SassySays.com - Drag History Month - January 26, 2012 - Jamie Clayton
Jamie Clayton Is a transgender model turned television actress. This year Jamie can be seen playing “Kyla” on Season 3 of the hit HBO series “HUNG” alongside Thomas Jane.
In 2010 Jamie co-hosted and was the on screen Makeup Artist on Vh1′s first makeover show, “TRANSform Me”.
The show quickly became a breakout hit and was nominated for a GLAAD Media Award.
For More: www.jamieclayton.net
SassySays.com - Drag History Month - January 25, 2012 - Laverne Cox
Laverne Cox is an actress, producer and transgender advocate who made television history when she became the first African American transgender woman to appear on an American reality show with her appearance as a finalist on VH1’s “I Want to Work for Diddy. “I Want to Work for Diddy” won the GLAAD Media Award for Outstanding Reality Program.
Laverne’s popularity subsequently led her to star in, co-create and co-produce her own show called “Transform Me,” making her the first African American trans woman to produce and star in her own television show. “TRANSform Me” was nominated for a GLAAD media award for Outstanding Reality Program.
As an actress Laverne has had guest starring roles on “Law and Order”, “Law and Order: SVU”, and HBO’s “Bored to Death.” She can be seen in the forthcoming independent films “Musical Chairs” directed by Susan Seidelman, “Carl(a),” “Grand Street” and “The Exhibitionists.” Her other film credits include “Uncle Stephanie”, “Bronx Paradise,” “The Kings of Brooklyn” and “Daughter of Arabia.
Laverne continues to be an advocate for transgender representation in the media. Laverne is passionate about telling stories in the media that reflect the full depth, diversity and humanity of transgender experience.
For More: www.LaverneCox.com
![SassySays.com -Drag History Month-January 14, 2012 Charles Busch
Charles Louis Busch (born August 23, 1954) is an American actor, screenwriter, playwright and female impersonator, known for his appearances on stage in his own camp style plays and in film and television. He wrote and starred in his early plays Off-off-Broadway beginning in 1978, generally in drag roles, and also acted in the works of other playwrights. He also wrote for television and began to act in films and on television in the late 1990s. His best-known play is The Tale of the Allergist’s Wife (2000), which was a success on Broadway.
Busch was born in 1954 and grew up in Hartsdale, New York.
Busch attended the High School of Music and Art in Manhattan. He majored in drama at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois and received his B.A. in 1976. While at the university, Busch had difficulty being cast in plays and began to write his own material, such as a play called Sister Act about siamese twin showgirls, which succeeded in drawing interest on campus.
Busch has usually played the leading lady in drag in his plays. He has said, “Drag is being more, more than you can be. When I first started drag I wasn’t this shy young man but a powerful woman. It liberated within me a whole vocabulary of expression. It was less a political statement than an aesthetic one.” His camp style shows simultaneously send up and celebrate classic film genres. Busch has said, however, “I’m not sure what [campy] means, but I guess if my plays have elements of old movies and old fashioned plays, and I’m this bigger-than-life star lady, that’s certainly campy. I guess what I rebelled against was the notion that campy means something is so tacky or bad that it’s good, and that I just didn’t relate to.” Busch “toured the country in a non-drag one-man show he wrote called ‘Alone With a Cast of Thousands.’ ” from 1978 to 1984. By 1984, Busch’s performance bookings grew slim. He held various odd jobs, such as temporary office assistant, apartment cleaner, portrait artist “at bar mitzvahs”, phone salesperson, shop manager, ice cream server, sports handicapper and artists’ model. He thought that perhaps his last piece would be a skit put on in the Limbo Lounge, a gay bar in the East Village in Manhattan. The skit was a hit and became Busch’s most famous Off-off-Broadway play, Vampire Lesbians of Sodom (1984). When it was revived the next year at the Provincetown Playhouse, The New York Times described it as having “costumes flashier than pinball machines, outrageous lines, awful puns, sinister innocence, harmless depravity. … the female roles [Busch] creates are hilarious vamps, but also high comic characters … the audience laughs at the first line and goes right on laughing at every line to the end”. Busch stated that it was the longest-running non-musical in off-off-Broadway in history.
