Reg Bundy

Reg Bundy aka HIH Regina Fong born 26 May 1945 (d. 2003)

Reginald Sutherland Bundy was a British dancer, actor and television presenter best-known for his drag as HIH (Her Imperial Highness) Regina Fong.

Reginald Bundy was originally trained as a dancer. He worked on numerous West End shows as a dresser and eventually in the 1970s became a dancer in a variety of stage musicals. He also appeared in a dancing role in Bryan Forbes' film The Slipper and the Rose (1976).

In the early 1980s he teamed up with Rosie Lee (Roy Powell) & Gracie Grab it all (Graham) to form the now legendary drag trio The Disappointer Sisters, who performed across the London pubs and clubs.

Bundy first developed Regina Fong in 1985, and quickly achieved a regular spot at the Black Cap gay pub in Camden Town, London and also the Royal Vauxhall Tavern. The Fong character was a Russian princess who had escaped to Britain following the Russian Revolution, a conceit which formed the basis of Bundy's show The Last of the Romanoffs, which premiered at the Edinburgh Festival and later ran at the Bloomsbury Theatre in London - 'Her Imperial Highness was born to the Imperial Russian family of Saint Petersburg in 1905, but was almost immediately hidden away on the orders of the Czar due to her startling mane of red hair.'

Regina's stage act entailed audience participation, and used a variety of songs, jingles, and sound effects, and was one of the regular hosts of London’s Lesbian and Gay Pride Festival.

Bundy appeared in the Edinburgh and London productions of playwright Neil Bartlett's A Vision of Love Revealed in Sleep and Night After Night, and also appeared in the BBC Radio Four adaptation of Night After Night.

His act, alongside that of other true originals, and close friends, like Lily Savage and Adrella, was instrumental in the rehabilitation of drag as a significant part of gay culture, where once it had been banished to the non-PC margins by critics who deemed it as irretrievably misogynist.

In 1993, Reg Bundy appeared at the Criterion Theatre in London alongside Kim Criswell, James Dreyfus, Sean Mathias, and Simon Fanshawe, in Elegies for Angels, Punks and Raging Queens, a verse and musical celebration of lives lost to AIDS.

Throughout his career, he devoted endless evenings to hosting charity events to raise money for emerging AIDS charities.

And perhaps one of the greatest measures of his ability came when, alongside the likes of Ian McKellen, Stephen Fry and other luminaries, he showed he was easily able to hold the attention of the audience in the vast auditorium of the Albert Hall at the annual Equality Show to raise funds for the lesbian and gay campaigning organisation Stonewall.

Reg Bundy - and HIH Regina Fong, the last of the Romanoffs - died of cancer on 15 April 2003, aged 56.

Jackie Curtis

Jackie Curtis born 19 February 1947 (d. 1985)

John Holder Jr, better known as Jackie Curtis, was a famous transgendered film star, poet and playwright.

Curtis was born in New York City, and later died there of a drug overdose. He spent part of his life living and performing as a man (sometimes adopting a James Dean persona) and sometimes as a woman.

While living and performing in drag, she would typically wear lipstick, glitter around the eyes and in her frizzed-out red hair, and a dress, frequently ripped and torn, as were her stockings. This unique style, a combination of trash and glamour which Curtis pioneered in the late 1960s when frequenting such high profile nightclubs as Max's Kansas City, has prompted assertions that Jackie inspired the Glam Rock persona of the 1970s.

'Jackie Curtis is not a drag queen. Jackie is an artist. A pioneer without a frontier,' Andy Warhol said of his associate. Primarily a stage actor, Curtis debuted at the age of 17 in Tom Eyen's play Miss Neferititi Regrets. Curtis began to write his own plays immediately after this experience, often featuring famous transsexuals, such as his friend Candy Darling and, later, Holly Woodlawn, both of whom appeared in his productions which enjoyed successful runs Off-Off-Broadway and were well-reviewed in New York. Curtis's work is representative of the Theatre of the Ridiculous.

As writer and lead actress some of her plays include: Glamour, Glory and Gold, which also starred Candy Darling and Melba LaRose Jr; Amerika Cleopatra which featured Harvey Fierstein; Femme Fatale, with Patti Smith, Jayne County (at that time billed as Wayne County) and Penny Arcade; and Heaven Grand In Amber Orbit with Holly Woodlawn, produced by John Vaccaro's Playhouse of the Ridiculous in 1970.

