Mary Woronov has seen it all.
Check out her memoir Swimming Underground: My Years in the Warhol Factory. As one of Andy Warhol's misfit superstars, Mary contrasted hippie-dippy flower power with a whip-cracking persona straight out of 42nd Street's Olga films (Picture: 1).
Shortly thereafter, Mary reinvented herself as a as a cult movie favorite via grindhouse greats such as Sugar Cookies (1973) (Picture: 1 - 2), Seizure (1973), Silent Night, Deadly Night (1973), Death Race 2000 (1975) (Picture: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4) and Hollywood Boulevard (1976) (Picture: 1).
Her Hollywood hot-streak culminated with Rock 'n' Roll High School (1979), where Mary remains unforgettable as The Ramones' nemesis: foxy femme fascist principal Miss Togar.
Woronov later claimed that this signature role harmed her career, despite her deft turn as Mary Bland in the midnight cannibal comedy classic Eating Raoul (1982) (Picture: 1 - 2 - 3). She also provided touching moments as a doomed scientist in Night of the Comet (1984), and showed off her comic timing -- and maturing beauty -- as a swinging housewife in the sci-fi comedy TerrorVision (1986).
Woronov remains a busy actress, and her reputation allows her the occasional fine showcase, as in the experimental indie sci-fi drama The New Women (2001) -- which pairs her with fellow domme diva Roma Maffia. Joe Dante, who originally directed Woronov in Rock 'n' Roll High School, recently cast her as a sexbomb Acme executive in Looney Tunes: Back In Action (2003). She also recently graced Mr. Skin with an interview from her home in Los Angeles.
It was great to see you in the multiplexes in Loony Tunes: Back In Action -- especially as Steve Martin's love interest. Was he a fan of your work?
Well, everyone on the Acme Board of Directors was people that Joe had worked with -- but I'm not sure if Steve Martin was familiar with my work. I don't think so. He's a big star, and he's got his own life. I never asked him. I know he's familiar with my paintings. He's bought one of them, and he might have known that I acted before I arrived on the set. I guess you could say that I knew him through other people.
Are you often approached by directors who've always wanted to work with you?
I get a lot of calls from former fans turned directors. I did a prison movie in Texas recently. The kid was really young, but he was a fan, and he turned out to be a really good director. He had no money, but those are the kinds of things I often get. I do those films because it's giving back to the profession. I've also had fun doing those films. I like working on low-budget movies. Looney Tunes was not my kind of movie -- although the craft table service was the biggest thing I ever saw in my life. There was this huge table with omelets for breakfast, everything you could ever want in an egg. Actually, I worked on the Warren Beatty film Town and Country, and that craft table was even more amazing.
Have you become more comfortable with being cast as strict, domineering women? You haven't had enough chances to show off your warmth, and it's amazing when you do -- like in your death scene for Night of the Comet.
Thank you. I wrote that death scene. It was ridiculous the way that the director had written it, and he didn't have time to change it, so he let me write it. I like showing that side of me. But you're right -- they usually call me in to play a Miss Togar kind of role. I'm kind of bored with that now. I just try to turn it into comedy. It's always a mix between me and the director. Even with the character of Togar. When [co-director] Allan Arkush hired me, I was going to play "Our Miss Brooks," not Miss Togar. That's what I was supposed to do, but, obviously, I didn't.
Your most normal character was actually Mary Bland in Eating Raoul.
She's my finest work. She's played so normally, but she's insane and a murderer. [Director] Paul Bartel -- once again -- had no time for me, and I did everything myself. I wrote some of the scenes. Paul decided he would get into bed with a bottle of wine, and I said, "What about me?" The crew ran around and found me some stuffed animals. That's what I like about low-budget movies. I've had lots of luck with those roles. When I first saw the script, of course, I thought it was crazy. Then, when I found out we'd shoot a scene and then do nothing for two months, I thought Paul was crazy.
You're still always amazing as a villainess.
