THE ELDERS

 I was very happy to see the delightful comments on last week's post about 91-year-old drag queen, Darcelle XV. I think we start to take for granted all the early drag queens who set the tone, but first and foremost, were never preoccupied with being the most beautiful, fishy, and a paint by number queen. Those formulas went right out the window. To still be doing drag, Darcelle at 91, still doing three shows a night for five days a week is fricking amazing. How many queens these days can say they had a career that long? It brings to mind other queens in the ring that we sadly hear very little about.

Dolly Levi dances to the beat of her own drum and never misses a beat. I mean that quite literally. At 64 Dolly is a long-time queen with the legendary Dreamgirls Revue in WEHO and Hamburger Mary's where she can be seen playing the tambourine, high kicking, cartwheels and still do splits. Dolly comes from a classical theater background, and her drag is inspired by old MGM films and the cancan dancers of Toulouse-Lautrec. She belongs to the House of St. James, the largest drag family in Orange County. "Drag queen" itself is an identity she eventually came to accept over her previous preference of female impersonator. Much like Darcelle she feels labels need to be thrown out, and she is an eminent professional and can give you the nitty-gritty of contract law and a thorough historical materialism and timeline of the ever growing drag industry at the drop of a dime. She has a quote I love. "Stop.Look.Listen.Live. Respect it. Believe none of what you hear and only half of what you see."

The Goddess Bunny's cult icon status in Hollywood's underground was compounded by her mystifying personal history. The Goddess was a descendent of the Royal Italian bloodline and was one of several friends who was present when Divine's body was discovered after her untimely death. The Goddess was stricken with polio as a child and subjected to a number of botched corrective procedures, and various sexual abuse took place as well. She received substandard medical care that severely affected her posture and growth. It was in her mid-teens that she said she first identified as transgender, coming out to her parents and experiencing rejection. But that didn't stop her. By the late 70's she had found her calling performing drag in underground Hollywood clubs. Her live performances were a mix of live singing, lip-synch and tap dance to a truly one-of-a-kind act. She gained further notoriety for her unabashed sexiness that remained uncompromised by her unique physicality.  While she always remained a cult queen, she did have a few breakthroughs that included Hollywood Vice, Scumbag and starred in music videos for Dr. Dre and Marilyn Manson. And she never wavered from lending a hand to LGBT charities especially for the disabled. She sadly passed away in January of 2021 of COVID.

With a force of subtle persuasion and magnetic manifestation at 75 years old, Donna Personna is more powerful than ever. She cities Jackie O and Marilyn Monroe as major inspirations, lithely embodying that tension between wife and mistress. Elegant, sultry, vulnerable, she gives it all. She was the one who jump started and starred in the project Beautiful By Night, a documentary about the Hot Box Girls, a group of elder drag queens who still are performing at Aunt Charlie's in San Francisco's seedy Tenderloin neighborhood. She's a legend in San Fran and will continue to transmit a history of queer resistance to the younger generations. Donna has also co-written and is portrayed in the forthcoming play Compton's Cafeteria. She recounts the feeling of liberation and belonging she found as a teenage boy in the eponymous uprising of transgender sex workers, gay hustlers and hippies depicted in the play and her role in the Compton Riots. She has also started work on the screenplay.

Olivia Hart is one of the senior drag queens at Aunt Charlie's, the last of an all-gay lounge in the tenderloin neighborhood of San Fran, along with Donna Personna. Olivia is another of the queens who feel drag queens don't need to be high polish and fishy.  Olivia has said in a film that "My thing is not being a female illusionist where I look dead-on woman. I'm a man in a dress, and not afraid to show that." Olivia has stared for the last 20 years at the lounge and now at 70 shows no signs of stopping. And when it comes to gay rights and gay bashing, she will slap the shit out of you and ask questions later. 

These are just four more queens who have heart and show that they have staying power and are here to prove a drag queen can still have life after 40. These are the queens of a dying breed. And below is a fascinating, if not gritty documentary by James Hosking that showcases just that. What does it mean to grow older when you're a drag queen?