My birth certificate says "born in East L.A". My childhood was spent with family in East L.A., Mexico City, Echo Park and Orange County. My mother's mother crossed the Mexican/U.S. border in a boat. My father's mother crossed the Pacific in a ship from Shanghai to Mexico City. Her second husband was my chosen father, my favorite being. He was an artist - a painter, photograher and a mountain climber. My father was a charismatic sociopath whose eyes turned green when he was in a dangerous mood. My mother is an angel, a beautiful working class, goes to mass every Sunday (after partying hard on Saturday) woman. At 16 she had to quit school to help support the family. The indignity of welfare was something she would never have to experience again. In Mexico City I was my grandparents' princess, only child in a white dress with an embroidered dog on it and a nice little bobbed haircut. In East L.A. I was "The Wolf", "Wolfie" or "Wolfcanary" named by my uncles after my howling cries. Everyone had their nick name. My aunt Margarite, who told everyone where to head in and liked to nap, was "The Bear". There was "Greyhound", "Mouse", "Black Cat", "Frog" and my cousins "The Fleas".
Orange County was later and I thought oh so glamorous with it's swimming pools and my dad's busty blondes. There I went from being my mom's cheeky mod daughter, allowed my fishnet stalkings, boots and attitude to my dad's restrained, repressed catholic school girl dressed, house cleaning "A" student. Between Orange County and dear dad...I'm still recovering. In the late seventies I met my tribe through "Clu Gulager's Acting Class" (and film revival theatres, where I'd run into JG in the front row regularly). In the eighties "I died and went to heaven" -I moved to NEW YORK CITY. John Gulager joined me and we continued where we had left off -young punks in the city -in NYC's Lower East Side.
Click this link to read a recent interview at UpcomingHorrorMovies.com
Vittorio De Sica's LADRI DI BICICLETTA
