A Walk On The Wild Side With Andy Warhol's Most Fabulous Superstar
Memoir / Biography
Date Published: 02-11-2025
Publisher: Feral House
A young, aspiring writer desperate for a break…and the legendary Andy Warhol superstar who gave him the story of a lifetime.
“Jeff's affection for Holly, even as she drunkenly claims, ‘You ruined my life!’ makes this romp worth the journey.” —Michael Musto
By the mid-1980s, Holly Woodlawn, once lauded by George Cukor for her performance in the 1970 Warhol production and Paul Morrissey directed Trash, was washed up. Over. Kaput. She was living in a squalid Hollywood apartment with her dog and bottles of Chardonnay. A chance meeting with starry-eyed corn-fed Missouri-born Jeff Copeland, who moved to Hollywood with dreams of ‘making it’ as a television writer, changed the course of BOTH of their lives forever.
Love You Madly, Holly Woodlawn is a story of how an unlikely friendship with a young gay writer and an, ahem, mature trans actress and performer created the bestselling autobiography of 1991, A Low Life in High Heels. This book about writing a book is a celebration of chutzpa and love as Holly, the embodiment of Auntie Mame, introduces Jeff to the glamorous (and sometimes larcenous) world of a Warhol Superstar. In turn, Jeff uses his writing (and typing) talent to give Holly the second chance at fame she craved.
In turns hilarious and heartwarming, Love You Madly, Holly Woodlawn is a portrait of the real Holly who loved deeply, laughed loudly, and left mayhem in her wake.
I’d spent years feeling like a “have not” in Hollywood, and this collaboration agreement made me feel like I was on the brink of being a “have” . . . even though it was a deal that still paid no money. The money would come later, if and when the book sold to a publisher. I believed it would, but that didn’t matter to my apartment manager, Babe Yancey. She wanted to see those hard-earned greenbacks that I could only get from doing “real work.” According to Babe, the only job that mattered was the one that paid. Anything else was just “fiddle-farting around.”
Shortly afterward, my job as a photo assistant came to an end. Apparently, my lackluster enthusiasm for the work had impeded my performance, particularly when it came to working with a powder puff. By the end of June, I was struggling to make it on wooden nickels, sour grapes, and a glimmer of hope. Through a temp agency, I found work as a secretary on a television western called The Young Riders. It was a good gig, but when they asked me to join the show full-time as a writer’s assistant, I declined because the hours were long and it would leave no time for late-night writing adventures with Miss Woodlawn, once our book sold.
Then I got a call from Paul Reubens’ office, asking if I’d be interested in working as his assistant on Pee-wee’s Playhouse. I liked Paul Reubens a lot, but I wanted to be a writer. I didn’t want to be an assistant again. That was a twelve-hour-a-day commitment. I couldn’t start working for Paul Reubens and then quit in the middle of his show to write a book with Holly Woodlawn. Writing is a lot of work, and I didn’t have the energy to do both, so I put all my chips on Holly Woodlawn, betting, in the long run, she’d have the greater payout.
“Sounds like a crock of horse shit to me,” Babe Yancey grumbled when I told her the reason I was late with the rent. For once, I agreed with her. I tumbled from one temp job to another that summer, eagerly anticipating a publishing deal, but it never came. As the months dragged on, Holly’s patience began to wane. She was bored. The whole reason she came back to Los Angeles was to work on a book about her life, and now the project had stalled.
“What’s going on with that book proposal?” Holly asked almost daily only to get the same frustrating answer. Nothing!
So when a friend of hers asked if she’d like a free trip to Europe, Holly jumped at the chance. This friend was named Harriet and she was a musical theatre powerhouse who blew in from New York to work on a TV series. I first met her when I drove Holly to her apartment on Hawthorne Avenue in Hollywood.
Harriet was a portly little troll with a big round head and long, thin stringy brown hair. She didn’t look or act theatrical at all. In fact, she looked frumpish, like a middle-aged hausfrau who spent all day scrubbing floors, and she spoke with a deep, almost monotone voice.
“Oh, darling, she’s a real hot mama,” Holly told me later. “She’s into leather, bondage and all that S&M stuff.”
“You’re kidding,” I said.
“Oh, no, honey, she’s a hardcore diva,” Holly laughed. “A bona fide, tried-and-true dominatrix dyke, stomping around in her leather boots, cracking her whip, showing her pretty young girlfriends who’s boss.”
“How do you know?” I asked as I visualized a scenario that tickled more than it shocked.
“We’re sisters, honey. She told me all about it. Oh, that Harriet! She’s got more kinks in her wig than a closeted Presbyterian. And wait until you see her in drag.”
It never occurred to me that a biological woman could do female drag. In my mind, the concept of “drag” was reserved for a man impersonating a woman or a woman impersonating a man. But Harriet didn’t disappoint when it came to the art of transformation. When Holly and I went to see her perform at an AIDS benefit in West Hollywood, I was curious as to how this homely, stringy-haired gal would carry off a live performance on stage. I was not only surprised, but I was literally astounded. Harriet was a force and she looked fantastic. Painted face, huge hair, and a thunderous voice that gave me chills.
But despite her tremendous talent, Harriet, like a lot of actors in Hollywood, never hit the big time. She hopped from job to job, had a few good TV gigs, made a disco record in Europe, and performed at cabarets while hustling antique jewelry and vintage tchotchkes on the side. But all that hard work wasn’t enough to sustain her during the down times when she wasn’t working, and by the end of summer, Harriet was belly-up financially. Knee-deep in debt, she decided to fuck all and take Holly to Europe for an all-expenses-paid vacation.
“How does that make sense?” I asked Holly upon hearing of the scheme.
“Hon, you do what you gotta do,” said Holly as she sorted pennies from a jar of change. “Harriet’s going broke and I’m going to help her.”
“What?!”
“We’re maxing out her credit cards, darling. We’re going to spend every bit of credit she’s got. All her cash, too. Honey, by the time she gets back to America, she’ll be flat busted. Then she’ll claim bankruptcy and the bill collectors won’t be able to touch her.”
“But I don’t understand. Why?”
About the Author
For nearly 30 years, Jeff Copeland worked as a show biz hobo, hopping from one gravy train to the next. He was nominated for an Emmy (yay!) and lost (boo!), and has enjoyed working on fun, interesting, and exciting content for a variety of TV networks and film studios, including ABC, FOX, and HGTV.
Contact Links
Purchase Links
a Rafflecopter giveaway
