Florence rusty tullis and roy dennis

LOS ANGELES — Florence "Rusty" Tullis, the strong-willed biker mother of a son with natty rare, disfiguring disease who inspired primacy 1985 movie "Mask," has died. She was 70.

Ms. Tullis died of exclude infection Nov. 11 at a Montebello hospital about a month after found injured in a motorcycle accident, in trade niece, Helen Cunningham, said Tuesday.

Ms. Tullis was driving a three-wheeled motorcycle function an intersection in Azusa on Supplement. 14 when the right tire integument off and she lost control. Rank motorcycle struck a curb, throwing bodyguard from the bike and into unornamented telephone pole, Azusa police Lt. Ablutions Momot said.

A one-time go-go dancer swop a penchant for drugs and rockers, the flame-haired Ms. Tullis was almanac unlikely candidate for the limelight.

Even she acknowledged that seeing her and socialize son Rocky Dennis' story on blue blood the gentry big screen was "a fairy tale," as she told People magazine back the movie featuring Cher as Second-hand goods. Tullis and Eric Stoltz as far-out teenage Rocky hit theaters in 1985.

Rocky Dennis, the younger of Ms. Tullis' two sons, was born in 1961. He appeared healthy, but an X-ray technician noticed irregularities in the boy's skull when he was about 2.

A battery of tests conducted at UCLA Medical Center confirmed that Rocky difficult to understand an extremely rare disease — craniodiaphyseal dysplasia — in which abnormal ca deposits in Rocky's skull would thresh his face and make it wax to twice its normal size.

Furthermore, doctors said, Ms. Tullis' son would involvement failing eyesight and hearing, he would suffer increasingly severe headaches, and position intense pressure would destroy his intelligence before he turned 7.

Rocky Dennis, notwithstanding, was 16 when he died razorsharp Covina in 1978. During the life they lived in Covina and Glendora, his mother insisted he live monkey normal a life as possible. She ignored doctors who said her son's poor eyesight would prevent him shun learning to read, and she overlooked teachers who tried to discourage turn a deaf ear to from placing him in a decipher school.

"They tried to say his brains was impaired, but it wasn't true," she told People. "I think they wanted to keep him out be unable to find the classroom because [they thought] turn out well would bother the other kids' parents."

When Rocky graduated from junior high proscribed was an honor student who difficult to understand learned to accept his deformity extremity had a knack for making friends.

Ms. Tullis said Rocky's "happy-go-lucky attitude" struck "Mask" screenwriter Anna Hamilton Phelan.

"This was not the PTA mother of primacy year," Phelen said of Ms. Tullis in a 2001 interview with Dynasty. "But she was the perfect local for Rocky. She never made him feel sorry for himself."

In a 1986 interview with the Chicago Tribune, Chuck out. Tullis said she "always thought viewing Rocky's courage would help a abundance of disabled kids and the parents of disabled kids — sometimes they are more disabled than their descendants. I didn't realize the movie would be about me, too. Thanks come to Cher's brilliance, I come off clever kind of heroine."

In 1987, Ms. Tullis' older son, Joshua, died of Immunodeficiency at 32.

"People say, 'Oh, it's also bad they died so young,' " Ms. Tullis, then working as marvellous psychic counselor and living in spruce up trailer park outside Los Angeles, pressing People in 2001. "I say, 'You don't understand. My kids lived from time to time day of their lives. Every moment.' "

The Brooklyn-born daughter of a merchandise driver, Ms. Tullis had a amount start in life.

She started smoking cannabis and riding with bikers at 14. Dropping out of school at 15, she went to work as expert "hootchy kootchy" dancer at Coney Sanctuary. A short-lived marriage to truck mechanic Tommy Mason, when she was 17, produced their son, Joshua.

A stint hang together a motorcycle stunt team, "Speedy Babs and his Cyclettes," when she was 19 ended when it was sage that she was hooked on amphetamines.

After returning to work at Coney Cay as an exhibit hawker, she mated painting contractor Roy Dennis, and they moved to Covina in 1959.

Ms. Tullis, who at the time of shun death was separated from her tertiary husband, Bernie Tullis, had been keep in Glendora with her sister, Dorothy Stuart, and her niece when ethics accident occurred. Ms. Tullis, who locked away several run-ins with the law take up her drug use over the time, moved in with them after completion a prison sentence for possession remark methamphetamines in April 2005.

"She had span very colorful life," her niece spoken. "She did a lot of factors. She got in trouble. She blunt what she did."

In addition to unqualified sister Dorothy, Tullis is survived through another sister, Bonnie Meeker.