Connect with us

Arts & Entertainment

Catching up with Catwoman

Actress Julie Newmar on camp, ‘Batman,’ advice for living and ‘To Wong Foo’

Published

on

Actress Julie Newmar has discovered a passion for writing. Her advice book ‘The Conscious Catwoman’ is out now. She plans future books on gardening and childhood celebrity crushes. (Photo by Alan Mercer; courtesy Julie Newmar)

‘The Conscious Catwoman Explains Life on Earth’
By Julie Newmar
Eleven Books
75 pages
$18.95
julienewmarwrites.com

 

Fall’s a busy time and things only seem to accelerate as the year winds down and the holidays loom. So I’m taking care of some regretfully unfinished 2011 business.

Last September I spent a purrrrfectly — OK, sorry, couldn’t resist — delightful hour on the phone with Julie Newmar from her Los Angeles home about two miles from Brentwood. Everybody remembers her as Catwoman on the campy ‘60s TV show “Batman,” but serious fans know she’s also a Tony-winning actress who’s had triumphs on both stage and screen (both TV and film).

Unlike some actors who only begrudgingly acknowledge or discuss roles that, for whatever reason, got etched into the pop culture collective consciousness to a disproportionate degree, Newmar is happy to talk “Batman” and even called her 2011 book “The Conscious Catwoman Explains Life on Earth.”

It’s a 75-page wonder you think you’ll be able to plow through in an hour but it’s sneaky that way — I found myself spending an hour on each page, pondering the pearls of wisdom she shares. It’s also liberally peppered with eye-popping images of Newmar throughout her career as well as a playful series of mime-inspired photos that show the 78-year-old actress’s playful side.

Newmar says she’s always been a fan of how-to books and decided she’d lived enough life to share some tips. Most are hers but others she includes are from everything from the Bible to Voltaire to Carl Jung.

“I think after the age of 50 you start wondering why you became what you did and you start thinking about your life, what worked, what’s different,” she says. “I’ve always been in love with these how to books since I was in my teens. How to look better, how to not be frightened speaking in public or whatever … I’d had the idea for awhile but it takes time to do it the right way, so I took my time with it.”

Among her insights:

  • Don’t try to be like others; you’ll not only be sorry, you’ll soon be out of fashion and the shallowness, the telltale marks of your insecurity, will show.
  • You can bury a lot of troubles digging in the dirt (Newmar is an avid gardener)
  • Life works once you get to be more in a state of gratitude than supplication or neediness.
  • The important thing is to ask the right question — never mind the answer, it will drop in your lap.
  • I hide my annoyance when people tell me, “But you can wear anything.” Anything is what I don’t wear.
  • Every professions has its scullery duty.

“I love one liners,” she says. “Something you can peel off and put on the fridge or in the car. If you’re wanting to do better in life, you sort of collect these things over time and they stay with you. I think you cull your own garden in the sense there’s this assimilation of wisdom that takes place and can be very healing … you have to learn to love yourself as your maker does.”

Newmar happily answers any question I throw at her.

She says she “never ever” has felt frustrated by being so widely known as Catwoman, a recurring role she played in 12 episodes during the series’ first two seasons in 1966 and ’67. The famous body-hugging Lurex costume — reportedly made by Newmar herself — is now on display at the Smithsonian.

“It’s the first part of your house,” she says. “I’m lucky, fortunate and totally lucky to have something in my house that people know. Then you can invite them in and share the rest. I always look at the work as beneficial.”

And what of stars who reject their trademark roles or feel limited or typecast by them?

“It’s sad,” Newmar says. “It should always be seen as an opportunity. Strong people know how to take the negative and make it work for them, like making lemonade. I always like to look at things that way.”

Newmar attributes the character’s longevity to her bevy of traits.

“She’s very bright, savvy, smart. She wears high, daunting heels. She looks good from the front and back. She’s got a cute ass. She’s fun to play with. Naughty.”