One of my wildest movies was Hellhole. It was like another take on Miss Togar, but even more nuts. I wasn't trying to distance myself from Togar with Hellhole. I was trying to top myself. There's this neat scene I begged them to keep in, where people come to take a look at the asylum. I'm in charge there, so I take them on a tour, and there are all these girls with big tits and tiny bikinis lying on sand. They're pretending to swim, and I explain that I had the swimming pool thrown out and had sand put in because it was more therapeutic. They shot the scene, but it got left out.
The only production that doesn't seem to really fit into your filmography is Angel of H.E.A.T.
I wasn't pleased with that one. The whole movie was ridiculous. There was nothing comedic there. I took the role because we all went to Tahoe. My boyfriend and I went up there and had a great time -- but I had to do some acting on the side. It's just one of those movies that I didn't get into. It seems vaguelywell, I've done some softcore kind of porn, but there was always something to those films. That one was basically bad (Picture: - - - - ).
Then there's cool schlock like TerrorVision, which is really imaginative and shows you off as an older sex symbol.
You think so? I did that film with Gerrit Graham, and we're both considered to be bizarre actors. He's brilliant, but he's never used properly in Hollywood. Part of my sex appeal is embracing my age. I am who I am. I hate what's happening now, where you don't even know what an old woman looks like anymore. All we see are these stretched-out and stiff-lipped women. When I made The New Women, I didn't want make-up. I like my face looking old. I can be as sexy as anybody with this old face. They think it's all physical, but it's not. Of course, I'm very aware I'm fighting a losing battle, whether it's people obsessed with facelifts or tit size.
Has an agent ever suggested that you have plastic surgery, or maybe soften your look?
No, never. No one's advised me to do anything like that. I have a strength that scares people. People just ran away from me when I enter the room.
Is that why people assume you're a lesbian?
Many people do think I'm gay. Many women think I'm gay. They ask me all the time, "Do you think we could?" I'm, like, "Well, wait a minute." Women have been coming on to me ever since my life back with Warhol. That's because I'm very comfortable in gay situations.
Sugar Cookies features you in a legendary lesbian sex scene with Lynn Lowry -- who says that the most memorable thing was that your then-husband,Theodore Gershuny, was directing the film.
I thought that was memorable, too, because my husband wrote that part for me, and it was a vicious lesbian killer. My husband! Ridiculous. Of all the roles to write for me, wouldn't you try something different? He was pressured to include the nudity in that movie. You know how it is. He also wrote Kemek. Now, that was a brilliant movie.
That was your first mainstream film, and we were going to ask if anybody on the set actually understood the plot.
That's because you don't have the real movie. It never came out. Someone bought the film and completely changed it. You're looking at a movie that's been destroyed by someone putting their own plot into it. They filmed around the original movie, and cut it up. It was this Bond sort of thing with a villain making this weird drug, and I was his girl. It was shot so beautifully, too. It's an amazing film, and we'll never see it.
Your career as an artist was mentioned earlier, but you've never really used your acting career to promote your artwork.
I don't think they have anything to do with each other, that's all. The idea that somebody would like my work in a movie and buy my paintings seems kind of peculiar. What does that have to do with the price of eggs?
How about your writing career?
Well, I don't make a big deal out of my books. I think my acting career has actually hurt my writing. I'm a good writer, but everyone in L.A. thinks actors cannot write -- or, if they can, then they're using ghost writers. My new book is coming out from Serpents Tail in England, and it's called Blind Love. It's stories about what people consider love to be.
We'd actually have a hard time imagining Mary Woronov in love.
So does Mary Woronov have a hard time imagining Mary Woronov in love. It's a rash kind of behavior that's completely neurotic. Nevertheless, it's an enormous amount of fun -- but you get tired of that rush that goes nowhere, and ends up in such bitterness. I don't really believe in love. It's a recent decision. I used to devote so much time to men. I started writing at 50, and I realized that I should've been devoting all of that time to my writing. Now I'm 60 years old with a dog and two cats.
Okay, but -- in defense of men -- may we remind you that you live in Los Angeles?
You may remind me of that, and thank you. This really is the hardest town for relationships.
