The Tease – As the fourth episode of Angelyne begins, Max Allen (Lukas Gage) chases Angelyne (Emmy Rossum) in her pink Corvette in 2015. Max says it may not matter in the end so much because she is still uniquely, defiantly Angelyne. That is why we love her. Max spins out and loses her. We see him working on his documentary. Max explains that he made a documentary about Angelyne in 2012 or at least he shot one. It did not go well. In July 2017, at the El Portal Theatre, Angelyne and Max go through arbitration for his documentary. Max wasn’t the first person to make a documentary on Ang and he certainly wasn’t the last. The only one that was completed was a weird black-and-white documentary made in the mid-90s.

We see a clip from the documentary of a man from Sweden who received some of Angelyne’s hair. Max says the documentary is still on YouTube. Rick Krause (Hamish Linklater) says a lot of people have tried to capture Ang on film and they’ve failed. Max is one of the many who tried. Dominic Prescott (Marlon Young) thanks Max and Angelyne for coming today. He explains that this isn’t a court proceeding. Instead, they’re going to try to cut down on the he said and she said to get to the truth and move forward. Dominic says they’re here because both parties claim the other violated the terms they agreed to when they set out to make this student film. Angelyne and Max argue over whether it was a student film.

Max had just graduated from USC and his parents weren’t thrilled with his job prospects. He needed a project to prove to them that he could do this. Max thought he’d make a real documentary about Angelyne who is still at it now. Angelyne says the 90s were go, go, go because she had another wall, got a magazine, and got the key to West Hollywood. She had more billboards in the 90s including the one that blew up. She ran for Governor of California in 2003. In 2021, she ran again and received 39,900 votes. Max says Paris Hilton was making millions doing Angelyne 2.0. The world was going digital while Angelyne stayed analog. Even her billboards dried up although Ang claims she doesn’t care if there are billboards of her.

That is where she was when Max met her. He called her up and met her in her office so they could discuss the terms. Max claims he had no interest in looking into anything that she didn’t feel comfortable with him looking into. It is 2012 when Angelyne shows him around her office. He is surprised that she has a bunch of video tapes with the year first. Angelyne reveals they’re in the process of digitizing the archives. Max sees a picture of Harold Wallach (Martin Freeman) and mentions what they discussed on the phone about sitting down with him. She can arrange that. Angelyne stops the cameraman from filming the closet with the dress from Earth Girls Are Easy. She says Bonhams is sending someone to pick it up because it is going to be in an exhibit of Hollywood memorabilia.

Since Man knows about Bonhams Auction House, he realizes that she is selling it. She asks whether he has heard of symbiosis before she begins explaining it to him. He says her stuff is iconic and she is iconic. Angelyne likes that so she tells Max he is very smart. She tells him he can talk to Rick about getting access to the archives when he gets back from vacation, but Rick says he decided to go home and take a rest. That is what he was doing when Max approached Angelyne about doing a documentary although he should’ve been there. Ang says Rick is coming back soon. She has made a list of people who are ready to rock and roll in the meantime. She has put her dentist and astrologist on the list of people Max can interview. Angelyne stops the cameraman while explaining she is trying to show them what she means to the people and this city.

She argues that this is the story and all the me that he needs to see. When Max asks whether he gets to interview her, Angelyne says they’ll have to discuss compensation first. She argues that she is the writer who writes her reality every day. As for those being interviewed, they’re actors and deserve to be compensated. Ang tells him that this film will launch the rocket ship that turns him into a great filmmaker like the billboard did for her. Angelyne makes him say that he is a great filmmaker. Max admits he can ask his parents for more money. Max believes the photo should’ve been a warning since all of those men had left her. Rick seemed to be on permanent vacation, Harold hadn’t worked there since the 90s, and Angelyne wouldn’t talk about Freddy.

Angelyne says Freddy stayed by her side, took her first billboard photos, and really believed in her career. Freddy would make Hollywood better by making people get along. When people love each other, they can overcome anything including an act of God. Angelyne doesn’t like saying someone died and prefers saying they graduated. Although she misses him very much, she feels like he is all around her. During the arbitration, Max claims Ang told him she likes working with young people because she can control them. He was fine with that in the beginning, but he was depending on her being an active participant. When she wouldn’t let him talk to anyone important, Max felt he had no choice but to do his own research.

While searching for Angelyne online, Max finds what looks like a pornography video with Angelyne. When he confronts her about it, she insists the woman in the video is not her. She tells him that the interview is full of life-threatening misinformation and fakery. He tells her it was published by the Angelyne Fan Club. She says people see what they want to see and you can’t be so gullible. Max suggests emailing them to get it taken down if it isn’t her, but Ang says leave it up for now. She doesn’t know why he is even looking at this. She questions whether he is looking up things he shouldn’t be, but he reveals it comes up when her name is Googled. Angelyne instructs him not to Google her. Later that night, Max watches videos about Ang who calls to say he hasn’t called Roger at Chevrolet yet.

