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Jazzmun | |
|---|---|
 Jazzmun in 2016 | |
| Born | Nichcalo Dion Crayton February 10, 1969 San Diego, California, U.S. |
| Occupation(s) | Actress, performer |
| Years active | 1984–present |
Jazzmun (born February 10, 1969) is the stage name of Jazzmun Nichala Crayton [1] who is an American actor and nightclub performer, often working in the Los Angeles Area. [2]
 | This section of a biography of a living person needs additional citations for verification .(June 2017) |
Originally from San Diego, California, Jazzmun made her first national television appearance on the talent variety show Puttin' on the Hits in 1984, in which she split her body half in male drag and half in female drag, lip synching as a "duet". [2]
Finding work immediately after that appearance for her theatric and modeling talents, she moved to Los Angeles and secured an agent. Since then she has performed all over the world performing as either her stage character "Jazzmun"; her trademark Whitney Houston impersonation, which she performed as in the female stage revue La Cage; or any number of other characters. In the late 1990s Jazzmun co-starred in the stage play Ask Any Girl as the character Mahogany Saint Ross, a name play-on-words to singer Diana Ross. [2]
Latina singer Gloria Estefan hired Jazzmun to perform in the music video of her remake hit "Everlasting Love" after seeing one of Jazzmun's performances. Later, drag icon RuPaul hired Jazzmun to also perform in his music video "A Little Bit of Love" which spoofed drag queens as aliens out to conquer the world. Jazzmun then released two of her own dance singles in 1997 on the Aqua Boogie label: "I'm Gonna Let You Have It" and "That Sound, That Beat". Later she produced another song "2 Tired 2 B Shady", which was later featured in Patrik-Ian Polk's show Noah's Arc . [2]
After many years as a female impersonator, Jazzmun announced (circa 2008) she is a transgender woman. She has stated, "It's not so much as a physical thing but mental and spiritual for me." Jazzmun has played several drag queen and transvestite characters in film and television. Her first role playing a transgender character on television came in 1997 on The Wayans Brothers . [3] [4]
In 2017, Jazzmun participated in a filmed letter to Hollywood written by Jen Richards, produced by GLAAD and ScreenCrush, asking for more and improved roles for transgender people. [5] [6]
A drag queen is a person, usually male, who uses drag clothing and makeup to imitate and often exaggerate female gender signifiers and gender roles for entertainment purposes. Historically, drag queens have usually been gay men, and have been a part of gay culture.
Diana Ross is an American singer and actress. She was the lead singer of the vocal group The Supremes, who became Motown's most successful act during the 1960s and one of the world's best-selling girl groups of all time. They remain the best-charting female group in history, with a total of 12 number-one pop singles on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100, including "Where Did Our Love Go," "Baby Love," "Come See About Me," "Stop! In the Name of Love," "You Keep Me Hangin' On," and "Love Child."
Drag is a performance of exaggerated femininity, masculinity, or other forms of gender expression, usually for entertainment purposes. Drag usually involves cross-dressing. A drag queen is someone who performs femininely and a drag king is someone who performs masculinely. Performances often involve comedy, social satire, and at times political commentary. The term may be used as a noun as in the expression in drag or as an adjective as in drag show.
Alexis Arquette was an American actress and transgender activist.
A gender bender is a person who dresses up and presents themselves in a way that defies societal expectations of their gender, especially as the opposite sex. Bending expected gender roles may also be called a genderfuck.
Marsha P. Johnson was an American gay liberation activist and self-identified drag queen. Known as an outspoken advocate for gay rights, Johnson was one of the prominent figures in the Stonewall uprising of 1969.
