Cold Cream Not Included

I was looking in my photo albums for a shot of my 1983 costume. I was dressed in fatigues and had those plastic army men and tanks glued to my shirt. I was, of course, the Invasion of Granada, which commenced on October 25 of that year. Topical + Misguided Military Action + Hindsight = Hi-Larity. Alas, no such picture exists. Instead, I give you this from 1982.

This is the result of a 2 hour session with a make-up artist from Universal Studios (who hold the copyright on the Lon Chaney, Jr. Wolfman make-up created by Jack Pierce). I was part of a special Halloween Show at The Variety Arts Center, my place of employment -and my favorite watering hole - in those days. As I recall, Ginny D'Auria was in full green Witch regalia and together we sang "By The Light Of The Silvery Moon". Or rather, Ginny sang. I sort of howled along, sometimes on key, sometimes not. Those of you who have heard me sing know that this characterizes most of my musical performances.

There were showers in the dressing rooms in the bowels of the theatre, and after several hours in this amazingly itchy get up, I underwent a hasty hair removal and shower, just long enough to get the bulk of the stuff off me so that it didn't look like I was also channeling Al Jolson, but not enough to get the many layers of eye-liner off. I didn't realize that I hadn't removed all the gunk until later. I spent the remainder of the evening in my street clothes, at the bar, enduring chuckles at my Cleopatra/Racoon eyes.

Tags: Theatuh