She had a strange dream and knew he’d understand because he is very intuitive. Ang says she was wandering through an Egyptian pyramid made by aliens holding a flaming torch and all the drawings looked like her. Once Max asks whether she believes in aliens, Ang claims Rick saw a flying saucer once. He’ll ask Rick about it if he ever gets to talk to him. Angelyne says he has exclusive rights for this documentary and no one has ever done that before. Max questions what she wants this film to say about her when she passes. She wants people to know that her spirit opened a portal of white light and formed a path for it to escape the awful pain of life. She wants the documentary to say that she escaped and helped others escape too.

Angelyne asks whether she can trust him. Although he has been researching Ang, he says always. Angelyne says she’ll let him talk to Rick then. In arbitration, Angelyne says she always knew he was a liar. Max says he finally got his first real interview with Rick who was her right-hand man. In 2013, he drove all the way to Idaho to talk to Rick who says Angelyne just has it. She taught him things that you can’t learn from a job. He believes they were like family and they would never betray each other’s secrets. Angelyne calls Rick’s phone so she can talk to Max. Angelyne tells Max that he needs to give Rick $300 for his time and he is owed $200 from back in March. He can write that on a separate check and she’ll pay him back. Ang reveals she has decided to give him full access to her archives including the interviews and footage.

She believes he can help re-edit some of the stuff Rick put together. After the call ends, Max asks Rick if he thinks Angelyne ever turns it off when she is home alone. Rick asks who she’d be dressed like since she is Angelyne. Before Max can ask him any questions, Rick rides off on his horse. Max believes he drove all the way to Idaho to just deliver a message. Then, Angelyne made it seem like Max was finally going to meet Harold so he went along with it. He picks up food for Ang and the cashier says he is another one. She finds it cute that he is wearing one of her t-shirts. When Angelyne arrives, she breaks the news that he can’t see Harold today because he lives in a very exclusive place. Max suspects he is living in a retirement home for old people, but she claims it isn’t like that.

Max wants to know when he can see him since he has been researching to prepare. Angelyne wants him to just focus on what she is telling him without looking outside of his thing. Max asks why she can’t just admit that he is in a home. Ang says he isn’t there. She recommends he be a good boy and interview her optometrist tomorrow instead. Max gets upset and says no, but Angelyne claims nobody says no to her. Max says he was done after that. Once he tells her no, Angelyne refuses to let him bring that negativity into her spaceship. Max confesses that he needed her because he was making a documentary about her. He calls her several times in hopes of getting her to work with him again. After about the eighth message, Angelyne took pity on him. Max foolishly believed everything would be okay. When he goes to the office, he is surprised to see Rick there.

Max apologizes to Ang and says they’ve both invested a lot in this project. He thinks they should find a way to finish it. Angelyne is beginning to worry that he is plagued by self-doubt and she doesn’t like doubters. She agrees to give him one more chance to screw it up or get it right. Rick hands him a list of stipulations and financial assurances to show Angelyne that Max is taking this project seriously. She wants him to buy an original painting for two grand and five grand to interview Rick. Once she offers to give him 24 hours, Max tells her he’ll think about it. Max begins offering video scrapbooking at local nursing homes. While he works, Angelyne calls him several times to complain that he is delaying and to warn that she is going to change him an extra $100 for being unprofessional.

Eventually, Max meets Harold at one of the nursing homes. In the theater, he tells everyone that Angelyne promised him Harold. Back in the retirement home, Max tells Harold that he is 23. Harold is 86 although he still thinks he is young. Max admits they have a common friend in Angelyne. He asks about the last time Harold saw her. Angelyne storms into the retirement home later to take him for a ride. Harold says something good will come to you if you give Angelyne something. Harold tells Max about the time he wanted to retire in 1993. When he hears Angelyne calling his name, Harold runs and hides from her, but she finds him anyway. She doesn’t like the fact that Doug called her to say he looks forward to working together. Harold admits that Doug is going to be taking over everything including the printing and billboards.

Harold believes anyone would be excited, but Angelyne is not. An angry Angelyne ends up locking Harold in the room. He found a guy in Reno and introduced them like her band manager did with Harold. Although Max believes that would be Cory, Harold can’t remember his name because he disappeared. Harold says he’d have to ask Cory what happened between them. In 2014, Max meets with a man who tells him there are eight names, six civil cases, four social security numbers, and two driver’s licenses. The man gives Max everything he has but warns him there is nothing on her before 1978. There isn’t much on Cory Hunt. The man offers to find more information about Cory for an additional fee. Angelyne and Rich become concerned when they learn that he requested her driving record.

