Peter Sobczynski at Hollywood Bitchslap checks in with the towering Mary Woronov as the inimitable cult queen prepares to spend the weekend in Chicago, at retrospective screenings of a couple of her drive-in classics, Rock 'n' Roll High School (at the Music Box Theatre on May 9, with music critics Jim DeRogatis and Greg Kot) and, on May 10, Death Race 2000, as part of the annual Sci Fi Spectacular. Woronov entered movies through the side door after working with "the Theatre of the Ridiculous in New York, which was majorly cult--it was hardly Broadway theater or even off-Broadway," and then with Andy Warhol, which led to her getting a show-stopping role in the breakout Warhol factory picture The Chelsea Girls. For much of her movie career, Woronov seemed joined at either hip to the late Paul Bartel, who directed her in Death Race 2000 and co-starred with her in Rock 'n' Roll High School, and Roger Corman, on whose nickel both pictures were made. (She also appeared in the Corman productions Hollywood Boulevard and Cannonball, a follow-up to Death Race 2000, which she describes as "just the worst movie" and which she says inspires this outburst from Bartel, who directed it: "What is happening to me? I don�t like cars--I hate cars!�") and acted for Bartel in such labors of love as Eating Raoul and Scenes from the Class Struggle in Beverly Hills.) As she explains it now, it was a natural fit in both cases because Bartel "really liked camp acting and that was really who I was, a camp actress," and because Corman "didn't care as long as the movie got made."
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