New Classics: THE LONELY LADY

Absurd. The definition of the word means ridiculous, unreasonable or unsound. To be absurd means that there is no rationale or orderly relationship to human life. That is way harsh. But true. In other words, if you are called absurd you are a mess. You could go from one side of the absurd chart that puts you in "fun mess" or way on the other side you could fall into the "broke down mess" or as the kids call it today, a fucking hot mess. Where you land is ultimately up to you and where the rest of the world thinks you land is up to them. Pia Zadora cemented herself first chair in the orchestra of the absurd when she starred in the now classic Hollywood moral tale, The Lonely Lady.


Based on a book by Harold Robbins' that is so uber trashy that Silkwood showers are required after each chapter. The ICK and YUCK factors run rampant. The book knows no boundaries. I had seen the movie many times before I cracked open the book and it was like The Further Adventures of The Lonely Lady. The movie is tame compared to the book, which is lucky for viewers. In the book she had a high school love affair with a black dude from the wrong side of the tracks, which causes the town to turn against them and results in high drama. In the movie, her teenage love affair (Pia plays her younger self!) is just a white nerd. In the book she has about ten abortions. I might have rounded up, but it's more than a normal person should be having, but that is just my opinion. In the movie she only has one, but it has the drama of ten and is bookended by Pia screaming, "MOTHER! I had an abortion!" and slamming the door to her VW Bug. The book is full of jaw dropping madness and lots of graphic sex and the ending is, as one of my friends said, SOCKO. The movie is full of jaw dropping madness also, lots of graphic sex and a different but completely socko ending itself. Zadora plays Jerilee Randall, but for all things Pia we will just refer to her character as Pia.


The power ballad "The Lonely Lady (The Theme From The Lonely Lady)" by Perry Ellis, Jr. swells to new heights of movie anthems as Pia stomps across the screen in a form fitting red gown. A crowd is gathered outside a fancy building and a TV announcer tells us that it is the big night! The night of the Awards Presentation Ceremony. It seems the academy of motion pictures and science weren't too keen on letting just anyone use their trademark, but there are two huge slightly off OSCAR statues on the red carpet. They have huge bulges. It's true. They do. Also two lines of dialogue from spectators really set the mood of the film right off the bat. As Pia walks by someone ask, "Who is she?" and a lady leans in from the crowd, hangs over the railing, looking Pia up and down and replies, "Must not be anyone if she don't have a date!" RUDE!!!!
Then, as she walks the red carpet a a henpecked wife ask her husband, "Why don't you buy me a dress like that?" He looks Pia up and down and replies, "Why don't you look like that?" SNAAAAAAP.

We are instantly sent flying back in time ( a year or a week is unclear) and we are planted in the middle another sort of awards presentation ceremony, but I think it is supposed to be high college. There has been some debate amongst The Lonely Lady enthusiast I know whether is high school or Nerd Jr. College, but regardless, she is playing younger, but she looks the same. Pia just acts all "cutesy" and has pigtails. She snatches herself a trophy for some writing thing and the crowd goes wild! Well mild. They seem to be not playing attention to what is going on or maybe the don't know what is going on. The extras are confused, but the little Asian boy NAILS it. She takes the stage and launches into some Pia ramblings about something, but the teacher cuts her off. So it begins....


At an after party she dances like a broken funky chicken and tries to be sexy while holding a hot dog. With relish! Ray Liotta shows up to play a sexy bully alpha male type. He likes drugs, blow jobs, speedos and he has his eye on popping Pia's cherry. He is great at playing slime. At a AFTER after party, Pia finds herself all alone (see!) while Ray and his hippie girlfriend make it in the pool. Suddenly, Pia is pulled into the pool and has to fight Liotta off. He gives chase as she climbs out of the pool and runs. At a break neck speed, the movie turns darksided as Pia gets caught and Ray picks up a garden hose and points it at her. He rips her shirt and THANKFULLY the movie moves on. Now here we were having a grand ole time with Pia and they have to have a rape scene. It makes you feel ICKY. It's all laughs until that happens. The movie throws you for a loop, because you were not expecting to go there. And that is quick lesson you learn with The Lonely Lady. You gotta stay on your toes, cuz it will toss you under the bus if you ain't looking.