In arbitration, Angelyne accuses Max of trying to steal her identity, but Max says he can’t make a documentary without information. He meets with the man again later and learns he has already found Cory who still plays in a bunch of bands. He is in upstate New York. They watch Angelyne peddle merchandise from the back of her pink Corvette. Max admits he wasn’t sleeping and should’ve quit, but he flew out to New York to see Cory. Once he meets with him, Cory (Philip Ettinger) says he was left in a hospital and Angelyne just walked away. He claims he still talks to her because their paths are connected and that will never change. When Max asks about anything prior to 1978, Cory says none of that mattered. Max says there are so many stories that don’t add up such as Angelyne never having a mother or her mother being her best friend.

Max asks if any of it is true. Cory confirms that she has a sister named Leah. Cory warns him that Leah will never talk to him so he just needs to let it go. He has been where Max is at right now and knows from experience. As Max shakes his hand and leaves, Angelyne calls Max to say she knows he has been asking inappropriate questions. She offers to give him one more change for $5,000. Max says Leah’s name was the key even though she wasn’t going to talk to him. Facts and documents don’t lie. Max admits it is pretty complicated. In the theatre, Max says the information was public although he needed to know where to look. He searched for the name Leah and every last name he had come across. That led him to her father Eli Goldman. Then, he found Rachel Goldman and everything that came with it.

He found where she lived as a kid in Los Angeles, her schools, her high school yearbooks, overdue bills, and lawsuits. He went all the way to Poland where she was born. Max admits he isn’t sure it matters so much in the end because she is still uniquely, defiantly Angelyne. Max wanted her to know that he found out who she really was. He felt she owed him that because Angelyne was extorting money from him the whole time just to keep the project moving. Although Felix (Steven Hack) doesn’t want to believe it, Max says he’ll show him what he means. He shows them all the stuff she made him buy, but Angelyne claims he is just obsessed with her. Max argues he needs to tell this story since he has spent five years on it. Ang calls it her story before claiming she was wrong about Max being a filmmaker.

They agree to take a break. Max’s representative believes he can put an end to this if he’ll let him. He tells Max to ask her some simple questions and establish a baseline fact although Max says she won’t answer them. Max is told they just need to catch her in a lie because everything she says from that point forward will be suspect. Max agrees as his representative tries to get Ang to answer a few questions. He starts with Rachel’s birth certificate which says she was born in Poland to Elli and Rivka Goldman who met during World War II in the Chmielnik ghetto before being sent to a series of concentration camps. After the war, they reunited and had two children in Poland before settling outside of Tel Aviv. They lived there until Rachel was nine and Leah was seven.

The family left for America on a cruise ship called the SS Israel. They arrived in New York and settled in California. When Rachel was 14, her mother died. By 17, Rachel was married to a man named Danny Katz, but they divorced less than a year later. Rachel disappeared until 2016 and changed her name to Angelyne L’Lyne stating this was her stage name that she had used since 1978. Angelyne is asked whether she is Rachel Goldman as she hears and sees laughing kids. Felix pleads with her to answer truthfully since they need to maintain her credibility to win. They keep pushing her to answer the question until she makes everyone disappear. Max says she actually told the truth and he couldn’t believe it, but Angelyne insists that never happened.

When Angelyne leaves the theatre, she sees Max behind her and herself or her sister banging on the window above. Max says the arbitrator emailed him a few months later to say she didn’t technically do anything wrong, he didn’t technically do anything wrong, and they should get back together if anyone does. Max claims he can finish the film or do something else with it, but he’d have to work on it with her. Angelyne agrees that this individual can technically continue working on the documentary if she agrees to participate, but she doesn’t. She’d like him to make whatever story he is trying to make as long as it doesn’t interfere with the story they’re trying to tell or her story. In the end, there was really no end.

Jeff Glaser (Alex Karpovsky) from The Hollywood Reporter calls Angelyne later to say they’re going to run another story on her. He reveals that the title is “Angelyne’s Real Identity Is Finally Solved”. He asks if she’d like to comment. Angelyne has to slam on the breaks to avoid hitting two little girls who look like her and her sister.

 

Angelyne Review

The fourth episode of Angelyne really focused more on the people who were impacted by Angelyne than her, but it was still entertaining to see what Max went through to possibly create a documentary about her. I also appreciate getting to see what became of Harold although it was a sad ending. Unfortunately for Max, none of his efforts paid off in the long run.

Although it was much different back when Angelyne got started, I would think someone in that situation would expect to be scrutinized rigorously. At some point, your identity and tidbits of your past would have to be revealed. Angelyne isn’t revolutionary but it has been fun to travel back in time and follow her rise to fame in Los Angeles and elsewhere.

The episode was a bit longwinded in part. I did enjoy getting to see the filmmaker’s struggle as he tried to make an Angelyne documentary through. The episode scores a 6 out of 10. Recaps of Angelyne recap be found on Reel Mockery here. Learn how to support our work at this link.