Writer-director Xaque Gruber’s first feature, Sallywood, an autobiographical comedy starring the late Academy Award-nominated actors Sally Kirkland alongside Jennifer Tilly, Eric Roberts, Michael Lerner and Keith Carradine, is out now on digital through Buffalo 8. Gruber also directed the short films The Pistol and THE. In the 2000s, he wrote for TV while running Michael Levitt Productions in Hollywood. His TV credits include Hell’s Kitchen, The Michael Jackson Memorial Service and launch of The Oprah Winfrey Network. He holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Drawing from Pratt Institute as well as two graduate degrees: Tufts University in Art Education, and Boston University in Television Production.
This piece was written before Sally Kirkland “passed into spirit” (her preference for referring to death and dying). I love and miss my dear friend Sally very much. Ours is a friendship that goes back 23 years. I went from being a fan to an assistant to a friend to a best friend. Even though these Sally stories are lighthearted and fun, they are written with great love and a deep respectful connection to her. Thank you, Sally, for all you gave to me and to the whole world. – Xaque Gruber
My 2025 feature Sallywood details my true adventures as the assistant to legendary actress Sally Kirkland. I went from being a faraway fan of hers living in Maine to being her everything in Los Angeles, practically overnight. Sally packed my daily life with such comedy and drama, only a fraction could fit into my 90-minute film.
So here are some behind-the-scenes moments with my beloved Oscar nominee that, for whatever reasons, never made it from the typewriter to the screen …
October 2002:
I have just moved to Hollywood. I enter a Melrose Avenue gallery where Sally Kirkland is exhibiting her art. She hires me on the spot to be her assistant, despite only knowing my astrological sign (Virgo) and then says, “Virgos make me want to kill myself. My father was a Virgo. In the ancient days, Virgo and Scorpio were one sign until they were separated. I’m a total Scorpio. I was a nymphomaniac, but I don’t think America knows what to do with someone who is spiritual and so sexual at the same time. I’m also a minister.”
After she lists many of the famous men she slept with (you’ll have to see Sallywood to hear who they are), she chants a prayer.
Then she adds that she’s a strict vegetarian and I must never eat “flesh” (meat) around her.
As her assistant, I help run her art exhibit. One morning, as Sally enters the gallery, I’m in the middle of eating breakfast sausages, so I hide in the restroom with my meat, since I’m forbidden to eat it in her presence. I hear her say, “I smell flesh! Someone’s eating flesh!” Oh no. I stay quiet behind the bathroom door, munching away. She knocks. I answer. She sees my sausages and looks outraged. Then she grabs my sausages and voraciously eats them all.
November 2002:
At Urth Caffe on Melrose, just next to Sally’s art gallery, an obnoxious couple ahead of me in line are loudly badmouthing Sally.
Them: “Did you see her art? It’s so bad. Look at me, I’m Sally Kirkland! I’m an untalented artist, but I have a gallery show because I’m a celebrity. She’s pathetic.”
I am so upset with these two idiots.
“You two should be careful when insulting someone in public,” I tell them. “You’ve no idea who you may be standing next to.”
“Well, it’s all good because we’re Sally’s friends,” they say.
“No, you’re not.”
I give them pause and leave. I later tell Sally about it. She is grateful for my defending her, but is mortified that people are badmouthing her. I remind her that scrutiny unfortunately comes with the territory of being a public figure.
Sally, widely known for being outrageous, was the first fully nude actress on the American stage (Sweet Eros, 1967) and might be the only actress to do a nude centerfold in Playboy just after her Oscar nomination. As wild as her reputation is, I also see this vulnerable little girl with no family and very few (if any) people looking out for her. So I feel protective of her.
February 2003:
For the Golden Globes, Sally rents a skin-tight flaming pink sequined dress and a pair of “jelly boobs,” since she had her own legendary implants removed. I go to the rental store to pick up these items. The “jelly boobs,” which look like two jiggly peach domes with fake nipples in the middle, are given to me at the rental store on a tray with plastic wrap over them. Like two large, strange mounds of Jello. I wonder how many women have rented these before Sally? One jelly boob has a stain on it. Oy!
I go up Sally’s elevator, holding this tray with the two jiggling jelly boobs. The others in the elevator look at the tray and say, “You must be going to Sally’s apartment.” I walk in and Sally is standing there fully nude – ready for me to dress her. Oh Lord. I adjust her jelly boobs into her bra and they look remarkably real. These are the tasks celebrity assistants do that nobody ever hears about. I zip up her skin-tight pink dress, squeezing her into it.
“Xaque,” Sally says, “what you are learning about women today, you could write a book.”
2002-2005:
The Silver Spoon at Santa Monica Boulevard and Havenhurst in West Hollywood is a glorious, lost-in-time diner: roomy brown booths, wood-paneled walls, career waitstaff who say, “What can I getcha, hun?” Nothing trendy about it. Sally treats it like her office. If someone wants to get a script to her, they drop it off at the Silver Spoon, which is basically her main source of food. I dine there constantly with Sally – and what a group we sit with: Shelley Winters (Sally’s godmother), Jane Russell (both Shelley and Jane had great firsthand Marilyn Monroe stories), Rip Taylor, Skip E. Lowe, Jackie Stallone and Tina Louise. Robert Forster is always at the next table. I get to know them all. I feel like Alice having just fallen into Wonderland and sitting at the Mad Tea Party.
