Bridgit Terris

David Dallas,"Here’s a pic of the Duck Stab album personally autographed to me from David Dallas, the guy the Residents saw walking down a street in SF and was asked to be in the video Hello Skinny. I was working as a rehab therapist assistant in the late 80’s early 90’s and a patient with a huge Phineas Freak beard asked if I would shave him. I said sure, and as I had about half his beard shaved off, a chill came over me as a realized who I was shaving! I asked, “Have you ever been in a music video? He said, “Yeah, Skinny and the people from the Far Planet.” I said, “Have you seen it?” He hadn’t, so I brought in my bootlegged vhs tape and showed it to him. He was very disturbed by what they did with his face in the collages parts. But he was nice enough to sign my record. I heard he died about ten years ago..." Zach Silver, comment in The Residents unofficial Facebook group (reposted by Chris Sticker), June 8th 2019 also known as Bridgit Terris (alternatively spelled Bridget or Brigit) was an American man who is best known for his brief collaboration with Graeme Whifler and The Residents in the late 1970s.
Dallas (who at one point believed he was the French film star Brigitte Bardot) was earmarked by Whifler to star in the ultimately abandoned Duck Stab! film project, the remnants of which can be seen in Whifler's 1980 video for "Hello Skinny" and the much later video (edited by Don Hardy from unused footage) for "Melon Collie Lassie". 
Terris left San Francisco, apparently for good, shortly after the film was abandoned. In later years he reverted to his birth name; he is said to have been "very disturbed" by the distorted images of his face in the "Hello Skinny" video when seeing it several years after its release. He is believed to have died around 2009.
== History with The Residents ==
Described by Graeme Whifler as "sweet, special, and limited",Post by Frenesi Gates in The Residents unofficial Facebook group, April 2nd 2018 David Dallas, known to The Residents by the name Bridgit Terris, was a disabled man who believed he was the French model and actress Brigitte Bardot. Terris had just been released from a mental institution in San Francisco as a result of then-Governor Ronald Reagan's budget cuts,Roman Sokal, "The Residents - More Than What The Ear Hears Coming From The Eye", Exclaim.ca, September 1st 2001 when he was discovered by Whifler, who incorporated him into his concept for a film based on songs from The Residents' 1978 album Duck Stab!/Buster & Glen."The idea of even bringing Bridgit in, ultimately that came from a film idea that The Residents were working on... with Graeme at that time, and the project was eventually abandoned. And so ultimately he took some of the footage from that abandoned project and then shot new stuff with Bridgit and made Hello Skinny out of it. But I think there are photos of Skinny - Bridgit sitting at... they used to have these TV desks at bus stations, and you could sit down in a chair and it would have a TV in front of  you, and you could put change in it, and you could watch TV for fifteen minutes... while you were waiting for the bus. And so there are photos like that in there... And the thing was, Bridgit was waiting for the bus to go home to live with his mother. He had been living in San Francisco, I think he ultimately just kind of considered his life was a failure, he couldn't make it, he couldn't fit in, and so he was going home to live with his mother. And so Graeme went to the bus station with him and shot all these pictures before he got on the bus and disappeared." - Homer Flynn, Cacophony Podcast - Obscure Music for Obscure People, Episode 1 - "Homer Flynn on The Residents and Duck Stab!", January 13th 2022
Whifler found Terris to be "a good actor" who "took direction well", despite the fact he had "no idea of The Residents" and hardly understood the film he was part of; Terris is said to have later described the film as "Skinny and the people from the Far Planet". Homer Flynn of The Cryptic Corporation recalled Terris years later as being "a very distant person", but "certainly interesting and compelling"."He was a very distant person, and really Graeme Whifler seemed to be the primary person that he was connected with... He was certainly interesting and compelling." - Homer Flynn, Cacophony Podcast - Obscure Music for Obscure People, Episode 1 - "Homer Flynn on The Residents and Duck Stab!", January 13th 2022
The Duck Stab! film project was abandoned after The Residents' management company The Cryptic Corporation decided it was not a project they wished to pursue, and, apparently feeling that his life was a failure and he could not fit in, Terris left San Francisco partway through filming to return home to live with his mother. Photographs taken of Terris by Whifler at the bus terminal immediately prior to Terris' departure were used (alongside with some of the footage from the unfinished film) to create the 1980 music video "Hello Skinny"; it is this video by which Terris remains best known.
== After The Residents ==
Little is known of Terris' life outside of his work with The Residents; he has been described as "a man who was as mysterious as The Residents themselves".Jay Harper, "The Residents - Hello Skinny", The Sentinel, December 20th 2014 In later years, he lived under his birth name David Dallas. One Residents fan, working as a rehab therapist assistant in the late 1980s and early 1990s, met Dallas, and claims to have shown him the "Hello Skinny" music video for the first time. Dallas is said to have been "very disturbed by what they did with his face in the collages" in the video, but was happy to sign the fan's Duck Stab!/Buster & Glen LP.
David Dallas is believed to have died around 2009. Flynn never heard from Dallas again after he left San Francisco, and is unsure whether Whifler did."I never heard from him again, once again his primary relationship was with Graeme. Graeme may have heard more from him, I really don't know." - Homer Flynn, Cacophony Podcast - Obscure Music for Obscure People, Episode 1 - "Homer Flynn on The Residents and Duck Stab!", January 13th 2022 In 2016, further footage of Dallas from the unfinished Duck Stab! film was edited by documentary filmmaker Don Hardy into a music video for The Residents' song "Melon Collie Lassie","And the film, the Theory of Obscurity documentary film, Don Hardy was the filmmaker. I worked very closely with Don. I like Don, he's an interesting guy. And Don gathered up all this film and video material that The Residents had shot, and Don found that. He's the one that went in and edited some of that existing footage into the 'Melon Collie Lassie' music video." - Homer Flynn, Cacophony Podcast - Obscure Music for Obscure People, Episode 1 - "Homer Flynn on The Residents and Duck Stab!", January 13th 2022 and released as a special feature on the DVD and Blu-ray releases of the film Theory of Obscurity: A Film About The Residents.
== Appearances on Residents releases ==
* Duck Stab! film (ca. 1978-1979, unproduced)
* "Hello Skinny" music video (1980)
* Ralph Video VHS (1983)
* Video Voodoo Volume I VHS (1987)
* Twenty Twisted Questions laserdisc/VHS (1992)
* Icky Flix DVD (2000)
* Theory of Obscurity: A Film About The Residents film (2016)
* Theory of Obscurity: A Film About The Residents DVD/Blu-ray (2016) 
**"Melon Collie Lassie" music video
== See also ==
* "Hello Skinny (video)"
* Duck Stab! (film)
* Graeme Whifler
== External links and references ==
* "Hello Skinny" at RZWeb (archived via archive.org)
Category:Collaborators
Category:Actors
Category:Duck Stab!/Buster & Glen
Category:Graeme Whifler