The actress didn’t grow up with cats. Her mother had a wire-haired Terrier named William Powell (named after the “Thin Man” actor) but during the time she played the part, Newmar adopted two cats from actress June Havoc and observed their behavior.

“I’d wander over and watch them eat and play and frolic around. You do your homework.”

Newmar in her Catwoman days. (Photo courtesy Julie Newmar via Harlan Boll)

And how intentional was the camp quotient at the time? Were the actors encouraged to ham it up?

“It doesn’t matter what it looks or sounds like, whether it’s camp, straight or this, that or the other,” she says. “You still have to find the truth in it. You play the truth, then the rhythm seeps in and you go with it.”

Newmar, who introduced the part, had other projects brewing at the time so she didn’t feel especially connected to the role until later. Former Miss America winner Lee Meriwether played Catwoman in a 1966 film version that starred most of the TV series cast, but then Newmar was back in the role for the show’s second season. And in a performance perhaps as indelible as Newmar’s, the late Eartha Kitt played the character in the third and final season. Newmar, who was photographed for USA Today with Meriwether and Kitt in 2004 around the time the Halle Berry movie came out, says she “loved” Kitt in the part and owned several of Kitt’s albums at the time. She says Michelle Pfeiffer had the best Catwoman costume, but says the Berry film “didn’t quite come together.” She’s “100 percent” supportive of Anne Hathaway in the latest version, “The Dark Knight Rises,” slated for a July release.

Newmar as one of nine 'Legendary Ladies of Stage & Screen' during a Smithsonian presentation of her famous catsuit in 2008. (Photo courtesy Harlan Boll)

“I think our show worked because, well, color was pretty new on TV at the time and it just seemed to sit really well within the confines of a television screen. The excesses of it, the booms and bams, it just fit so very well and you could just imagine the little kids sitting there on the floor with their eyes wide open. The color really popped. I really think that was a big part of it — they made extraordinary use of the color. I’d just done ‘My Living Doll,’ but that was in black and white. This became far more popular.”

Newmar is a bit taken aback when I ask if her hair being longer in the second season — it went from a flip to a much longer, past-the-shoulders look in the later episodes — is intentional. She says no significant thought was put into it —  just a reflection of the changing styles. The initial look, sort of vaguely Jackie inspired, was a sign of the times. Longer hair was more popular in the late ’60s. Newmar remembers doing her own makeup — “nothing terrifically trend setting,” she notes — on the show. “Nobody ever asked me that before,” she says.

Of her dozens of television guest appearances, she says her famous “Twilight Zone” episode (she played the devil in the season four episode “Of Late I Think of Cliffordville”) is especially memorable. She met creator/writer/host Rod Serling during the filming and remembers his trademark cigarette smoking and “oh, that brilliant mind — that marvelous, marvelous man. Aren’t we grateful that we have this and that they kept these films? I remember shooting in this small little theater on 44th Street under the New York Times. It was all about story on that show.”

She also remembers her “Batman” costars fondly — she calls Adam West (Batman) “darling, a doll,” and says Burt Ward (Robin) was “perfect. He wasn’t an actor at all. He was 19 at the time and they found him in a gym.”

Newmar next plans a book about celebrity crushes. She’s widely credited — anecdotally at least — with having awoken the hormones of practically a whole generation of American straight boys on “Batman.” She considers it a paradoxical wonder that her gay appeal — they wanted to have her, we wanted to be her — is perhaps equally as strong.

And, of course, we can’t let Miss Newmar go without asking her about her eponymous drag film “To Wong Foo.” She chuckles at the memory.

Foo, it seems, was the owner of a Chinese restaurant in New York that’s no longer in business. It was near Sardi’s on 44th Street. Legend has it screenwriter Douglas Beane saw an autographed photo of Newmar there and the sheer wackiness of its inscription jumped out at him.

“He probably made it up,” Newmar says with a laugh. “I don’t remember doing it. I think he just thought if he gave it an innocuous little title it wouldn’t make it out of the stack on some producer’s desk so he gave it this crazy title. And sure enough, it did make it out of the stack.”

