Varda the Message

The smaller roles in Velvet Goldmine are as well cast as the leads. Some are acting veterans like Arthur's boss Lou, [see Update below] but for many of them, Velvet Goldmine is their only role to date. A few, like Arthur's brother and Brian's Mod girlfriend seem to be quite active on British TV. And who wouldn't cast the charming Joe Beattie, who played Cooper, after seeing this.

However, some of the cast who might not have a lot of film or TV appearances are active in theater. Cecil's polari-speaking friend, Ivan Cartwright, a.k.a. Candy Floss, teaches weekend workshops in How to Be A Drag Queen, and worked with Leigh Bowery.

There are a few odd casting choices to be found while perusing the IMDb. For example, who could have imagined that 'Rodney, from Electra', who introduces Brian and Curt, would later be cast as Hitler's propaganda minster, Josef Goebbels.

Update: Esoterica - Casting/Credits

A recent DVD release provides more insight to the casting of Arthur's boss, Lou, who is played by acting veteran Don Fellows. In his 70 or so roles he is usually cast as a military man, reporter or authority figure. One of his earliest roles however, he plays himself, an actor, in the film Symbiopsychotaxiplasm: Take One. This film was shot in 1968, and part one was edited and released. In 2003 the site of the film was revisited by filmmaker William Greaves, and new scenes were shot, contributing to Symbiopsychotaxiplasm: Take 2 1/2, both have been released in a Criterion Collection DVD.
I can only imagine that Todd Haynes saw this film in some film studies class and kept Fellows in mind when casting Velvet Goldmine.

script:
Arthur’s eyes flash up. The shimmer swells. Extreme CLOSE-UP of Curt.
 
(very far-away)
I forget where we were. On a trip. But he says to me, 'Curt...

            FLASH TO:
EXT. BEACH – DAY – 1973
 
A bleached-out image of Brian and Curt on some beach.


Both Curt and Brian recall the same moment on holiday, in flashback, as the highlight of their time together. When Brian watches Curt drive away he visualizes them together on the same beach. To each of them that idyllic moment was the fondest memory of their affair. Much of their relationship was scrutinized by the press or observed by others but this is a private interlude that their fans have no idea about, possibly making it all the more precious.


Esoterica: Because Todd describes Curt as 'very far-away' and he and Brian on 'some beach' I just have to mention that 'On Some Far Away Beach' is a song on Eno's Here Come the Warm Jets.

script:
Arthur pulls out the chair to his desk.
 
            CUT TO:
 
LATER

Computer screen. Words flash by:

‘FILE REQUEST FOR NAME CHANGE SEARCH:
SLADE, BRIAN’
 
Arthur’s face as he searches, blue in the glow of his computer. The TV blares in the background. 

TV NEWS
(off-screen)
Sponsored by President Reynolds' Redeem America Committee, the campaign fundraiser headlined pop superstar Tommy Stone, and raised over a million dollars for the Committee to Prosper. Also performing on the bill, Pat Boone, the Chuck Damon Singers, and Martha Gale.


It seems that the Chuck Damon Singers, and Martha Gale are fictional but Pat Boone is not. He is a contemporary of Elvis Presley, well known for his bland, wholesome image - wearing white bucks, drinking milk and ruining great songs by singing cleaned up lyrics that were originally about the joys of greasing up some good booty. Sounding like a crony of the Bush Reynolds Administration, Pat Boone is part of the real life Presidential Prayer Team. (Scroll down) (They've archived the original entry but he was posing on that site with the man who thinks Sponge Bob is a gay threat to children. James Dobson has apparently never heard Tutti Frutti.) I think Todd had a little fun including him here as a reminder that there have always been hypocrites willing to make money off of rock and roll while pretending to be holier than Little Richard.

Here's Pat aping a famous Elvis pose. The actual album title is Pat Boone Sings Guess Who.

script:
An individual looking remarkably like Brian, dressed as Maxwell Demon, stands with two other flashily dressed individuals.
 
Curt squints at the spectre, taking a few vague steps in his direction.
 
The figure turns, revealing himself to be a teenage fan.
 