These plays caught the attention of Andy Warhol and his director Paul Morrissey, who cast Jackie and Candy in Flesh (1968) and, with the addition of Holly Woodlawn, in Women in Revolt (1971); a hilarious spoof of the women's liberation movement in which all the female leads are played by transsexuals and transvestites. Warhol films directed by Morrissey were made in a completely improvised. Morrissey gave the actors the basic idea of the scene and line suggestions and then simply let the camera roll.



Apart from acting, Curtis also showed talent in poetry and singing. In 1974 Curtis and Woodlawn appeared in the successful and critically acclaimed Cabaret in the Sky at the New York Cultural Center. A CD of songs by Paul Serrato from the Curtis musicals Lucky Wonderful and Vain Victory, including the love ballad Who Are You which Curtis sang (as a man) to Candy Darling, was released in 2004.

Curtis was also the 'Jackie' in Lou Reed's song Walk On The Wild Side, which was about the 'superstars' Reed knew from Andy Warhol's studio The Factory. The verse speaks of his drug addiction and fascination with James Dean: '...Jackie is just speeding away - Thought she was James Dean for a day... then she just had to crash, valium would have helped that bash...'

Jackie Curtis made two more movies during the 1980s. Drug addiction, however, had taken control of Curtis's life, eventually leading to his death.

In 2004, a film based on Curtis's life, Superstar in a Housedress, brought Jackie Curtis back to the limelight, exposing some little known facts about the performer to the public.

Curtis's influence on a number of people, friends and associates such as Holly Woodlawn, Joe Dallesandro and Penny Arcade, and observers such as David Bowie, is noted in the film. As well, Jayne County writes of Jackie as being '...the biggest influence on me at this time.' Whether her influence was in the realm of style, with her use of glitter that predated the glam rockers, or her ripped and torn dresses and stockings that predated punk, employing the use of performance both on and off stage and screen; or in the more traditional arts of playwriting and poetry, both attest to her critique of glamour, fame and pop culture in America that she explored in several mediums. However, it was perhaps her bravery in gender transgressions that is Jackie Curtis's legacy.

Bert Savoy

Bert Savoy born 7 January 1880* (d. 1923)

Bert Savoy was an influential early American drag performer.

Bert Savoy - born Everett McKenzie - began his drag act 'doing a hootchie-kootchie dance at freak shows in Boston and polished it in the wilds of Alaska'. He nearly hit the big time in 1914 while understudying for James Russell of the Russell Brothers (known for their 'bitch' act: a pair of Irish servant girls) in Maids to Order when Russell dropped dead.

Savoy found greater success in 1915 when he begun a partnership as comedic partner to 'straight man', Jay Brennan (allegedly after Savoy had picked up Brennan on a streetcar). The team was a huge success; they headlined in the Ziegfeld Follies of 1918. Savoy & Brennan are pictured left.

Savoy was one of the first of such acts to clearly be associated in the minds of the viewing audience as being overtly homosexual in theme and content. Most other female impersonators of the day, such as the international sensation, Julian Eltinge, went to great lengths to let you know that they were engaged in painstaking artifice. Eltinge's career was accompanied by a pull out the stops public relations effort to show him in any number of traditional 'virile male' activities, when off stage.

Although drag had always been a main staple of vaudeville, it was not really performed as or perceived as 'gay' until the appearance of Savoy, who was pure camp on and off the stage. The two routines which gave rise to Savoy's catchphrases 'You Don't Know The Half Of It, Dearie' and 'You Mussst Come Over' were preserved for posterity on a rare 1923 Vocalion recording made shortly before Savoy's untimely demise.

The story of Bert Savoy's death is legendary and, by all accounts, absolutely true: on June 26, 1923 Savoy, his half-brother and two friends were walking along the shore at Long Beach watching an upcoming storm when a thunderclap prompted Savoy to squeal, 'Ain't Miss God cuttin' up somethin' awful?' or something similar. He was immediately struck dead by a bolt of lightning. How camp is that? In fact, the lighting focused on a bath house locker key around Savoy's neck. One friend, whose hand was resting on Savoy's shouder, was also killed and the other left paralysed. His half-brother survived.

Brennan continued the act quite successfully for a while with Stanley Rogers, owing much to the fact that Rogers copied Savoy's mannerisms and catchphrases to a tee. Brennan later became a scriptwriter in the movies and died in 1961 at the age of 78.

Mae West is alleged to have based much of her act on Bert Savoy.

Bert Savoy at Queer Music Heritage

*Musicals101.com list his birthdate as 1876 but most sources agree on 1880.

Ray Bourbon

Ray Bourbon born 11 August 1892 (d. 1971)

If a good deal of mystery surrounds the life and career of Ray Bourbon so many years after his death in 1971, it is probably due to the fact that Bourbon excelled at generating numerous conflicting stories about himself.