After her mean Mommy (played by Bibi Besch) tells her to keep quiet about the rape and it will all be okay, Pia meets the owner of the garden hose (it's attached to the mansion) and she instantly falls in love. We get a real cute montage of her and a man, who looks old enough to be her grandfather, eat ice cream, go jogging and all kinds of silliness. It is very romantic. He is a hot shot film director and he hires Pia to do some scripting editing for his new blockbuster he is working on. She accidentally comes up with the perfect piece of dialogue for the Meryl Streep wannabe. "WHY?" Cut out all the other words and just scream to the heavens, "WHY?!!!" There is a sassy hair and make-up guy on the set and he and Pia become fast friends and his tee shirt reads, "Frankly my dear, I don't give a damn!" I smell a Xmas gift!

She writes her first novel and her husband quickly resents her and in a heated argument out in the front yard, Pia pleads with him to "just come to bed" even though it is noon. Her husband picks up the garden hose ( You would think they would have gotten rid of it) and points it at her screaming, "Maybe this is more your style!"

Pia is out. Now a single gal on the go with a little cash advance for her next book, she gets to work on getting her script made into a movie, but first she has to get it read! No one wants to even look at it. She meets and falls crazy in love with a leading man type, but after he won't support her abortion, she realizes he is a dud. She then meets up with a hunky Italian club owner who just might be the right man to finance her screenplay! Promising to get it in the right hands, he immediately get right into Pia's pants. They have one of the greatest sex scenes EVER. Nude chasing, bubble baths, a sexy game of pool and forced poppers are all a part of their sexy time. But, Pia soon realizes that she just got screwed in more ways than the fun one.


Just when you think the Pia can't take anymore, she is tricked into having a lesbian affair (off screen thank Deena) and has to take her patent pending Pia shower. You know what a Pia shower is? It is that moment when you arrive home after a hard night of partying and WHOOPS you have ended up degrading yourself for someone else's pleasure. You kept it bottled up on the walk home, but once inside the safety of your own home all you want to do is crawl into the shower with ALL YOUR CLOTHES ON and wash it all away. You know you have had to do it every once in a while. It's good for the soul. Well, Pia being Pia takes it one step farther and is breaking dishes up in here as she demolishes her apartment and goes NUTS! Like she goes to the looney bin nuts!

Now catatonic and trapped in a weird white and light blue color scheme, she must go deep within herself if she wants to emerge a true artist. Nervous breakdowns are so annoying. They always happen at the exact moment you do not need to be having a nervous breakdown, but it makes a good screenplay!


FLASH FORWARD and we are back at the Awards Presentation Ceremony and Pia is up against four other writers(two of them with the same name, don't ask....) for best screenplay. The ending has got to be one of the satisfying and most rewarding endings of a movie in BadMovieArt history, besides Chopping Mall of course, and I would be remiss to say anything else about it and spoil the journey. Value lessons are learned and TAUGHT!



Poorly well written, horribly cast (the busty fake Joanna Cassidy in the hot tub near the end is a hoot) and badly lit, The Lonely Lady lives up to it's notorious reputation as one of the worst movies ever made. It is an albatross it will carry around its neck forever and rightfully so, but if you dig deeper there is more to the movie than that. The absurdity of everyone involved is mind blowing. And the best part of the entire movie is that Pia, as mentioned in the FAKE OUT aka NEVADA HEAT entry, was a millionaire! She didn't do it for one single penny. It was solely just for attention. She didn't give a fuck and that I like. Rich is powerful. It usually isn't charming or earnest, but it is powerful. But with great power comes great responsibility.

But that's all blah,blah,blah anyway. the real reason The Lonely Lady is a classic is because in this world we live in with 3-D kiddie movies, movies based off of toys with toys based of aforementioned movie, 15 dollar movie tickets and stale popcorn it never tries to be anything it isn't. Call it The Lonely Lady realness if you like. It knows it trash. It knows you know its trash and it doesn't care. Revolutionary in its horribleness, as you watch it you can feel your skin just crawled right off and off the door. Never to see your bones again. Yet, while the toxic shock of the moving picture masterpiece won't ever let you recovery from it, there is a sort of cleansing pleasure it brings you. You don't feel duped after watching it.

Years later, Pia Zadora was interviewed and asked about her trashy past. She held her head up proud and said, "Yeah there are things that I could say I was sorry for doing, but I did them and and I don't regret any of them."

Don't ask why? Ask why not?