Busch and his collaborators soon created a series of shows, mostly at the Limbo Lounge, such as Theodora, She-Bitch of Byzantium (1984) and Times Square Angel (1985, Provincetown Playhouse).The company called itself “Theatre in Limbo” and attracted a loyal gay following. Other early plays include Pardon My Inquisition, or Kiss the Blood Off My Castanets (1986), in which Busch “played both Maria Garbanza, a prostitute, and her look-alike, the elegant Marquesa del Drago.” and Psycho Beach Party, which ran from July 1987 to May 1988.”In his latest incarnation, Mr. Busch is a pigtailed ingenue who wants to become a surfer in Psycho Beach Party, which opened last week at the Players Theater.” Other works include The Lady in Question, which ran from July to December 1989 at the Orpheum Theatre (originally produced by the WPA Theatre),and Red Scare on Sunset, which ran from June to September 1991 at the Lortel Theatre.
His play Die, Mommie, Die! was first performed in Los Angeles, opening in July 1999 at the Coast Playhouse. The Variety reviewer wrote that “Die! Mommy! Die!” is Charles Busch’s funniest, most accomplished and, without question, raunchiest work… And, as always, he wears a parade of wigs and pumps with considerable grace and understatement.” and was made into the 2003 feature film of the same name. According to the New York Times reviewer, “The candy-hued camp comedy Die Mommie Die! presents the latest variation of the playwright and drag performer Charles Busch’s long-running and very funny alter ego, a swiveling red-haired diva whose exaggerated graciousness and noblesse oblige embody the ne plus ultra of Great Hollywood Ladies….The film, directed by Mark Rucker from a screenplay by Mr. Busch, is at once all plot and no plot at all.Although the supporting performances are carefully shaded caricatures, Die Mommie Die! is really Mr. Busch’s show. Within the cramped limitations of drag, he exudes a genuine screen charisma. That star quality as much anything should earn the film a niche in camp heaven.”
Busch’s early film appearances include Ms. Ellen, a fortune teller in drag in Trouble on the Corner (1997). Busch has twice appeared in film versions of his own plays: Die, Mommie, Die! (1999) and the comedy horror Psycho Beach Party (2000, as Capt. Monica Stark, a policewoman trying to solve the mystery). He co-wrote, starred in and directed the film A Very Serious Person (2006), which starred Polly Bergen and received an honorable mention at the Tribeca Film Festival.He is also the subject of the documentary The Lady in Question is Charles Busch (2006).
Busch had a recurring role in the HBO series Oz from 1999–2000 (the third and fourth seasons) as Nat Ginzburg, an “effeminate but makeup-free inmate on death row, certainly a departure from his usual glamour girl roles.” He also wrote television sitcom pilots and movie treatments as a source of extra income while he was a cult performer. He sold three pilots to CBS that were not produced.
Busch’s style is based on movie star acting rather than naturalistic femininity.Busch later said that he was described as “too thin, too light, which is the euphemism for gay. I was never cast at Northwestern for basically these reasons, and finally, I thought maybe what’s most disturbing about me is what is most unique: my theatrical sense, my androgyny, even identifying with old movie actresses”. He specializes in femmes fatales. “I’m an actor playing a role, but it’s drag. A lot of drag can be very offensive, but I like to think that in some crazy way the women I play are feminist heroines.”
Busch said, “I’ve always played a duality. I guess I’ve always felt a duality in myself: elegance and vulgarity. There’s humor in that. I’ve always found that fun on stage, as well. It’s not enough for me to be the whore. I have to be the whore with pretensions or the great lady with a vulgar streak. It’s the duality that I find interesting.” Busch generally writes without a political agenda, and he predominantly portrays characters who are white, middle class, gay, and between 20 and 40 years old.
Busch was inspired by Charles Ludlam, a drag artist who founded The Ridiculous Theatrical Company in 1967 and wrote, directed, and acted in the company’s exaggerated, absurdist camp productions. Busch presented his one-man show Hollywood Confidential in a theater owned by The Ridiculous Theatrical Company in July 1978 at One Sheridan Square, New York. He also appeared for several performances in the company’s production of Bluebeard as Hecate, also in July 1978. Busch said of this experience: “If I had ever entertained a fantasy of working with the Ridiculous Theatrical Company, doing Hecate got it out of my system.”Busch has said that he was also inspired by seeing Joan Sutherland and Zoe Caldwell perform when he was a child. Busch recalled: “When I was about 13 years old, around 1968 or ’69, I went to see Zoe Caldwell in ‘The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie.’ I was so dazzled that I don’t think I’ve ever recovered.”In 1991, Busch was performing in his play Red Scare on Sunset. He said that he had difficulty connecting with the audience at one of the performances. Caldwell went backstage after the performance to give him some advice: “You are so beautiful. But you were pushing too hard. You’re much better than that. …It’s the best lesson I’ve learned from a famous person.
