Love You Madly, Holly Woodlawn

A young, aspiring writer desperate for a break...and the legendary Andy Warhol superstar who gave him the story of a lifetime.

By the mid-1980s, Holly Woodlawn, once lauded by George Cukor for her performance in the 1970 Warhol production and Paul Morrissey directed Trash, was washed up. Over. Kaput. She was living in a squalid Hollywood apartment with her dog and bottles of Chardonnay. A chance meeting with starry-eyed corn-fed Missouri-born Jeff Copeland, who moved to Hollywood with dreams of ’making it’ as a television writer, changed the course of BOTH of their lives forever.

Love You Madly, Holly Woodlawn is a story of how an unlikely friendship with a young gay writer and an, ahem, mature trans actress and performer created the bestselling autobiography of 1991, A Low Life in High Heels. This book about writing a book is a celebration of chutzpa and love as Holly, the embodiment of Auntie Mame, introduces Jeff to the glamorous (and sometimes larcenous) world of a Warhol Superstar. In turn, Jeff uses his writing (and typing) talent to give Holly the second chance at fame she craved.

In turns hilarious and heartwarming, Love You Madly, Holly Woodlawn is a portrait of the real Holly who loved deeply, laughed loudly, and left mayhem in her wake. Foreword by queer icon and author, Simon Doonan.

Jeff Copeland broke into movies by conning Pee-Wee Herman into thinking he won him in a clearinghouse giveaway. In fact, pulling absurd stunts like that is how he got all of his early film work. He blew in from a Missouri cornfield and was broke, desperate, and like many dreamers who flocked to Hollywood in search of self-worth, he felt lost in a swamp of bullshit and glitter.

After eight years of struggle, he finally found the path that led to a fun and exciting career in the ＂biz.＂ But of all the stars he worked with, the one who meant the most to him, one who was struggling herself, was the one who took him under her wing when he was at his lowest and gave him a chance. Years before she’s been part of Andy Warhol’s Factory and had been immortalized in the Lou Reed song Walk On The Wild Side. Her name was Holly Woodlawn and she was his friend. They co-authored The Holly Woodlawn Story: A Low Life in High Heals in 1991.