Unlikely Mates

When the quirky, gay-themed comedy “Sordid Lives” first opened at the Camelot Theater in Palm Springs in November, theater operator Marshall Stone admits he would have been happy had the film brought in some business at the box office for two or three weeks.

Little did he dream that 29 weeks later, “Sordid Lives” would become a local sensation, one that first appealed to the growing gay population here and then crossed over to the area’s other major demographic: seniors.

Although it received scant attention and was panned by many critics after it opened in Los Angeles in May 2001, the small-budget film--about a dysfunctional Texas family and a grown gay grandson living out in L.A. who worries about returning for his grandmother’s funeral--has succeeded on strong word of mouth. It is a feat rarely achieved in this era of big-studio, marketing-driven blockbusters. As a result, “Sordid Lives,” which stars Beau Bridges, Bonnie Bedelia, Delta Burke and Olivia Newton-John (with close-cropped bleached hair and studs in her earlobes), is quickly becoming an unlikely cult hit.

“I think a lot of [the buzz] started in the beauty salons, barber shops and grocery stores,” Stone said. “We had a lady who works right here at Vons, and she told me one of her customers told her she ought to go see the movie. She and her husband came in and watched it, and they’ve been back three times.”

In April, the theater invited some cast members for two evenings of questions and answers with the public, and it sold so many tickets that Stone said he could have sold 2,000 more had he had enough seats.

Tonight, the theater has invited Bridges, Newton-John and other cast members for another sold-out question-and-answer session. The $500,000 film has so far taken in $472,000--half of that total at the Camelot.

“It has amazed me,” said John Lambert, president of domestic distribution at Santa Monica-based Regent Entertainment. “It has leapfrogged right past the gay population. They actually have busloads of gray-hairs coming in to see the movie.”

Some residents are flocking to the Camelot simply to see what people in town are talking about.

“Everyone and their brother who I talk to has seen the movie,” said Charlotte O’Brien, who works at a local watering hole called Toucan’s. “There are people who have seen it nine times. I’m a bartender, and it’s all they can talk about.” Decked out in a summery polka-dot dress and wide-brimmed hat, she stood at the ticket window buying $100 worth of gift certificates. She hopes they will be used to see “Sordid Lives.”

How “Sordid Lives” became an unexpected hit in the heat-drenched climes of the Coachella Valley underscores the unique dynamics of the Palm Springs region, which in recent years has seen a large influx of gays and lesbians drawn by the same swank resorts, glistening swimming pools and lush golf courses that long ago made this desert a playground for seniors.

Box-Office Records at the Camelot

Screening four times a day, “Sordid Lives” has out-grossed every other film at the Camelot for 19 of 25 weeks, holds the record for the top five grossing weeks at the triplex theater, and the theater management already is planning for big showings next Thanksgiving, when winter brings the tourists and “snowbirds” back.

“I have no idea what to make of it,” writer-director Del Shores said of the town’s embrace of his film. “I am overwhelmed. I always knew, judging from audience response at film festivals, that if word of mouth could kick in and let it set there, it would take off.

“There is nothing that solves the mystery of life in it,” he added, “but it is very funny.”

But can the appeal of “Sordid Lives” stretch beyond Palm Springs’ gays and grays? That’s what the film’s distributors are betting on.

Amazed at the film’s strong draw in Palm Springs, Regent executives plan to expand the film’s release beginning June 14 with weekend midnight shows at the Regent Showcase Theater in Los Angeles, followed by openings in Boston, Denver and, come August, perhaps New York City.

Some moviegoers are even beginning to compare “Sordid Lives” with the cult status reserved for the kinky horror-movie spoof “The Rocky Horror Picture Show,” which drew gay and straight fans to midnight showings years after its initial run in 1975. Indeed, the gay community has a long history of lavishing attention on smaller films with gay subject matter--films like 1994’s “The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert” and last year’s “Hedwig and the Angry Inch.”

“It did start out that we promoted it strong in the gay community,” Stone recalled. “Now, it has flipped over, and it is really the senior citizens who come to the theater. We’re having groups of 12, 15, 20 people come in, and they’re just having a little party.”