THRILLS: FAKE-OUT aka NEVADA HEAT

There can be only one. She stirred up quite a controversy when she snatched herself a Golden Globe as best new face on the the Hollywood scene in the mid-seventies. Little did we know that the Golden Globes was just a promotional junket for everything. She has bared it all in the trashiest of magazines. She married a billionaire and will be rich for the rest of her life. She climbed out of Z Lister status to full fledged Hollywood wife and gave a big "F U" to anyone who tried to throw shade. She sings (sorta), she dances (sorta), she acts (sorta), but there is no mistaking her. She is the great Miss Pia Zadora.

With just a handful of films in her repertoire, she proved that it is quality over quantity that will win out in the end. Luckily, her movies are so re-watchable that each time you watch one of her classics, you discover a little gem of a scene or a bit of dialogue that you missed before. One of her greatest films is FAKE OUT aka NEVADA HEAT.


The film starts of on a high note. Pia plays Bobbie Warren, but for the sake of all that is Zadora, we will just refer to her as Pia. She is a Vegas showgirl that has hit the big time. Her mob BF has gotten her a sweet gig as the opening act of some long dead comedian, but it really is her show. She launches into a full on song and dance number entitled "THOSE EYES". With some of the most amazing opening credits to grace a Zadora movie, you are instantly intrigued. She dances...well...she is moving. It is Pia dancing. Her outfit is a dream. Her entire wardrobe is designed by Bob Mackie and it is Mackie to the hilt! She does a "FAKE OUT" ending that you won't see coming and rushes into the handcuffs of the long arm of the law, played by Telly Savalas. Telly ain't in the mood.

So now she is in prison and the film turns from light hearted musical to trashy women's prison drama. Pia refuses to testify against her mob BF and spends most of her jail time decorating her cell and leading an aerobics class for the female criminals. The class turns into a very sexy sequence as the girls really get into their pelvis thrust and one woman cries, "HOT DAMN! Where's my man?" Another woman moans, "I wish I was wearing tighter underwear!" But the head of the bad girls, named WOOLEY is out for Pia and she interrupts the class with her bullying. Class ends and it's off the the showers. Everyone shows their tits and looks terrible. Pia gets raped by three women and has a massive freak out and spills everything she knows.

Now in the custody of Savalas and the offspring of Desi Arnaz and Lucille Ball, all she wants is a hot bath (which somehow is a major plot point throughout the film) and she has completely recovered from her gang rape. Now it turns from light hearted musical to prison drama to now a crime comedy. They decide the best place to hide her until she can testify is in the heart of Vegas at the RIVERA! Pia knows that she must keep a low profile, but that doesn't stop her from saying "HI!" to everyone she sees in the casino and she really wants to play Keno! She claims lady luck is on her side, but she has to bum two dollars off of Desilu to play. She immediately loses.

She finally gets to her room, with Desilu in the adjoining one. There is some rom-com "cute" stuff, but then a sniper shoots through the window and almost kills them both. The two hit men have been hired by Pia's BF to take her out and they are zany! Not funny zany, just zany. So Pia takes a hot bath and Telly roams around the casino, barking at women and slapping their asses. Pia wraps herself in a Bob Mackie designed towel and wants to go shopping because all of her clothes smell like prison. Don't you just hate that! LOW PROFILE!

At least Pia and Desilu have chemistry. They seem to be having fun with each other and just when the plot starts to move forward Pia needs to take another hot bath. She tries to be "cute" with a bubble bath and pigtails, but she looks like a monchichi. Donning a dress that would resurface in The Lonely Lady, she is off to play more Keno. In the casino, a rather manish looking woman tells her that her BF wants to see her and she slips away from Desilu, not knowing that he wants her dead. Suddenly the film launches into hardcore crime drama as Pia learns the truth about her BF's plans and barely misses another sniper attack, but this time gets some poor joe's blood gets splattered all over her face. What is great about this scene, is that when the blood splatters on Pia's face it is done in SLOW FUCKING MOTION!! The blood hitting her face and her reaction. All in SLOW MOTION! Now wasn't this movie trying to be "cute" earlier? A car chase ensues around various back lot of Vegas. Did they have permits to film? It is all very on the down low looking.