And one more “Batman” question — of either her show or the characters in general, is there a homoerotic subtext between Batman and Robin?

“I don’t think so,” Newmar, whose brother is gay, says first, then backpedals. “Well maybe. I think anytime something is too straight, we want to throw a snowball at it. We crave some alternate. Thank God we can have both gay and straight.”

Advertisement
FUND LGBTQ JOURNALISM
SIGN UP FOR E-BLAST

Theater

Talented pair of local queer actors tackles ‘Little Shop of Horrors’

Ford’s production features terrific score

Published

on

Chani Wereley (Audrey) and Derrick D. Truby Jr. (Seymour) in the 2024 Ford’s Theatre production of Little Shop of Horrors. (Photo by Scott Suchman)

‘Little Shop of Horrors’ 
Through May 18
Ford’s Theatre
511 10th St., N.W.
$33-$95
Fords.org 

Ever since premiering off-Broadway in 1982, “Little Shop of Horrors” has drawn a devoted following of avid audiences as well as performers eager to act in the show. Now playing at Ford’s Theatre, the doo-wop, dark comedy features a terrific cast including a wildly talented pair of local queer actors who’ve longed to appear in the show since they were kids. 

Set in the urban 1960s, Alan Menken and Howard Ashman’s hit show with a terrific score follows the wacky rise of Seymour, a nebbishy florist in a Skid Row shop who changes his fortunes by unintentionally marketing an exotic, human eating plant.  

Chani Wereley, 28, who plays Seymour’s love interest Audrey, a hyper femme downtowner with an edge, has had her on eye the role for years. Wereley says, “Audrey’s been around the block more than once, but I approach her as a person who moves through the world with love and hope.”

The queer D.C. native adds, “On long trips to visit family in Canada or Florida, the first thing we’d do is pop a ‘Little Shop of Horrors’ video [film version] into the car’s VHS player. I’ve watched is so many times, I could quote the whole movie to you.”

After auditioning to play Audrey in director Kevin S. McAllister’s production at Ford’s, Wereley never thought she’d book the part, and when they said she got it, she cried.  

Similarly, Tobias A. Young, 34, the pansexual actor who voices the part of the bloodthirsty plant affectionately dubbed Audrey II, explains his intense interest in the work: “I started watching the film in ’86. Growing up as a little gay boy in Calvert County, Md., I wanted to be blonde Audrey [played by Ellen Green in the movie]. I didn’t know much about musicals at the time, but I was absorbed.” 

When asked by Ford’s to play the voracious plant Audrey II without auditioning, his reply was an unhesitant “yes.” 

Voicing a role requires Young to sing from backstage in a black box rigged with monitors and a mixing board. He says, “people ask if I’m singing from inside of the ever-growing, scary plant. No, I’m not, and that’s fine. But let’s face it, actors love to be seen on stage, but I don’t feel entirely unseen as Audrey II.”

He’s worked hard and successfully with formidable puppeteers Ryan Sellers and Jay Frisby to bring parts of himself to the carnivorous plant — his sassiness, own movements, and even a tilt of his head; their efforts have drawn the actual Young into the show. 

Both Wereley and Young possess gorgeous, emotive voices as evidenced by Wereley’s striking rendition of Audrey’s “Suddenly Seymour,” and Young’s soulful “Feed Me (Git It).” Additionally, both actors are also big on queer representation in theater. 

When her young pals were listening to Britney Spears, Wereley was dancing to retro tunes like “Mashed Potato Time,” and her favorite song to this day, the Shirelle’s girl group anthem “Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow.” As Audrey, Wereley eschews the character’s usual platinum hair for a bouncy brunette, cherry-streaked wig, tight pencil skirts, swing coats, and her very own half-sleeve tattoo. 

