Washington Blade, January 5, 2001 Washington Blade, March 19, 1993

At Ziegfeld's, Queens for a Night

For the 'Hurricane on Heels' and Friends,
Performing Is Anything but a Drag
By Megan Rosenfeld
Washington Post Staff Writer

The small stage at Ziegfeld's is ablaze with red evening gowns — chiffon, beads, feathers. The Dreams are in full voltage — a make-believe girl trio based on the Supremes, and played here by three men. Are you following all this? It's an ersatz group impersonated by pretend women, who are not really singing the song you hear.

The chunky little one in the middle, a 5-foot-2 person jetting around on 5 1/2-inch heels, is the one to watch. This is Ella Fitzgerald, the doyenne of Washington drag queens, zipping around the stage like a fire engine with the siren blaring.

"Don't be afraid, honey," Ella later teases a straight, middle-aged woman here for a birthday. "I'm just the fat man in the dress."

The woman hoots with laughter.

"Are you heterosexual?" Ella wants to know. "Yes," the woman says. "So am I!" Ella insists.

This time it's the crowd that hoots.

"Is that your husband?" she asks another woman, who replies that the gentleman next to her is a boyfriend. Ella is incredulous. "That little queen?"

By this time the newcomers in the audience understand what the regulars already know: We are not going to be serious tonight. This is a drag show, not "Hedda Gabler." We are going to play along and admire the view. If you do not wish to appreciate the delicate prettiness of Miss Gigi Coutour, the extraordinary headdress made by LaContressa Farrington, the lithe elegance of Miss Billie Ross, the tall beauty of Monet Dupre or the good-natured largeness of Lena Lett — all of whom are about to do their turns on the Ziegfeld's stage — then you should probably stay away.

This is not the Washington, D.C., of drab bureaucrats in sensible pumps and neutral suits, whose idea of a fashion statement is wearing blue jeans on Casual Fridays. Nor is it the evening Washington of little black cocktail dresses or maybe a daringly loud necktie. It is not political Washington (is it?) or tourist Washington, and it certainly isn't church Washington. This is the Washington of men in ostrich feathers, of bright colors, of extravagance, of flamboyance, of excess.

In the daytime, you can see the Capitol from this part of Southeast, but it isn't a postcard view. The walled-off Navy Yard has given its name to the nearest Metro stop. This area is one of the armpits of Washington — i.e., it's "in transition" and has been for about a million years. There's a bus yard across the street. The rest is piles of gravel, empty lots, mysterious warehouse buildings, the occasional sad-looking liquor store or corner market. It's a place where people caution you not to park too far from the club at 1345 Half St. SE.

Ziegfeld's is a gay bar that has drag shows four nights a week (Thursdays are for amateurs.). And at the center of it is the so-called "Hurricane on Heels," the longest-running D.C. queen of glamour, sparkles, beads, rhinestones, false eyelashes and wigs — mesdames et messieurs, please welcome the one and only, the star and creator of this "Ladies of Illusion" — Miss Ella Fitzgerald!

"Do you mind if I smoke? It calms my nerves." It's a few hours before the show is to start, and early in the transformation of Donnell Robinson into Ella Fitzgerald. He's nervous not just for himself but because he organizes the whole show, acts as the emcee, schedules the acts and delivers the music to the DJ.

The atmosphere in this small dressing room one flight above the dance floor would be familiar to anyone who's been in a play, a beauty pageant or a wedding: separate stations of makeup kits, the smell of powder, a frisson of gossip. The performers arrive one at a time, each loaded down with bags full of pantyhose and wigs, and accompanied by a friend carrying four or five elaborate outfits.

Ella explains that when he was starting out 25 years ago, fresh off a farm near Warrenton, Va., a drag queen was never seen outside her persona. In other words, you came dressed and left dressed. But that custom, like so many others, has changed. "It's a pain to drive in drag," he confides. "The fingernails make it hard to undo the seat belt. And if you get pulled over . . ."

Only Billie Ross arrives in full makeup. That way he won't be unpleasantly surprised by an inadequate dressing area, which he has experienced elsewhere over the past 10 years of drag work. He puts a red baseball cap on his head and drives in from Suitland, eyelashes and all. He sets up his station with a leopard-skin pattern cloth and matching case.

We should explain: Billie Ross is not his real name. Each drag queen adopts a persona that may or may not relate to his act. (In Billie's case, he does both Billie Holiday and Diana Ross, but also Janet Jackson and Whitney Houston.) Some drag queens have male names, like Patrick Dennis, and some have made-up names, like LaLa Maharis. With the exception of Donnell Robinson — i.e., Ella Fitzgerald, also called Donn/Ella by his friends — all of the drag queens in this story are being identified only by their stage names. (Some of them have day jobs.)