He claimed, at various times, to have been born Hal Wadell in Texarkana, TX in 1892, Ramon Icarez in or near Chihuahua, TX in 1898, and the son of Franz Joseph of Austria and Louisa Bourbon. Many 'facts' regarding Bourbon's early life­, his claim to birth of Bourbon royalty, his claim to an education at Tulane Medical School in New Orleans, his claim to have been Pancho Villa's notorious 'Señora Diablo'­ are all unsubstantiated and probably products of Bourbon's own active imagination.

He claimed to have begun in the theatre in England in 1913, and this may well be true. He returned to the US by 1917 and, as Rae Bourbon, supposedly won a Photoplay contest and was awarded a studio contract as first prize. He would say later that he worked in several silent films, and it is reported that he appeared under the name Ramon Icarez as a fire dancer at the opening of the Los Angeles Coliseum in 1923.

By the mid-20s, Bourbon was working with Bert Sherry as the vaudeville team of 'Bourbon and Sherry' and later toured with the Martin Sisters. In 1932, he was working full-time as a female impersonator at such clubs as Jimmy's Back Yard in Hollywood and Tait's in San Francisco. (At this last club, in May 1933, his Boys Will Be Girls review was raided by police during a live radio broadcast.)

In the later 30s and early 40s he headlined at the Rendezvous in Los Angeles and starred in his own revue, Don't Call Me Madam. His Insults of 1944, which began at the Playtime Theatre in Los Angeles in January of that year, caught the attention of Mae West during its New York production in May, 1944 at La Vie Parisienne. She cast him in her 1944 production of Catherine Was Great and in her 1948 production of Diamond Lil.

Throughout the 50s and 60s Bourbon entertained at hundreds of clubs throughout the US and released dozens of albums, certainly the most prolific female impersonator to have done the latter. His appearances are still fondly remembered by many who saw him when he toured in big and small towns all over the country, providing many isolated gay men with a glimpse of the loose-knit urban Gay community of the pre-Stonewall era.

Ray’s comedy was, at once, highbrow and lowbrow, overtly gay and covertly subversive. There is evidence that he had relationships with both men and women, was married twice, and fathered at least one son. In his memoirs, Ray discusses his sexual attractions and relationships to both genders with equal enthusiasm, but never called himself gay or bisexual. He worked on stage in and out of drag. Bourbon was probably cashing in on the news of Christine Jorgensen when he claimed to have had a sex change in 1956 (almost certainly not true).

After a once quite successful career, by the late 1960s Bourbon had fallen on hard times. In 1968, Bourbon was barely eking out a living, travelling through Texas and working at the Jewel Box Revue in Kansas City. During this time he was implicated in the murder of the owner of a Dog Kennel where Bourbon had lodged a collection of some 70 dogs. The circumstances alone beg many questions, but Bourbon was convicted as the mastermind of the killing along with two conspirators. The 78-year-old Bourbon was given a 99-year sentence. He died a short time later, on January 19, 1971 in the Howard County Texas prison, while penning his unfinished memoirs Daddy Was a Lady.

Don't Call Me Madam - The Life and Work of Ray Bourbon

Danny La Rue

Danny La Rue born 25 July 1927 (d. 2009)

Born Daniel Patrick Carroll in County Cork, Eire, young Danny followed in his father's footsteps and served in the Royal Navy, but his career was to take a quite different direction. As Danny La Rue, he became probably the most famous female impersonator in the UK - or 'comic in a frock' - of the 20th century. Danny's very successful career extended to theatre, film, TV and records. He owned his own club at one time, and appeared in the West End in 1982 as Dolly Levi in Hello, Dolly!

At the height of his fame in the 1960s, he was one of Britain's highest paid entertainers, although his impersonations of stars such as Elizabeth Taylor, Zsa Zsa Gabor and Marlene Dietrich were little more than immaculate wig and costume changes. His tastefully bawdy camp humour was the epitome of British comedy. He was made an OBE in 2002.

For many years, Mr La Rue pretended to be a perfectly heterosexual bloke under the wigs, sequins and padding - he would often appear in masculine attire during his shows - but the drag went deeper than that, and as attitudes have changed in recent years, La Rue became more open about being gay. Danny lived for many years with his partner and manager, Jack Hanson, until his death in Australia following a major stroke.

Danny La Rue suffered a mild stroke in 2006 and cancelled all his work commitments, but he issued a statement in tribute to the late-John Inman in March 2007.

In late-2007 La Rue appeared in Spain in a tribute show called Hello Danny in which for the most part he was played by Jerry Lane with a full cast to recreate his early career, with La Rue appearing as himself to perform some songs and for an interview section.

