Recall: Knowing You, Knowing Nomi

We've been infatuated with cult performer Klaus Nomi after seeing Andrew Horn's documentary The Nomi Song. Nomi's operatic, new wave music and alien-in-a-tuxedo drag made him an art star who went on to sing backup for Bowie on SNL and tour Europe before his fame dwindled. As a sad footnote, he was also one of the first artists to die of AIDS in the early eighties.

East Village performance art doyenne and current L.A. Woman Ann Magnuson, who was a friend of Nomi's, reports on her blog that a production company was developing a biopic of singer, with Alan Cumming in the title role, and had approached Douglas Carter Beane to rewrite the first draft of the script:

"Say WHAT? Alan Cumming as Klaus Nomi? Now I think Cumming was brilliant in CABARET and maybe that 'emcee' character is Nomi-adjacent but........I dunno. Well, maybe.
Then Beane dropped the real bombshell. "And in the notes they handed me" Beane said, "There were explicit directions to write 'An Ann Magnuson character' and "A Joey Arias character'. I had to hold onto my chair. Oh. My. God. This is what happens when you live long enough -- you end up as a character in someone else's version of your life. "

The rest of Ann's musings on the subject are worth a read. A complicated creature, Nomi wasn't an angel but he certainly had the voice of one.

Here's the video for his incomparable version of "Lightning Strikes." As much as we love La Cumming, we have to agree that we don't see him in the role. Klaus Nomi was a role created by Klaus Nomi, anyone else would be a second-rate understudy.





Alan Cumming as Klaus Nomi? [Papermag Blogs]


Klaus Nomi ;Nomi Song ;Lightning Strikes ;Ann Magnuson