearly 7 year-run as the self-admiring tormentor of House‘s enduring heroine Laura (Melissa Gilbert). Her professional commitment even imbued a number of follow-up credits. Variations on Nellie’s saucy naughtiness can be found in Arngrim’s lingerie clad hooker on an episode of Fantasy Island and as a champagne swilling operetta actress in I Married Wyatt Earp, a 1983 television film.

Of course, none of those enjoyable gigs hit the delirious brilliance of a manipulative (yet helpless) Nellie bouncing down a hill in a wheelchair, another visually reverential reference to Jane, in one of House‘s most famous episodes.

So, over the past 2 decades. Arngrim has smartly embraced her bewigged past – writing a book and performing a one woman show, nationwide, about her most famous creation entitled Confessions of a Prairie Bitch. With pitch perfect humor and startling insight, she weighs in on how Nellie’s nastiness has ultimately not only enhanced viewers’ lives, but her own, as well. A recent pitstop in Chicago even included a reenactment of her most famous exchange with Gilbert:

For information on further showings of Confessions and any other project announcements, be sure to follow Arngrim at https://www.instagram.com/alisonarngrim/ and/or https://www.facebook.com/AlisonArngrimFanPage,

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

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Hopelessly Devoted to: Rhoda Gemignani

Published October 12, 2023 by biggayhorrorfan

Often playing smaller and supporting roles, the divine Rhoda Gemignani floated throughout the background scenes of many a cinema buff’s childhood. Terror tykes might know her best, though, for her portrayal of the Real Estate Agent in the original Ghostbusters film.

Nicely, in the mid-70s, Gemignani was given the chance to play a character of dramatically gothic proportions on The Forgotten Room, an episode of the classic detective show Kojak. There, as a lusty widow named Katrina Patropoulos, she embraced all of the desperate, almost Southern characteristics of the role. Obviously inspired by Anna Magnani’s Serafina from Tennessee Williams’ The Rose Tattoo, Gemignani shines like a diva personified throughout the various mechanics of the straightforward plotline. Short-handedly here, the long ignored Patropoulos falls into a passionate affair with a handsome stranger (George Pan Andreas) – one who has an unfortunate propensity for killing prostitutes.

As many of Williams’ female characters seem to be the prototype for the troubled divas of such films as Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? & their ilk, career-wise, it would have been nice to see Gemingnani go full throttle in a celluloid escapade of that caliber. As that was not to be, her work in this primetime caper will have to be the dreamy stand-in for all that could have, wonderfully, been.

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

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Great Performances: Maidie Norman

Published June 20, 2020 by biggayhorrorfan

Maidie Main If there was anyone who could put the fear into cinema royalty like Bette Davis it was the proudly irreplaceable Maidie Noman. As Elvira Stitt in the classic femme centered horror celebration Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?, Norman enacted the role of the protector of the crippled Blanche Hudson (Joan Crawford) with a towering strength. Indeed, the anger that flints Norman’s eyes when Stitt discovers her charge in an emaciated state is enough to make even the most ferocious opponent flinch. Maidie Bette 1

Unsurprisingly, Norman used her advanced theatrical training and keen intellect on set on a regular basis. She often helped represent real life situations by updating racist and stereotypical dialogue on the spot. Even her take on voodoo queen Mama Lou on a second season episode of The Man from U.N.C.L.E. was filled with an unexpected sorrow and vengeful energy. Maidie Man

Because of this defined pedigree, horror fans always welcomed her presence on such shows as Alfred Hitchcock Presents and The Night Stalker. Significantly, the flirtatious energy and general good will that she shared with Tom Atkins in her scenes in Halloween III have made her a deserved fan favorite of that series, as well.

Maidie H3

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

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Music to Make Horror Movies By: Joan Crawford

Published January 5, 2020 by biggayhorrorfan

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The one time queen of MGM…and Warner Brothers…and the daytime soap scene, Joan Crawford has a special place in the heart of distinguished horror lovers everywhere. Allowing herself to be humbled for her art, she gave victimhood a special glow in the classic Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? Her subsequent terror offerings may not have been as distinguished as this oft nominated chiller, but they sure were fun! From Strait Jacket to Berserk! to Trog, the lady Crawford always gave her professional best.