Curt, CLOSE, spooked by the misrecognition.


While Curt walks through the Kreuzberg, the German radio announcer says, "While the English fans turned their back on Brian Slade after the highly praised faked assassination stunt, the German fans were rather interested in the bisexual space creature and the sale numbers of the Maxwell Demon ballad Lipstick Traces have more than doubled since the show from February 7th."

Thanks to happytogoblind for the help.

In the Bijou offices, on Jerry's desk there is a vase of beautiful white lilies. This is one of the most well known symbols of Oscar Wilde and the Aesthetic movement. From Richard Ellmann's bio of Wilde, describing his years at Oxford, "His decor included also the talismanic lily, sanctified by Ruskin in The Stones of Venice as one of the most beautiful and useless things in the world. Gilbert and Sullivan were to parody lily love in 'Patience' in 1881. Some have assumed this cult began later. But Wilde himself said that he filled his rooms at Oxford with lilies. A friend of his, Douglas Sladen, recalls ... 'At one time he banished all the decoration from his rooms, except a single blue vase of the true aesthetic type which contained a "Patience" lily.' "

Velvet Goldmine was released theatrically in the U.K. on this day in 1998.

script:
Next they pass Devine in his elevated office.

Manger Jerry Devine, is perched behind his desk in wide lapels and clashing patterns, operatic on the phone.


We've already mentioned that Jerry Devine is based on Bowie's manager Tony DeFries. But today's point of trivia regards one of the most popular rumors about Velvet Goldmine. The huge poster behind Jerry is a Hollywood glamour shot of 30's legend Jean Harlow, a fabulous actress with great comedic flair. She was the original platinum blonde and in most of her films she wore a white, bias cut satin gown that showed off her beautiful body (without a bra too, which was a bit of a scandal at that time). In the classic comedy, Dinner at Eight, she plays Kitty, who is trying to fit in with all the society swells. She exchanges this immortal dialogue with the great Marie Dressler, who plays the grand dowager, Carlotta:

Kitty : I was reading a book the other day.
Carlotta : Reading a book?? (Dressler nearly staggers.)
Kitty : Yes. It's all about civilization or something. A nutty kind of a book. Do you know that the guy says that machinery is going to take the place of every profession?
Carlotta : Oh, my dear. (Eying Kitty's figure up and down) That's something you need never worry about.

On to the rumor: it's been claimed that the portrait is actually Eddie Izzard in drag. The evidence for: their facial structures are very similar, and Eddie is known for wearing makeup and dressing in drag, so he could pull it off. The cons: the time and budget constraints of the film make it seem highly unlikely that they had the time to set up this kind of photo shoot. If someone like the late great Kevin Aucoin had a go at it, it could be possible. [See some amazing transformations by him here.] And when the film is compared side by side with the original photograph, - note the exact shadows and especially the folds in the dress - it seemed pretty apparent that they are identical.

However, the rumor is too too fabulous not to make the rounds – it was even repeated by the TV channel Trio when they aired Velvet Goldmine.

From The Picture of Dorian Gray

He felt that he had known them all, those strange terrible figures that had passed across the stage of the world and made sin so marvelous and evil so full of subtlety. It seemed to him that in some mysterious way their lives had been his own.

The next paragraph continues the idea,

The hero of the wonderful novel that had so influenced his life had himself known this curious fancy. ...
Over and over again Dorian used to read this fantastic chapter, and the two chapters immediately following, ....

and the chapter ends:

Dorian Gray had been poisoned by a book.

The book that Oscar is referring to is not an imaginary one but Against The Grain [the original French title, A Rebours] by J.K. Huysmans. You can read it here:

★ on the Blu-ray commentary:
TH: "and here Christian really looks like he's a teenager as he hears his teacher read from Dorian Gray. And the book that - I forgot this until I read my great web notes - (♥ that's me that!) the book that Dorian Gray is reading in this quote that 'Dorian Gray had been poisoned by a book' is actually Against the Grain ... which is this classic 19th century French handbook for the decadent arts. It's perfect in the context of glitter rock."