If you think that's complicated, just wait.

LaContressa Farrington arrives carrying a gold-and-purple headdress with extensions that stretch at least three feet, lots of glitter and nodding feathers. LaContressa — still dressed in a sleeveless T-shirt, shorts and sneakers and sporting a heavy five o'clock shadow — explains that he made the thing out of cardboard and glue. The headpiece is carved from an old bleach bottle. It's quite fabulous.

Women are often confounded by the idea that some men would willingly subject themselves to the torturous dress-up procedures they have longed (sorta) to be free of. Who would tug and push himself into a corset or girdle, squinching his innards and pinching his flesh, if he didn't have to? And what about all the tweezing, shaving and dyeing, and the high heels that throw your back out and make your feet feel as if you're walking on hot coals? Tripping on those long dresses, worrying about that bit of flab poking above your bra line, suffering the indignity of limp hair flop -- what's the appeal?

Not looking like yourself, for one thing. Being all that you can be. Figuring out the puzzle. Playing with what God gave you. And sometimes you come out looking pretty special.

"You just feel better in a sequin dress and a feather boa," says Ella. "Although it is a lot of work, and I'm glad to take it off."

Or we can turn to the infamous queen Albin of the musical "La Cage aux Folles" (you knew there had to be a "Cage" reference in this story), who sings:

"When I count my crow's feet again, and tire of this perpetual marathon

I put down the john seat again, and put a little more mascara on.

And everything's sparkle dust! Bugle beads! Ostrich plumes!

When it's a beaded lash that you look through

'Cause when I feel glamorous, elegant, beautiful

The world that I'm looking at's beautiful too!"

LaContressa looks down in disgust at the box of Kentucky Fried Chicken before him. "I told her I needed some ketchup," he pouts.

Ella checks a Peanuts calendar pinned above his mirror to review who's performing tonight. Lena and Gigi have not arrived. Then he returns to the job at hand -- building up the arch of his brow with a pencil. After that he outlines his lips in pencil and applies a coat of Ruby Woo red.

He works during the day as a hairdresser in an Alexandria salon, then four nights a week heads over to Ziegfeld's about 8 p.m. and works there until 2 or 2:30 a.m. Ella is disdainful of the "kids" today who don't take drag seriously enough to perfect their makeup and clothes and create a good act. "They think they can put on a little halter top and prance around," he sneers.

A wisp of gossip floats over from the far corner.

"Silicone don't make you an entertainer," says LaContressa.

"No, but it makes you a prettier one," counters Billie. "What do you think, Miss Monet?"

"Don't try to drag me into this conversation," Dupre answers, no pun intended.

There is quite a split between the old-fashioned drag queens like these, who see themselves as true purveyors of the art, and those who enhance their shapes with injections of silicone or implants or hormone pills. There's something wrong about that, Ella says. "Why would you put that stuff into yourself when you can stuff in a pair of socks or some birdseed and take it off when you get home?"

Lena Lett has arrived. He is wearing denim shorts and a button-down sport shirt, and he looks like nothing so much as a fullback. He is that big. He owns two video stores. Gigi, by day a makeup artist, is going to do his makeup — Lena explains that because of his day job he can't shave his eyebrows and so he requires extra artistry.

Gigi arrives last and shows off the new net leotard he embroidered with beads earlier in the day. It is much admired by all. He is the current holder of the Miss Ziegfeld's title, and the beaded ensemble reveals a pair of nicely turned ankles.

The preshow tension is mounting.

"This is what I call being on the bridge," says Ella. "There is no turning back now."

Billie painstakingly pulls on a pair of tights, then adds some foam hip padding. Then another pair of tights, and another, until eventually he is wearing six pairs.

"Billie is a perfectionist," Ella says admiringly.

And underneath those layers of pantyhose is — well, let that be Victoria's Secret.

By 10 p.m., an hour and a half before showtime, the atmosphere has gotten a little bawdier. The faces are being contoured and powdered. The bodies have been reshaped and tightened, but the wigs have yet to be positioned. They study themselves in the mirror, with deep gazes that are both admiring and professionally acute.

"Girls, can I have y'all's music?" Ella asks in her major-domo voice. She points to a wig.

"Whose hair is hanging here? This has got to be moved. I have to work here."

