Favorite Things: Tim Retzloff and his signed ‘Harold and Maude’ script

Tim Retzloff is an historian who teaches LGBTQ studies at Michigan State University as an adjunct assistant professor. His favorite thing is none other than a signed copy of the script to his favorite film, the 1971 classic dark comedy “Harold and Maude.”

This object of mine that I cherish is a copy of the script for “Harold and Maude” that is autographed by its screenwriter, Colin Higgins. The script was a gift from one of my dearest and longest friends, Patrick Jones. We are both from Flint, and part of our bonding and friendship was seeing “Harold and Maude” in Ann Arbor. By that point, I had discovered the film; I had fallen in love with the film and who knows how many times I have seen it. I first saw it in 1982 — it was showing every weekend at the State Theater in Ann Arbor.

It’s a cult film, and I became enamored with it. I had to share it with all kinds of people. I took all kinds of different friends to go see it. I even took my mother. It’s such a funny film. The Harold character is in such pain with his mother that he’s performing fake suicide attempts to get her goat and, of course, she’s beyond reacting. He has a pattern of flirting with death; he takes a Porsche and converts it into a hearse. Then he meets a 79-year-old woman and falls in love with her. She teaches him how to live. 

The script itself was given to me by Patrick. It is signed, “For Patrick’s friend, blank. All best wishes. Peace & Love — Colin Higgins, 1985.” I think what happened is — and this was before the Internet when people still had to write letters and such — he found an address for Higgins and wrote to him and said, “I’m interested in getting a copy of the ‘Harold and Maude’ script for my friend.” But his letter didn’t give Higgins my name! Patrick would have had to mail it back in order to have Higgins include my name. But there’s a quirkiness to it. Maybe Patrick got it for another friend — after all it is signed “fill in the blank.” But we bonded over the film, so it was clearly meant for me. It’s kind of funny that when he wrote Higgins he never mentioned my name.

Of course, Higgins died three years after this of HIV/AIDS. By that point in my life, I was out in Flint. It has an added element of this really meaningful queer artist that we lost in that epidemic. 

I’m an historian and an archivist; to be honest I keep the script in a file drawer. I have not pulled it out in quite a while. As an historian, you want to keep things preserved. I think if I kept it on display there might be a risk of harm coming to it. I would be very sad if that ever happened. 

Interview edited and condensed by Skyler Ashley. If you have a suggestion for Favorite Things, please email Skyler@Lansingcitypulse.com