GAY PEOPLE'S CHRONICLE

DECEMBER 5, 1997

Evenings Out

More than car hidden in this

Author John Berendt isn in the movie, his charact

by Tim Nasson

Watching Clint Eastwood's film version of Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil is for the most part nothing like reading John Berendt's haunting and captivating nonfiction bestseller. The differences, both good and evil, are too many to list, but the most obvious one involves the author himself.

Berendt, who is gay, did not seem the least bit fazed when prodded about the 180-degree turn his character (played in the film by John Cusack) makes from book to film.

"I don't think that the change of my character being gay in the book to being straight in the film makes much difference," Berendt said. "If anything, the change adds to the story in the film. In the book, my character has no story sexually. For a film you need a slightly stronger story, and I think that the issue was dealt with very nicely."

Berendt takes no credit for writing the screenplay. He said he "simply loved the movie."

"I was given the opportunity to write the screenplay," he added, "but I thought it would be an extremely difficult task to undertake."

Eastwood echoed his sentiments. "I did not know how this book was going to be turned into a screenplay. It is one of the most bizarre and complex stories I have ever read."

Eastwood admitted he read John Lee Hancock's screenplay before he read Berendt's book. He added that he would have liked the film to contain even more of the book.

"I would have needed four hours to tell the story the whole way I felt it should be told," Eastwood said with a grin, "but I don't think audiences or the studio would have gone for that."

Berendt's book covers a decade in the history of Savannah, Georgia, from 1981 to 1990. The film covers fifteen months. As it is, the movie runs just over 21⁄2 hours.

The story revolves around wealthy, closeted antique dealer Jim Williams (Kevin Spacey), who is facing a murder charge for shooting his hustler boyfriend (Jude Law). But much of the interest is in the eccentric characters that live in this Southern seaport town. Berendt recalls that Midnight almost never came to be.

"My first agent turned down the book," he said. "She sent it back with a letter saying that the story was great, but at the bottom of the letter in big red letters she said, Too local. Even people in Savannah thought I was crazy. They wondered who besides themselves would care or would want to read about such a wacky town in the Southeast."

The book was published in 1994. Three and a half years and four million hardcover copies later, it still remains in the top ten of the New York Times bestseller list.

Eastwood was pleased that Berendt gave the project his stamp of approval.

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The Lady Chablis

Jude Law

"I think a lot can be said of the quality of the film version of Midnight since John Berendt decided to come along and promote it," Eastwood said. "That means a lot to me." The film takes certain creative liberties, but Berendt did as well when writing the book.

"A lot of nonfiction is written without the author having been somewhere or with someone," Berendt said. "Biographies, for instance. I just made it more interesting by including myself in the story throughout, even though I was not in Savannah for the first two trials of Jim Williams.”

With appeals, Williams had four murder trials for the shooting of Danny Hansford, who was renamed Billy Hansen in the movie.

While the book covered all four, only one trial is seen in the film. “Bits of every trial were used in the one seen on screen," said Berendt.

One of the characters that effortessly makes the leap from print to film is the drag performer known as the “Grand Empress of Savannah," the Lady Chablis. She plays herself in the

movie, and was quite a

SAM EMERSON (3)

hit with her co-stars, inKevin Spacey cluding Cusack, and

director Eastwood.

"The first time we

met," said Cusack, laughing, “the Lady Chablis pinched my ass. I told her to behave herself. We then got on fine. She loves to flirt with everyone."

"People think that I lobbied for the part in the movie," Chablis said. “I couldn't have cared less if I was in the movie, to be honest with you. I am happy the way things turned out and that Clint decided on using me to play myself, but the whole story of how I became involved in the film was misinterpreted from the very beginning."

"What I had said to Clint when I knew he was ready to begin casting the film was: 'If you want the film to win an Academy Award, you best cast me as myself,'" she added, with the bravado that has made her one of the most sought-after performers in the South. The Lady's persistence paid off, and Eastwood is happy with the results.

"Movies are much more difficult than drag shows," Eastwood said, "but with a little help and patience on everyone's part in the crew, she did a fantastic job playing herself in the movie."

"Working on the film was a unique experi-

ence," she said, "It was scary at first, but Clint made me feel very comfortable and made the task so much easier for me."

Chablis' own book Hiding My Candy is on the way to being adapted for the big screen, but she has no big desire to step into her own shoes again in front of the camera.

"I don't know if I have what it takes to do

this again," she said. "I never set out to be an actress. All I know for sure is that I am getting paid nicely for the film."

Chablis says she is 40, and has been living as a woman since she was 14, both onstage and off. She spends a lot of her time doing her show in cities across the South, which has lately been attracting a large heterosexual audience.

she" in a recent column.

"I think that I am proof that straight people now respect gays more. I don't

mind that they laugh at me on stage. That is what I am there to make them do," she observed. "I think that is where the laughter stops, thankfully. I don't find or hear that many straight people laugh behind my back about me. For the ones that do, I just have this to say: Two tears in a bucket, mother fuck it. Or for the comedically challenged: Get over it. The Lady definitely commands respect. She recently went off on columnist Liz Smith for referring to her as "he/

"I am a she," Chablis reiterated, "What if I called her she/he?" referring to rumors that Smith is a closeted lesbian.

Whether Chablis decides to jump in front of the camera to play herself again, or later on in another role, remains to be seen. She does have someone in mind to play her if she decides not

to.

"I admire Whoopi Goldberg," Chablis said. "She actually called and expressed interest in playing me in Midnight. I thought to myself: She would be good, except for the fact that she doesn't look good in red lipstick--and the Doll only wears red."

Since the the book became so popular, Chablis has moved to South Carolina for some privacy.

"I still love performing in Savannah, though," she said. "The number one reason people go there is to see Mercer House," the stately, 130-year-old mansion Jim Williams lived in. "The second reason is to see me,

child."