Saturday, September 14, 2013

Shameless Saturday Camp Explosion: Joey, Joey



Camp discloses innocence, but also, when it can, corrupts it.
- Susan Sontag, "Notes on Camp"

Sometimes things become jokes that shouldn't; the career (and life) of Joey Heatherton is, I think, one of those things.

Admit it - you're surprised she can sing, aren't you?  I kind of am, every time I hear her.  We're so used to thinking of her only as a B-list sex kitten-trainwreck that anything else throws off the narrative.  Even here, in what passed for her prime, she's still sort of a joke, the spectre of Zero Mostel mugging around the edges of what is otherwise an entirely creditable number.  How does this happen?  It is just drugs and bad choices, or is there something in some performers that makes them inherently, for no reason directly associated with their actual talent, risible?

Of course, Heatherton is part of a larger cadre of ladies - versatile but not-quite-unique actor/singer/dancers - who were more or less left high and dry in Hollywood by the final collapse of the studio system in the early '60s.  They'd been trained up, at Universal or Columbia or wherever, given elocution lessons and taught to be "stars," whatever that meant by 1962 or so, and then thrown out into a market that didn't need them, really, anymore, at least as anything but décor in Elvis pictures or as arm-candy for Bob Hope on his USO tours.  Some of them found their niches - Barbara Eden lucked into a sitcom the afterlife of which still carries her through a kind of career; Stella Stevens had a good run as a hard-boiled leading or supporting lady (a kind of vulgar successor to Claire Trevor); Ann-Margret (in some ways, the ne plus ultra of the type) as a Vegas superstar - but for whatever reason, Joey - although at least as talented as they and more than most - never did.

Here she is, though, in what might have been (sans Mostel) a moment from a better, more fitting career, for once seemingly fully in control, flatteringly dressed and filmed, singing Gershwin as if she were born to do so.  Sing your song, Joey, for what comes after isn't very nice.  Camp corrupted only takes you so far - into Happy Hooker movies, court appearances, and increasingly piteous self-parodies.  After that, slow fade to black.  She's 69 today.

10 comments:

  1. In an alternate universe she has Bernadette Peters career.


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  2. She got off to a good start on Broadway. Ensemble of the original company of "The Sound of Music" (ensemble, Liesl understudy) in 1959, followed in 1960 by a role in "There Was a Little Girl," a play starring Jane Fonda and Dean Jones. Then she landed a regular guest spot on Perry Como's teevee show.

    But she just has no class. None. But for Pia Zadora, Joey Heatherton would be unique.

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    1. Ooh - harsh. Bad judgment, surely, and poor taste, very likely (although you have to have some discernment to carry off Gershwin as adequately as here). But I think next to Pia, Joey's pretty okay; although that's a low enough bar against which to measure that I'm not sure who, comparatively, isn't Bernhardt and Garland wrapped up in one...

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  3. To know her is to love her. And of course she's a Redundant fave...for all sorts of reasons!

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    1. Bizarrely, I only know of her existence because of you, Thom. She was a complete mystery "across the pond", us with our Lulu, Cilla, Clodagh, Petula, Dandy and Dusty and all... Jx

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  4. Have you ever seen Joey in The Happy Hooker Goes to Washington? It is one of the worst movies ever made. Horrible. Beyond words horrible.

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  5. As a little boy I was tingly from watching her on variety shows. Not so much that I liked her but wanted to be her. I think as far as B category is concerned, I'll take Joey and Lola etc. over the current crop of Hollywood B girls.

    She also does a fine rendition of "Light My Fire".

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  6. It is a sad tale and seeing as she came from a showbiz background with her father being a well known vaudevillian one would have hoped she would have been more aware of the pitfalls.

    Saw a picture of her visiting Jane Fonda backstage after a performance by Jane of 33 Variations in L.A. late in 2011 and it was shocking how bad she looked. It was especially so compared to Jane who is at least seven years Joey's senior. To be fair Jane has had surgical help but still looked fit and healthy, Joey worn and the effects of her heroine addiction clearly evident looked at least a decade older.

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    1. So course I went and found that photo. Oh, dear...

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    2. Oh. Dear. Indeed. If only she had found "Someone to Watch Over Her"... Jx

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