Can You Spot All the Underground Music Cameos in ‘Desperately Seeking Susan’?
Turns out this movie was made more for Jarmusch fans than for teeny-boppers.
You might think of the 1985 classic Desperately Seeking Susan as mainly a vehicle for then newly-budding pop star Madonna — who appears so fresh and full of promise in her mesh tanks and scrunch-waved hair that you can see why any studio in their right mind would market the movie around her.
But in reality, Madonna’s title role is pretty small; professional actors Rosanna Arquette and Aidan Quinn do most of the heavy lifting, leaving Mads to spend her 25 minutes of screen time basically playing herself (she’s delectably charismatic in nice, small doses). But the thing is, even if Madonna’s stunt casting was the studio’s idea, practically every other minor role in Desperately Seeking Susan was filled by director Susan Seidelman with figures from the punky, underground New York arts scene that she called home. Check out the no less than seven legendary punk rockers and beloved cult musicians that fill out the movie’s cast. And feel free to click those underlined phrases — many are links to wildly kickass vintage performances.
7.) Rockets Redglare as ‘Taxi Driver’
The sweaty cabbie who babbles at Madonna about how he doesn’t understand sushi is an old East Village staple who went by the name Rockets Redglare. Like many arty kids squatting in the Village back when New York was a shithole, Redglare was a dabbler in acting, music, stand-up, and performance art. But Redglare’s notoriety really took off when he started hanging with Sid Vicious. Reputable news sources say he was employed as Vicious’ bodyguard (though he claimed otherwise), and in his book Pretty Vacant: A History of Punk, journalist and author Phil Strong straight up accuses Redglare of being the actual murderer of Nancy Spungen! Scary stuff. But how’s that for punk cred?
6.) Gary Ray
Jim’s bandmate is played by yet another East Side institution named Gary Ray. Ray played bass in some bands that frequented CBGB’s like State of Desire, but he’s probably best known for opening the East Village performance space Darinka in 1984. It was the kind of place where there were weekly poetry slams, where conceptual artists like Mike Osterhout and young Steve Buscemi could perform crazy interpretive monologues, and where the house band was They Might Be Giants. Ray has also continued to create crazy art, producing and appearing in the short film I Remember You Now… with Debbie Harry (!) in 2006.
5.) Arto Lindsay as ‘Newspaper Clerk’
Remember the guy working the desk at the classified section for the fictional paper these characters keep using to communicate? Probably not, because he has like two lines — but those two lines were given to noise rock journeyman Arto Lindsay. He first became one of the Lower East Side’s darlings with no wave band DNA, but was simultaneously playing with dance pop outfit Ambitious Lovers by the time he appeared in Desperately Seeking Susan. Lindsay actually acted in a handful of other projects too — mostly movies like this one, where other alt musicians pop up in the background to inspire lists like this.
4.) Ann Magnuson as ‘Cigarette Girl’
Showing up for about thirty seconds during a couple of scenes at the Magic Club, actor Ann Magnuson is known to casual fans as David Bowie’s hot victim in the moto jacket in The Hunger. But some very lucky others know Magnuson because she was an integral part of the ‘70s/‘80s East Village underground art scene. As the manager and DJ at Club 57, she performed crazy art-pop cabaret acts like the character Anoushka, a Soviet chanteuse who sang American pop songs in mock-Russian gibberish. Magnuson also sang in groups like Pulsallama and Vulcan Death Grip, but she’s most well known for her renowned, long running avant garde band Bongwater.
3.) John Lurie as ‘Saxophonist Neighbor’
Clearly, you can’t tell for sure that your movie takes place amid the grittiness of pre-gentrification New York unless your characters’ rooftop conversation is interrupted by a random neighbor playing the saxophone through his open window. Yeah, it’s a minor cliche, but it’s one you can get away with if you cast an actual respected saxophonist like John Lurie in the role. Lurie’s been playing with his brother Evan in the noise-rock-meets-traditional-jazz ensemble The Lounge Lizards with a rotating group of pros (at times including Arto Lindsay) since 1978. He’s also acted in quite a few movies where he actually speaks, including Jim Jarmusch’s Stranger Than Paradise.
2.) Annie Golden as ‘Band Singer’
You can probably guess at this point that Jim’s band in the movie is made up mostly of real musicians. While we only get a quick glimpse of the group’s singer as she unloads the van and complains about the venue’s bathroom situation, that cherub faced rocker is Annie Golden. Golden’s connection to that now famous Lower East Side scene came in the form of being the real life lead singer of the new wave band The Shirts. But she was also a full on Broadway pro, playing Jeannie in Hair, a role she reprised for her film debut in the 1979 big screen adaptation. What’s particularly cool about Golden is that she’s kept up her game on all fronts, working consistently on both stage and screen, recently playing Norma on Orange is the New Black.
- ) Richard Hell as Bruce Meeker
The crowning jewel in the melange of Desperately Seeking Susan cameos is made by none other than original punk icon Richard Hell, who Seidelman mischievously cast in the role of Bruce Meeker — the sleeping boy toy Madonna ditches in the first minutes of the movie. The fact that Meeker apparently is a high caliber smuggler turns out to be important to the plot, but the character himself has no lines and we barely even see his face. A fitting Easter egg of a part for the most recognizable and well known musician to appear in the movie (other than Madonna). Emerging from that CBGB’s fracas, Hell was the unequivocal originator of the now canonical punk practice of wearing ripped up clothing. He co-founded the now exalted proto-punk band Television before leaving to form the Voidoids, and has since become basically as well known as you can get as an original punker without being Iggy Pop or the Ramones. Hell has somehow remained a focus of worship now generations later without ever climbing that last rung on the popularity ladder separating the underground cool from the mainstream sellouts. He’s never, to our knowledge, appeared on a single item at Hot Topic.
Honorable mentions:
In addition to casting probably more musicians than we were even able to spot for this feature, Seidelman also rounded out the cast of Desperately Seeking Susan with a shit ton of high-cred character actors from New York’s film and theater scene, all of whom would become recognizable and beloved in the years to come.