One day during lunch, a sizable earthquake strikes. During the minute of everything shaking, Sally stands and yells a prayer chant. I sit in the booth, smiling, eating my grilled cheese. The earthquake suddenly ends and Sally stops yelling her prayer chant, then looks at me, “You stayed calm through the whole earthquake. You are a child of light!”
The Silver Spoon, like most of its celebrity clientele, is now (sadly) long gone.
2005:
She gets upset because I don’t call her on Mother’s Day, but she’s not my mother. She never even had children, but she believes she may have been my mother in a previous lifetime. Truthfully, I don’t feel the need to call her on Mother’s Day, because I usually feel more like a mother to her than she does to me. So to make her feel better, I call her on Mother’s Day – and basically every day.
2003 – 2015:
During these years, I live on Martel Avenue in Los Angeles in a huge four-bedroom suite and have (I’m not kidding) a revolving door of 19 roommates. Sally starts coming over frequently to lay on my bed (“to absorb your peaceful energy, Xaque”) and to raid my fridge for food – mostly string cheese.
“I too once lived on Martel, but I accidentally burned it down,” she says. “I also accidentally burned down my Malibu place. You see, I was Joan of Arc in a previous lifetime so fire seems to follow me.”
My roommates hear this and call me while I’m at work (at Michael Levitt Productions), saying, “Sally’s in our fridge again and lighting candles. How long is she staying?”
March 2003:
Sally invites me as her “plus one” to a private soiree at the Beverly Hills home of Renee Taylor and Joseph Bologna. It’s to celebrate the Oscar nominations of Chicago director Rob Marshall, who will be there. I gussy up and drive us in my Honda Accord – arriving amongst limos.
My jaw hits the floor when I see a who’s who of iconic Hollywood stars sitting in the living room as we enter: Sid Caesar, Ricardo Montalban, Debbie Reynolds, Carl Reiner, Lainie Kazan, Diane Ladd, Frances Fisher, to name just a few.
Nobody (except Sally) brings their assistant to this party.
Sally sees Rob Marshall and instantly performs an unsolicited dramatic monologue for him, as if this is an audition. The room is silent afterwards. Then she begs him for a role in his next movie: “I’ll carry a spear. I do accents, too.” She demonstrates some accents to him and has zero shame in doing this. He doesn’t know what to make of it. The rest of the room seems used to this.
Then Sally asks me to get her a large glass of water. I find my way to the kitchen, which is filled with a small bustling army of caterers, all in white uniforms. I ask if I can have a large glass of water for Sally Kirkland, and introduce myself as her assistant. The caterers go quiet, looking at me with compassion and worry. “Sally Kirkland? Oh, you poor thing,” one says and hands me a goblet of water.
I’m holding this crystal goblet of water, going room to room looking for Sally – she’s nowhere to be found. I’m bumping into yet more iconic actors. Dom DeLuise tells me Sally has gone out the front door.
Sally’s in the driveway engaged in a chat with a woman in a hat who I’m standing behind holding the goblet of water.
“Sally, did you come alone to this party?” asks the woman in the hat.
“No, I brought my assistant.”
“You brought your assistant here?”
“He’s not your average assistant. He’s an artist, and a teacher, and a child of light!”
“I must meet this child of light. Where is he?”
“He’s right behind you. Barbra Streisand meet Xaque Gruber!”
The Woman in the Hat turns around and I’m nose to nose with Barbra Streisand. We look at each other and I’m in such shock, I almost drop the goblet of water.
Barbra says nothing to me, then turns back to Sally.
“Is he a Democrat?”
“He’s a child of light!”
“I want him as my assistant. He’s what I’ve been looking for. He’s hired. Give him my address.”
“Barbra, please don’t take him from me. He’s all I have right now. Xaque, don’t leave me for her.”
At that moment, Rob Marshall exits the house, making a beeline to Barbra, who walks arm in arm with him down the driveway to the limo – where James Brolin stands in an elegant suit. And the three speed off into the night.
Sally, panicked, is still begging me not to leave her for Babs, but I am not going to. I didn’t move all the way to L.A. to climb the diva actress food chain. I came here to write for television, which I eventually will do. In the meantime, the other famous actresses at the party assemble in the driveway, grumbling that Barbra has monopolized Rob Marshall all through the party and they had little time with him. (He would lose the Oscar a few nights later to Roman Polanski for The Pianist – though Chicago wins Best Picture.)
Incidentally, each year, Sally takes me as her plus one to similar parties and plunges into more unsolicited but impressive monologues for unsuspecting famous directors (Ridley Scott, etc.), followed by, “I’ll do anything in your next movie. I will carry a spear! I do accents, too …” [pointing to herself] “Sally Kirkland.”
All images courtesy Xaque Gruber.
