My friend Kim Morgan writes a gorgeous and funny tribute to German actor and muse-to-many Udo Kier. (I love his turn as the snooty man in Melancholia, who puts his hand up as a barrier-wall between him and anything unseemly or, as he deems it, inappropriate.)
Kim and Udo are good friends. They go scavenging through Palm Springs thrift shops together. They talk. There is a giant ball in Udo’s yard. They are both obsessed with it. Kim allows us to be a fly on the wall.
I bring up Udo’s beauty. He’s shy about this for a moment. I tell him he’s still gorgeous now, because he really is. He’s lucky in that, as he gets older, he never loses his Udo-ness, it just seems to increase. He’s too interesting a person, too unique, too vital, too great an actor, too smart for anything like beauty to fade. I’m not flattering him. It’s just too obvious. Every place I’ve been with him, Paris or Winnipeg or Los Angeles or in the middle of a dirty thrift store in Morongo Valley, people look at him, things shift, the room temperature changes. Charisma. When he was young, he had to know he was one of the most beautiful men on the planet, I say. He’s very gracious about this. Not boastful. Women must have thrown themselves at you, I tell him. Men and women. It must have been crazy all the time. He is again, humble and discreet but he knows that I know. Yes. It was fucking insane.
There’s much much more over at Kim’s great site, Sunset Gun.
Thanks for the link — what a great piece. This guy! His Random Roles at the AVClub is one of the greatest interviews I’ve ever read.
Oh my God I totally forgot about that and just went and re-read it. I mean, SERIOUSLY.
” So the first day of shooting I knocked at her trailer—which was enormous, as big as her breasts.”
Too much good stuff to even quote!
I know! And all the furniture-related anecdotes and analogies….now I understand! He just Really. Loves. Furniture. “Audition is the worst thing. It’s like cleaning furniture in a department store” finally makes sense!
Ha!! Yes! “I could be shopping for chairs right now …” is probably a thought never far from his mind.
and I love the dame at the antiques store saying, “Udo, you have too many clay pots.”
Buying a desk because it looks good with your hair seems very reasonable to me, personally.
Also:
“Amazing to have sex with Keanu Reeves and River Phoenix! So I came to Idaho, and I was sitting in a restaurant with Keanu Reeves and River Phoenix, and Gus introduced me, and River was amazing. He said, “Hans, sit next to me!” And Keanu didn’t understand anything. Anyway, to make the story short, I made the film and I had a great time.”
He needs to write a memoir.
He totally should. And his way of talking needs to be preserved. Maybe he could just dictate it. I’d read it!