Lost Actor Found: Kristen Riter from STUDENT BODIES (1981)

"Whatever happened to Kristen Riter?" I often wonder.

Well, not that often. But every few years, I revisit her sole starring vehicle—that inimitable slasher-spoof tour de force, Student Bodies (1981). Riter starred as Toby Badger, the virginal and resourceful Final Girl, out to defeat a heavy breathing maniac who's using paper clips and chalk board erasers to murder her slutty friends. I said the flick was inimitable, I didn't say it was particularly sophisticated.

Kristen Riter (front and center)
STUDENT BODIES (1981)

Produced by Paramount Pictures and slow-rolled onto an unsuspecting public in August 1981, Student Bodies had the distinction of being the first studio-released comedy to lampoon the then-burgeoning slasher movie boom—beating similarly themed horror parodies Pandemonium (1982), Wacko (1982), and National Lampoon's Class Reunion (1982) to screens by at least a few months. Unfortunately, "the world's first comedy horror movie" was not a critical hit. "Student Bodies just slowly topples over as you watch it, like a stand-up comedian in the act of failing," enthused the New York Times. "There are about three minutes of effective material over the course of the 86-minute running time," raved Variety. The Los Angeles Times was only slightly kinder: "The film has some very funny moments, but it is definitely not another Airplane!" Tough crowd.

STUDENT BODIES (1981) Starts Today!

Although nowhere near a Friday the 13th (1980)-level box office success on its original run—only grossing in the realm of straight-faced "dead teenager" classics as He Knows You're Alone (1981) and My Bloody Valentine (1981)—Student Bodies subsequently made like a drunk uncle and pigheadedly refused to leave cable and network TV for decades. Initially premiering on HBO, it later became a fixture on the USA Network—and then screened endlessly on Commander USA's Groovie Movies, Saturday Nightmares, and everyone's favorite USA Up All Night. I must've stumbled across it twice a week during my formative years. It literally crawled into my subconscious and died—so now it's one of those movies that makes me go, "Oh, so THAT'S where I stole that joke from!" I'm not ashamed, though; it's got something of a pedigree.

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Student Bodies was scripted and (at least mostly) directed by late veteran funnyman Mickey Rose (1935-2013), a frequent collaborator with Bananas-era Woody Allen. Rose also had a long career penning gags for the likes of Dean Martin, the Smothers Brothers, and Johnny Carson while also finding time to helm this proto-Scary Movie masterpiece of sex-and-flatulence humor. While Student Bodies is ostensibly just a juvenile potboiler aimed at 1980's teenage audiences, it does boast a potent, laugh-out-loud combo of the sort of punch-drunk, go-for-broke vaudeville anarchy you'd find in What's Up, Tiger Lily (1968) mixed with decidedly low-brow (but still hilarious) Borscht Belt crassness. For instance, Student Bodies isn't afraid to abruptly break the Fourth Wall to have the "executive producer" toss in a expertly timed "Fuck You" specifically to secure a more lucrative R rating—but then it'll devote an entire sequence to an extended gag about dead bodies farting. My five year-old self loved Student Bodies, as does my 44 year-old self. I blame Mickey Rose (may peace be upon him).

So why all the mystery?

For a studio production that should be entirely un-mysterious, there's a baffling amount of conflicting information regarding Student Bodies. Mickey Rose was listed as sole director in Paramount's press kit, but the film itself bears the infamous Alan Smithee pseudonym—reserved for members of the Director's Guild of America (DGA) who wish to disown a project. Some say it was actually co-directed by the late Michael Ritchie (1938-2001), who'd previously helmed the beauty pageant satire, Smile (1975), as well as the classic sports comedy, The Bad News Bears (1976).

Then there's the urban legend of which Jewish comic voiced the film's killer. Credited on-screen as "Richard Brando," official word is that "The Breather" was played by the film's late producer-turned-Emmy-winning writer Jerry Belson (1938-2006). However, there are those who firmly cling to hope that the perpetually kvetching, off-screen jokemeister we hear throughout the film was actually voiced by none other than legendary stand-up comedian-turned-Law and Order: SVU-cast member Richard Belzer (!!!). I desperately want to believe that too, but according to filmmaker Quincy Rose—Mickey Rose's son—it's simply not true.

Quincy Rose:

[The Breather] was, in fact, played by one of the producers of the film, Jerry Belson. No one is quite sure how the Richard Belzer rumor came about, but ever since IMDB said it was him, it's spread like wildfire.