“It’s important for people to see themselves on stage,” she says. “Seeing me or someone like me is inherently interesting. Being that person on Instagram or with the institution, cast, or audiences is meaningful. It’s important.”

In 2011, a couple years after finishing high school, Young landed a part in “Dream Girls” at Toby’s Dinner Theatre, and he’s been working professionally ever since. Growing up, he didn’t see a lot of himself – Black and queer – on social media. He now wants to be open and honest for those out there who might not feel seen, he says

An introvert who lets everything loose on the stage, Young says, “theater is a safe space for queer people. That’s the first place we feel safe, particularly in school. And this is why we need theaters in schools, now more than ever.”

He adds, “What’s great about Ford’s is its surprises, especially when they switch up casting. It’s meaningful to see the shows you love, but why not see them with a twist? Using unexpected actors and incorporating queer people just makes it that much better.”

Continue Reading

Nightlife

D.C.’s gay DJ collective CTRL returns

Electropop group resurfaces at Trade on March 30

Published

on

CTRL is back after a six-year absence.

Finger lasers, confetti cannons, drag shows, photo booths, throwback tunes, and a touch nerdy: after a long break, D.C.’s gay DJ collective CTRL is throwing its first party in six years.

Born in an Eritrean restaurant more than a decade ago, this longstanding gay nightlife electropop group is resurfacing with a comeback event at Trade on March 30.

Gay DJs Adam Koussari-Amin, Jeff Prior, Devon Trotter, and Brett Andreisen hosted the first CTRL party at now-closed restaurant Dahlak, on the corner of 18th and U Streets. After a year of hosting pop-ups in that restaurant’s dining room, they upgraded down 18th Street to now-closed gay club Cobalt. There, the parties grew: drag shows, a pop-up photo booth from David Claypool, and quirky activations like throwing hot dogs into print-outs of Putin’s mouth. Their productions grew as well, like producing the now-defunct Brightest Young Gays (BYG) Pride events at Wonderbread Factory and Union Market and the ‘Get Wet’ pool party with David Brown’s Otter Crossing at the Capitol Skyline Hotel.

CTRL wasn’t done. The group received its biggest stage yet after a call from Ed Bailey, the owner of now-closed gay club Town, as well as current gay bars Number 9 and Trade. At Town, the opportunity “allowed our creativity to flourish with even bigger performances, bigger photo experiences, crazier hand-outs, and the same electropop dance vibes our fans had come to know us for,” says Koussari-Amin.

CTRL pressed pause when Town shut down, which “was a huge loss to the LGBTQIA+ community and D.C. nightlife in general,” says Koussari-Amin. After that, it hosted an occasional spinoff called QWERTY. Post-pandemic, Koussari-Amin has spent a few nights solo as DJ at Trade and other venues.

After connecting with Jesse Jackson, the Trade general manager, as well as with Bailey, who agreed to host the inaugural event, Koussari-Amin was determined to shift CTRL back to life.

However, getting the old band back together proved to be a challenge. While the rest of the group have either left Washington, D.C., or are pursuing other projects, Koussari-Amin received their blessing to stay on and find new members. 

“When it came to finding new partners, both DJ Dez [Desmond Jordan] and DJ Lemz [Steve Lemmerman] were obvious choices,” he says, noting that “they also have distinct styles and interests.” Dez has a residency at Pitchers and Kiki as well as pop-ups, and Lemz throws events like Sleaze and BENT.

 “It seemed important to come back to the nightlife table with an experience that could complement all the amazing experiences that have even built up since CTRL threw its last event at Town. Bringing back both the DJ collective and the CTRL event with Dez and Lemz means new voices, perspectives, sounds, and excitement.”

“CTRL is an opportunity for the community to come together, enjoy music, drinks, and good vibes,” adds Jordan, noting that for him, it’s an event that celebrates queer identity.

And after months of planning, CTRL will kick off its monthly party series at Trade on March 30 for the first gig after its glow-up.

