The King and His Court

David Johansen does not have nice teeth or hair and he cannot act. Ditto Robbie Robertson. People who think that Mick Jagger was acting in Performance just because he toned down his spastic campiness a notch or two are the kind of people who think Geraldo Rivera is intelligent because he now wears a tie. If Mick Jagger was so good in Performance, why was his next starring role as an Australian cowboy? And why was his next job after that a mysterious role in Werner Herzog's narcissistic, fatality-inducing, ecosystematically discombobulating Fitzcarraldo? Does anyone seriously believe that gifted actors end up spending a year in the Amazon jungle with Werner Herzog? Klaus Kinski excepted? Now here's something to look forward to: 1992 brings a new Jagger flick, Freejack, following on the heels of the Rolling Stones concert movie in IMAX.

The list of great rock stars who make bad actors is not long, but it is impressive: John Lennon as an infantryman in How I Won the War, Michael Jackson as a plump Scarecrow in The Wiz (and as a thin Robert Preston in the 3-D Captain EO), Keith Moon as an untalented Ringo Starresque drummer in That'll Be the Day and its sequel Stardust (and as the perverted Uncle Ernie in Tommy, and as a campy fashion designer in Sextette). They all pale in comparison with Bob Dylan, who has already logged in with three genuinely hair-raising performances during his career. Dylan, who is not at all good-looking, first reared his ugly head as the laconic sagebrush nihilist Alias in Sam Peckinpah's depressingly unbuckarooish Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid, then directed himself in the unforgivable Renaldo and Clara, a kind of bloated, over-the-top, outre Heaven's Gate, and was last seen in Hearts of Fire, playing a rock star who has retreated to self-imposed exile as a chicken farmer in Pennsylvania. It is a chilling commentary on our times that the greatest songwriter of his generation should end up making movies with people named Fiona.

All of Dylan's movies have a disturbing editorial history. Pat Garrett was first released in a studio-mandated, savagely truncated version in 1973, but under pressure from French film aficionados and other sadomasochists, the director's cut was reassembled in 1988, and the movie was rereleased in its original 37-week form. Renaldo and Clara first appeared in a 232-minute form in 1978, but, under pressure from French Dylan fans and the Consumer Product Safety Commission, it was later trimmed to a marginally less sociopathic 122-minute version. Hearts of Fire was briefly released only in England, has never been trimmed to a shorter form, and is only available in the kind of video stores that carry all of Dyan Cannon's movies. So far, no word from the French.

In one sense, Dylan's acting career bears a tragic resemblance to the King's.

Apparently, for a short period in their lives, each of these men entertained dreams of being taken seriously as actors. Dylan and Presley were encouraged in these wild hopes by the legendary availability of powerful hallucinogenic drugs throughout the 1960s, and by the kind of addlepated movie critics who said things like, "If it hadn't-a-been for that son-of-a-bitch Colonel Parker, Elvis could have become a great actor!" and "If Dylan had only been able to get his hands on a good script, he could have developed into a lion of the screen." Gosh, just think what we missed: Elvis as Henry V and Dylan as Henry Hill in GoodFellas. Or Elvis as Mozart in Amadeus, and Dylan, instead of George C. Scott, in Patton. Jesus, why can't anybody in Hollywood think?

One of the oddities about pop stars who try their hands at films is that the very worst rock stars often make the very best movie stars. Cher has always been a pathetic excuse for a rocker, an Ethel Merman in fishnet stockings who has attempted to compensate for her borderline vocal skills with sheer brass and bluster. The result? More than 20 years of songs that sound like Journey out-takes, plus "Half Breed," the national anthem of all those Designer Victims who had to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune and racial prejudice while growing up in Malibu.

Despite this, Cher has developed into a very fine actress who has turned in exemplary work in everything from The Witches of Eastwick to Suspect to Silkwood, and who has also performed credibly in several lackluster, generally overpraised films whose titles begin with "M": Mermaids, Mask, and Moonstruck. In fact, it is by no means inconceivable that Cher could one day make more movies than Elvis Presley. But that would still leave the King's record intact, because anyone can make 31 movies that make money, but the King got away with making 31 bad movies that made money. Elvis got away with making 31 atrocious movies that made money. Thus, the Guinness Book of World's Records would still read:

Most Good Movies by a Really Bad Rock Star: 400, Cher.

While Elvis's entry would read:

Most Bad Movies by a Really Great Rock Star: 31, Elvis.

Elvis still wins in a walk.

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