THE transgender American actress Holly Woodlawn, whose death aged 69 was reported on Monday, was one of the curious assembly of oddball characters I chanced upon during my journalistic career.

Others in the category include the falsetto singer (and compulsive hair-washer) Tiny Tim and the Singing Postman, Alan Smethurst, who went on to become quite a pal.

My meeting with Holly – who was, of course, immortalised in Lou Reed’s Walk on the Wild Side – occurred when she was shipped in as a guest at Oxford’s annual film festival in the late 1970s.

Holly had by then enjoyed her brief moment of stardom in Andy Warhol’s Trash (and very good she was too).

The festival organiser, Balliol College student Phillip Bergson, had something of a gift for attracting personalities.

Other guests at the festival party in Trinity College included the film legend Joseph Cotten, a star of Citizen Kane, who arrived with his actress wife Patricia Medina.

I was introduced to Holly and Cotten at the same time, an unlikely duo it has to be said, and the three-way conversation that ensued was one of the most unusual of my career.

Holly, I recall, was eager to see the sights of Oxford, with me as her guide. Alas, it was necessary for me to plead a long-planned engagement, thereby missing out on my own walk on the wild side.

Of Cotten I remember, first, his impeccable manners and, second, the suspenders holding up the black silk stockings observable above his patent leather evening shoes.

Collectors of trivia will probably know that despite its somewhat risqué lyrics Walk on the Wild Side escaped what would certainly have been a BBC ban.

This was because nobody at the Corporation recognised a reference to oral sex. The expression used was not widely known outside America at the time.