Michael Blodgett: Biography (Excerpts)

As the credits rolled and the house lights returned, I sat in the red velvet theater chair of the New Beverly Cinema having understood that perhaps the legends were true. It was 2009 and I was at a screening of The Velvet Vampire. I had not told anyone that the star of the film was my late father, Michael Blodgett.

The 1971 erotic lesbian, vampire thriller was being promoted as part of Los Angeles Vampire-Con, a make shift festival comprised of obscure horror film screenings at theaters through out my hometown. The 35mm reel of this film had been donated by cult filmmaker Quentin Tarantino and the The Velvet Vampire co-stars were in attendance for a question and answer session. Celeste Yarnall, my fathers cannibalistic co-star was prompted by an audience member to discuss her costar, my father. She laughed and launched into a story about his manhood. Before the first of our many sex scenes, Mike taped his penis to his leg with masking tape. He was afraid of getting, well, hard. Halfway through the scene I heard the masking tape rip, and there it was, in all its glory, the gorgeous reputation of my costar. The theater was in an uproar, laughing, spitting catcalls up to the podium. I sat with my hands over my face, trying to conceal the fact that I am the spitting image of my father. I did not want anyone to notice me. I wanted them to tell their stories without fear that his twenty-two year old daughter was present.

That film was one of my fathers last. The stories continued that night and many attendees mentioned Michaels passing, and how charismatic he was, but few thought to include how uncomfortable it was to work with him. There was only one brief reference to the severity of his alcoholism during the early 1970s. It was well known that he was difficult to work with. In a January 1971 interview, Barbara Rhoades said, Isnt he beautiful? Oh, he knows it and hell tell you hes beautiful. Hes told me Im prettier than you are. And he is. My fathers sexual conquests, Adonis-like good looks, and demons of drug abuse seemed to surround his social image during what I like to call his B-List Beefcake Years. It was an image he sought to maintain his entire life, even as his daily routines changed. He always wanted to be known as the handsome, blue-eyed, Minnesota born, movie star that had made it to the proverbial big time, even if just for a moment.

Lee Ritter, his satirical Golden boy character in The Velvet Vampire, was one of the lesser-known projects my father participated in. He began his career in a half-hour live entertainment show titled, Groovy wherein he was the emcee to concerts and dance competitions. Groovy aired from 1967 through 1970 with my father standing on the beach in Santa Monica, California surrounded by bikini-clad teens clamoring for their fifteen minutes of fame on television, as well as a moment to profess their undying admiration for their weekday emcee, Mike. The young women of the late sixties found Michael to be nothing short of a Demi-god and almost 45 years later, the fondness remains. In 2010, Debi Drobman wrote, My sis and I used to be regulars on GROOVY! My mom brought us every time [he was] filming. What a great memory. The self-designated Michael Blodgett myth had been set in place by the time he was 28 years old, the same age his father was when Michael was born.

The Kerouac Years

In a 1970 interview for Ingénue Magazine Michael Blodgett said, When I was 17 I decided to explore the country, doing the Kerouac thing. Many years prior to this interview, in the late 1950s, Michael Blodgett left Minnesota for a trip across the United States. He would view the outside world through the passenger sidecar windows of trustworthy strangers. Leaving home with a suitcase and cardboard sign, my father hitchhiked from Minnesota to Florida. As an older man, my father would tell me stories before bed about his days on the road. As a little girl being tucked into bed, I would plead for a story, Tamiami Trail! Tamiami Trail! and my fathers face would beam as if painted by a brush of validation. Looders! You wanna hear about the Tamiami Trail? He would answer through a giant smile. My childhood memory swirls images of cold-blooded snakes wrapped around truck tires and alligators finding respite on the hot tar of the highways. My father would embellish every detail of the stars as bright as the sun and reptiles the size of small children. Unlike my childhood memory, I am able to look back upon this bedtime story as one of his legends. In reality, I now know he Tamiami Trail is the hidden designation of Florida State Road 90. Tamiami is the contraction of Tampa and Miami: a legend of the Everglades, as well as to my little girl self.

After the Everglades came the final push, Florida to California. Originally concluding his cross-country excursion in San Francisco, Michael enrolled in The San Francisco School of Fine Arts to study Sculpture. Knowing my father, yes he was indeed creative, yet I can only speculate his choice to indulge in pottery work must have been in fact because he didnt know what else to do. Leaving San Francisco Sculpture classes dissatisfied, Michael continued south to the sunny beaches of Los Angeles, California.

There was only one choice for the beautiful once he arrived in Hollywood: to act. So he began auditioning while earning a Bachelors Degree from UCLA in both Government and Speech. One of his old friends, Pamela Fleitman, came to Los Angeles shortly after Michael. She expressed to me the following: Your father and I moved to LA about the same time. He was always very kind and protective of me and I knew I could always call on him. As his beginners eyes absorbed the world around him, perhaps Michael was unable to manage both his endearing nature and his sudden popularity amongst his new friends.

Lucy Blodgett is an assistant editor at Huffington Post, Los Angeles. She received her Bachelor of Arts degree in English and Comparative Literature from Occidental College.