Diehard extremists will even go so far as to argue that Belzer himself "confirmed" it in an interview with the online entertainment website The A.V. Club. 

Richard Belzer (the alleged "Breather):

I forgot doing that, frankly. I don’t deny it. I’ve heard it, and it certainly is my voice on the phone. I swear I don’t remember doing that. [Laughs.] Was that from the ’70s? ... Yeah, yeah, yeah. I vaguely remember that. I must have been highly medicated.

As far as Student Bodies goes, I'm team Jerry Belson. I would take a bullet for Richard Belzer, but he was so famously drug-addled during this era, you could ask the guy if he was "Flo" on Alice and he'd be hard-pressed to deny it.

To compound the mystery, the creative team behind the film has mostly passed on—and at least 90% of the cast never appeared in another film.

The enigmatic, non-union beauties of STUDENT BODIES (1981)

Student Bodies was produced during the 1981 Writers Guild of America Strike, so as not to offend Teamsters, Paramount "off-shored" the project to the right-to-work state of Texas—and cast it floor-to-ceiling with regional unknowns. Yet despite having a widely released film under their belt, almost none of principals ever acted again. Sure, a couple of 'em moved out to Hollywood and tried their hand as background extras. One became a soap star. One was even the subject of her own award-winning arthouse documentary. But most of the actors were, and remain, enigmas wrapped in riddles.

"Would you trust a girl who looks like Prince Valiant in a plum sweater?"

Which brings me to Toby Badger, the Laurie Strode-esque heroine, whom The Breather refers to at one point as "Prince Valiant in a plum sweater." In Student Bodies' only somewhat-positive contemporaneous review, The Washington Post noted that she's "played with charming deadpan sincerity by Kristen Riter, who actually succeeds in giving the scattershot material a character to rally around." Indeed, Riter does very capably carry the film—and even flexes some comedic chops in the last act, when she goes ludicrously unrecognized at her senior prom while incognito to catch the killer.

So what the hell happened to Kristen Riter?

After Student Bodies, Riter peaced out on Movieland, never to grace film or TV again—and like her magnum opus, the secretive Riter has, too, been the subject of much internet speculation. Who Is She? Who Was She? Who Does She Hope To Be?

Well, I'm here to answer those questions in the most hackneyed, Lifetime Movie-ish way possible because Ms. Riter didn't grant me an interview. So, in time-honored tradition, I'll just use whatever public and semi-public knowledge there is about this perplexingly obscure actress/rockstar (yes, you heard me right) to construct an unabashedly unauthorized, conjecture-laden biography/career timeline. Then I'll reveal where she is today. I'm nothing if not the Ulli Lommel of cult film bloggers. 

Freshman, Sophomore, Junior...and then she mysteriously disappeared.

Born and raised in sunny Arizona, budding ingénue Kristen Sue Riter enrolled in the illustrious Thunderbird High School of Northern Phoenix, and did the drama/singing thing until her junior year. Then she mysteriously disappeared. If she dropped out to make Student Bodies, that could possibly make her the only high school senior in the history of teen exploitation to be portrayed by an actual high school senior. And for that, she should be proud.

I can confirm that she's entirely absent from (what would've been) her senior yearbook. I did find this layout, however, illustrating "student life" the year she vanished. Abandoning your suburban alma mater to headline a Paramount picture is always a difficult decision—especially when you're walking out on all this. Check out Ron Jeremy posing as a student. 

Had Riter graduated with her class, her portrait would've been squashed between these two jabronis. 

Word on the street is, Riter booked a few nationally televised commercials, post-Student Bodies. I couldn't locate any, but I did find her in this very sweet, very soothingly scored infomercial for Personal Color Analysis. Color analysis is a cosmetic science used to determine your best pigments (for clothing, make-up, etc.) based on your hair and skin tone. Are you a warm or a cool? An autumn or a summer? That sort of thing. 

Then came Kristen Riter's much ballyhooed turn as a dancing cheerleader in that celebrated fixture of early-MTV, The J. Geils Band "Centerfold" video! 

The cheerleader on the far left is not Kristen Riter

Or not? According to author and blogger Marc Tyler Nobleman—a dedicated sleuth who's made quite the auxiliary career tracking down and interviewing cute girls who appeared in 80's music videos—the dancing cheerleader who looks like Kristen Riter is, in fact, not Kristen Riter. 

