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Tony Midnite (Sept. 20, 1926 - Aug. 31, 2009) was a female impersonator, costume designer, activist, and book reviewer. [1]
Midnite was born Tony Murdoch on Sept. 20, 1926 in Texas. [2] He worked in the defense industry at Hunter's Point Navy Yard near San Francisco during World War II. After seeing a female impersonation show at the legendary Finocchio's in San Francisco around 1948, he became a performer himself, starting in Galveston, Texas, transitioning to Hollywood, California, then making his way to Chicago.
Midnite had begun performing with the traveling Jewel Box Revue, America's first racially-inclusive traveling revue of female impersonators. [3] [4] He took a hiatus, however, in 1951 to move to Chicago. [5] His mentor, Stanley Rogers, was the costume designer for the Jewel Box; when Rogers retired, Midnite took over the post. [5] He also opened his own costume design studio in Chicago in 1953 [6] in the basement of the Lorraine Hotel at 411 South Wabash Ave. in the city's Rush Street nightclub area. [5] Though he was having throat troubles in the mid-1950s which caused him to step back from performing for a time, [5] he was nevertheless photographed in full glamour drag regalia in 1955 [7] and 1956 [8] by celebrity and theatrical photographer Maurice Seymour, [9] who stars sought "because of his ability to portray them as they appeared to the audience 100 feet away. He could retouch the photos, enhance their appearance...keep the illusion going." [10]
Midnite eventually performed and designed costumes for four years at Club 82 in New York City. [11] [5] In this time, he created original designs for fellow performers such as Lavern Cummings [12] and Tillie the Dirty Old Lady. [13] As the drag scene boomed not only in Chicago proper but Calumet City and Cicero, with approximately 50 strip clubs abounding, Midnite designed for "all manner of exotic stage performers." [5] In addition, he designed for road shows of Gypsy and Carnival and for the Jewel Box's Broadway production, which debuted at Loew's State Theatre in Times Square. He designed for Club Chesterfield performers as well [14] and worked under the supervision of David Merrick on various productions for the Metropolitan Opera.
He started booking shows for the Jewel Box Revue, inevitably shaping the drag scene at the time with an 8-month-long booking on the South Side of Chicago called 25 Men and a Girl which signaled a drag boom in the region in the 1960s. [1]
Throughout his performance career, he appeared in shows such as Club 82's Fun-Fair for '57 and Club 82 Revue [15] [16] and the Jewel Box's Show Sensation of the Nation, [16] among numerous others. His final performances were in a recurring show called The Fantasy Revue which played at the Granada Lounge and Blue Dahlia Show Lounge in Chicago. [17]
Later in life, Midnite worked as a book reviewer, reviewing for GayLife and other publications. [18]
In 1996, Mayor Richard M. Daley of Chicago inducted Midnite into the Chicago LGBT Hall of Fame. [18]
Midnite died in Las Vegas, Nevada on Aug. 31, 2009 at the age of 82. [2]
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.
Drag kings are mostly female performance artists who dress in masculine drag and personify male gender stereotypes as part of an individual or group routine. A typical drag show may incorporate dancing, acting, stand-up comedy and singing, either live or lip-synching to pre-recorded tracks. Drag kings often perform as exaggeratedly macho male characters, portray characters such as construction workers and rappers or they will impersonate male celebrities like Elvis Presley, Michael Jackson and Tim McGraw.
A drag show is a form of entertainment performed by drag artists impersonating men or women, typically in a bar or nightclub. Shows can range from burlesque-style, adult themed nightclub acts to all-ages events with sing-alongs and story times.
Gaysweek was an American weekly gay and lesbian newspaper based in New York City printed from 1977 until 1979. Considered the city's first mainstream weekly lesbian and gay newspaper, it was founded by Alan Bell in 1977 as an 8-page single-color tabloid and finished its run in 1979 as a 24-page two-color publication. It featured articles, letter, art and poetry. It was, at the time, only one of three weekly publications geared towards gay people. It was also the first mainstream gay publication published by an African-American.
Lucy Foozie, better known as simply Miss Foozie, is a character from Chicago. Time Out Chicago calls her a "drag hostess and entertainer", and Chicago Free Press has awarded her "best female impersonator". Since 2008, Miss Foozie has served as Community Ambassador for ChicagoPride.com.
Stormé DeLarverie was an American woman known as the butch lesbian whose scuffle with police was, according to DeLarverie and many eyewitnesses, the spark that ignited the Stonewall uprising, spurring the crowd to action. She was born in New Orleans, to an African American mother and a white father. She is remembered as a gay civil rights icon and entertainer, who performed and hosted at the Apollo Theater and Radio City Music Hall. She worked for much of her life as an MC, singer, bouncer, bodyguard, and volunteer street patrol worker, the "guardian of lesbians in the Village." She is known as "the Rosa Parks of the gay community."
