By Joseph R. Castel
Did you ever fantasize about meeting one of your idols? A legendary sport figure perhaps, or favorite star? It’s not so far-fetched if you live in LA. Film director Xaque (pronounced Zach) Gruber not only met one of his all-time favorite film actresses when he moved from Maine to Hollywood in his early twenties, he became her assistant and recently made his first feature indie film, Sallywood, about the Oscar nominated actress, Sally Kirkland.
Sally who? you may be asking. Kirkland was a part of Andy Warhol’s Silver Factory scene in the early 1960s and made one of his underground movies, The 13 Most Beautiful Women. Kirkland’s also been in 250 TV/movie appearances spanning six decades. Kirkland reached the apex of her fame when she won the Golden Globe for the independent 1988, film Anna, in which she also received a Best Actress Academy Award nomination for the same film.
Though Kirkland nabbed the Golden Globe away from Meryl Streep and Glen Close that award season, Cher took home the Oscar for Moonstruck. Director Gruber’s personal homage to Kirkland begins with the actual broadcast clip of Kirkland winning the Golden Globe in the televised awards show. It’s priceless to see Kirkland jumping up and screaming for joy when her name is called, while Cher, seated right behind her at an adjoining table, destroys Kirkland with the stink eye from hell. This is how Sallywood cleverly begins and it’s a Hollywood Hills rollercoaster ride from then on.
It’s a film genre mashup of parody meets docudrama. What makes Sallywood wonderfully poignant and funny, is Gruber’s witty, yet, deeply profound writing. He mixes real-life antidotes of Sally and her assistant, Zach (Tyler Steelman) which is based on Gruber’s actual life as well. Although, Kirkland wanted Gruber to play himself in the film, he felt it was best to hand it off to a professional actor in order to focus on directing.
Gruber paints brilliant highs and lows of their journey together, explaining that “they’re both kind of lost souls.” The eighty-something actress is at the end of her career, wanting another shot at the Oscar gold, and Zach is at the very beginning of his career, trying to navigate the insanity of the entertainment industry.
Our story begins with our starry-eyed protagonist, Zach, watching a VHS copy of the indie film Anna when he’s nine years-old. Fast forward ten years later, Zach tells his mom (Jennifer Tilly) he was wants to break into Hollywood as a director, and meet his favorite actress, Sally Kirkland.
Zach confesses to mom he’s been scouring the internet for jobs in Hollywood, to which Tilly remarks, “Nothing ever good came from going on the internet,” and begs him to not to get into porn. Tilly is a delightfully witty offbeat mother who doesn’t want to see her son leave their quaint little Maine home for the bright studio lights of Sodom and Gomorrah. Of course, his first day in Hollywood, he meets his British roommate, Tom, who’s a driver for porn actresses, Bibi and Poundcake.
Later that night, Zach follows Sally from the local taco stand, where she eats, and meets her at an art gallery where she sells her paintings. Sally asks Zach to take a photo of her and then asks her to be her assistant. He immediately says “Yes,” and his first assignment is to writer her obituary. No, she’s not dying.
Tyler Steelman as Zach, is an adorable man child. He actually looks like a funky fusion of a geriatric cherub. The porn actresses find this incredibly sexy. Although, he could play a teen, Steelman is 35. The director explains that like Zach, Gruber himself walks through life in a very G-rated way, as he doesn’t drink, smoke or even swear. His character oozes virginal nativity but yet, he’s got survival skills and more importantly, wit and heart.
In an exclusive interview with Adelante, I asked the director if the character Zach is supposed to be gay because he comes off as asexual. He never talks about girls, or boys. Is he in the closet? He’s not so much effeminate as he is geeky. He could be one of those neutered physicists on the Big Bang Theory. Gruber explains that they had an opportunity to bring Zach out of the closet but he felt that would have taken the film in a different direction. He wanted to focus on the platonic love relationship between Sally and Zach.
Zach not only becomes her assistant he tries to help her land acting gigs, something her agent, played by Eric Roberts, fails to do.
This is Gruber’s first feature film, after making a string of short films and an award-winning documentary. Gruber’s friends encouraged him to direct Sally’s biography as he would always tell the best stories about their adventures together.
After she read his script, Kirkland exclaimed, “You’ve written me as the world’s biggest narcissist, and I can’t wait to play myself.”
Sally’s actor friends, Keith Carradine, Maria Conchita-Alonso, and Michael Lerner, loved the script so much they agreed to play small cameo roles. Gruber was also blessed with money just coming to him, due to his clever, heartwarming script. “Friends and family just wanted to be a part of it. They just wrote checks. The whole experience was very mystical.”
Although the film does not go into Kirkland’s activism, Gruber emphasizes Sally was a huge LGBTQ supporter from the very beginning. In her heyday, drag queens imitated Sally at the bars. “She’d be so happy to be in Adelante magazine,” admits Gruber. “Like it would have made her day.”
Sally Kirkland passed away in Palm Springs this past November at 84. She was blessed to have attended a few of the many festival screenings of Sallywood before she passed into Spirit.
The director encourages anyone reading this article who watches and loves Sallywood, to write a review on Rotten Tomatoes, IMDb, or Letterbox. “I want as many people to experience Sally as I have.”
Sallywood is currently available for streaming on Amazon Prime and Fandango.