For more: www.CharlesBusch.com](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lxt1ec2rIo1qbi1oyo1_500.jpg)
SassySays.com -Drag History Month-January 14, 2012 Charles Busch
Charles Louis Busch (born August 23, 1954) is an American actor, screenwriter, playwright and female impersonator, known for his appearances on stage in his own camp style plays and in film and television. He wrote and starred in his early plays Off-off-Broadway beginning in 1978, generally in drag roles, and also acted in the works of other playwrights. He also wrote for television and began to act in films and on television in the late 1990s. His best-known play is The Tale of the Allergist’s Wife (2000), which was a success on Broadway.
Busch was born in 1954 and grew up in Hartsdale, New York.
Busch attended the High School of Music and Art in Manhattan. He majored in drama at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois and received his B.A. in 1976. While at the university, Busch had difficulty being cast in plays and began to write his own material, such as a play called Sister Act about siamese twin showgirls, which succeeded in drawing interest on campus.
Busch has usually played the leading lady in drag in his plays. He has said, “Drag is being more, more than you can be. When I first started drag I wasn’t this shy young man but a powerful woman. It liberated within me a whole vocabulary of expression. It was less a political statement than an aesthetic one.” His camp style shows simultaneously send up and celebrate classic film genres. Busch has said, however, “I’m not sure what [campy] means, but I guess if my plays have elements of old movies and old fashioned plays, and I’m this bigger-than-life star lady, that’s certainly campy. I guess what I rebelled against was the notion that campy means something is so tacky or bad that it’s good, and that I just didn’t relate to.” Busch “toured the country in a non-drag one-man show he wrote called ‘Alone With a Cast of Thousands.’ ” from 1978 to 1984. By 1984, Busch’s performance bookings grew slim. He held various odd jobs, such as temporary office assistant, apartment cleaner, portrait artist “at bar mitzvahs”, phone salesperson, shop manager, ice cream server, sports handicapper and artists’ model. He thought that perhaps his last piece would be a skit put on in the Limbo Lounge, a gay bar in the East Village in Manhattan. The skit was a hit and became Busch’s most famous Off-off-Broadway play, Vampire Lesbians of Sodom (1984). When it was revived the next year at the Provincetown Playhouse, The New York Times described it as having “costumes flashier than pinball machines, outrageous lines, awful puns, sinister innocence, harmless depravity. … the female roles [Busch] creates are hilarious vamps, but also high comic characters … the audience laughs at the first line and goes right on laughing at every line to the end”. Busch stated that it was the longest-running non-musical in off-off-Broadway in history.
Busch and his collaborators soon created a series of shows, mostly at the Limbo Lounge, such as Theodora, She-Bitch of Byzantium (1984) and Times Square Angel (1985, Provincetown Playhouse).The company called itself “Theatre in Limbo” and attracted a loyal gay following. Other early plays include Pardon My Inquisition, or Kiss the Blood Off My Castanets (1986), in which Busch “played both Maria Garbanza, a prostitute, and her look-alike, the elegant Marquesa del Drago.” and Psycho Beach Party, which ran from July 1987 to May 1988.”In his latest incarnation, Mr. Busch is a pigtailed ingenue who wants to become a surfer in Psycho Beach Party, which opened last week at the Players Theater.” Other works include The Lady in Question, which ran from July to December 1989 at the Orpheum Theatre (originally produced by the WPA Theatre),and Red Scare on Sunset, which ran from June to September 1991 at the Lortel Theatre.
His play Die, Mommie, Die! was first performed in Los Angeles, opening in July 1999 at the Coast Playhouse. The Variety reviewer wrote that “Die! Mommy! Die!” is Charles Busch’s funniest, most accomplished and, without question, raunchiest work… And, as always, he wears a parade of wigs and pumps with considerable grace and understatement.” and was made into the 2003 feature film of the same name. According to the New York Times reviewer, “The candy-hued camp comedy Die Mommie Die! presents the latest variation of the playwright and drag performer Charles Busch’s long-running and very funny alter ego, a swiveling red-haired diva whose exaggerated graciousness and noblesse oblige embody the ne plus ultra of Great Hollywood Ladies….The film, directed by Mark Rucker from a screenplay by Mr. Busch, is at once all plot and no plot at all.Although the supporting performances are carefully shaded caricatures, Die Mommie Die! is really Mr. Busch’s show. Within the cramped limitations of drag, he exudes a genuine screen charisma. That star quality as much anything should earn the film a niche in camp heaven.”
