Bud Cort

A quirky black comedy called "Harold and Maude" made him the poster boy of midnight movies. Thirty years later he said,"I've had moments where I wished I'd never done it."

By Erika Milvy

Sep 4, 1999 | Many a first date has been given an adrenaline boost as soon as each member of the dubious couple discovers that "Harold and Maude" is the other's favorite film. More meaningful than merely cultpopular, "Harold and Maude" was a spiritual experience to many an earnest college kid who thrilled to its anti-establishment, devil-may-care spirit and its macabre sensibility, set to the tune of Cat Stevens' glorious soundtrack.

Gloomy, ashen and nearly necrophiliac, the 20-year-old Harold Chasen, played with comic catatonia by Bud Cort, is addicted to committing suicide. Then he meets a feisty, vital septuagenarian named Maude. Under Maude's sexualized tutelage, Harold learns to embrace life. Following her groove, Harold learns to heed Stevens' do-your-own-thing musical creed: "If you want to sing out sing out/And if you want to be free be free/'Cause there's a million ways to be/You know that there are."

When the film was released in 1971, critics panned it and it promptly flopped. Eventually it found a home at college art houses and achieved a certain cult status among motley, artsy misanthropes. Ruth Gordon, who played Maude, died in 1985. Three years later the film's director, Hal Ashby, and screenwriter, Colin Higgins, also died, the latter from AIDS. But Bud Cort, still very much alive, was one of those young stars who aged awkwardly and never really found his niche or reclaimed his fame. And a devastating car crash followed by years of physical therapy and plastic surgery further hampered the development of his career.

Now, with the 30th anniversary of "Harold and Maude" coming up, Cort is trying to convince Paramount to release a commemorative laser-disc version to go with a book he's writing about it. Yet, with a slew of new films in the works, he is also determined to leave Harold behind.

In 1996, the Los Angeles Times called him "a generational icon a quarter-century ago, a kind of midnight movie poster boy." While flattered to hear of his impact on young actors and fans, Cort said that "my dream is to get that reaction for new projects, for new characters." He called his cult status both "a blessing and a curse." He told the Times, "I was typecast to the point where I didn't make a film for five years after "Harold and Maude." He was offered a role in "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest," which he rejected, explaining, "I just didn't want to play crazy. I fought certain opportunities off because I wasn't ready to be a brand name. In retrospect, I should have done everything." And he says of his most famous film, "I've had my moments where I just cursed that movie and wished I'd never done it."

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