A Low Life in High Heels: The Holly Woodlawn Story

Effervescent, self-aggrandizing female impersonator Holly Woodlawn misses nary a chance to employ an exclamation point or drop a name in this tawdry, bittersweet memoir coauthored with freelancer Copland. In 1963, Woodlawn hitchhiked from his Miami home to New York City where, transformed by hormone treatments, makeup and the conviction that he was glamorous, he spent the '60s and '70s freeloading, substance-abusing, appearing in loosely scripted films (including Trash ) and worshipping Andy Warhol. The Manhattan written about here is of legendary bygone days when thriving bathhouses hosted cabaret acts and the Studio 54 disco achieved notoriety among a cocaine-addled crowd. Outrageous and bawdy, this is Woodlawn's celebration of licentiousness and his catty cohorts including ill-fated Warhol proteges Jackie Curtis and Candy Darling; the book is evasive in discussing the perils of drug use and the AIDS crisis, but its '90s perspective lends a wistful air to its account of a reckless past. Photos not seen by PW . (Nov.)