RayBourbon was an American female impersonator, entertainer and vaudeville performer, noted for his "outrageous" risqué monologues. He mainly performed in nightclubs, gaining a following in the 1930s and 1940s, and issued several LPs of comic material during the 1950s. He died while serving a prison sentence, after having been convicted of being an accomplice to murder.
St. Sukie de la Croix is a writer and photographer. He is most widely known for his 2012 book Chicago Whispers: A History of LGBT Chicago Before Stonewall. His works have explored the underground cultures and aspects of Chicago's LGBT community dating back to the 1670s. He has had several columns in Chicago publications, both in print and online: Outlines, Nightspots, Chicago Now, and Chicago Free Press.
Finocchio'sClub was a former nightclub and bar in operation from 1936 to 1999 in North Beach, San Francisco, California. The club started as a speakeasy called the 201 Club in 1929, located at 406 Stockton Street. In 1933, with the repeal of prohibition, the club moved upstairs and started to offer female impersonation acts; after police raids in 1936 the club relocated to the larger 506 Broadway location. Finocchio's night club opened June 15, 1936 and was located in San Francisco, California, above Enrico's Cafe at 506 Broadway Street in North Beach.
Chicago has long had a gay neighborhood. Beginning in the 1920s there was active homosexual nightlife in Towertown, adjacent to the Water Tower. Increasing rents forced gay-friendly establishments steadily northwards, moving through Old Town and Lincoln Park along Clark Street and on to Boys Town. Boys Town presently serves as the best-known Chicago gayborhood, and the center of its LGBT culture. Gentrification has pushed many gay and lesbian people to reside ever further north into Uptown, Edgewater and Rogers Park.
Lee Greer Brewster was an American drag queen, transgender activist, and retailer. He was a founding member of the pre-Stonewall activist group, Queens Liberation Front. In the 1970s and 1980s, he published Drag magazine. Brewster helped to raise funds for the very first U.S. celebration of Pride, Christopher Street Liberation Day in 1970. He continued to help raise funds and organize Christopher Street Liberation Day for several years. Lee Brewster was active in the homophile and gay liberation movements, working with the Mattachine Society of New York as well as the Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries.
Queens Liberation Front (QLF) was a homophile group primarily focused on transvestite rights advocacy organization in New York City. QLF was formed in 1969 and active in the 1970s. They published Drag Queens: A Magazine About the Transvestite beginning in 1971. The Queens Liberation Front collaborated with a number of other LGBTQ+ activist groups, including the Gay Activists Alliance and the Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries.
Chuck Renslow was an American businessperson, known for pioneering homoerotic photography in the mid-20th-century US, and establishing many landmarks of late-20th-century gay male culture, especially in the Chicago area. His accomplishments included the cofounding with Tony DeBlase of the Leather Archives and Museum, the cofounding with Dom Orejudos of the Gold Coast bar, Man's Country Baths, and the International Mr. Leather competition, and the founding by himself alone of Chicago's August White Party, and the magazines Triumph, Rawhide, and Mars. He was the romantic partner of Dom Orejudos and later Ron Ehemann.
Renee C. Hanover was an American lawyer and civil rights advocate who practiced in Chicago. As a lawyer, she defended groups and individuals involved in civil rights cases dealing with gender, LGBT issues and race. She was part of the Women's Law Center and fought for intersectional equality. Hanover was one of the first openly gay lawyers to practice in the United States.
Gilbert Saroni, also written Gilbert Sarony, was a cross-dressing performer in vaudeville as well as early Edison Manufacturing, American Mutoscope, and Siegmund Lubin films. In his obituary in Variety he was described as one of the first impersonators of the "old maid" type and was said to be "considered one of the funniest men in the show business."
Kim Christy was a female impersonator of the 1960s and 1970s, magazine editor and publisher, book author, screenwriter, adult film producer, and first genderfluid person to be inducted into the AVN Hall of Fame.
Rule No. 9 was a city ordinance in Los Angeles, California, which made it illegal for performers to "impersonate by means of costume or dress a person of the opposite sex" without a special permit from the Los Angeles Board of Police Commissioners. Enforced in 1967, this outlawed cross-dressing and drag, and effectively criminalised transgender performers. It was notably used to prevent transgender dancer Sir Lady Java from performing.
The Fun Lounge police raid was a 1964 police raid that targeted Louie's Fun Lounge, a gay bar near Chicago, Illinois, United States. The raid led to the arrest of over 100 individuals and is considered a notable moment in the LGBT history of the area.
Club 82, also known as the 82 Club, was a nightclub in Manhattan, New York City that employed female impersonators as entertainers. The nightclub had a second life as a music venue, but was eventually closed.
