Mr. Kramer shared some details of his casting session.
“Personally, I thought the question was a sign of my coming as a bona fide member of the rock and roll community,” he said. “A real career milestone! Unfortunately, on the night of my casting, Cynthia was ‘short handed’” – that is, the assistant whose job it was to make sure the penises were erect was not there.
“Timing was crucial, and on this night it all fell apart,” said Mr. Kramer. “I was left to try to achieve my full manhood on my own, and I failed miserably. My finished cast ended up being a small plaster cast, just a shell of what could have been. I think it’s one of the funniest of the collection, just like so many others. Anyway, I’m proud to be there.”
Cynthia Dorothy Albritton was born on May 24, 1947 in Chicago. Her father, Edward, was a postal worker and her mother, Dorothy (Wysocki) Albritton, was a secretary. For decades, Ms. Albritton refused to give her last name in interviews because she didn’t want her mother to know what she was up to.
She grew up in Chicago, a major stop on the circuit for touring rock bands major and minor. She was especially attracted to the British bands, she said – “cute British guys with long hair and tight pants.” Pamela Des Berres wrote in her 1987 memoir, “I’m With the Band: Confessions of a Groupie,” that Ms. Albritton seemed an unlikely person to unzip zippers.
“She was painfully shy,” she wrote, “and I couldn’t imagine her with the alginate and plaster buried in Eric Burdon’s crotch area, but I saw the casts for myself and was stunned by the artistry involved. “
Ms. Albritton said in a 2005 interview with The Sunday Age of Melbourne, Australia, that Mr. Zappa was crucial.