Sadly, it's just a web rumor dating back to the 90's, when it was easier to publish half-baked guesswork on the internet. What's funny is, the Wikipedia page for Student Bodies informs us that Riter's "resemblance to MTV's Martha Quinn led to an urban legend that the VJ was in the video."

She's not Kristen Riter or Martha Quinn

So, who the hell is this mystery girl? She's the only human being alive who's been mistaken for both Martha Quinn and Kristen Riter. Get in touch with us! According to a comment left on Nobleman's blog, Centerfold was a Northeastern production.

Bee Eph (not his real name):

Centerfold was cast in Boston. Several of the girls were Emerson College students. One in particular was good friends with Cheap Trick. 

The Centerfold clip took MTV by storm six months after Student Bodies was released. Some nerd probably saw her on the big screen, and then heard the song, and suddenly his baby was a centerfold of sorts. As for the internet rumor, I'm sure he sat on that notion for 15 years until the world wide web was invented—and then went off in some IRC chat or something. Don't look at me—I was just a kid, and when I share feeble suppositions online, I claim it. 

In reality, times were very tough for Kristen during this era. According to a blogger who goes by Cuddly Cooper, Riter found that continued success wasn't very forthcoming. 

Cuddly Cooper: 

I wrote Kristen Riter in the early 2000s. She was reluctant to do an online interview but she told me a few background stories about Student Bodies. She found it difficult to find acting work, and lost out to Helen Hunt on a TV series (but didn't say which one).

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My guess is, the series in question must've been "It Takes Two" (1982-1983), a short-lived ABC sitcom created by Susan Harris that starred "comic superstars" Richard Crenna and Patty Duke as a workaholic couple (one a liberal doctor, the other a conservative lawyer) arguing about politics while their aspiring rockstar son (Anthony Edwards) and smart-alecky daughter (Helen Hunt) bitch about school and peer pressure. Tragically, "It Takes Two" was cancelled after only 22 episodes—and is now seemingly remembered only for having introduced the iconic kitchen set from "The Golden Girls" (1985-1992) years before Blanche, Dorothy, Rose, and Sophia moved in. 

Alternate Universe still from "It Takes Two" (1982-1983)

Riter potentially lost a career opportunity to trade topical bon mots with Patty Duke in the The Golden Girls kitchen, so naturally she was thoroughly disillusioned with the showbiz game. So what grim Hollywood cliché befell her after that? Porn? Reality TV? Murder for hire? Did she relocate to the Pacific Northwest and reinvent herself as a corporate drone/bartender/filmmaker who curates an infrequently updated blog of questionable credibility? Nope. She moved to Europe and became a rock star. 

Here's a video from 1988 of Wedding, Riter's Munich-based rock band, performing their hit single "Momentary Pleasure." Dang—Toby Badger has a set of pipes. Unfortunately, I couldn't find out much about this Teutonic music group of yore. Bassist Erich Hager seems to be solely keeping the memory alive, and never misses an opportunity to lament what a "waste of talent" it is that lead vocalist Riter later quit the band to raise children, move to Spain, and teach music. 

It would stand to reason that Kristen Riter was a Grade-A heartbreaker who apparently left more bodies in her wake than The Breather from Student Bodies. First she bailed on Arizona and all those hot desert boys, then she kissed the glitz-and-glamor of Hollywood goodbye, and now we find out this German dude still misses her. At some point during her European rockstar era, Riter also collaborated with the electronic band Popol Vuh to contribute vocals to their soundtrack for the Werner Herzog film Cobra Verde (1987). They're probably still upset that she's gone, too. By the way, someone should ask Werner why he didn't cast Riter to go head-to-head with Klaus Kinski in an intensely problematic romantic comedy. They say the guy's a genius, but he sure dropped that ball.

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Where the hell is Kristen Riter today?

As it turns out, she's hiding in plain sight—living in Northern California and teaching music at the School of Rock in San Ramon. Although previously shy about her association with Student Bodies, she now openly acknowledges it (at least, she does on her teacher bio). 

If I still lived in the San Francisco Bay Area and had more disposable income (which I never would if I still lived in the Bay Area), I'd have her teach me to sing. I presently have no musical ability whatsoever, but I've always wanted to cover the Marilyn Chambers classic "Shame on You" and I feel like Toby Badger could really make that happen. She wouldn't even have to answer too many questions about Student Bodies. 

Maybe just as a reward system? Like, if I hit a particular note, then she tells me about the time she got high with Mimi Weddell in the janitor's closet.