Busch’s early film appearances include Ms. Ellen, a fortune teller in drag in Trouble on the Corner (1997). Busch has twice appeared in film versions of his own plays: Die, Mommie, Die! (1999) and the comedy horror Psycho Beach Party (2000, as Capt. Monica Stark, a policewoman trying to solve the mystery). He co-wrote, starred in and directed the film A Very Serious Person (2006), which starred Polly Bergen and received an honorable mention at the Tribeca Film Festival.He is also the subject of the documentary The Lady in Question is Charles Busch (2006).
Busch had a recurring role in the HBO series Oz from 1999–2000 (the third and fourth seasons) as Nat Ginzburg, an “effeminate but makeup-free inmate on death row, certainly a departure from his usual glamour girl roles.” He also wrote television sitcom pilots and movie treatments as a source of extra income while he was a cult performer. He sold three pilots to CBS that were not produced.
Busch’s style is based on movie star acting rather than naturalistic femininity.Busch later said that he was described as “too thin, too light, which is the euphemism for gay. I was never cast at Northwestern for basically these reasons, and finally, I thought maybe what’s most disturbing about me is what is most unique: my theatrical sense, my androgyny, even identifying with old movie actresses”. He specializes in femmes fatales. “I’m an actor playing a role, but it’s drag. A lot of drag can be very offensive, but I like to think that in some crazy way the women I play are feminist heroines.”
Busch said, “I’ve always played a duality. I guess I’ve always felt a duality in myself: elegance and vulgarity. There’s humor in that. I’ve always found that fun on stage, as well. It’s not enough for me to be the whore. I have to be the whore with pretensions or the great lady with a vulgar streak. It’s the duality that I find interesting.” Busch generally writes without a political agenda, and he predominantly portrays characters who are white, middle class, gay, and between 20 and 40 years old.
Busch was inspired by Charles Ludlam, a drag artist who founded The Ridiculous Theatrical Company in 1967 and wrote, directed, and acted in the company’s exaggerated, absurdist camp productions. Busch presented his one-man show Hollywood Confidential in a theater owned by The Ridiculous Theatrical Company in July 1978 at One Sheridan Square, New York. He also appeared for several performances in the company’s production of Bluebeard as Hecate, also in July 1978. Busch said of this experience: “If I had ever entertained a fantasy of working with the Ridiculous Theatrical Company, doing Hecate got it out of my system.”Busch has said that he was also inspired by seeing Joan Sutherland and Zoe Caldwell perform when he was a child. Busch recalled: “When I was about 13 years old, around 1968 or ’69, I went to see Zoe Caldwell in ‘The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie.’ I was so dazzled that I don’t think I’ve ever recovered.”In 1991, Busch was performing in his play Red Scare on Sunset. He said that he had difficulty connecting with the audience at one of the performances. Caldwell went backstage after the performance to give him some advice: “You are so beautiful. But you were pushing too hard. You’re much better than that. …It’s the best lesson I’ve learned from a famous person.
For more: www.CharlesBusch.com
SassySays.com - Drag History Month - January 12, 2012 - Amanda Lepore
Amanda Lepore is an American transgender model, musician, nightclub hostess, fashion icon, performance artist and New York City Icon. She has appeared in advertising for numerous companies, including M.A.C. cosmetics, Mego Jeans, The Blonds, Swatch, CAMP Cosmetics, and Heatherette, which has used her likeness on clothing as well as hiring her as a model. Lepore is also noted as a muse for photographer David LaChapelle’s work. She participated in his Artists and Prostitutes 1985-2005 exhibit in New York, where she “lived” in a voyeuristic life-sized set.
According to Michael Musto, Lepore grew up in the Essex County community of Cedar Grove, New Jersey. Lepore told a reporter “from day one she knew she was a girl,” and in her teens she began making costumes for a go-go dancer in exchange for hormones. She says her parents soon took her from public school and hired a private tutor, then took her to a psychologist who helped her get a hormone prescription. Lepore says she then got married and moved in with her in-laws, who assisted her with getting sex reassignment surgery. She says she left the marriage after several years and moved to New York City, where she worked in a nail salon and as a dominatrix before meeting Michael Alig and becoming a fixture on the New York nightlife scene. She soon met David LaChapelle and began collaborating with him.
