Chapter 38

The Ruler

John “Bunny” Breckenridge—San Francisco/Los Angeles

John “Bunny” Breckenridge was born with a silver spoon in his mouth in Paris, France, on August 6, 1903. An heir of former Senator William Sharon, initial investor of the Comstock Lode mine in Nevada, and the same William Sharon who was entangled with David Terry, Mary Ellen Pleasant, and Sarah Althea Hill (see Chapter 4, “Psycho Politician,” and Chapter 6, “Voodoo Queen”), Breckenridge grew up in France and England. Allegedly educated at Eton and Oxford, Bunny reveled in the life of the filthy rich. After school, the great-grandson of decorated Confederate general and U.S. vice president John C. Breckenridge moved to Paris, where he acted in drag revues. In 1927, he married and impregnated a member of French nobility, but the marriage lasted only two years. Moving back to London, Bunny acted in Shakespearean theater. Breckenridge spoke with an effeminate intonation, so hearing him recite Shakespeare must have hilarious.

Moving to San Francisco in the late 1920s, Bunny carried on his life of debauchery and excess. He was an openly gay man during a time when it was dangerous to declare such things, even in San Francisco. He wore heavy eyeliner, dressed outrageously in silks and gaudy costume jewelry, and threw extravagant parties at his San Francisco home.

Somehow, Breckenridge stayed under the radar during the thirties and forties, despite his outrageous attire, makeup, and flamboyantly lecherous manner. Breckenridge hired only good-looking, young male bodybuilders to work for him as cooks, valets, chauffeurs, and bodyguards. In 1954, he blew the top off his quiet life of self-indulgence when he announced that he planned on moving to Denmark, so he could undergo a sex-change operation and marry his boyfriend. At the same time, his blind and elderly mother sued him from England for nonpayment of promised support. The judge ordered Bunny to pay his mother an eight thousand-dollar-a-year stipend.

Gay San Francisco

One of the reason San Francisco became known as a gay-friendly city is because of the presence of the United States Navy. Sailors who were caught in a homosexual act overseas were given dishonorable discharges when they got to port in one of the many San Francisco Bay bases. Instead of going back to Runnells, Iowa, and explaining to Ma and Pa how they got booted out of the navy, many men decided to stay in San Francisco.

In 1955, homosexuality was illegal in San Francisco, and homosexuals caught soliciting sex or in other compromising situations were charged with vagrancy. After being arrested for vagrancy in a waterfront bar in San Francisco, Bunny decided to have his sex change in Mexico. However, his sex change plans got put on hold after he was injured in a serious car crash.

Despite his wealth, Bunny spent part of 1958 loafing in Southern California as a houseguest of actor Paul Marco, a Los Angeles native and a member of director Ed Wood’s troupe of bad actors. At the time, Wood was working on his greatest project, Plan 9 from Outer Space, and Marco had the role of Officer Kelton, the dim-witted police officer in the graveyard. When Wood needed an actor to play the Ruler, an alien supervillain meant to instill fear among film viewers, he naturally asked the lascivious, Shakespearean-trained, effeminate drag queen John Breckenridge if he would like the part.

Bunny dove into the role with the same flair he displayed in his everyday life. Wearing a chiffon blouse with slightly puffy sleeves under a long, black sleeveless sweater—complete with a shield symbol behind a claymore ax on the chest—and black trousers tucked into light-colored suede boots, Bunny did not exactly look like a feared leader. Bunny’s acting ability ranged from rolling his heavily made-up eyes to appearing uninterested. Not bothering to learn his lines, Bunny read off cue cards and notes at a World War II surplus desk littered with surplus electronic gear. Wood shot the scene with uncharacteristic skill, utilizing cutaway editing and a slow zoom out. Although Bunny was on screen for less than five minutes, his scene was key to the plot, as Bunny portrayed the leader of the invading aliens and gave the order to raise an army of the dead to take over Earth. Instead of invoking fear, his performance brought howls of laughter from the audience. It was Bunny’s only film.

Back in northern California, Breckenridge lazed with the idle rich of the Monterrey Peninsula. In an act of extremely bad judgment, a female friend left her ten- and twelve-year-old boys in Bunny’s care while she vacationed at Lake Tahoe. Growing bored, Bunny took the boys on a trip that they no doubt never forgot.

After showing the brothers Las Vegas, they drove to Hollywood. There the story gets murky, but the gist is that the boys were caught soliciting sex from an undercover police officer. While the boys were not exactly Boy Scouts, Breckenridge was responsible for their well-being while their mother partied in Tahoe.

Bunny was arrested while registering at a luxurious Beverly Hills hotel, along with accomplices Cecil Mahaffy, Thomas Jordan, and Ross Willson, all young men in their twenties. Breckenridge hired attorney to the stars Jerry Giesler, who had represented such Hollywood rogues as Charlie Chaplin, Robert Mitchum, Errol Flynn, and mobster Bugsy Siegel. Giesler managed to get the court to sentence Bunny to three months at the Atascadero State Hospital because he was potentially dangerous to himself. The boys’ father filed a $3 million lawsuit against Breckenridge for neglecting his children.

Once Bunny was released, he kept a lower profile for the rest of his long life. He entertained guests in his home in Carmel-by-the-Sea, where he acted in local theater productions and relished his cult status brought on by late night viewings of Plan 9 from Outer Space.

Bunny died on November 5, 1995, in Carmel. He was the longest living cast member of Plan 9 from Outer Space.