So last month, over Zoom, I peppered Copeland with questions about his thorny but ultimately life-changing friendship with Woodlawn. You would eventually find your own Hollywood Glamazon, but with a twist. I started that story that way because I felt it was important to explain who I was as a person, where I came from, and why I would get mixed up with Holly Woodlawn in the first place. We had a lot of commonalities in that we had to escape where we were born to seek the freedom to be ourselves.
She ran off from Florida to New York City. I ran from redneck Missouri to Hollywood, and it was such a hard struggle for me that, by the time Holly Woodlawn came into my life, I was just desperate for an opportunity. And she was the first person in Los Angeles to go to bat for me. Dennis Woodruff, the guy who ran around Hollywood in those crazy cars promoting himself as an actor, died recently.
I really wanted to take people on a trip back in time. Well, I started out working in the art department as a production assistant to the art director. And he was just wonderful. I mean, it was a great time. It was a circus movie, and it was so much fun. He would drive to Venice and pick her up, and she would have him stop off at the local market and pick up a six-pack of beer.
And she would drink her beer as she was on her way to the sound stage. It was just a great experience. I loved working at Paramount. I worked at Paramount for three years as a production assistant, but I got stuck in that trench, and I really wanted to be a writer. Ironically, I worked on a gay TV show called Brothers , which was a landmark series for Showtime, and no one on that show was gay. We had a gay consultant, and I was very closeted at that time.
I was fetching coffee and Xeroxing scripts, and there came a point when Paul Reubens asked if I would come on board as his assistant. I actually turned him down because I wanted to work with Holly Woodlawn. You had no idea who she was, but you were intrigued by her and her androgyny. Looking back, what was it about her that you think fascinated you so much that night? I thought it would be a good networking opportunity, and I got transfixed with this androgynous being.