Danny La Rue died on 1 June 2009 after a short illness.

Charles Pierce

Charles Pierce born 14 July 1926 (d. 1999)

You can call me an impersonator, an impressionist, a mimic, or a comic in a dress. But not a drag queen! A drag queen is someone who dresses up and goes to a ball! I'm an entertainer.

Charles Pierce was one of the great female impersonators, famed for his hilarious recreations of the great Hollywood stars such as Mae West, Tallulah Bankhead, Gloria Swanson, Marlene Dietrich, Katherine Hepburn and especially, Bette Davis.

Starting out as radio actor in New York, where he began doing vocal impressions of movie actresses, he moved to San Francisco and starting working the clubs [in the 1950s] where he was faced with homophobia and the challenge of doing his act against a myriad of cross-dressing ordinances - sometimes having to do his routines in a tuxedo, with an array of hats, boas and handbags. With touring, as his fame grew and times changed, the act became more sophisticated and elaborate with props, fabulous make-up, wigs and costumes changes. He was popular with the Hollywood stars he so often mimicked.

By the 1990s, although he had become a cabaret legend, he began to perform less as his act, which was so reliant on campy vaudeville humour and the bitchy goddesses of Hollywood's golden age, fell out of favour with younger gay audiences, who either didn't get it or found his act dated and sexist.

Pierce made a number of TV appearances, not always in drag, and made a notable appearance in Torch Song Trilogy (1988) as Bertha Venation.

'The Master and Mistress of Surprise and Disguise' died of cancer at his home in North Hollywood. His ashes are interred at Forest Lawn - Hollywood Hills Cemetery.

Gene Malin

Gene Malin born 30 June 1908 (d. 1933)

Gene Malin was an American actor, emcee, and drag performer during the Jazz Age. He was arguably the first openly gay performer in Prohibition-era Speakeasy culture, and started the so-called Pansy Craze.

Gene Malin, also known by his stage name Jean Malin, was born Victor Eugene James Malin in Brooklyn to working class Polish/Lithuanian parents. He had 2 brothers and 2 sisters. One brother became a police officer, and the other worked for a sugar refinery, but Gene had other inclinations early on. As a teenager, Gene was already winning prizes for his costumes at the elaborate Manhattan Drag Balls of the 1920s. By his late teens, Malin had worked as a chorus boy in several Broadway shows but was considered too effeminate. Around the same period, Malin worked at several Greenwhich Village clubs as a drag performer, most notably the Rubaiyat.

Several columnists noted his talent and in 1930 (at age 22) Malin was booked at Louis Schwartzs' elegant Club Abbey at 46th and 8th Ave. It was at this point that Malins' career and fate took a most interesting turn. Although Malin was at times assisted by 'Helen Morgan Jr', a popular drag artist of the day, he did not appear in drag himself. The crux of his act was not to impersonate women, but to appear as an openly gay male. Here he moved on stage and amongst the audience members as a Tuxedo clad, elegant, witty, wisecracking Emcee (the Master of Ceremonies). He still often resorted to a broad exaggerated swishing image and the many other such 'Pansy acts' that followed often had a tone of a straight Vaudeville man doing an exaggerated impersonation of an effeminate 'Pansy'. Perhaps the joke had several levels - as the performer was often a gay man doing his impression of a straight man doing his impression of a gay man. In doing so, Malin and other such performers as Karl Norman and Ray Bourbon ignited a 'Pansy Craze' in New York’s speakeasies and later in other cities as well.

Malin became the top earner of Broadway for a time. After headlining numerous New York Clubs, he took his act to Boston and ultimately to the West Coast. While in Hollywood, he appeared in several films, usually as the stock character of a witty limp-wristed sales assistant.

In the early hours of August 10, 1933, Gene Malin was killed in a freak accident. He had just performed a 'farewell performance' at the Ship Cafe in Venice, California. He piled into his sedan car with roommate Jimmy Forlenza and comedic actress Patsy Kelly. It seems that Malin confused the gears and the car lurched in reverse and went off a pier into the water. Malin was instantly killed (pinned under the steering wheel) the other two were seriously hurt, but miraculously survived. Malin was only 24 years of age at the time of his death.

Although many in his audience probably saw him as one more oddity, in a short span of time Gene Malin had made history. Alas, little survives beyond a couple of recordings, and a very few film appearances and photos.

Malin left behind two recordings, released posthumously and pressed in a single royal blue shellac 78, That's What's the Matter With Me and I'd Rather Be Spanish Than Mannish; the latter can be heard here.

