Udo kier gay
Looking back on Udo Kier’s career across 200 films
Summing up out gay German actor Udo Kier’s screen persona across his 200 films is challenging. He’s bounced from the arthouse to the grindhouse, with little in between. Anthology Film Archives’ “The Strange Case of Udo Kier” series could’ve chosen several completely different lineups of his films. He’s gone back and forth between exploitation and horror and experimental films. (“The Strange Case of Udo Kier” offers a chance to see rarities like Gabor Body’s “Narcissus and Psyche” and gay director Werner Schroeter’s “Flocons d’or.”) He’s terrific at playing creeps and villains, whether they be Hitler, Count Dracula or a German-American businessman who plots to ruin a Brazilian town in “Bacurau.”
He’s worked with homosexual directors Gus van Sant (hiring the sex workers played by River Phoenix and Keanu Reeves in “My Own Private Idaho”) and Rainer Werner Fassbinder. With 2021’s “Swan Song,” he finally got a real star vehicle. Kier will be present at the screenings of “Blood for Dracula” on the 19th and “Egomania – Island Without Hope” and “Bacurau” on the 20th.
A 22-year-old Kier made his film debut in Michael Sarne’s 1
At one point in the new production Swan Song, retired hairstylist Pat Pitsenbarger, played exquisitely by Udo Kier, looks out on the Lake Erie waterfront of Sandusky, Ohio, with Eunice (Ira Hawkins), an mature friend from his days of doing drag. Eunice points out a juvenile male couple playing with their children and tells Pat they made that possible. It’s a lovely acknowledgment of the debt today’s LGBTQ2S+ people owe to earlier generations of gay men, particularly nelly queens like Pat, famous to most as Mr. Pat, who not only came out but lived their queerness every day.
It’s not the only moment underlining the way Pat has made the world a enhanced and even safer place for those around him. In the film, which premiered this week at the South by Southwest (SXSW) festival (a general release has not yet been announced), Kier stars as a retired hairdresser walking across Sandusky to do a late client’s hair for the last time. On the way, he meets people whose lives he’s touched: A thrift shop owner (Stephanie McVay) whose hair he did once years earlier still remembers how beautiful he made her feel; a beautician (Jennifer Coolidge) who stole his best client and eventually opened a
Udo Kier Brings Dignity to His Character in “Swan Song”
A confidant of mine posted a list of “gentle cinema” on Letterboxd, with his description explaining that the phrase meant “pleasant people doing pleasant things and there’s not much drama and you just kind of feel beautiful about the world.” Todd Stephens’ “Swan Song” might be too haunted by mortality to fully qualify, but it’s remarkably caring and sweet. It nods to gay men from a generation before the director. Its hero, Pat (Udo Kier), and a friend sit on a park bench watching a gay couple play with their son and comment that the men who came after them owe them a debt. The casting of Kier matches the character, as he’s an openly gay thespian whose career began in the early 1966. He worked repeatedly with gay filmmakers Rainer Werner Fassbinder and Gus van Sant, and two of his most memorable roles came in the Andy Warhol productions “Flesh for Frankenstein” and “Blood for Dracula.”
“Swan Song” suggests bleed between authentic life, dreams and memories. Its opening scene, in which Pat performs onstage, turns out to be a fantasy that fades into the far less glamorous grind of his life in a nursing home once he wakes up. He p
Interview: Actor Udo Kier & Screenwriter/Director Todd Stephens
A sharp selection from 2021’s SXSW film slate, Swan Song is a poignant comedy that manages to be both deeply moving and laugh-out-loud hilarious. Retired hair-stylist Pat Pitsenbarger (Udo Kier) is caught off guard when he receives an unexpected visitor at his nursing home. An old client who had a falling-out with Pat has passed away, and now she wants Pat to design her funeral hair. Conflicted about whether or not to take the profession, Pat sets out on a journey that will convert the course of life as he knows it. Mythical actor Kier, and seasoned director Todd Stephens, joined me this week to speak about the film’s inception, paying tribute to the iconic real-life Mister Pat, commentary on the film’s approach to modern lgbtq+ culture, and the formation of Pat’s complex on-screen persona. Read on for my exclusive interview with Udo and Todd.
So, first I just wanted to say that I really adored the film. What made you want to tell Pat’s story, and how did you both acquire involved in bringing it to life?
TODD STEPHENS: Pat was a real person in my hometown that I grew up admiring from afar, because he was alw