Michael Green, president of the Desert Gay Tourism Guild, said Palms Springs has seen a dramatic increase in its gay population in the past 10 years. Of 43,000 residents, Green estimates that between 35% and 40% are gay.

“A good example of this is some of the newer housing developments in town,” Green said. “One on the north end of Avenida Caballeros has about 80 homes in it. They did a directory for the development, and fully 90% of the homes are gay couples or gay singles.”

That large gay population has fused with the equally large community of retired seniors. Statistics show that a fourth of Palm Springs’ permanent residents is 65 or older. The result has been a mixing of both worlds in a spirit of tolerance not found in many communities.

“We just finished a City Council election, a very contentious election, and the woman who won, who is straight, really had support all over the city,” Green said.

“We were at her election-night victory party, and it was amazing to see this cross section of people at that party, chatting together, visiting.”

Film Wasn’t a Hit in Other Cities

“Sordid Lives” arrived under the radar last year, playing about 10 weeks at the Laemmle Sunset in West Hollywood to moderate success.

It also played for 32 weeks at the Highland Park Theater in Dallas, but Lambert noted that because the theater is owned by Regent, the film could be kept on a screen even though it struggled. The movie also ran for 10 weeks in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., and four weeks in Atlanta, but died after only a week in Chicago, San Francisco and Seattle after poor reviews.

The run of “Sordid Lives” in Palm Springs began Nov. 2 and shows no sign of stopping. Using a combination of fliers, radio commercials, mailings and e-mails, theater management got the word out. The Camelot, which is owned by Ric and Rozene Supple, took out commercials on local radio stations owned by the couple, Stone said.

“The first week we showed the movie, we had one of our customers come in and he wanted to know if he could take the fliers to some of his friends,” Stone recalled. “He took them to all the barber shops and beauty salons and beauty supply places. He told us there were probably 150 places he took them to.”

The unrated film is based on Shores’ 1996 play, which had a 13-month run in L.A. and features some nudity and strong language.

The story revolves around a dysfunctional family in a small Texas town that is preparing for the mother’s funeral.

Bridges plays G.W., who had an extramarital affair with the dead woman and is brooding at the bar at Bubba’s Beer Joint because she killed herself by tripping over his two wooden legs. Burke plays G.W.’s bitter, gun-toting wife, Noleta.

Then there’s Sissy, the dead woman’s sister, played by Beth Grant, who wears a beehive hairdo and tries to quit smoking by snapping her wrist with a rubber band every few minutes.

(At the April screening in Palm Springs, Shores noted, people in the audiences wore rubber bands on their wrists and snapped them as Grant snapped hers in the movie.)

Bedelia plays the strait-laced daughter, Latrelle; Kirk Geiger is her gay son, Ty; Ann Walker is Latrelle’s buxom sister, LaVonda; and Leslie Jordan plays Brother Boy, the dead woman’s son who has been sent to an insane asylum because he thinks he’s country singer Tammy Wynette.

Story Was Based on Playwright’s Life

Shores said he based some of the characters on people he knew growing up near Laredo in Zapata, Texas, population 5,000.

“‘Sordid Lives’ was really a gift to myself,” Shores said. “I had so much self-loathing about being gay and so much shame about being gay, that when I finally wrote about it, I was still experiencing that.

“Going to the theater and seeing people embrace my character and the characters around me and seeing them stand up and applaud and laugh was a way I ultimately started loving my gay self.”

The son of a Southern Baptist minister and a high school drama coach, Shores was married for 91/2 years and had two daughters when he came out of the closet at, he says, “the pathetic age of 36.”

In addition to “Sordid Lives,” Shores also adapted his stage play “Daddy’s Dyin’ ... Who’s Got the Will?” into a 1990 film starring Bridges. His other notable plays include “Cheatin’” and “Daughters of the Lone Star State.”

Shores said it is amazing to sit in a theater and hear people shout out lines from the film at the screen.

Straight or gay, many moviegoers are coming back again and again.

“There are a lot of things you can relate to,” said Betty Ekmanian of Palm Desert, who has seen the film three times. “People. Personalties. It may be exaggerated, but it’s there. It’s just funny. Makes you belly-laugh. It’s a hoot. ... And the smoking thing. I’m a smoker and it was really funny to me.”