She was similarly committed when given a song and dance number to do in The Hollywood Revue of 1929.

Meanwhile, The Best of Everything: A Joan Crawford Encyclopedia covers everything else that this golden age superstar accomplished in her lifetime.

www.joancrawfordbest.com

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

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Music to Make Horror Movies By: Bette Davis and Andy Williams

Published May 26, 2019 by biggayhorrorfan

Davis and Williams

Bette Davis threw herself, gamely, into whatever opportunities came her way. Whether shaving her head, elongating her eyebrows or adding padding to her frame, there was little that she wouldn’t do for a role. Fully embracing her horror queen mantle, Davis even recorded a rock and roll number celebrating Baby Jane, one of her most endearingly acclaimed gothic portrayals. Here she performs that (culturally fascinating) number on The Andy Williams Show.

Interestingly, Davis ended her career with a role in genre icon Larry Cohen’s Wicked Stepmother, a zany look at witchy (and bewitching) women – qualities that this erstwhile adventuress always possessed.

Meanwhile, Williams, whose reputation was always a bit sunnier than diva Davis’s, has found his music also being used in such darker projects as The Shape of Water and The Zodiac. Most effectively, perhaps, his beaming version of Happy Heart was used to incredible effect in Shallow Grave, a violent thriller that, culturally, announced actor Ewan McGregor as a force to be reckoned with.

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

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Davis and Williams 2

Horror Mash-up: Bette Davis & Frances Dee

Published May 18, 2018 by biggayhorrorfan

Bette Frances Duo

Though they share no screen time, 1934’s Of Human Bondage proved to be a successful project for Frances Dee, who would go on to headline Val Lewton’s classic 1943 offering I Walked With a Zombie, and Bette Davis, whose take on the spiteful Mildred Rogers finally established her as a star of significant reckoning.

davis bondage Davis, of course, would go on to become one of the queens of gothic horror with appearances in such revered projects as Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? and Hush, Hush, Sweet Charlotte. Here, though, her determination to artistic truth emerged via her insistence that Mildred’s decline not be a pretty one, but a dark and realistic journey. Her perseverance was also tested here as she was, reportedly, not treated well by her co-star Leslie Howard, who felt that a Brit should have been cast in the role in deference to the film’s English setting.

Dee has the nicer, less meaty role here. As the kind and understanding woman who eventually gains Howard’s heart, she does project a luminous quality that would bring her good stead in her most famous role of Betsey Connell, a nurse introduced to the ominous world of voodoo in (the above mentioned) I Walked with a Zombie. frances dee bondage.jpg

This is truly Davis’ show, though. Compelling even as her repellant actions to Howard’s club footed Philip Carey make one wonder what he could ever see in her, she provides a bravura performance that has lingered in the public consciousness for decades.

Now, be sure to wipe your mouth, wipe your mouth…and until the next time, SWEET love and pink GRUE, Big Gay Horror Fan!

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Music to Make Horror Movies By: Bette Davis

Published April 22, 2018 by biggayhorrorfan

bette davis hush hush

After her role in Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?, Bette Davis became the goddess of the Grand Guignol horror film. Her presence electrified such projects as Dead Ringer, The Nanny, Burnt Offerings and The Secret of Harvest Home.

While not as celebrated as Baby Jane, Hush…Hush, Sweet Charlotte was another solid offering in the scare sweepstakes. Nominated for numerous Academy Awards (including one for supporting actress Agnes Moorhead), this production was, originally, supposed to reunite Davis with Jane co-star Joan Crawford. Crawford took ill, though, and was replaced by Olivia De Havilland, who gives a ghoulishly intense performance as Bette’s determined rival.

Here, Davis, the master of the television interview, sings Charlotte’s theme song on one such appearance.

Meanwhile, discounting Jane’s maniacally funny I’m Writing a Letter to Daddy, Davis’ best known singing performance has to be the clever They’re Either Too Young or Too Old from the star studded Thank Your Lucky Stars.

Sonically satiated, we leave you with one of Bette from her first breath of spring….

bete glamour

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

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