And just when you didn't think the movie could go another level crazy, it does. Manish woman jumps behind the wheel of a very small car. Like a Yugo (no you go!) and proceeds to drive through the casino. Suddenly, FAKE OUT aka NEVADA HEAT has become a Herbie Goes Bananas rip off. I tell ya, I would have not seen that coming in a zillion years. Way to go FO aka NH.
We get a really good car crash into a big pool and the big wrap up happens on Lake Mead. It is a fact that Lake Mead is the largest reservoir in the United States. Now, I had no idea. Look at that! FAKE OUT aka NEVADA HEAT just made me smarter. I tell ya, I would have not seen that coming in a zillion years. Pia and Desilu are hiding out on a boat and of course, Pia needs a hot bath, but the boat doesn't have running water.....

Matt Climber, a true BadMovieArt auteur, created the lush production of Pia's earlier film BUTTERFLY. Oh, you know that movie where she plays a woman child who has sex with her dad. And it is set in the dust bowl era. Yeah, that one. Climber did it. He plays HIT MAN #2 in FO aka NH. I think he is the ugly one. I'm not sure. Telly Savalas just went right on doing what he was doing. Being a bad ass until he passed away in the early 90's. Desilu's career stalled, but he is so mega rich it doesn't matter. That leaves us with the talented and beautiful minx, Pia Zadora. She followed this classic up with the showstopper, THE LONELY LADY and went on to play her greatest role, HERSELF, in Troop Beverly Hills. She is currently a gazillionaire.

Iconic: HAIRSPRAY

The fall of 1992 I was a senior in high school and the single "Free Your Mind" by En Vogue came out and I did just that! Growing up in a small southern town does not lend it's self to the freeing of one's mind easily, but you can make it happen if you try. I realized that there was something wrong and it was not with me. . It all seemed to weigh me down. Cruelty as normalcy. Hell to the no. I wasn't having it anymore.

This wasn't a sudden thing for me. The groundwork had been laid earlier. Back when Janet Jackson's epic album "Rhythm Nation 1814" had slapped me in the face with world issues and made me realize that life is hard. Why make it harder for people by being a jerk. The the slab of my rebirth was a film from 1988. A film that got me through the worst part of my life. the worst up to that point and to this day, the worst. The survival of the fittest is the name of the game. Hell truly is for children. I dare even speak it's name. But I must. Jr. High School. And my savior from all that was unholy about lonely lunches and unsent party invitations was HAIRSPRAY. What I learned from HAIRSPRAY was so much greater than anything the teachers at my school had taught me.


I grew up in a John Waters free household. I had no clue that he was this master filmmaker with a huge cult following. But once I saw the trailer to HAIRPSRAY, I knew what life would have in store for me. Naturally it didn't make it to the big screen at Picayune Cinema Four so I had to wait until it came out in VHS. Tuesday I was there and it was the day everything changed. On the first viewing of HAIRSPRAY, it truly is shocking to the senses. Everything that is wonderful about life can be found in this film. The joy level is so high that once it is reached to its fullest capacity you can actually feel your feet dangling in mid-air. When the credits roll there is nothing that can stop you from immediately rewinding it and watching it all over again. Well, besides a bedtime.

Everyday heroes are called that because they are in our everyday lives. Ricki Lake, as Tracy Turnblad, is an everyday hero. I might not see her walking down the streets of Seattle or talk to her on the phone, but she is in my soul. Tracy has got to be one of the best realized characters in cinema history. Plump and hot, she sets out to prove that she can do whatever the fuck she wants too and do it better than you! She wants to be on the Corny Connell's Show and she does easily wipes the floor with the competition. But she also immediately steals the spotlight and snatches herself a hunk.


As it always is in life. Chasing your dreams will always have roadblocks. The boss who steals your ideas, but ends up skiing off the side of a mountain and you get to take over her job, but then she comes back and bust you in front of the entire board of directors. Or you accidentally murder the guy who was trying to get you at a trashy bar and end up on the run with your best gal pal and almost make it safely across the Mexican border, but you end up just flying off the side of a cliff. Struggles. We all have them. Tracy Turnblad only has one major roadblock and it comes in the form of one of the coldest and most calculating villains in modern cinema. Amber Von Hussle.

Colleen Fritzpatrick, who would later go on to be pop sensation Vitamin C, steps into the Amber role with such gusto, it is hard to imagine her not to be a horrible person in real life. It's an Oscar worthy performance that goes beyond anything that I think John Waters could have imagined. Every bit of dialogue that comes from her crackles with mean girl intensity. She is hateful, gossipy, a cock tease and a racist. The unlikable is so exaggerated that you can't help but LOVE Colleen for tackling the role and John Waters for creating her. She thinks that she can toss fat jokes at Tracy, but Miss Turnblad's warrior armour is so thick that she not only reads her to filth on the dance floor, but steals her commercial spots on the show. Tracy, one by one, is taking everything that Amber holds near and dear to her and redefining AND making the bitch watch her to it! Amber is going to blow her top by the end of this movie!


