Breckinridge's previous stage experience convinced Wood to cast him as the alien ruler who oversees an attempt to take over the Earth using an army of reanimated corpses.

Dressed in a pajama-like outfit which is curiously less ornate than those worn by his underlings, he sports very visible mascara and lipstick, and constantly rolls his eyes and mugs for the camera.

In 1994, Breckinridge was surprised to find himself portrayed as a character in a major motion picture, played by Bill Murray in Tim Burton's 1994 biopic Ed Wood.

In 1959, shortly after Plan 9 From Outer Space's disappointing DCA release, Breckinridge was convicted on ten counts of sex perversion for taking two underage boys on an excursion to Las Vegas.

[3] Upon his release, he returned to his San Francisco home, a Spanish-style bungalow adorned with gold framed photographs of the many celebrities he met and befriended, including Princess Margaret, Noël Coward, J. Edgar Hoover, Elvis Presley, and Ed Sullivan.

Breckinridge frequently opened his home to members of the growing hippie movement, who were enthralled not only by his stories of his flamboyant youth, but also his favorable opinions on free love and his encyclopedic knowledge of both gay history and the lives of closeted Hollywood stars.

Shortly thereafter, a San Francisco judge scuttled his Denmark trip by ordering him into court for failing to make good on an earlier agreement to pay $8,500 a year to support his elderly, blind mother in England.