Michael J. Kalmen, a campy theatre-film artist who was best known for his 1972 transvestite flick, "Elevator Girls in Bondage," died Mon., June 23 in New York City. He was 60. The cause of death was heart failure.
Another Kalmen film that had a cult following on the midnight movie circuit—and received praise from Truman Capote and Rex Reed—was "The Tree Movie," which first featured the Cockettes, a San Francisco drag theatre group, for whom Kalmen created theatrical revues.
The son of a career Air Force Officer, Kalmen grew up on Air Force bases in the United States and abroad, before moving to San Francisco to study painting at the San Francisco Art Institute and later at Berkeley, where he studied painting and playwriting.
He moved to New York in 1981, where he wrote mostly for the stage, beginning with an adaptation of John O'Hara's "Buttterfield 8." In later years, he concentrated on watercolor landscapes.
Memorials are planned for September in New York City and San Francisco.