The Arquettes are a Fright Family. Together, they have starred in five major horror franchises, including A Nightmare on Elm Street and Scream. Patricia, David, and Roseanna are household names, and their sister Alexis should be no exception. Like her brother David, Alexis often found roles in the horror genre, but not the ones she had always longed for. Nonetheless, whether a supernatural townie, goth wannabe, or a teenager in drag, Alexis was a magnetic presence in each horror film.
This July 28th would have been Alexis’ 55th birthday. Her life was cut short on September 11th, 2016, by AIDS, a diagnosis she acquired around the time she was 18 years old. According to the Hollywood Reporter, Arquette kept her health private and was “obstinate” about utilizing new treatments available for those living with HIV/AIDS. Though she had lived openly as a queer since her teenage years, she chose not to share her status due to the persistent issues she faced while being an actor.
Sham Ibrahim, a friend who performed at drag shows with Alexis, said the actress was a Hollywood pariah in her early days, “Directors and producers avoided her. She was rightfully angry that she should have had the success and notoriety that comes with being such a talented actor and being born into a family that presents the opportunity to you.” It was not until 2004 that Alexis chose to share with the media that she was transgender, a fact that her family had always been supportive of.
Out in Hollywood
David, Patricia, and Rosanna Arquette have been fierce allies to their sister for her entire life. When Alexis was bullied at school, “I started fighting people,’” Patricia said in 2011. Alexis began dressing in drag as young as two, and would eventually disown her birth name for ‘Alexis.’ It was with Patricia that Alexis traveled to New York City in the late 1980s to pursue their acting dreams. Her sister would soon make her film debut as Kristen Parker, the protagonist of A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors in 1987.
In a 1999 interview with Index Magazine, Alexis was asked about her myriad roles in horror: “I’m definitely a fan of splatter. And I like horror…” Alexis’ horror filmography includes roles in and out of drag. She frequently played troubled characters, whose piercing eyes were not without a devilish glint. An androgynous chameleon, Alexis played both masc and femme roles. While she was featured in high-profile films like The Wedding Singer and Pulp Fiction, her horror film roles, in my opinion, are the most mesmerizing. On the bloody silver screen, she is mysterious, silly, intense, and, of course, funny. Unfortunately, she had just a decade of work before being ostracized from Hollywood following her coming out in 2004. “Her career was cut short,” advocates her sister, “by her decision to live her truth and her life as a transgender woman. Despite the fact that there are few parts for trans actors, she refused to play roles that were demeaning or stereotypical. She was a vanguard in the fight for understanding and acceptance for all trans people.” Alexis felt that when it came to conversations about trans people, particularly trans actors, the work often gets overshadowed, and the wild imaginations of cisgender folks take center stage. When discussing the invasive and “perverse” questioning directed at newly out trans actors while a panelist for “Out in the Open: Sexual & Gender Identity Secrets” on Larry King in 2009, she stated, “I think it’s more an exposing type thing because it’s not about your work, not about what you want to contribute as an entertainer… It’s only about your very personal identity issue.”
Peak: The ‘90s
After Arquette made her film debut as transgender sex worker Georgette in Last Exit to Brooklyn in 1989, she began landing small roles in independent films, many of them thrillers and horror. She played the uncredited role of Vampire DJ in Buffy, the Vampire Slayer in 1992 (alongside her brother David), and a corporal in Ghost Brigade in 1993. This same year, Alexis would star as the protagonist of Jack Be Nimble. Hers was an incredibly dramatic role of an abused young man in search of his sister. “[V]ery Carrie-esque,” according to Arquette. She would star as Punk (victim #3) in Frisk two years later, a queer thriller about a serial killer. When shown in Manhattan in 1996, The New York Times reported that “its gory scenes of drugged-out punks being sodomized, strung up and murdered were enough to send a number of viewers scurrying to the exits.”
