barger@ARISTOTLE.ILS.NWU.EDU (Jorn Barger) (02/08/90)
Just recently I rented the video of "The Wicker Man" (British c1973) and was surprised to see Lindsay Kemp's name in the opening credits. The story is about a police detective who visits an island community off the English coast after getting a complaint that a girl may have been sacrificed to the local gods. The island has gone pagan under the leadership of the local gentry, and the movie presents a fairly sympathetic picture of a culture where sexuality is openly reverenced. Kemp plays the local innkeeper, whose daughter (Britt Ecklund) is a kind of 'temple prostitute' who initiates young men into sexual experience. Kemp does no dancing, but does join in a bawdy song about his daughter. But later in the film, at the Mayday festival, he is supposed to take the role of the _Fool_.... Which put me in mind of a certain song about a homosexual actor who they give a part to, but he has to play the fool... (I have no idea if Kemp is gay, but I've read that his great theatrical success was in drag-- I forget the name of the play...) (And I don't find any other listing for him in the actors index of my video guide...) Any hypotheses or refutations? --jorn
nessus@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Doug Alan) (02/09/90)
> From: Jorn Barger <barger@aristotle.ils.nwu.edu> > But later in the film, at the Mayday festival, he is supposed to take the > role of the _Fool_.... > Which put me in mind of a certain song about a homosexual actor who > they give a part to, but he has to play the fool... (I have no idea > if Kemp is gay, but I've read that his great theatrical success was > in drag-- I forget the name of the play...) [...] Any hypotheses or > refutations? This is indeed quite interesting. Lindsay Kemp is indeed gay. Rumour says that Kate had a crush on Lindsay Kemp and that "Moving" is a love song to him. (Lindsay only had eyes for David Bowie.) Whether or not Kate had Lindsay Kemp in mind when she wrote "Wow", I know not, but this new piece of information about Lindsay Kemp playing the Fool, sure seems like more than mere coincidence. |>oug "I is for ME lynched as a louse"