Watch: Club My-O-My, Vintage Drag Queens From the 1930s-1960s

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The amazing mini-documentary ‘Club My-O-My: New Orleans Vintage Drag’, produced by the New Orleans Historical Society, includes interviews with the now retired Bobby Lane and Jimmy Callaway. Bobby, whose real name is Tom Carlino, and Jimmy talk about their experiences working as drag queens in New Orleans during the early and mid part of the 20th century.

The images in this video show show the classic beauty of these queens, which makes this video worth watching from beginning to end.

Club My-O-My: New Orleans Vintage Drag

Here’s more information about the film from New Orleans History Society’s website:

[quote]The Club My-O-My was a female impersonator club that originated and ended in the French Quarter. It flourished after first being kicked out of an informal, after-hours home in a fur warehouse in the Vieux Carre in the early 1930s, according to oral history in the New Orleans gay community. The Club My-O-My joined the older Wonder Bar in the West End area of New Orleans. The Wonder Bar eventually closed; from the 1930s through the 1960s, the My-O-My served as a popular part of New Orleans nightlife for tourists as well as residents.

“The New Orleans club was one of several in the United States whose impersonators performed for heterosexual as well as homosexual audiences. Grayline Tours brought tourists by the busload for decades until a 1972 fire destroyed its lakefront location. The club relocated to the French Quarter for a short while before closing for good. The once risque club had been rendered too tame by the sexual revolution and changes in dress and mores.For the majority of its existence, the club allowed only white patrons and white performers.”[/quote]

All image credits: New Orleans Historical Society

Photo Gallery

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