The other night on TCM I finally caught Jean Malin in Arizonia to Broadway in his bit part, but very memorable and entertaining, nonetheless. All these posts for Pride over the years and I can't believe I never once posted about trailblazer Jean, who was a pioneering openly gay entertainer, "Queen of the Panzies" and drag performer during the 1930 and is almost credited with the booming of the infamous Pansy Craze. While he began his early career performing in drag, he became a cultural sensation by emceeing in a tuxedo, using his very flamboyantly queer personality and extreme razor-sharp wit, to shatter gender norms. Although he was six feet and was a bigger boy, with wavy blonde hair to die for, he was effeminate and a female impersonator, and he was known to put hecklers, homophobes and even some mobsters in their place with his wit and at time fists.
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Some fun tidbits-
Born Victor Eugene James Malinovsky. He won prizes at the Manhattan drag balls as a teenager and performed in drag as Imogene Wilson in Greenwich Village. As an MC at NYC'S upscale Club Abbey however, he traded dresses for elegant tuxedos. He strolled through audiences, campily interacting with crowds and fiercely defend himself a few times with hecklers and haters. Even tangoed with a few mobsters.
As New York police began cracking down on queer speakeasies, Malin then moved to Los Angeles in 1932, opening his own Club New Yorker. He attempted a film career in 1933 and made three movies, the best being Arizonia to Broadway, where he appeared on screen in drag which was extremely rare for movies then, doing an imitation of Mae West and singing Frankie and Johnny. By this time, he was the highest paid impersonator in the business in the Panzy Craze. Jean continued to sass mobsters and slay audiences with that film and in his routines in his own club, where Malin's out and proud shows drew stars like Clara Bow, Marlene Deitrich, Cary Grant, Gary Cooper, Carole Lombard and Talulah Bankhead. Malin has had self-composed Malin songs like "I'd Rather be Spanish than Mannish." At the height of his fame Jean's life was cut short when in August of 1933, after a farewell performance at the Ship Cafe in Venice CA, he accidentally put his car into reverse and drove off a pier, drowning at age of 25. But no doubt Jean Malin was a trailblazer and he took no prisoners! Fight, Fire and Guts, with no fucks to give