Simultaneous to her film career, Alexis was performing in drag shows in New York as Eva Destruction. She starred alongside Lady Bunny and RuPaul at the 1994 Wigstock Festival, and Eva was featured in the film Wigstock (1995). “Drag can do a lot of things for people,” explained Arquette in 1999. “It can make them look at their ideas of femininity, masculinity… Our ideas of sexuality are all learned, they’re all in our heads, they have nothing to do with emotions or reality or, you know, love, which is what we’re all looking for.” Donned in drag, Alexis portrayed bad girl Lisa Marie Blair in the low-budget horror short Scream, Teen, Scream! (1996). This slumber party slasher spoof has it all: drugs, pizza, boys, a Ouija board, and the ghost of Karen Carpenter. Scream, Teen, Scream is a severely underrated horror parody and showcases a fabulous comedic performance by Arquette.
Alexis had range. She became a bad boy in Sometimes, They Come Back… Again (1996), the sequel to a Stephen King short story adaptation. The straight-to-video horror film is over dramatic, includes questionable dialogue, and is unintentionally funny. Arquette plays Tony, a complete slimeball and villain. She effortlessly acts circles around future Academy Award-winner Hilary Swank. Her piercing eyes made her a shoo-in for this role. Two years later, Alexis reaches her peak in horror. No, not as Greg in Children of the Corn V: Field of Terror, but Bride of Chucky. Starring opposite queer icon Jennifer Tilly (Bound), Alexis plays Damien, Tilly’s goth lover. Creepy yet sexy Damien is revealed to be dweebish Howard Fitzwater, a poser. Though her character doesn’t last long, Alexis’ role is a memorable one. She holds her own with bombshell Tilly, and along with her on-screen lover, sets the tone for the rest of this revamped entry of the Child’s Play franchise. 2000s emo kids and other Spencer’s gifts-customers owe a lot to Alexis’ portrayal. This would be the final horror role of her career.
Legacy
According to Patricia, “[Alexis’] career was cut short, not by her passing, but by her decision to live her truth and her life as a transgender woman.” After coming out in the early 2000s, Alexis’ career stalled. However, she used this time to become a leading voice in Hollywood for trans rights, using her platform to advocate for trans acceptance. “Despite the fact that there are few parts for trans actors, she refused to play roles that were demeaning or stereotypical,” explained Patricia. “She was a vanguard in the fight for understanding and acceptance for all trans people.” Patricia’s comment came at the heels of the 2017 Academy Awards after Alexis was not mentioned in the “In Memoriam” segment. Alexis’ omission was negligent. “We’re living in a time right now,” continued Patricia to Vanity Fair, “where trans kids can’t even go to the bathroom in schools… It’s really unfortunate that the Oscars decided they couldn’t show a trans person who was such an important person in this community. Because—trans kids—it could have meant a lot to them.”
As Alexis’ health deteriorated, she slowly abandoned her femme presentation. In a 2009 YouTube post, Alexis urged she would “rather die on a hospital table than never [surgically transition].” However, the emotional toll accrued after years of public transphobia proved too heavy to bear, and her ailing health made it difficult to put on make-up and a wig every day. Her brother David divulged months before Alexis’ death that she then preferred to be known as “gender suspicious.”
While on her deathbed, surrounded by family, Alexis drifted away to David Bowie’s “Starman,” per her wishes. Alexis was a truly magnetic and otherworldly talent. She showcased her ability to transform, particularly in horror – a medium that has always lent itself to tales of transformation. Alexis’ ascent in the 1990s as an openly queer actor began as optimistic, a potentiality for a queerer film landscape and Hollywood acceptance. Though her career was cut short by discrimination, she represented the possibility for a better and more malleable Hollywood, one not so bent on the binary. How beautiful it could have been for Alexis to see the careers of young actors flourish amidst transition and gender fluidity, as many of them do today. And maybe her own could have been revived.
Thank you, Alexis Arquette. We miss you.