Shirley at “Night with JT Leroy & Friends”

“It is rare to be amongst such collective beauty,” gushed slightly delirious host Winona Ryder Thursday at Index Magazine’s Night With JT LeRoy and Friends, a tribute to the 23-year-old gay “It boy” ’s literary and celebrity status (Winona called him “the beautiful JT,” while Garbage’s Shirley Manson wryly designated JT “our little genius”). Manson, Debbie Harry, Vanessa Carlton, Rosario Dawson, and Tatum O’Neal, among others, read from LeRoy’s eccentric lot-lizard confessional Sarah [book].”
This book will become a movie by the hand of Gus Van Sant. JT LeRoy wants Shirley to play his mother, but castings are being made for the film.
Manson has formed a close bond with Leroy and has even written a song about him, called Cherry Lips. In JT’s first book, Sarah’s son goes by the name of Cherry Vanilla. A twelve-year-old boy based on Leroy’s childhood self, he has a penchant for hotpants and make-up.
(source: The Village Voice / JT)