However, Jobriath was more than a glam rock no hit wonder, as director Kieran Turner’s 2012 documentary Jobriath A.D. proves, with interviews from people who knew him as Bruce Wayne Campbell, a child prodigy growing up in Pennsylvania; as Jobriath Salisbury, the wildly talented (and just plain wild) cast member of the Los Angeles production of Hair; and, of course, as his most famous incarnation, Jobriath Boone—or simply Jobriath—“the true fairy of rock and roll.”
One thing that becomes clear as Jobriath A.D. goes along is that as badly as the musician wanted to be famous, he did not want to be known, making an intimate portrait a bit of a challenge. Most of the people interviewed are people who worked with him, or who are fans, like Ann Magnuson, who released a Jobriath tribute EP the same year as this doc, and Scissor Sisters’ lead singer Jake Shears. The recollections shared by Jobriath’s younger brother, Willie Fogle, give us a sense of what life with their emotionally distant mother was like, but he hardly knew his brother any better than anyone else.
Much of the documentary is dedicated to exploring how this musician who, per Rolling Stone, had “talent to burn,” failed to make a spark on the 1970s music scene. Homophobia is brought up, but fingers are also pointed at the gay community, which at the time, according to Jayne County, “was very, very negative against the whole androgynous, gender-glitter movement of the ’70s.” Most of the blame for fucking up Jobriath’s career is directed toward his manager, promoter and club owner Jerry Brandt, who once upon a time also managed Carly Simon. Brandt has a lot to say on the subject of Jobriath in the documentary, which isn't surprising. One of the criticisms lobbed at Brandt is that he often commandeered interviews with Jobriath, with the singer barely given a chance to answer a question, and Turner provides the receipts. (Brandt argues that Jobriath wasn't comfortable giving answers, and some of the clips showing a somewhat stiff Jobriath responding to an interviewer’s questions suggest there’s some truth to that, as well.) What comes out is that Brandt seemed more enthusiastic about promoting the persona Jobriath had created than building an audience for his music, so by the time his debut album dropped people were more familiar with its cover than the music contained therein. It was like Jobriath was a vanity project, only it was Brandt’s vanity being served.
For all the finger pointing, I think timing might have been Jobriath’s biggest enemy. I don’t think he’d have fared much better if he had beat Bowie to the punch, but maybe, with some tweaking of his sound, he could’ve made a bigger splash in the New Wave era. Instead, Jobriath found success in the Manhattan cabaret scene, performing as Cole Berlin or Bryce Campbell, though he did sex work on the side when money was tight. But his second act was short-lived: Jobriath died from AIDS complications August 3, 1983. Singer Will Sheff summarizes Jobriath's career—and the arc of this documentary—thusly: “He got to be the mega star, then he got to be the joke, and then he got to be forgotten. And now he gets to be the beacon for so many great artists out there who didn’t get their due.”
