Items21The creator’s order
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Dan LenoDan Leno was the music-hall comedian who defined the pantomime dame, playing the leading women in the Drury Lane Christmas pantomimes from 1888 until shortly before his death in 1904. His dames were sharp, chatty and very funny, and the British tradition of men in exaggerated frocks at Christmas…0 - 2
Julian EltingeBorn 14 May 1881Julian Eltinge was the most famous female impersonator in American vaudeville and one of the best-paid stage performers of the 1910s, admired for glamorous gowns rather than burlesque. A Broadway theatre opened under his name in 1912, and he carried the act into silent films, proof of how…0 - 3
Arthur LucanArthur Lucan created Old Mother Riley, a fiery Irish washerwoman, on the British variety stage and took her into a long run of popular comedy films from the late 1930s to the early 1950s. The character carried the pantomime-dame tradition to cinema audiences across Britain.0i - 4
Milton BerleBorn 12 Jul 1908Milton Berle, nicknamed Mr. Television, regularly appeared in dresses and wigs on Texaco Star Theater from 1948, when his show was the reason many American families bought their first set. Broad and slapstick rather than glamorous, his drag sketches put the form into millions of living rooms in the…0i - 5
Barry HumphriesBorn 17 Feb 1934Barry Humphries first played Edna Everage as a timid Melbourne housewife in 1955 and over six decades turned her into Dame Edna, a gladioli-throwing megastar with her own chat shows on British and American television. Edna's mix of glamour and savage politeness made a drag character one of the…0 - 6
Danny La RueBorn 26 Jul 1927Danny La Rue ran his own glamorous nightclub in London's Hanover Square and in the 1960s became one of the highest-paid entertainers in Britain, filling West End theatres and appearing on prime-time television. His sequinned impressions of stars from Elizabeth Taylor to Margaret Thatcher made drag…0i - 7
Flip WilsonFlip Wilson's sassy, confident Geraldine Jones was the breakout character of The Flip Wilson Show (1970 to 1974), one of the most-watched programmes in American television at the time. Geraldine's catchphrases spread nationwide, and Wilson's success made him one of the first Black performers to…0 - 8
Divine (performer)Born 19 Oct 1945Divine, the stage persona of Harris Glenn Milstead, starred in John Waters's underground films from Pink Flamingos (1972), with the shaved-back hairline and dramatic make-up designed by Van Smith. Her turn as Edna Turnblad in Hairspray (1988) brought that confrontational drag to multiplex audiences…0i - 9
Lady BunnyBorn 13 Aug 1962Lady Bunny founded Wigstock in 1984, an outdoor drag festival in New York's East Village that grew into a huge annual event and the subject of a 1995 documentary. With her towering blonde wigs, disco singles and filthy humour she helped take the downtown club scene out into public view.0i - 10
Paul O'GradyBorn 14 Jun 1955Paul O'Grady developed Lily Savage, a brassy Birkenhead barmaid, at London's Royal Vauxhall Tavern in the 1980s and took her to The Big Breakfast and to hosting Blankety Blank on BBC One. Lily made a sharp-tongued working-class drag act a teatime favourite, and O'Grady went on to become one of…0
