Me with Dolores Fuller in the Summer of 1998 in Pasadena, California.
It was a sad headline to read on Twitter yesterday—the Los Angeles Times stating that Dolores Fuller had passed away at 88 years of age. I didn’t think she was that old, but then again I’m not one who concerns myself with ages.
Dolores was a former actress and song writer best known from the Ed Wood era—who had starred in one of Wood’s most notable films, “Glen or Glenda.” She, for a time, was girlfriend to Wood until their relationship became a little troubled. Thanks to the 1994 Tim Burton film, “Ed Wood,” Fuller enjoyed late-in-life popularity that pretty much surged through most of the 90s thanks to various fan and celebrity conventions she attended. In fact it was one of those conventions where I had met her.
It was the summer of 1998 at a StarCon convention that used to be held at the Pasadena Convention Center. My brother Shawn went to the one in 1997, the summer prior, and he enticed me to go to that year’s show with him—and it was a lot of fun. So I got to meet and talk with Dolores Fuller for quite a long time. She had her husband there with her who assisted with the cash handling for her when fans purchased autographed pictures.
Dolores told me a lot about Ed Wood and her times with him, and like you can read in several interviews that she’s done, she left him because of his transvestism ways. She also told me about working with Elvis Presley and the many songs she wrote for him (that he also performed and recorded) along with other singing greats.
She even voiced her concerns on how she was represented in the 1994 “Ed Wood” film by Sarah Jessica Parker. She loved how Parker played her, but took great concern over the fact that she was portrayed as a smoker—when she vehemently declared she never smoked! Some descriptions and interviews online will exhibit Dolores as having been coarser about Parker’s portrayal of her, but that’s not how I got it firsthand from the lady herself.
After a while, as Dolores and I stood and chatted, she asked if I would like to take a picture with her. My brother was standing nearby talking to one of his old favorites, Brinke Stevens, and he came around to take the photo. Brinke and Dolores actually had their tables right next to one another at that StarCon show. Just before taking the picture, Dolores had me wait a second. She reached down to the back of her chair and grabbed a very fluffy, off-white garment that I quite didn’t make out at first.
It ended up being, (what I had never heard of before), an Angora sweater—made from the fur of rabbits. She said this was a very famous sweater and asked if it would have been okay if she draped it over my shoulder when we posed for the picture. So I figured “Why not,” and obliged. While the photo was being taken—she let me know that it was the sweater she and Ed Wood wore in “Glen or Glenda.” She said that when not appearing at these shows and conventions the sweater remained in a mini-freezer out on her patio of her Las Vegas home.
She said that one day I would remember this rare opportunity with such a cult classic artifact—and boy was she right. The picture at the top of this post shows the sweater over my right shoulder!
I later saw Dolores again, probably around 2003 or ’04, in North Hollywood. She was at another show, but she didn’t appear to be the same as when I first met her. I wondered to myself if she had taken ill, but she never looked to have done any future shows. The news of her death did indicate that she had passed away due to a very long illness.
She was a rare gem, that’s for sure.