Cross-dressing and drag in film and television has followed a long history of cross-dressing and drag on English stage, and made its appearance in the early days of the silent films. Charlie Chaplin and Stan Laurel brought the tradition from the English music halls when they came to America with Fred Karno's comedy troupe in 1910. Both Chaplin and Laurel occasionally dressed as women in their films. Even the beefy American actor Wallace Beery appeared in a series of silent films as a Swedish woman. The Three Stooges, especially Curly, sometimes appeared in drag in their short films. The tradition has continued for many years, usually played for laughs. Only in recent decades have there been dramatic films which included cross-dressing, possibly because of strict censorship of American films until the mid-1960s. One early exception was Alfred Hitchcock's thriller Murder!, where the murderer is a transvestite who wears particularly frilly dresses and petticoats. Cross-gender acting, on the other hand, refers to actors or actresses portraying a character of the opposite gender.
An AFAB queen, diva queen or hyper queen is a drag queen who is a cisgender woman or a nonbinary person who was assigned female at birth. These performers are generally indistinguishable from the more common cisgender male or transgender female drag queens in artistic style and techniques.
Alexandra Scott Billings is an American actress, singer, and teacher. Billings, a trans woman, played one of TV's first openly transgender characters in 2005 made-for-TV movie Romy and Michele: In the Beginning. She is also known for portraying the recurring character Davina in the Amazon series Transparent and has played transgender characters in ER, Eli Stone, How to Get Away with Murder, Grey's Anatomy and The Conners.
Candis Cayne is an American actress and performance artist. Cayne performed in New York City nightclubs in drag since the 1990s, and came out as transgender in 1996; Cayne came to national attention in 2007 for portraying transgender mistress Carmelita on ABC's prime time drama Dirty Sexy Money. The role makes Cayne the first transgender actress to play a recurring transgender character in primetime. She is perhaps best known for her recurring role as the Fairy Queen on the fantasy series The Magicians.
Erica Andrews was a Mexican international and national beauty pageant title winner, drag performer, actress, entrepreneur, and activist.
Peppermint, or Miss Peppermint, is an American actress, singer, songwriter, television personality, drag queen, and activist. She is best known from the nightlife scene and, in 2017, as the runner-up on the ninth season of RuPaul's Drag Race. In 2018, Peppermint made her debut in The Go-Go's-inspired musical Head Over Heels as Pythio, becoming Broadway's first out trans woman to originate a lead role.
Jen Richards is an American writer, actress, producer, and activist.
Portrayals of transgender people in mass media reflect societal attitudes about transgender identity, and have varied and evolved with public perception and understanding. Media representation, culture industry, and social marginalization all hint at popular culture standards and the applicability and significance to mass culture, even though media depictions represent only a minuscule spectrum of the transgender group, which essentially conveys that those that are shown are the only interpretations and ideas society has of them. However, in 2014, the United States reached a "transgender tipping point", according to Time. At this time, the media visibility of transgender people reached a level higher than seen before. Since then, the number of transgender portrayals across TV platforms has stayed elevated. Research has found that viewing multiple transgender TV characters and stories improves viewers' attitudes toward transgender people and related policies.
Trace Lysette is an American actress whose most notable roles include Shea in the television series Transparent (2014–2019) and Tracey in the feature film Hustlers (2019). As a trans actress, she also featured in the Netflix documentary Disclosure as herself.
Sandra "Sandie" Crisp, better known by her stage name The Goddess Bunny, was an American entertainer, drag queen, actress, and model. Footage of her tap dancing, originally recorded around 1987, was the subject of one of the first viral videos.
Michaela Antonia Jaé Rodriguez, formerly known as Mj Rodriguez, is an American actress and singer. Born in Newark, New Jersey, Rodriguez attended several performing arts schools in her youth before being cast in a theater production of Rent as Angel Dumott Schunard, winning the 2011 Clive Barnes Award for her performance.
Patti Harrison is an American actress and comedian. She is best known for her roles in comedy series such as Shrill (2019–2021) and I Think You Should Leave with Tim Robinson (2019–present), as well as the comedy film Together Together (2021), with the latter earning her a nomination for the Independent Spirit Award for Best Female Lead.
Kornbread Jeté is the stage name of Demoria Elise Williams, an American drag queen best known for competing on season 14 of RuPaul's Drag Race in 2022.
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