[URBAN NOTE] "Toronto’s Michelle DuBarry on being the oldest performing drag queen"

[rfmcdonald]

In The Globe and Mail, Brad Wheeler interviews DuBarry, the oldest performing drag queen not only in Toronto but the world.

There was a time when it was a drag for men to wear dresses, but times have changed. Last month, Toronto’s Michelle DuBarry (a.k.a. Russell Alldread) was recognized by Guinness World Records as the oldest performing drag queen. We chatted with the celebrated performer by phone.

It’s improper to ask a lady her age, but is it okay to ask a drag queen?

Of course it is. I’m a man who wears dresses, and I’m 84 now. I don’t feel 84, actually.

Well, you don’t sound a day over 78. Can you talk about your early days as drag queen in Toronto?

Well, it was illegal in the 1950s, of course. We started off having little shows, wearing suits and ties, with a rose in the lapel. We would mime songs. Then we began to wear dresses, which started things. When the police came by to see what was happening, they wanted to charge us. They didn’t, but they did make sure we had men’s underwear on. [Laughs.]

So it was an underground thing?

I never thought of it as underground. I was doing what I wanted to do. In the fifties, I did midnight Shakespeare at the Trinity Quadrangle, where I was on stage with Lorne Greene. I was holding a spear. In the sixties, I got into professional drag at Club 511 [on Yonge Street]. It was all about loving theatre and doing miniature Broadway shows in drag. And, of course, there were Halloween nights at the St. Charles Tavern, where the crowds were out throwing ink and everything else.