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A century ago, this star 'female impersonator' made men swoon
RETROPOLIS
A century ago, this star ‘female impersonator’ made men swoon
By Randy Dotinga
June 24, 2023 at 8:00 a.m. EDT
Broadway performer Julian Eltinge, right, in costume next to actress Mary Pickford during a performance in 1916. (Bettmann Archive)
In the 1925 silent comedy “Seven Chances,” Buster Keaton’s character is thrown out of a theater, with his clothes torn and his straw hat shoved down his head, after strutting inside in pursuit of a performer with a beaming smile and shapely legs. Clearly, he had made a pass, and it was intercepted. ... What is so funny? As the scene reveals, the attractive beauty was Julian Eltinge, a famous female impersonator. Moviegoers would have gotten the joke — that is no lady! — because Eltinge was the first cross-dressing celebrity in the nation: a triple threat of movie star, accomplished singer and popular stage actor.
A century before the battles over drag performances today, Eltinge represented a unique form of the art, one that emphasized fidelity to femininity instead of risqué repartee, outlandish outfits or high-energy lip syncing. He made a mint onstage and toured the world, sometimes while wearing a 23-inch corset and size 4 high-heeled shoes.
[The gay history of British royals seen in ‘the king and his husband’]
“We live at a time when gender fluidity is in the foreground. But it was not in his day until he came along. He was a transformative figure,” said cultural historian David Hajdu, one of the authors of “A Revolution in Three Acts,” a graphic novel about Eltinge and two other vaudeville stars.
Eltinge was also a sad figure. Throughout his career, the man known offstage as William Dalton had to tout his own masculinity to prevent audiences from speculating about his private life. And the physical toll of his work may have contributed to his death. ... As a child in Montana, Eltinge performed in girls clothing in saloons, and his mother sent him to Boston to keep him safe from his furious father. That was where he put on a corset and made a career, landing a Broadway role as an elegant female impersonator in 1904. (His chosen stage name, he said, rhymed with “melting.”)
{snip}
A century ago, this star ‘female impersonator’ made men swoon
By Randy Dotinga
June 24, 2023 at 8:00 a.m. EDT
Broadway performer Julian Eltinge, right, in costume next to actress Mary Pickford during a performance in 1916. (Bettmann Archive)
In the 1925 silent comedy “Seven Chances,” Buster Keaton’s character is thrown out of a theater, with his clothes torn and his straw hat shoved down his head, after strutting inside in pursuit of a performer with a beaming smile and shapely legs. Clearly, he had made a pass, and it was intercepted. ... What is so funny? As the scene reveals, the attractive beauty was Julian Eltinge, a famous female impersonator. Moviegoers would have gotten the joke — that is no lady! — because Eltinge was the first cross-dressing celebrity in the nation: a triple threat of movie star, accomplished singer and popular stage actor.
A century before the battles over drag performances today, Eltinge represented a unique form of the art, one that emphasized fidelity to femininity instead of risqué repartee, outlandish outfits or high-energy lip syncing. He made a mint onstage and toured the world, sometimes while wearing a 23-inch corset and size 4 high-heeled shoes.
[The gay history of British royals seen in ‘the king and his husband’]
“We live at a time when gender fluidity is in the foreground. But it was not in his day until he came along. He was a transformative figure,” said cultural historian David Hajdu, one of the authors of “A Revolution in Three Acts,” a graphic novel about Eltinge and two other vaudeville stars.
Eltinge was also a sad figure. Throughout his career, the man known offstage as William Dalton had to tout his own masculinity to prevent audiences from speculating about his private life. And the physical toll of his work may have contributed to his death. ... As a child in Montana, Eltinge performed in girls clothing in saloons, and his mother sent him to Boston to keep him safe from his furious father. That was where he put on a corset and made a career, landing a Broadway role as an elegant female impersonator in 1904. (His chosen stage name, he said, rhymed with “melting.”)
{snip}
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