Strangely, he was married briefly; his wife was Lucille (or Fay) Helman who was later a notorious madam in Manhattan who was convicted in 1936 and 1942 of sending prostitutes across state lines.They married in Los Angeles in 1931 and applied for a Mexican divorce the year he was killed.

Candy Darling

Candy Darling born 24 November 1944* (d. 1974)

Candy Darling was a pre-op transsexual Warhol superstar who starred in Andy Warhol's films Flesh (1968) and Women in Revolt (1971).

Candy Darling was born James Lawrence Slattery in Forest Hills, New York, son of a bookkeeper at Manhattan's Jockey Club and a father who was described as a violent alcoholic. There is some conjecture around Candy's year of birth. According to former Warhol associate, Bob Colacello, Candy was born in 1946, while IMDb has listed her year of birth as 1948. Her friend, roommate, and posthumous editor, Jeremiah Newton, states that she was born in 1944.

Early years - as a male - were spent in Massapequa Park, Long Island, New York where he and his mother had moved after his parents divorced. His half-brother Warren, from his mother's first marriage, left home for the US military, leaving Jimmy as the only child; Warren later denied his connection to Candy/Jimmy.

Jimmy spent much of his childhood absorbing the influences of US television and old Hollywood movies, from which he learned to impersonate his favourite actors and actresses - his favorite being Joan Bennett and Kim Novak. He claimed to have 'learned about the mysteries of sex from a salesman in a local children's shoe store' and finally revealed an inclination towards cross-dressing when his mother confronted him about local rumours which described him dressed as a girl frequenting a local gay bar called The Hayloft. In response Jimmy left the room and reappeared in full drag. His mother later said that, 'I knew then... that I couldn't stop Jimmy. Candy was just too beautiful and talented.'

Late at night Candy would often take a cab (thereby avoiding the attention of neighbours she would receive if she walked) a short distance to the Long Island Rail Road station for the train to Manhattan. Once there, she referred to her modest home in Massepequa Park as her 'country house' and hung out in Greenwich Village, meeting people through the circle of Seymour Levy on Bleecker Street.

Her first assumed name was Hope Slattery. Candy adopted this name sometime in 1963/1964 after she started going to gay bars in Manhattan and making visits to a doctor on Fifth Avenue for hormone injections. Jackie Curtis claimed that Candy adopted the name from a well-known Off-Off Broadway actress named Hope Stansbury, with whom she lived with for a few months in an apartment behind the Caffe Cino so he could study her. Holly Woodlawn remembers that Candy's name evolved from Hope Dahl to Candy Dahl and then to Candy Cane. In her autobiography, Woodlawn recalled that Candy had adopted the last name of Darling because a friend of hers affectionately called 'Candy, darling' so often that it finally stuck.

Before they actually met in 1967, Candy saw Andy Warhol at the after-hours club called The Tenth of Always. Candy was with Jackie Curtis, who invited Warhol to the play she had written and directed called Glamour, Glory and Gold.

It wasn't long before Warhol invited Candy to appear in one of his movies. She was given a short comedic scene in Flesh (1968) with Jackie Curtis and Joe Dallesandro. After Flesh, Candy was cast in a central role in Women In Revolt (1971). She played a Long Island socialite drawn into a woman's liberation group called PIGS (Politically Involved Girls) by a character played by Jackie Curtis.

Women in Revolt was first shown at the first Los Angeles Filmex as Sex. Later it was shown as Andy Warhol's Women, an homage to George Cukor. Unable to get a distributor for the film, Warhol rented out a small cinema in New York and launched the film with a celebrity preview on February 16, 1972. After the screening there was a dinner in Candy's honor at the restaurant, Le Parc Perigord on Park Avenue at 63rd Street, followed by a party at Francesco Scavullo's townhouse round the corner, where they watched disastrous TV reviews of the movie.

Candy Darling went on to appear in other independent films. She also appeared in Klute (as an extra in the disco scene) with Jane Fonda and Lady Liberty with Sophia Loren. Her attempt at cracking the mainstream movie circuit - by campaigning for the leading role in Myra Breckinridge (1970) - led to rejection and bitterness.

Theatre credits include two Jackie Curtis plays - Glamour, Glory and Gold (1967) and Vain Victory: The Vicissitudes of the Damned (1971) and Tennessee Williams' play, Small Craft Warnings, at the invitation of Williams himself. She also starred in the 1973 Off-Broadway revival of The White Whore and the Bit Player, a 1964 play by Tom Eyen. Darling's character, a Hollywood actress known only as 'the Whore', was based on Marilyn Monroe [pictured].

