Glenn Shadix

We almost lost Glenn Shadix long before we did. He was seventeen, and he came out to his parents. They promptly enrolled him in conversion therapy. It was 1969 (probably, if I’ve mathed right). The courage it must have taken him to come out is hard to imagine. The response to it, however, was shock treatments. Because of course it was. Reading between the lines, he was also issues antidepressants, which he then used to attempt suicide. He said his parents became more accepting of his sexuality after that, which is just depressing—that it took the near-death of their son to actually love him properly.

Shadix was from Bessemer, Alabama. There’s very little about his childhood in either of my regular sources; his parents split up somehow, and he was given his stepfather’s last name, which he dropped as a professional actor and went back to his father’s name. He moved from Alabama to Manhattan and from there to Los Angeles. Like so many others. His first role was in yet another version of The Postman Always Rings Twice, with a frankly bewildering cast but starring Jack Nicholson and Jessica Lange. He also did an episode of Golden Girls and a made-for-TV movie called Student Exchange that has an even more bewildering cast.

The first movie brought him to the attention of a young former Disney animator named Tim Burton, who cast him in what would become his iconic role, Otho in Beetlejuice. He’s fantastic in it. It’s a movie that’s firing on all cylinders, even if a couple of the actors in it went on to do shall we say Not Great Things, and Shadix just steals scenes. He’s so delightful. He’s loathsome, but he’s loathsome in a deeply funny way. That the ultimate way to vanquish him is by leisure suit is hilarious, because you know Otho wore one of them in the ‘70s and doesn’t want anyone to remember it.

The other role I always remember him from is Heathers. It’s a minor part, but man, you want to talk stealing. The way he says the word “Eskimo” may well be the best thing in the entire movie, and I love me some Heathers. (Also I had a private viola teacher whose parents lived up the hill from that church, which is not relevant but I needed to share.) He’s a supporting beam of any childhood firmly entrenched in 1988 cinema—let’s take a moment to consider that those were the same year.

I hope Shadix had a happy life. He spent a lot of time in movies with absolutely bonkers casts—it seems as though half the ones I check feature, like, Gavin McLeod and OJ Simpson. (That’s Student Exchange. I did say.) He retired in 2007 and bought a Victorian house in his hometown of Bessemer. It burned down in 2008, a mere year later. In 2009, he had surgery intended to fix a broken ankle which instead left him in a wheelchair. The next year, he was found dead in his home; his sister said he fell and hit his head. It’s a sad loss, but we had many years and at least some classics, and we almost didn’t.