Colman Domingo Honors a Fabulous Friend
Among the things delayed by the pandemic—vacation plans, the Olympics—have been the rituals of grief. There were Zoom shivas, I.O.U. funerals. Gravestones went unvisited, ashes unscattered. The reopening has allowed for belated rites. That was the reason for a Lower East Side detour, recently, by the character actor Colman Domingo. The main purpose of his trip to New York—he was in from Los Angeles, where he lives with his husband—was fabulosity. At fifty-one, Domingo has emerged as a fashion plate: witness his hot-pink Versace suit at this year’s Oscars. In New York, he went to premières for “The God Committee,” in which he plays a priest, and “Zola,” in which he plays a pimp. (Later this month, he’s in the horror flick “Candyman,” as a mysterious laundromat worker.) “They sent me over this outfit, and I was, like, Sweet Jesus!” he said at the Bowery Hotel, pulling up a photo of his “Zola” getup from the night before: leopard-print Dolce & Gabbana suit, rhinestone shoes. “I felt like this was a coming-back-to-New York outfit. Everything tells a story, right? And this story was: concrete jungle. I’m not looking tasteful anymore. I gotta look like a crystal ball.”
Domingo is six feet two, with a rumbling voice that can shift from soulful to sinister, an asset he uses to shape-shifting effect in films like “If Beale Street Could Talk” and “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom.” He wore a navy jumpsuit and white Nikes. “I’ve always strived to be, like, effortless chic,” he said. He grew up in Philadelphia, where his stepfather sanded floors, his mother worked for a bank, and he’d wear his older sister’s pink Pro-Keds. He moved to New York in 2001 and left for L.A. fifteen years later, after a shoot in Mexico for the zombie-apocalypse series “Fear the Walking Dead” had him pining for the Pacific. (“I got soft.”) He hadn’t been back East since COVID, and the city felt different—more like the eighties, when he would come in from Temple University and wander the streets at night barefoot. “You just do shit like that when you’re young,” he said.
One of the reasons the city was different is that it no longer contained Ari Gold, the gay downtown pop artist and d.j., who died in February, of leukemia, at forty-seven. He and Domingo became friends in 2008, when Domingo was in the Broadway show “Passing Strange” and Gold came to the stage door. “Immediately, we could tell we were meant to be soul friends—bashert,” Domingo recalled, walking down Chrystie Street. In 2019, Domingo was in town shooting “The God Committee” while Gold was at Memorial Sloan-Kettering for a bone-marrow transplant. Things were hopeful. Gold, whose aesthetic was disco-maximalist, decorated his hospital room in tinsel. “Everything was gold and wings and sexy and weird,” Domingo recalled. Gold talked about starting a podcast, and Domingo suggested that they start it right there, becoming the first guest on “A Kiki from the Cancer Ward.” Domingo saw Gold in person one final time that November, but his health had deteriorated. Their last conversation was over FaceTime: “I said, ‘Ari, when you’re ready to let go, it’s O.K.’ ”
Domingo reached a brick building on Grand Street, where Gold had lived for twenty years. He wanted to pay his respects; also, Gold had left him ten per cent of his “personal effects.” “Maybe we’re going shopping today,” Domingo said with a laugh.
Outside Gold’s unit, an old man with groceries saw him knocking on the door. “He was good people,” the neighbor said. “We met RuPaul through him.”
A woman in a robe opened the door: a performer and former designer called Delicia Glam, who had been Gold’s close friend and, toward the end, his caregiver. She had kept the décor intact—sequinned throw pillows, gold mirrors, a wall of Wonder Woman figurines. “It just feels like he’s on a trip,” Domingo said, hugging her tightly. He eyed a bedazzled gladiator helmet and sighed. “My husband made this for him.”
“I’m still afraid to touch anything,” Glam said.
“There’ll be a time,” Domingo assured her, and caressed a plastic crown sitting on a Styrofoam Greek torso. On his phone, he played one of Gold’s dance-music videos, singing along: “You better bring your weather with you . . . lightning, shine, and sparkle. . . .”
Glam teared up. “How is he not here anymore, Colman?” They went into the bedroom: Wonder Woman slippers, bracelets, a clear Lucite fourposter bed. “I used to say, ‘That’s a queen’s bed, honey,’ ” Glam said. “Those pillows haven’t been washed.”
Domingo nuzzled one and inhaled: “I smell it.” On his way out, he pondered what he might want as an heirloom. “One of his gaudy helmets, or a hat. Or a piece of jewelry, like a bracelet or a ring. Something I can have on my person,” he said. That way, Gold’s fabulosity would augment his own. He ordered an Uber. “I’ll probably have a big cry later,” he said. ♦