Candy succumbed to leukemia and pneumonia on 21 March 1974, aged about 29. She allegedly developed leukemia as a result of the hormones she had been taking, the long-term results of which had not been sufficiently studied. In a letter written on her deathbed and intended for Andy Warhol and his followers, Darling said, 'Unfortunately before my death I had no desire left for life ... I am just so bored by everything. You might say bored to death. (D)id you know I couldn't last. I always knew it. I wish I could meet you all again.'

Her funeral was attended by huge crowds; Gloria Swanson was remembered for saluting Darling's coffin. The New York Times honoured her request that her obituary should appear on the front page of that newspaper.


She is the subject of The Velvet Underground's song Candy Says and was one of several Warhol associates mentioned in Lou Reed's Walk on the Wild Side.

Peter Hujar's photo, 'Candy Darling on her Deathbed' was used by Antony and the Johnsons for the cover of their 2005 Mercury Music Prize winning album I Am a Bird Now. [pictured above]

An image of her, taken from Women In Revolt, was also featured on the front cover of the 1989 single Sheila Take a Bow by The Smiths. This was in keeping with lead singer Morrissey's penchant for using photographs of sometimes obscure cultural icons on the band's record sleeves.

RuPaul

RuPaul born 17 November 1960

RuPaul - born RuPaul Andre Charles - is an American drag performer, dance music singer, actor and songwriter who gained worldwide fame in the 1990s; appearing in a wide variety of television programmes, films, and musical albums.

Though a catty attitude is often associated with drag queens, RuPaul intentionally set himself apart with a 'love one another' attitude. Although primarily known for his extravagant drag queen persona, he has performed as a man in a number of roles, usually billed as RuPaul Charles.

RuPaul's music career remains most noted for his 1992 smash hit, Supermodel (You Better Work). Strangely, [s]he was nominated for a Grammy award for best comedy recording for Strudelmodel, which was a spoof of Supermodel (You Better Work) appearing on a B-side to the single Back to My Roots. The track featured RuPaul affecting a German accent and altering the theme accordingly: 'Once upon a time there was a little black girl in the Brewster Projects of Hamburg, Germany...'

In 1993, he recorded a duet with Elton John (a remake of Don't Go Breaking My Heart) that went to number seven in the UK. This was his biggest hit on the UK Singles Chart.

Subsequent single and album releases have occasionally hit US dance charts but his music career has been plagued by general indifference.

In 1995, RuPaul was signed to a modelling contract for MAC cosmetics, making him the first drag queen supermodel.

Rupaul.com

Chi Chi LaRue

Chi Chi LaRue born 8 November 1959

Chi Chi LaRue - born Larry David Paciotti in Hibbing, Minnesota, United States - is a director of gay and bisexual pornography. He has also directed under the names 'Lawrence David' and 'Taylor Hudson'.

LaRue moved to the Twin Cities area and began performing in drag as one-half of 'The Weather Gals', a 'hag drag' revue.

He moved to California with a friend and was hired by Catalina Video as an administrative assistant and publicist because of his knowledge of porn and the workings of the porn industry.

LaRue worked at Catalina during the initial revelation of the AIDS crisis in which many of the producers and directors in the gay porn industry were falling ill or dying. This created an opportunity for LaRue to persuade Catalina management to allow him to direct full-length videos.

LaRue has directed hundreds of gay porn films since 1988 and in 2003 he began to direct straight porn for Vivid Video to which he became a favourite among female stars. For some time, LaRue divided his attention between Vivid Video and his own Rascal Video for Channel 1 Releasing.

In 2006, LaRue announced he would no longer produce films for Vivid Video because they were featuring actors and actresses having sex without condoms. LaRue has been an outspoken critic of the growth of bareback [condom free] material in the gay adult video industry.

LaRue is an accomplished DJ, performing at many events throughout the year.

In 1992, LaRue appeared in Madonna's video for Deeper And Deeper.

In 2007, LaRue was chosen as one of Out Magazine's top 50 'most powerful gay men and women in America'.

Holly Woodlawn

Holly Woodlawn born 26 October 1946

Holly Woodlawn (born Haroldo Santiago Franceschi Rodriguez Danhakl) is a transvestite and former Warhol superstar, who appeared in his movies Trash (1970) and Women in Revolt (1972).

Born in Juana Diaz, Puerto Rico, she adopted the name Holly as an homage to the heroine of Breakfast at Tiffany's and in 1969 added the surname from a sign she saw on an episode of I Love Lucy.

She met Andy Warhol in the Factory at a screening of Flesh. Through him she met Jackie Curtis, who cast Woodlawn in her play Heaven Grand in Amber Orbit in the autumn of 1969. In October she was assigned a bit role in Trash, but so impressed director Paul Morrissey that she was given a larger role.