Set during the height of the civil rights movement, Tracy was a modern kind of gal. All she wanted was for everyone to have fun, no matter what skin you are in. Either you could do the Madison or you couldn't. And if you couldn't she would show you, since she is the best dancer in the movie. I'm sure there is a professional dancer tossed in here and there. I'm pretty sure a choregropaher worked with the cast, but you could never tell. The kids in the the movie pull of real life dancing like no other film. Well, maybe They Shoot Horses Don't They?, but that is about it. All the movements are awkward and kinda not precise, but that is the beauty of the film. It is like watching your friends dance.

The soundtrack is to curl up and dye for. Seriously, I thought all the songs were made up until my Mother informed me that she had done "The Roach (Dance)". GASP! I almost died. I made her do it for me right there in the kitchen. And you know what? She did it. My sister's and I learned to do the "Madison" along with the movie. I forever feel in love with The Ikettes, Gene Pitney and The Five Du-Tunes. But the song "Nothing Takes The Place of You" by Toussaint McCall is the show stopper. The kids have just been to their first juke joint dance and are making out in the streets. A rat crawls over Tracy foot and she shakes it off, while a hobo walks down the road singing along with the music pouring out of the gymnasium. It will stop you cold. It still can make me cry. Hairspray was my first introduction to true soul music.

Hairspray opened my eyes to the great miss Pia Zadora. "Let's get high and iron the girls hair!" has got to be one of the greatest lines uttered in a movie about the 60's. All she wants to do is listen to Odetta (who I thought was made up at the time) and quote lines from HOWL. Okay, to see Pia read from anything is amazing, but to she her read from that book is wonderful. John Waters gets the joke. The kids don't care and Pia, in true Zadora fashion, shrugs and says, "Why not?" Little did I know at the time how much Pia would become a fabric of my life. The Lonely Lady, Fake-Out, Butterfly and the Great American Song Book VHS are staples of my media diet. How is it that she has always been in my life? That John Waters....I tell ya....


Of course there is diva ole the day, Divine. All I knew about Divine was that she was a he and he died. All I knew was that when I watched it, I never ever questioned Mrs. Turnblad's gender. Whether it was talking politics with Penny's mom or dealing with Mrs. Von Hussle, she was a true woman through and through. It's a pitch perfect performance. Later, I would discover the legacy that was the Waters/Divine combo, but nothing has been able to top the work in Hairspray. It's like some lunatic woman unfortunately became a mother and decided to clean up her act and try to give her daughter the best life possible. Some of us can relate. Thank Deena Jones that we got to see Divine get a role of a lifetime and work it!

Years later, the video store which I worked at through my high school years had TV monitors surrounding the rather large store. The TV would blare cartoons mostly. Safe for everyone. But when the boss left we got to play whatever we wanted. It was always HAIRSPRAY. A few other titles tossed in randomly, but always HAIRSPRAY. We had two copies and I only would rent out one, because the other HAD to stay in the store so I could play it whenever I wanted too. Over and over. I could hear all the voices of all my favorite people talking even if I couldn't see the screen. I memorized the whole movie and at times would start conversations with customers using the lines from the movie to see if they would notice. CRAZY!! I know it now, but at the moment it seemed reasonable. The staff constantly hid it from me, because it was in such heavy rotation. But it somehow always would find it's way back to me.

To this day, I firmly believe that HAIRSPRAY is one of the greatest films ever made. It's a bold claim, but a true one. John Waters was able to get into mainstream culture and do what he does best. Drive everyone insane, but do it with intelligence , a lot of heart and just a touch of dog shit.


****OF NOTE********
Hairspray also has one of the greatest kid sister characters in a movie EVER. Crykle Milbourne AKA L'il Inez is breathtaking. In her only role, Crykle captures the annoyance and grace that comes with having a kid sister. She is always around and usually getting on her nerves, but you can't help but want to teach her everything you know. And L'il Inez can get down with the rest of them. Don't count her out when it comes to dancing! I love you L'il Inez.