THE UNTOLD TALES OF ARMISTEAD MAUPIN – QFest St. Louis Review

Review by Mark Longden

THE UNTOLD TALES OF ARMISTEAD MAUPIN  screens Sunday, Apr. 2 at 5:15pm at the .ZACK (3224 Locust St., St. Louis, MO 63103) as part of this year’s QFest St. Louis. Ticket information can be found HERE

A completely sober retelling of Armistead Maupin’s life would still be interesting – his great-grandfather was a Congressman, then a Confederate soldier, dying in the Civil War; Maupin himself was a Vietnam veteran who met Richard Nixon in the Oval Office; worked for ultra-right-wing Senator Jesse Helms; was once seduced by Rock Hudson; and became famous for his fiction because no-one would go on the record for him and he just decided to fictionalise the people he was meeting every day. But this documentary, as well as having all that in it, is colourful and fun and hilarious, and is definitely recommended.

 We go on a roughly chronological wander through Maupin’s life, and as he’s such an accomplished storyteller you’ll never be bored. Famous friends such as Neil Gaiman, Ian McKellen, Laura Linney and Olympia Dukakis pop up to talk about him with great affection, and we get a real flavour of his times as well as some jaw-dropping (and hilarious) stories.

 Coming out was very profound for him, helping to transform him from a far-right segregationist to a liberal LGBT rights activist; but the issues around his outing of Rock Hudson are also discussed, and dealt with in a very sensitive and reasonable way, with both sides of the argument presented fairly. And, of course, the subject of AIDS is brought up, as Maupin’s best friend died from it, and his two most significant partners have both been HIV+. It’s delightfully frank in its discussion of sex, too.

 Even if your knowledge of him is very limited, as mine was before watching, you’ll find a great deal to enjoy, and if you’re a fan then…well, you’ll wonder why he presents himself as relatively impoverished when he’s a hugely successful author who at least owns both an apartment in San Francisco and a gigantic house in New Mexico (the same town where Cormac McCarthy lives).

 If you’re coming to to the Qfest, this is absolutely one to watch. It even manages to be eerily prescient – while discussing the storm of controversy that PBS’s broadcast of “Tales Of The City” generated, they discussed how Reagan wanted to cut funding to both PBS and the National Endowment for the Arts, and that PBS had to cancel “Tales” in order to appease the right-wingers (such as Helms) who were angrily calling for their demise.

 Enthusiastic thumbs up.