Lepore has appeared in fashion magazines, including French Playboy, Ponytail, DAMn and TUSH. She is on the cover of Lords of Acid’s 1999 album Expand Your Head and on Thighpaulsandra’ 2006 album The Lepore Extrusion.
Lepore had a cameo in the 1998 documentary Party Monster: The Shockumentary as well as the 2003 film Party Monster. She was also featured in Another Gay Sequel in 2008. Lepore has also had cameos in music videos for artists including Elton John, Thalía, The Dandy Warhols, Girl in a Coma, Grace Jones, and TIGA for his cover of “Sunglasses at Night.”Lepore appears in many of Cazwell music videos, including “Watch my Mouth” and “All Over Your Face”.
In October 1999 Swatch released “Time Tranny”, a watch designed by LaChapelle with Lepore on the face displaying a printed crack on the glass and marble stripes as the background. A second version displays no cracked glass and a blue and yellow striped background.
Possessing the hourglass measurements of 39-23-37 and standing at 5’2, Amanda Lepore is very petite.
Her first single, “Deeper,” is a 2003 dance song written by Lady Bunny.
In 2005 Lepore released her first album, Introducing… Amanda Lepore, which contains “Champagne” and “My Hair Looks Fierce”.
In April 2006, Integrity Toys launched an Amanda Lepore doll produced by Jason Wu as a benefit for AIDS charities.
In 2007 she released two remix albums, Fierce Pussy and My Pussy E.P. Lepore also sings the main title for Another Gay Movie, “I Know What Boys Like”. She also performs “Cotton Candy”, from the soundtrack of Another Gay Sequel.
Lepore was a part of True Colors Tour 2007, a 15-city North American benefit tour sponsored by the Logo channel, hosted by comedian Margaret Cho and headlined by Cyndi Lauper. The tour benefited the Human Rights Campaign, PFLAG and the Matthew Shepard Foundation, and it included Erasure, Debbie Harry, The Gossip, Rufus Wainwright, The Dresden Dolls, The MisShapes, Rosie O’Donnell, Indigo Girls, The Cliks and other special guests.
Her second album I…Amanda Lepore was released in 2011.
Lepore has a line of cosmetics in partnership with CAMP Cosmetics called “Collection Lepore”, as well as a signature perfume.
SassySays.com - Drag History Month - January 8, 2012 - Jackie Beat
International drag superstar Jackie Beat has been entertaining audiences across the world for over two decades with her razor-sharp comedy and hysterical song parodies. Her hilarious music videos on YouTube are huge hits that have been seen by millions of people. Her one-woman show “Jackie Beat Is A Whole Lotta’ Love” ran a record 18 months at NYC’s premiere cabaret, Fez, and she returns to The Big Apple every year with her award-winning, standing-room-only holiday show. Jackie’s stand-up has been featured in comedy clubs across the country and on Comedy Central, VH-1 and MTV. She was a staff writer for the WB comedy series “Hype!”, has written for the Sci Fi Channel and was one of US Magazine’s Fashion Police top cops. Her scathing song parodies have been featured on America’s Top Forty with Ryan Seacrest, The Howard Stern Show, Much Music TV, Yo on E! and PerezHilton.com. She has appeared on many TV shows such as “Sex and the City” and in several movies including “Flawless” with Robert DeNiro, the festival hit “Wigstock The Movie” and the camp cult horror favorite “Gingerdead Man 3: Saturday Night Cleaver.” Jackie has also been in many off-Broadway productions, performed on countless cruises ships, toured with Roseanne Barr as her opening act (including a 7 week run at the New York New York in Las Vegas!), enjoys a sold-out 8-week run in Provincetown every summer, and is lead singer of the popular electro-rock band Dirty Sanchez, who toured with My Life With The Thrill Kill Kult. Their debut CD on Hypnotic Records is available in stores now. For More: www.MissJackieBeat.com
SassySays.com - Drag History Month - January 7, 2012 - Rollerena “Queen of Studio 54”
Exclusive Rollerena interview with Sassy & Samara for VivaLaRiviera.com!
![SassySays.com - Drag History Month - January 4, 2012
José Julio Sarria aka Empress José I, The Widow Norton (b. December 12, 1923) is an American political activist from San Francisco, California. Known for his years of performing at the historic Black Cat Bar in that city from the 1950s and 1960s, Sarria entertained patrons with satirical versions of popular songs and operas while encouraging them to live their lives as openly as possible. He frequently dressed in drag.
