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Craig Russell

I did a search on google and I wasn’t able to find a thread about him.

Below I’ve linked the Amsterdam show. His best based on the scarcity of what’s out there.

He was talented and I enjoy this show a lot, also troubled and had a three year window between 1977-1980 before it all fell apart.

I listened to a CBC interview from 1977 when his movie Outrageous (which won him the Silver Bear in Germany) was released and it’s sad how insecure he seems. Drugs seem to have been a part of his life early on, but it became extreme after he became successful outside his native Toronto.

He played Carnegie Hall twice. Once successfully, the second time was a disaster with him spending the evening under the piano, singing songs the band had not rehearsed. His last major show was in Vancouver which was also a shambles.

He went to live in Germany for five years and came back in 1987 to make a sequel to this movie which flopped. He died from a stroke related to HIV Halloween of 1990.

How many of us here remember him? Did anyone here ever meet him or have any interaction with those around them? There’s a man on YouTube who claims to be his biographer, but he has not released a book.

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by Anonymousreply 4August 24, 2025 1:54 AM

A weird tidbit is that he was Mae Wests secretary for a very short time in his 20s. He returned home after he said her chauffeur raped him in while West watched through a two-way mirror. I guess he was able to find drugs in LA as well.

The CBC documentary is below.

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by Anonymousreply 1August 23, 2025 10:10 PM

A legend. I saw him once in about 1985 stumbling outside Toronto’s gay village singing I Am Woman to himself.

by Anonymousreply 2August 24, 2025 1:34 AM

outrageous!

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by Anonymousreply 3August 24, 2025 1:52 AM

Outrageous!

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by Anonymousreply 4August 24, 2025 1:54 AM
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