Bonus video! Meet Barbette, the world's most famous drag queen trapeze artist
Hello there!
For this week's bonus video, WOW do I have an incredible person to introduce you to: Barbette, who born in a little Texas town in 1899 and rose to become the high-wire drag queen toast of Paris, Broadway, and motion pictures. Celebrated by Jean Cocteau, Barbette's real name was Vander Clyde (or maybe Vander Clyde Broadway?) and he left home at 14 to join the circus as a female impersonator. In the late 1950s, Billy Wilder hired him to teach Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon how to do drag for Some Like it Hot, which lasted only a few days before Barbette gave up in exasperation with them and flew back to Paris. But that was not the end of Barbette's silver screen career! Just an absolutely amazing person.
And keep your eyes peeled for bonus vids coming your way soon about two more fascinating folks: Orry-Kelly, who dressed some of the most famous women of the 20th century (and undressed a few of the most famous men); and also Joani Hannon, a drummer who ran an underground lesbian bar in LA in the 1950s with help from her gay brother.
Also! I want to show you more from the fascinating research that an archivist with the Academy dug up for me -- the censors' notes for Some Like it Hot, cataloguing as much of the objectionable material as they could find! What's most remarkable, I think, is what they DON'T include.
I'll have a great big Some Like it Hot video for you next Sunday, so stay tuned for that! Patrons at $10+ levels get ad-free access.
Oh! And also! I'll be recording another Q&A/feedback video in the next day or two, so if you have questions for me or clips to show me, please send them along!
Here's a link to the 1969 New Yorker article about Barbette: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1969/09/27/an-angel-a-flower-a-bird
Bonus video! Meet Barbette, the world's most famous drag queen trapeze artist (YouTube)
Comments (9)
nobody crushed like Cocteau
I wonder if 'seduction' may have been a euphemism?
I just listened to a history podcast that had an episode on Barbette, so I was so excited to see them pop up in your video! What a cool individual!
Oh that's awesome -- what podcast was it? So glad other folks are talking about Barbette!!!
I wonder whether the lines from Night Tide aren't supposed to be Greek, I could make out "agapi mou" which would be "my love". (Also I at least in theory speak French and couldn't make out a single word)
just a quick comment here to say that I’m so excited about the upcoming “some like it hot” video. This movie has been one of my favorites for a really long time.
The character of Handel Fane, the drag aerialist in Murder! was played by actior Esme Percy, not Barbette. But the character was based on Barbette. What I find interesting in this case is that, as far as I can find, the character was not in the novel that was the source material for the film, but was created for the film. Perhaps a good research topic would be Hitchcock's interest in queer characters as they seemto pop up often.
I can only guess the "considering the society's wealth depicted in the movie" is there to consider movies "less appropriate" if they show poor people because then they show the country isn't as well off as they want to predicate. Though maybe I'm biased because that's exactly what Franco did in Spain, where I'm from (like Carpanta, a comedic comic strip about a beggar looking for food that was censored because "in Franco's Spain nobody suffers hunger" and changed from "hunger" to "apettite").
Wow! This video was completely fascinating and I loved all of it. The part on the censorship of "Some Like It Hot" caught my eye for all sorts of reasons; are the PCA notes something you can share? Also, is there a link to Karina Longworth's discussion of the history of the rating system that you mentioned? I'd love to learn more!