Donnell Robinson grew up on that farm near Warrenton, raised by his maternal grandparents while his mother worked as a domestic in Fairfax.

"I barely made it through high school," he says. "I had to take care of them, and help on the farm, baling hay and all that stuff. I wanted to go to college, but we were poor country farm people. I was molested when I was 13 by one of the welfare boys my grandparents had taken in as a foster child. I hid the fact I was gay until I was 15 or 16 — drag was my escape, I guess."

He started with a talent show performance in eighth grade, playing Flip Wilson's character Geraldine Jones. He wanted to be an actor but had no idea how to go about becoming one. Being a 5-foot-2 African American gay male in rural Virginia in the 1970s was not exactly blissful. The summer he graduated from Fauquier High School a friend took him to Pier 9, where he saw people in drag for the first time and later won his first contest. He moved to Arlington and got into the scene, learning the ropes from older queens, and performing at places like the Rogue, which stood opposite the FBI building. (Now it's a bank.)

He joined the Academy Awards, an organization that was started 40 years ago, when drag was very much in the closet here. "The bars then could only have drag shows on Halloween," says Mame Dennis (not his real name, of course), who has been co-president (with Fanny Brice) of the organization since 1973. "And you always had to have on one item of male clothing. So we all had on jockey shorts under our dresses."

The regular events were held in various private homes rented by the group's founder, who was known as Liz. This Liz, now dead, had a drinking problem, and the evenings often became fractious. "If you saw Liz looking at herself in the mirror and telling herself how beautiful she was, you knew it was time to go. Soon the wigs would come off and the fighting would start. That wasn't my scene. I wasn't brought up that way," says Mame, 61, a former Navy man who later retired from the postal service.

Of course, there is a sordid side to the drag scene, places where drugs and sex are in evidence in the bathrooms and the artistry of drag is less important. But Mame insists the Academy maintains the highest standards.

The 150 members are divided into four "houses," each headed by a senior member. Mame is the "Drag Mother" of "Beekman Place," and Ella is one of his "Drag Daughters." The older ones give makeup tips and hand down dresses to the newer ones, eschewing the kind of cutthroat rivalry other cities (like New York) are known for. Every year there is a debutante ball to introduce new members, plus house Christmas parties and two awards ceremonies at the Washington Convention Center.

"You should see the stack of cards I get on Mother's Day," says Mame, sitting in the cozy Arlington house he shared with his mother until her death a year ago. She knew he liked to dress up as a woman and went to some of the events. But his neighbors don't know, and he'd still rather they didn't.

The group meets every week or so on Sunday evenings at Club 55 on K Street, which is a strip club during the rest of the week. They raise money for AIDS causes and take care of their own when one gets sick.

Ella got his stage persona when he joined the Academy. "I was then Sharyn O'Brien, because my grandfather was half Irish. But someone said to me, you need an African American name. At your size, you should be Ella Fitzgerald." And so he is — although he never does Ella's music. It wouldn't be quite right for the drag show crowd.

In 25 years Ella has had only four relationships that lasted as long as a year. "Very few female impersonators have relationships," he says. "They don't know how to separate you from the person you are onstage. I don't have time for it now." He quotes Gladys Knight:

"Being alone does not mean being lonely."

But — as he has been protesting for years — the drag thing is getting a little old. Now 46, he is finding it harder and harder to saddle up those high heels and glue on those eyelashes -- which, by the way, used to cost 99 cents and are now up to $4.99. His dresses are handmade, and the specially reinforced shoes cost as much as $150.

"Sometimes my legs just ache," he says.

Mame Dennis hardly ever dresses up anymore. It's just too much, now that he has some arthritis and has gained weight. "Most drag queens have a five-year peak," he says. "Then they move on — it's too expensive, or they get tired of all the work involved."

In that context, Ella has lasted longer than anyone would expect. He started at Ziegfeld's in 1980. "Frankly, I'd like to move on to something else," he sighs. "But I just don't know what. I have to get some kind of new act. I'm not sure what to do."

There are no pensions for drag queens, of course. Ella would like to buy a house, which is not impossible now that he's making more than $30,000 a year, $12,000 of it from his work at Ziegfeld's (minus the $2,500 or so he spends on costumes and makeup).

But there's new life in the drag scene, now that it is becoming a hip thing for straight people to do. Every Saturday Ziegfeld's — which is just one of several drag clubs in Washington — is packed elbow to elbow, with bridal bachelorette parties competing with the traditional gay crowd for tables.

"You want to know why I do it, don't you?" Ella says with a giggle. "Applause, honey. Applause, applause."


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