Molly Parkin ... and Harold and Maude

In response to recent comments to the news that Molly Parkin is now in "loving email contact" with her once-only lover Laban - thanks to Arcati - Molly has written in ...

Darling MA,

I am immensely flattered that the loyal web-fanbase has picked up the Harold and Maude comparison, relating to myself and Labe (as Laban refers to himself when signing off. Labe ... so Kiwi surfer, eh!).

For others not familiar with the facts, Hal Ashby's 1971 cult movie Harold and Maude, scripted by Colin Higgins, music by Cat Stevens, starred Bud Cort as the 19 year-old Harold, passionately linked with Ruth Gordon's 80 year-old Maude.

Their utterly credible mutual attraction ignited the screen. Their sublime single sexual coupling as kindred spirits, he a virgin, she on the brink of death, fired my imagination and extended my sexual boundaries enough to embrace Labe as my own lover, with the 50-year age gap, 3 decades on.

In fact it was whilst I was describing Harold and Maude to Laban at the Las Vegas bar that he seized my fingers and steered them around a flourishing erection. That's when I surrendered my self-imposed celibacy and said Yes (urged on by Marty, my gay surrogate son - "Moll, if you don't fuck him, I will," he said).

I have never asked you why you chose to become Madame Arcati, as I have now become Maude. Both silver screen characters have influenced my life, certainly sartorially, side-stepping conventions. I celebrate the mantle of our adoptive personas, you and I.

Love Moll xxx

For more on Harold and Maude, click here