Playwright and Performer Andy Halliday Has Passed Away

Playwright and performer Andy Halliday has passed away at 73. Halliday appeared in Charles Busch’s Vampire Lesbians of Sodom (1984), Theodora, She Bitch of Byzantium (1984), Psycho Beach Party (1987), Pardon My Inquisition, or, Kiss the Blood off My Castanets (1986), and The Lady in Question (1988).

Halliday also wrote the plays Nothing but Trash (2014), which he also starred in, Up the Rabbit Hole (2017) and Those Musclebound Cowboys from Snakepit Gulch (2020).

Actor Charles Busch took to Facebook to share a moving tribute to his longtime friend: 

The sad news was inevitable and yet, it seems unreal. Andy Halliday had so many struggles but he kept going. Moved to Palm Springs. New dreams. We met as teenagers at theater camp and became best friends. We were cast as dancing newsboys in “Gypsy.” Andy had a natural talent for dance and a beautiful original way of moving. I couldn’t learn the rudimentary tap routine. The young, barely out of his teens, choreographer was Thommie Walsh, who later was in the original cast of “A Chorus Line.” At this theater camp, he rather fancied himself as a strict martinet on the lines of Jack Cole and Bob Fosse. He singled me out for my ineptitude. When he really laid into me, Andy, in the true MGM spirit, sprung to my defense. “He can do it!” I whispered in his ear, “I really can’t.” Andy insisted on rehearsing alone with me for hours into the night, until dammit I could do it. Our eternal bond was struck.

After that summer, we studied in NY on Saturdays with the flamboyant Cuban acting teacher from that theater camp, Jack Romano. Andy would take the train in from his home in Connecticut. He had an intense love for movie musicals from the Golden age. When he learned that the movie revival house, Theater 80 St. Marks, was showing a double feature of two rarely televised Judy Garland/ Mickey Rooney musicals, “Babes on Broadway” and “Strike Up the Band” on a weekend that he couldn’t be in the city, he begged me to go see them and report back to him in detail. I did as instructed. After sitting through four hours of those Benzedrine induced frenetic All American teen musical comedy shenanigans, I walked out of the theater bow legged from visual stimulation. I got Andy on the phone and attempted to answer every one of his questions regarding what I’d seen. He wanted details and I gave ‘em to him.

Fade out, fade in. 1984. When I decided on a whim, to put on a play at the Limbo Lounge, an art gallery/bar in Alphabet City, I immediately thought of involving Andy. “Vampire Lesbians of Sodom” in this first incarnation was only a half hour long, two scenes, one of which was set in 1920’s Hollywood. Andy played Etienne, the high strung butler to a silent screen vamp. For the first time, he had an opportunity to really cut loose and display his gift for portraying comic hysteria. Within the year, we did play after play. It was a glorious period for us. In “Sleeping Beauty or Coma,” Andy was Miss Thick, the maniacally efficient secretary to a famous fashion designer, in “Theodora, She-Bitch of Byzantium,” he was able to show off his adorable body and dancing ability as the emperor’s catamite. In the first version of “Times Square Angel,” he evoked the Henry Fonda role of the adoring busboy in “The Big Street.” The play itself was based on a storyline that Andy and I came up with together. Many years later, when we brought back “Times Square Angel,” Andy moved on to a much more memorable role of the boozy, washed up night club chanteuse, Helen Sternhan. One of my favorite moments in all of my plays, was when Irish O’Flanagan, my role, decides to set Helen straight.

“Helen, you’re a drunk and you’re wasting God’s precious gifts. Get onto yourself. Life is too rich to squander it on bitterness and booze.”

To which, Andy, brilliantly, took a beat and let Irish’s words register and then replied, “You’re right. It is rich. I don’t want that drink. I want to wash my face and be clean.” Unforgettable.

He created memorable roles in “Psycho Beach Party”, “Red Scare on Sunset” and perhaps his best role was as the evil Nazi youth, Lotte in “The Lady in Question.” He made a big splash in that one and was singled out by Playbill Magazine and the New York Times and the subject of a gorgeous Al Hirschfeld caricature. Years later, Andy gave a wonderful performance in our version of “Cleopatra” as an overtaxed soothsayer.

Although an intensely shy person, he was the center of a circle of devoted friends. He didn’t give up. He was constantly reinventing himself with new creative projects. There was strength in his vulnerability. He was unique and will be deeply missed.

photos: Andy as Helen in “Times Square Angel” and when we were in LA doing “Vampire Lesbians” and met the adorable veteran character actress, Iris Adrian.