Rockets Redglare

Rockets Redglare (born Michael Morra; May 8, 1949 – May 28, 2001) was an American character actor and stand-up comedian. He appeared in over 30 films in the 1980s and 1990s, including a number of independent films and mainstream films, such as After Hours (1985) and Desperately Seeking Susan (1985). Early life He was born Michael Morra in New York City to a heroin-addicted 15-year-old mother named Agnes Tarulli Morra. While still in utero, he became addicted to heroin, so doctors added an opiate derivative into his baby formula so that he could withdraw from the drug. Morra's father and uncle were career criminals in the Italian-American underworld in Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn. After his father was deported to his native Italy, Agnes began a relationship with a drug-addicted former boxer who assaulted both young Morra and his mother. Morra also spent time being raised by his aunt in Lindenhurst, New York. After his mother was killed by her boyfriend, Morra took up the stage name Rockets Redglare, from the fifth line of the U.S. national anthem "The Star-Spangled Banner". 1970s and 1980s From 1970 to 1974, Morra spent time at Kinsman Hall, a drug rehab first located in Hauppauge, New York (early 1968), which then moved to Hillsdale, New York (late 1968) and eventually went to its new facility located in Jackman, Maine (mid 1970). He entered the program as a resident and became employed as a staff member, reaching the position of assistant residential director and then leaving to return home to New York. In the early 1970s, Rockets lived with the actress Baybi Day before moving into a second floor apartment on Third Avenue, off 14th Street. In the late 1970s, Morra spent most of his time in the East Village, where he "became a permanent fixture in the punk and porno film scenes." Morra worked as bouncer at the Red Bar in the East Village as a roadie for a band called The Hassles (with a young Billy Joel), and acted as a bodyguard and drug supplier to punk rock bassist Sid Vicious and artist-musician Jean-Michel Basquiat. The night Sid Vicious is alleged to have killed his girlfriend, Nancy Spungen, Morra had delivered 40 capsules of Dilaudid to the couple's room at the Chelsea Hotel. In his book, Pretty Vacant: A History of Punk, Phil Strongman states that he believes Redglare murdered Nancy Spungen. Redglare always denied involvement in Spungen's murder to the press, but often "confessed" to the murder within his circle of friends, to mixed reaction.