Reggie, Superstar...alias Malcolm ("I'm no
singer") McDowell by Ivor Davis
Who's this strutting about on stage like an overdressed
bantam cock? Swathed in flowing robe, skin-tight white pants, and bare chested
to the navel, when he swivels, jumps, sways his hips or moans, the girls in the
audience go delirious. Look out Mick Jagger and Rod Stewart, here comes the rock
world's latest glittery superstar - Reggie. Reggie Who? you no doubt ask. Well,
it's not really Mick or Rod, or even Reggie, but actually Malcolm. 40-year-old
actor Malcolm McDowell, living out his fantasies and getting paid handsomely for
it.
McDowell plays an aging, bulging, self-centered
over-the-hill Cockney superstar in "Get Crazy" an off-beat new
Hollywood film which savagely satirizes all the insanities of today's pop music
world. Energetic.
"Reggie's an egotistical schmuck who has cocooned
himself from reality," explained McDowell mopping his brow after a
particularly energetic stint in front of the cameras. "He's lost complete
touch with the outside world...in fact, he's very much like some of today's
superstars."
When the film director Alan Arkush got the go-ahead for his
£3 million film he approached just about every star in the business.
"They all declined," said Malcolm. "Reggie
is a self-obsessed rocker and leader of his his group The Reggies. He even has a
beautiful blonde bombshell girlfriend called Countess Chantamina (Icelandic
actress Anna Bjorn) who is all those ghostly, beautific rock star mistresses
rolled into one."
Where does Reggie/Malcolm borrow his style and technique
from?
McDowell munching a sandwich backstage at the splendid old
art deco Los Angeles movie house which has been torn apart to double as a rock
palace, explained: "Reggie is really me...but let's just say I borrowed one
or two things from Mick and Rod - although the voice is certainly my own."
In fact, McDowell actually sings 3 big numbers in the movie
including, "Hot Shot," which got such rapturous applause from the
extras playing fans that the director asked McDowell to make a single of the
number. McDowell, who has now set up home in California with his Oscar-winning
wife Mary Steenburgen and their baby daughter Lilly, parodies all the bizarre
flashiness and insecurities of the rock superstar, but is still left with a
sneaking admiration for them.
"It's bloody hard work strutting up there for hours on
end in front of all those lights," he said. "You have to be damned
fit."
>© The Daily Express 11/12/82
Archived 2001-08 Alex D. Thrawn for www.MalcolmMcDowell.net