From the February 6, 1997 issue of the San Francisco Examiner:

Crispin Glover tweaks his fans with quirky, outrageous (and funny) "Slide Show"

You'd think Crispin Glover would feel horribly out of place at the Doubletree Inn near the airport, where he's ensconced prior to his live appearance in Palo Alto Wednesday night.

Here, the average person appears to be just in from Des Moines for a meeting, bedecked in Mervyn's bright polyester hues. And Glover, the 32-year-old actor / author / songwriter / director, the Gen-X Renaissance dude, skulks through the lobby with long dark hair obscuring his eyes, all in black from his mohair trench coat to his jackboots. Curious eyes fix on him as he passes by.

But Glover's perfectly happy when causing a stir. In the 12 years since his breakthrough, gem-like role of George McFly in "Back to the Future, " Glover has reveled in oddball characters, often created for him by our greatest directors. For Oliver Stone, he was Andy Warhol in "The Doors," for John Boorman he was Lionel the flaming designer in "Where the Heart Is," for David Lynch he was "Jingle" Dell in "Wild at Heart," and most recently, Milos Forman cast him as the droopy-eyed stutterer Arlo in "The People Vs. Larry Flynt."

And in his real life, Glover is no less, uh, out there. His 1987 appearance on "David Letterman," where his kick-boxing demonstration nearly cost Dave an ear and got him booted from the show during a commercial, still makes "best-of" reels.

In his spare time when not making a movie (a hefty two dozen in 15 years), he's written four books, recorded an album of both original and cover songs (the most interesting might be a new version of Nancy Sinatra's "These Boots are Made for Walkin' ") and directed his first film, "What Is It," which he describes as "the adventures of a young man whose principal interests are snails, salt, a pipe and how to get home."

When cornered at the Doubletree, Glover is preparing for a screening of "What Is It," to be included in the show he has taken around the country: "Crispin Hellion Glover's Big Slide Show." (Hellion, no kidding, is his real middle name. "My father's name was Herbert and he didn't like it.") Accounts of said slide show report it to be more like performance art, with graphic illustrations of child birth, silly random pieces of Victorian novels, even slides from ancient technical manuals, a full-on brain tweak.

But Glover rebuffs the notion. "I don't consider it performance art at all. It's a slide show."

No, a slide show is something you see at your uncle's house, depicting a trip to the Grand Canyon.

"Yes, it really is just like that," he insists, but somehow I doubt that. Glover's mannerisms are those of an overly nervous young egghead. He answers questions politely, but is clearly pained in having to discuss himself.

I venture: "The word eccentric . . . "

"Yes?"

"Has often been used . . . "

"Uh-huh, yes?"

"In conjunction with both your performances and you as a person . . . "

"Has it? But when you consider that "eccentric' is a mathematical term that denotes something or someone that does not cleave to a straight line, then I guess that's not a bad thing."

Glover, an only child whose parents were both in show business, attended a school for exceptionally bright children in L.A. His first paid acting job was in San Francisco, at the Orpheum Theatre, when he was just 14.

"I was was one of the Von Trapp kids in "The Sound of Music' and Florence Henderson was my mom. I couldn't sing very well but the other kids could."

Glover skipped college when the movie roles starting rolling in, but kept his other creative juices flowing. The slide show idea was conceived at a film festival in Canada a year or so ago, where they did a retrospective of his work. "It seemed like a good venue to try it out. People liked it and I've been doing it ever since."

The only time out he's taken in the last two years from making "What Is It" and doing the slide show was when Forman asked him to be in "Larry Flynt." "I mean, how could I say no?"

Glover thinks the ensuing brou-haha around the acclaimed film is much ado about nothing. "The idea of saying you shouldn't make a movie about anyone is wrong."

He also dismissed the notion that his own film is disturbing. "Oh, I don't think anyone will be offended. And I have heard people laughing, which is fine."

He's hoping to tour dozens more cities before the year is up, assuming the vice squads don't shut him down. As I suspected, Glover's show is provocative to the max.

The Wednesday night audience at The Edge, made up primarily of Stanford bohemes, is completely unprepared for what they are about to see. Chanting Glover's name (he is, after all, a cult hero among the young), they cheer when his silhouette appears on the screen, to announce his film.

Then, the first scene: featuring young people with Down's Syndrome being sexually intimate; there are also scenes with naked women in elephant masks, Shirley Temple as a Nazi, Glover being lowered deus-ex-machina style, into a Maxfield Parrish scene, and so on. It's like Fellini on psychedelics, wildly creative but completely twisted.

A quick glance at the shocked and bemused faces in the room tells me Glover was pulling a fast one on me, on us all. But there was also laughter; he predicted that as well.