“You know, I bet all the stars make their new assistants write their obituaries. It’s sorta like a hazing.”
That’s a bit of narration from Zack (Tyler Steelman), the new personal assistant to actress Sally Kirkland, who plays herself in “Sallywood,” a gentle showbiz comedy from writer-director Xaque Gruber. How lovely and perfect that Gruber, who based the movie on his own experience as Kirkland’s assistant, would end up writing a more personal kind of obituary for his friend and former boss, in the form of a movie. “Sallywood” is being released mere days after Kirkland’s death at 84. The timing is so perfect that you have to wonder if the actress, a consummate self-promoter, somehow made it happen on her end: “Look, Xaque, I know you don’t have a lot of money to promote this thing, so I figured I’d kick off right before it comes out. Does that work for you?”
Gruber grew up in Maine with a mom and dad who were supported his ambitions even though they didn’t fully understand them. (Jennifer Tilly and Lenny Von Dohlen play the parents here). At nine, Gruber happened to pop in a videocassette of “Anna,” the 1987 film about a fading Czech actress that gave Kirkland, who’d been bopping around the edges of superstardom since the mid-1960s, a brief moment of worldwide fame, and was transfixed. Kirkland won a Golden Globe as Best Actress in a drama for “Anna.” She was also nominated for Best Actress at the Oscars, along with Glenn Close (“Fatal Attraction”), Meryl Streep (“Ironweed”), Holly Hunter (“Broadcast News”), and the eventual winner, Cher (for “Moonstruck”). Gruber was surely the only nine-year-old Maine boy who was obsessed with Sally Kirkland in “Anna.” That he moved to Hollywood looking for writing work, then became Kirkland’s assistant and friend, is enough to make you believe in destiny, at least for the lean 82-minute running time of “Sallywood.”
It’s a peculiar little movie that might seem grating or just overly earnest at first, but grows on you if you stick with it and adjust to its wavelength. It never pretends to be bigger than it is. It’s not trying to sum anything up or put anything in perspective. It’s just a dramatic re-creation of something that happened, mixed with images and clips from Kirkland’s own life, as well as documentary-style interviews with friends of Kirkland portraying fictional characters (including Eric Roberts as her agent Clem and Keith Carradine as a made-up filmmaker named George Corrigan).
But despite its outward modesty, it has a lot of insight into the pursuit of fame, the fleeting nature of its rewards, and the anxiety that comes from knowing that nothing we do is permanent—and that we aren’t, either. It also has dialogue with some of the bite that Carrie Fisher brought to her books and script work. At a networking party, Zack points across the room and tells Kirkland, “I recognize the woman in black. I wonder what she’s been in?” “The operating table,” she says.
“Sally Kirkland, Oscar-nominated actress and painter, died today in her Hollywood home,” Zack says, talking to himself as he writes the first draft of Kirkland’s obituary. Kirkland, who’s been listening offscreen, stops him right there. “Don’t say Sally died,” she says. “Say Sally passed into spirit.”
Kirkland was a prototypical talented but underutilized Hollywood actress with a game-for-anything social life. She was born in New York City to a fashion editor for Vogue and LIFE, but was raised in Oklahoma. She was briefly a go-go dancer at Hollywood’s Peppermint Lounge. As a young actress in New York, she studied with Lee Strasberg, did experimental theater, and drifted into the orbit of Andy Warhol’s factory. She had the body of a pinup girl, the theatrical skills of a Cours Florent graduate, and the promotional instincts of a publicist. If she’d been born a few decades earlier, she might’ve originated the role of Blanche DuBois and had a fling with Charlie Parker.
She told interviewers she was a heavy drug user in the ’60s until she tried to kill herself, then redirected her energy to painting and yoga. She was, as people would later say, sex-positive. She rattles off names: Bob Dylan, Kris Kristofferson, Dennis Hopper, Maximillian Schell, Ray Liotta, Jon Voight, and Keir Dullea of “2001: A Space Odyssey.” She says Rip Torn was responsible for her first orgasm, and still thinks it’s cool that the guy who did it was named Rip Torn. Asked to name the greatest benefit of celebrity, she exclaims, “Men! You get any man you want! They come from all over.”
Her acting career spanned more than sixty years. It included brief but memorable appearances in many major films—including “Blazing Saddles,” “The Sting,” and the Barbra Streisand version of “A Star is Born” (which, one assumes, is where she did the horizontal mambo with the guy who wrote ‘Me and Bobby McGee’). Kirkland amassed 275 film and TV credits, five of which are for projects set for posthumous release. “Anna” was the big one for her, and she knew it. She struggled before, and a few years after that glorious reprieve, she’d be struggling again.
“Sallywood” should be required viewing for anyone who thinks fame equals wealth. As you read this, “Dawson’s Creek” star James VanDerBeek is auctioning off precious possessions to pay for his cancer treatment. Sidney Sweeney, the starlet of the moment, told The Hollywood Reporter that her publicist costs more than her mortgage. Robert McNaughton, who played the older brother in “E.T.: The Extraterrestrial,” quit acting at 30 because the income stream was too volatile, and has worked for the U.S. Postal Service ever since. There’s a running gag in “Sallywood” about Kirkland chastising Clem for not bringing in better-paying work, as well as recurring reminders that she needs to raise $1800 to pay the garage that fixed her car before they’ll release it.
When Zack’s roommate Tom (Tom Conolly), a hustling British filmmaker, offers her a role in a film he describes as “‘Rashomon in space with zombies,” she says, “How much are you gonna pay me for this? My agent is of no use, so I do all my own deals.” It’s too bad she didn’t live a bit longer. “Sallywood” might have been turned into a streaming series, and then she would’ve had the money to buy a whole new car.
Would “Sallywood” be as poignant if the timing of Kirkland’s departure had been different? Possibly. But every film is a documentary of its own making. Everything captured within it will disappear in time—the cast, the crew, the locations, even the land itself. This movie, which was shot in 2021, showcases not just one but three actors who have since merged with the infinite: Von Dohlen in 2022, and Michael Lerner, who plays the TV producer who hires Zack, in 2023. Like Kirkland, Von Dohlen and Lerner did all kinds of projects, but were known for one major success that helped them survive in the industry for the rest of their years. For Von Dohlen, it was “Twin Peaks.” For Lerner, it was “Barton Fink,” which got him an Oscar nomination as Best Supporting Actor. All have passed into spirit.