Sarria was born to Julio Sarria and Maria Dolores Maldonado. His parents did not marry and his father showed no interest in his son’s life. Maria initially raised José on her own, but when this became too difficult she placed him with another couple. Both they and his mother indulged his early interest in wearing girl’s clothing. Sarria showed an affinity for languages, which led to his first serious romance with another man. Sarria tutored Paul Kolish, an Austrian baron who had fled from the Nazis. Sarria and Kolish fell in love, and their relationship endured until Kolish and his son were killed in a car accident in 1947.
Sarria served in the United States Army during World War II. Following his discharge, he studied to become a teacher and frequented the Black Cat. He met waiter Jimmy Moore, whom Sarria describes as “the love of [his] life”. Sarria was hired as a cocktail waiter. Following a conviction on a morals charge, Sarria, realizing he could not now become a certified teacher, began performing in drag. He appeared regularly at the Black Cat. An early LGBT activist, Sarria co-founded several homophile organizations, including the League for Civil Education, the Tavern Guild and the Society for Individual Rights. Sarria became the first openly gay candidate for public office in the United States when he ran for the San Francisco Board of Supervisors in 1961. In 1964 Sarria declared himself “Empress José I, The Widow Norton” and founded the Imperial Court System, which grew to become an international association of charitable organizations.
Following the closure of the Black Cat in 1964, Sarria went to work with restaurateur Pierre Parker. The pair operated French restaurants at World’s Fairs. While at the 1964 New York World’s Fair, Sarria learned that Jimmy Moore had committed suicide. Sarria worked at several more Fairs before retiring in 1974. After living with Parker in Phoenix, Arizona for several years, Sarria returned to San Francisco. He continued to reign over the Courts for 43 years, before abdicating in 2007. For his lifetime of activism, the city of San Francisco renamed a section of 16th Street in Sarria’s honor.](http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lxaezazyq41qbi1oyo1_250.jpg)
SassySays.com - Drag History Month - January 4, 2012
José Julio Sarria aka Empress José I, The Widow Norton (b. December 12, 1923) is an American political activist from San Francisco, California. Known for his years of performing at the historic Black Cat Bar in that city from the 1950s and 1960s, Sarria entertained patrons with satirical versions of popular songs and operas while encouraging them to live their lives as openly as possible. He frequently dressed in drag.
Sarria was born to Julio Sarria and Maria Dolores Maldonado. His parents did not marry and his father showed no interest in his son’s life. Maria initially raised José on her own, but when this became too difficult she placed him with another couple. Both they and his mother indulged his early interest in wearing girl’s clothing. Sarria showed an affinity for languages, which led to his first serious romance with another man. Sarria tutored Paul Kolish, an Austrian baron who had fled from the Nazis. Sarria and Kolish fell in love, and their relationship endured until Kolish and his son were killed in a car accident in 1947.
Sarria served in the United States Army during World War II. Following his discharge, he studied to become a teacher and frequented the Black Cat. He met waiter Jimmy Moore, whom Sarria describes as “the love of [his] life”. Sarria was hired as a cocktail waiter. Following a conviction on a morals charge, Sarria, realizing he could not now become a certified teacher, began performing in drag. He appeared regularly at the Black Cat. An early LGBT activist, Sarria co-founded several homophile organizations, including the League for Civil Education, the Tavern Guild and the Society for Individual Rights. Sarria became the first openly gay candidate for public office in the United States when he ran for the San Francisco Board of Supervisors in 1961. In 1964 Sarria declared himself “Empress José I, The Widow Norton” and founded the Imperial Court System, which grew to become an international association of charitable organizations.
Following the closure of the Black Cat in 1964, Sarria went to work with restaurateur Pierre Parker. The pair operated French restaurants at World’s Fairs. While at the 1964 New York World’s Fair, Sarria learned that Jimmy Moore had committed suicide. Sarria worked at several more Fairs before retiring in 1974. After living with Parker in Phoenix, Arizona for several years, Sarria returned to San Francisco. He continued to reign over the Courts for 43 years, before abdicating in 2007. For his lifetime of activism, the city of San Francisco renamed a section of 16th Street in Sarria’s honor.
SassySays.com Drag History Month - January 2, 2012 - Sylvia Rae Rivera
Sylvia Rae Rivera (2 July 1951–19 February 2002) was an American transgender activist. Rivera was a founding member of both the Gay Liberation Front and the Gay Activists Alliance and helped found STAR (Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries), a group dedicated to helping homeless young street trans women.
For More information on Sylvia and how you can help please visit: www.srlp.org