In May 1971, Woodlawn replaced Candy Darling at the La Mama Theatre, New York in a production of Vain Victory written and directed by Jackie Curtis. She was arrested and briefly incarcerated in Puerto Rico after being caught shoplifting.

By 1976 the work had dried up, and Woodlawn moved to San Francisco. She returned to New York later in the year and had a brief revival after appearing on Geraldo Rivera's talk show before being jailed again in 1977 for not fulfilling a previous probation obligation. She was released on the appeal of politician Ethan Geto, who helped organise a benefit for her.

Woodlawn continued to make cameo appearances in plays and films such as Billy's Hollywood Screen Kiss throughout the 1980s and 1990s. After Warhol's death, she was a frequently requested commentator on his life and influence. She currently resides in West Hollywood.

Woodlawn began performing in cabaret shows in sold-out New York and Los Angeles performances in the early 2000s.

Like so many of Warhol's Factory, she is mentioned in Lou Reed's Walk On The Wild Side: 'Holly came from Miami FLA, / hitch-hiked her way across the USA, / plucked her eyebrows on the way, / shaved her legs, and then he was a she...'

Divine

Divine born 19 October 1945 (d. 1988)

Harris Glenn Milstead was best known for his drag persona, Divine.

Born in Towson, Maryland, at the age of 12 the family moved to Lutherville, a suburb of Baltimore. John Waters was a childhood friend who lived six houses down the street. It was to be a fateful friendship.

Milstead starred in a number of films and was part of the regular cast known as the Dreamlanders. The Dreamlanders appeared in many of John Waters's earlier works such as Pink Flamingos, which contained an unforgettable final scene in which he ate dog shit, Female Trouble, Polyester, and Hairspray. Repeating their successful pairing in Polyester, in 1985 Divine appeared opposite Tab Hunter in their bigger hit Lust in the Dust.

In the 1980s, Divine's high energy records were hits through America, Europe, and Australia. The early records were composed, created, performed and produced by unsung electronic dance music pioneer Bobby Orlando. His club appearances - I was privileged to see him perform twice and even met him once - were outrageous, filthy, hilarious and hugely entertaining. In Britain, his Stock, Aitken and Waterman record You Think You're A Man was his most successful hit, reaching No 16 and resulting in an unforgettable appearance on Top of the Pops.

Late in his career, Divine also played in non-drag roles in his last three films: Trouble in Mind, Hairspray, and Out of the Dark. In Hairspray he played two roles, one male and one female (which he had first done in the earlier Female Trouble).

In 1988, Divine was chosen to portray the dual character of Peggy Bundy's Mother and her Uncle Otto on the hit comedy series Married With Children. Quite unexpectedly, he died at age 42 from sleep apnea in Los Angeles, California. The cause was attributed to his obesity. The producers of Married With Children sent flowers to the funeral, along with a humorous card that read, "If you didn't want to do the show, you could have just SAID something!"

His funeral in Towson, Maryland was preceded by a funeral procession attended by thousands.

Glenn was born before civil rights, gay rights, or women's rights... God doesn't want people created out of a Xerox machine... The tragedy is that Glenn was cut off right at the point of becoming who he really was, and the world will never see how that flower could have unfolded.

Reverend Leland Higginbotham at Divine's eulogy; Baltimore, Maryland, March, 1988

Paul O'Grady

Paul O'Grady born 14 June 1955

Paul James O'Grady, MBE, is an English comedian and television personality. He is the creator of comic drag character Lily Savage, and is noted for his strong Scouse accent.

Born in Birkenhead, Wirral Peninsula, O'Grady was brought up in an Irish Catholic household in Tranmere, Merseyside. He attended Blessed Edward Campion School, Birkenhead. When he was 19, he worked as a clerk in a magistrate's court and met a woman ten years his senior, with whom he had a daughter, Sharyn. Three years after his daughter was born, Paul wed a Portuguese lesbian waitress called Teresa Fernandes in a marriage of convenience.

His jobs have included civil servant, barman for Yates Wine Lodge, office work in an abattoir and a woodsman. He has also worked in a children's home in Kirkby and spent some years as a peripatetic care officer for Camden council. In 2003, he was listed in The Observer as one of the 50 funniest acts in British comedy, and in 2006 he was listed in The Guardian as one of the most powerful men in media.

