There’s no other actor like Crispin Hellion Glover. Period. End of story. For those who’ve been put off by his antics, that singularity is a good thing. Others, however, can’t get enough.
In the 1980s, he played a handful of mainstream characters, such as the prototypically geekish father of Michael J. Fox’s Marty McFly in Back to the Future. Then things got weird. Sometimes really weird. We’ve since seen him as the hygienically challenged Santa impersonator Jingle Dell, whose underwear was full of cockroaches in David Lynch’s Wild at Heart. He commanded legions of rats in the title role of Willard and, in another title role, vividly portrayed Bartleby, Herman Melville’s absurd scrivener. Most recently, he supplied the pathetic but frightening voice of Grendel, the havoc-wreaking monster in Beowulf.
Glover, who has also tried his hand as a recording artist, made records that were riddles and listed his home phone number on the packaging so people could call in to see if they guessed the answers correctly. He is most infamous, however, for a wacked-out appearance on Late Night with David Letterman in 1987.
Wearing dangerously high stacked shoes and what appeared to be the rattiest wig in all of New York, an agitated Glover announced, “I can kick really high,” before driving Letterman off his own set with his demonstration.
“You want to have dinner with that guy?” Letterman asked the audience, unable to hide his revulsion.
Well? Would you like to have dinner with that guy? Or at least spend an evening with him? Thanks to Black Lodge Video, you can do just that on September 2nd, 3rd, and 4th at the Palace Cinema. Glover will screen some unusual films of his own creation and take questions.
“An Evening with Crispin Hellion Glover,” Palace Cinema, 5117 Old Summer, September 2nd, 3rd, and 4th at 7 p.m. Tickets: $17 advance, $20 day of the show, sold only at Black Lodge Video. For more information, call 272-7744.