The trio says that its core inspiration “is driven by the indie and electropop favorites of new and old, like Goldfrapp, Ava Max, Charli XCX, … We’re also all huge fans of slut and trash pop music like Kim Petras, Slayyyter, Cupcakke,” as well as pop diva remixes, new bops, and songs that reside inside and far beyond the expanse of Top 40.

CTRL is also bringing back its activations that complement the tunes. Summer Camp is set for drag performances, David Claypool is back with his photo booth, and Koussari-Amin promises “to have all sorts of weird and wacky handouts like we used to.”

After the March premiere, April’s party is “CTRLella”, a Coachella send-up. Future events will feature various different themes, and they plan to throw a party during Capital Pride; they’re also looking to be a central part of Trade’s expansion into the adjacent space.

 Koussari-Amin says that “the event’s signature experience [is] a lynchpin in connecting D.C.’s expanding generations of queer folks, giving everyone a safe space to let loose and feel a rush no matter who they are.” 

For his part, Bailey continues to support CTRL and its collective intention, expressing its essential nature as a party for partiers by partiers. “CTRL is the kind of party that represents what people want. It’s just a real party by real people that just want to hear good music and dance with their friends.”

Continue Reading

Celebrity News

HRC releases ‘Queer Renaissance Syllabus’

Beyoncé’s hit album inspired curriculum

Published

on

Beyoncé performs at FedEx Field in Landover, Md., on Aug. 6, 2023. The Human Rights Campaign has released a curriculum that her "Renaissance" album inspired. (Washington Blade photo by Isabelle Kravis)

In a move aimed at celebrating the beauty, brilliance and resilience of the LGBTQ community, the Human Rights Campaign unveiled the “Queer Renaissance Syllabus” that Beyoncé’s “Renaissance” album inspired. 

Curated by Justin Calhoun, Leslie Hall and Chauna Lawson of the HRC’s Historically Black Colleges and Universities Program, the syllabus includes a variety of academic articles, essays, films and other media rooted in Black queer and feminist studies. Each piece is directly inspired by the tracks on Beyoncé’s Billboard 200-topping dance album, “Renaissance.”

Beyoncé’s album “Renaissance” stands as a cultural milestone, celebrating the Black queer roots of dance music while shedding light on overlooked Black queer artists. Inspired by her late-Uncle Johnny, the album not only garnered critical acclaim but also shed light on the often marginalized contributions of Black queer artists. Winning four Grammys and yielding chart-topping hits like “Break My Soul” and “Cuff It,” the album sparked discussions about economic impact and cultural representation.

Amid its success, legislative challenges arose, with Florida and Texas enacting bans on DEI initiatives in public colleges. Recognizing the album’s transformative potential, HRC developed the “Queer Renaissance Syllabus” to leverage its impact for education and activism.

Tailored for educators, youth-serving professionals, DEI practitioners, higher education leaders and admirers of Beyoncé’s artistry, the syllabus aims to encourage meaningful discussions, enrich lesson plans, and explore innovative ways to honor the vibrancy and significance of LGBTQ individuals and their culture.

With six themes anchoring the syllabus, ranging from “intersectionality and inclusivity” to “social justice and activism,” it provides a comprehensive exploration of various facets of LGBTQ experiences and expressions. Fan-favorite tracks from the album are paired with scholarly readings, offering insights into empowerment, self-acceptance and the transformative power of artistic expression. The syllabus also reinforces HRC’s efforts to highlight, amplify and re-center Black and queer voices.

By providing links to articles, books, podcasts and interviews, each associated with a song from the album, it celebrates the rich cultural heritage and contributions of the Black queer community.

The concluding section of the syllabus includes Beyoncé’s tribute to O’Shea Sibley, a young Black queer person who was murdered in Brooklyn, N.Y., last July while voguing to “Renaissance” songs at a gas station. HRC also includes a statement that condemns hate crimes.

Continue Reading
Advertisement
Advertisement

Sign Up for Weekly E-Blast

Follow Us @washblade

Advertisement

Popular