In 1977, Paul went to Manila where he worked as a waiter in Gussy's Bar (also a brothel). It was here he got the idea for Lily Savage, his now famous drag alter-ego. He returned to London in the early 1980s and subsequently achieved fame with his creation of Lily, initially playing to gay clubs and pubs up and down the country. Lily was best known at the time for her eight year residency at The Royal Vauxhall Tavern in London He was in numerous double and treble acts such as 'High Society' with Adrella, 'L.S.D.' with David Dale and Sandra Hush, The Playgirls, again with Hunter and The Glamazons with Paul Banks. He toured Europe with some of these acts, appearing at and various night clubs and theatres in Denmark, Germany, Finland, Sweden, Holland, France and Israel.

After appearing at The Edinburgh Festival, for which he was nominated for a Perrier Award, he became more mainstream. Lily first became popular on television, making appearances on ITV daytime programme This Morning, and as the 'On the Bed Presenter' on The Big Breakfast. Lily was given several shows, by both BBC and ITV. For a few years Lily hosted the game show Blankety Blank for the BBC and later for ITV, as well as her own comedy show Lily Live! with ITV in 2000. Lily Savage also co-hosted the 1996 Smash Hits Poll Winners Party with Ant & Dec.

As well as numerous national tours, O'Grady has appeared on stage in Prisoner Cell Block H - The Musical, the musical Annie as Miss Hannigan, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang as the Childcatcher and in the panto Snow White and the Seven Dwarves as the Wicked Queen. He has been quoted as saying 'I seem to be making a living frightening children'.

In 2000 he appeared in a travelogue show as himself, entitled Paul O'Grady's Orient, which was followed in 2001 by Paul O'Grady's America. These were amongst his first major television appearances out of drag. From 2002 onwards, he appeared less as Lily and more often as himself. In 2002 he presented Outtake TV, a bloopers show, and in 2003 starred as the lead character in the BBC sitcom Eyes Down for two series, as the vicious yet hilarious manager of a northern Bingo hall. He also appeared in Celebrity Driving School for the BBC.

Since then, he has had success as the presenter of his own early evening talk show, The Paul O'Grady Show, on ITV. He won the position after he stood in for Des O'Connor on the now defunct lunchtime chat show Today with Des and Mel. The Paul O'Grady Show somewhat controversially ran head to head with Richard and Judy, who are close friends of Paul, and gave him one of his first TV breaks on This Morning, on rival station Channel 4. He has guested on LivingTV's paranormal show, Most Haunted Live, after presenter Yvette Fielding was a guest on his show and invited him on. He holds many awards, and in December 2005 he won the Best TV Comedy Entertainment Personality category of the British Comedy Awards. In 2004, he won a BAFTA and is also the recipient of two Royal Television Awards and three National Television Awards.

On 10 January 2006, in a shock decision, O'Grady decided to defect from ITV and take his daytime chat show ( The New Paul O'Grady Show) to Channel 4 after the production company, Granada, apparently 'forgot' to renew his contract. It was said that he had wanted to produce the series with his own company and had wanted to from the start but Granada always refused.

O'Grady is openly gay. He is now very close to his daughter, who has married and produced O'Grady's first grandchild, a boy - Abel. His long term lover and business partner of 20 years was Irishman Brendan Murphy, who died of cancer on 9th June 2005, five days before Paul's fiftieth birthday. After the first show of series three of The Paul O'Grady Show there was a tribute to him.

O'Grady owns a 200-acre farm near Ashford, Kent. The farm is stocked with 28 animals, including a flock of geese which O'Grady refers to as the 'Geese-stapo'. O'Grady has a grey Shih Tzu dog called Buster, who usually appears on his TV show with him, or occasionally will be replaced by Paul's other dog, Olga. He also has another dog called Louie, who only appeared a few times in the first ITV series, before he adopted Olga live on air. O'Grady is a frequent traveller on the Orient Express, likes to dress well and has numerous hobbies.

In April 2002, O'Grady suffered a heart attack after weeks of complaining that he felt unwell. After an emergency operation and weeks of rest, Paul's health recovered and he gave up smoking for two years.

O'Grady went back to his 40-a-day habit after his boyfriend and business partner Brendan Murphy died in 2005. He had continued to work on the show at the same time as nursing his beloved partner. As a result, he suffered a second heart attack in June 2006. Again he was taken into intensive care. He was then given an angioplasty operation, before being moved to a cardiac unit. He again promised to give up smoking.

He has reportedly turned down an offer to return to ITV to replace Parkinson and has signed a long-term contract with Channel 4 to his continue teatime show.

Paul O'Grady was awarded the MBE in the 2008 Queen's Birthday Honours, announced on his birthday. "I'm the last person, I'd have thought, who would be given an MBE," he said. "What have I done to deserve it?"