CHANNELING JUDY GARLAND AT THE PALACE — WITH A TAD OF BRUNO MARS
ALL PHOTOS BY KATRINA DEL MAR @KATHRINA DEL MAR PHOTOGRAPHY
CD: MARYJANE FAHEY
H/MU: VIRNA SMIRALDI
IN THE COMFORT OF HIS WEST VILLAGE LAIR …
GLORIOUS PROFESSION: Playwright, Actor, Cabaret Entertainer, Drag Legend
GLORIOUS PERSONA: Outrageous Raconteur, Drag and Hollywood Royalty, Grande Dame
GLORIOUS QUALITIES: Hilarious, Survivor, Poetic, Profound
GLORIOUS PHILOSOPHY:
“I think it was inevitable that I’d become an actress.”
Charles Busch is having a moment. Again. Still. Forever.
I’ve been on the Busch bandwagon since “Vampire Lesbians of Sodom” lured me into The Limbo Lounge — and Charles Busch — in mid 80’s.
Reading his latest, “Leading Lady, a Memoir of a Most Unusual Boy” — I re-lived those east village days, those early NY theater moments. I laughed. I cried — and I wrote him. Would he let me interview him as a Glorious Broad? As a Glorious Brawn? And here we are.
In his ruby red bordello-like home, surrounded by posters, paintings, shrines of himself and the women close to him, I got to behold a portrait of his mentor, his very own Auntie Mame — Aunt Lillian. My heart skipped. Get the book.
Sip an extra dry martini and settle in for an extended chat with the very Glorious Charles Bush, a most unusual Boy / Man / Diva.
WHAT DREW YOU IN TO THIS HOLLYWOOD OVER-THE-TOP BROAD WORSHIP?
Well, It’s a bigger story. My father was obsessed with opera and wanted — needed — to be an opera singer. So as a 7-year-old, I was brought to the old Metropolitan Opera House. That experience stayed with me — the fascination with the opulent, the decadent, the Diva.
AND THEN THE MOVIES …
I’ve been watching classic film on TV from as early as I can remember — Bette Davis, Joan Crawford, Norma Shearer, Rosalind Russell.
AND THEATER?
Even better. At 10, my Aunt Lillian gave me a big coffee table book called “Stars of the American Stage.” I still have it. Lillian Russell, Katherine Cornell, Tallulah Bankhead. Through this book, I could imagine…
I think it was inevitable that I’d become an actress.
I ATE UP YOUR BOOK “LEADING LADY” a Memoir of a Most Unusual Boy — AND THE NUMBER OF WOMEN IN YOUR LIFE EARLY ON. LIKE AUNT LILLIAN …
I was basically raised in a matriarchal family. Two older sisters and two Aunts on my mother’s side were my main figures. Particularly my mother’s oldest sister, Aunt Lillian.
WAS SHE YOUR BIGGEST INFLUENCE?
My biggest. My style of storytelling was very influenced by her.
She was reserved. But with me – some of the things she said were rather inappropriate to say to a little boy — but I was just this great audience.
WELL. DO TELL!
While she’d be folding clothes she’d be talking about outrageous fantasies she’d have about other people’s sex lives. She was very feminist but couldn’t say feminism — it was associated with unattractive ladies somehow. But she was a feminist in a profound sense.
SO YOU HAD YOUR OWN AUNTIE MAME.
I really did. I mean she wasn’t the kind of woman who “dahlink” — she was different. Sometimes I relate her to David Copperfield’s Aunt Betsey. Or Helen Keller’s Anne Sullivan …
EXTREMES
Well, she was slim, elegant — in that sense she was Auntie Mame like. But I needed a lot of nurturing when my sister and I went to live with her after my mother’s death. I was flunking out of school. I was fucked up. She was extremely intellectual and just wouldn’t give up on me …
AND SHE DIDN’T TRY TO CHANGE THE UNUSUAL BOY THAT YOU WERE.
I think it was just a lucky break for her that I was a kid fascinated by culture.
AND NOT BASEBALL. HA. WAS SHE AN IDEAL PARENT?
Nobody has an “ideal” parent. But. She knew that I was a professional before I was a professional.
“I would not want to be starting out today trying to do outrageous comedy — when you can’t outrage any more. ”
WHEN DID YOU START UNDERSTANDING THAT YOU FELT MORE COMFORTABLE ON STAGE AS AN ACTRESS — NOT AN ACTOR?
It was seeing Charles Ludlam at The Ridiculous Theatre when I was about 17. He’d play one of my favorites, Marguerite Gautier in Camille. And other members in his theater played female roles. That was my awakening.
HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT BEING CALLED “THE GODMOTHER OF DRAG” NOW?
That’s fine.
BUT DRAG IS ONE THING. THEATER QUITE ANOTHER…
Exactly. And there’s a direct theatrical lineage from Charles Ludlam, to Charles Busch to Jinkx Monsoon. Jinkx was in Chicago and really has it. When somebody is that talented — it is hard to be envious.
ENVIOUS?
Look, I would like to have performed on Broadway in a play of mine. I have had plays on Broadway as a playwright. But I’ve never been in them. But Jinkx? Go for it.
Let’s Talk Sex
IS IT POSSIBLE TO HAVE GREAT SEX AND A GREAT LIVING COMPANION?
The question that I have never known — or that I have never experienced is — how much sex do long term partners really have?
I WONDER …
’Cause you can’t really ask anybody. Sigh … I am such a creature of the ‘70s.
MEANING?
I came of sexual age just after Stonewall. 1972 esh. The slogan was “Too many men too little time” — the era of gay men. I never completely understood, how can you be with somebody – arguing over …
GARBAGE PICK UP
Yeah — and then want to have hot wild sex with them in the evening. Wouldn’t that put a damper on it?
SO YOU HAVE NEVER ACTUALLY LIVED WITH ANYONE.
Not romantically. I’ve never made finding a partner the main priority in my life. My artistic life and creativity has always been the most important thing to me so, getting laid or finding a romantic partner has been secondary.
SO DO YOU HAVE A PEDRO ALMODÓVAR KIND OF FAMILY?
I do.
I have a small circle of people around me who I love and they really love me. And I know when disaster strikes — they are there.
I’m also kind of mama to emotionally fragile people in their mid 30s. It’s very sweet. One of them calls our group “the firm” — I guess like the royal family. (laughs)
LET’S TALK “TOO MANY MEN” …
I’m 69 now and I’ve had enough sex for the city of Cleveland — in the 70s 80s 90s. My young friend Doug, one of my kids, he was saying: How many people have you had sex with? I said: I don’t know, a couple of thousand…
How much does an orgy count? When you actually had 17 people at the same time? Does that count … separate? (laughs)
I LOVE THAT YOU HAVE DIFFERENT AGE FRIENDS.
Well, you gotta have friends who can take care of you. Ya know?
“I have a small circle of people around me who I love and they love me. And I know when disaster strikes — they are there. ”
I WANT TO TALK ABOUT GENDER. WHAT IS YOUR FEELING ABOUT THIS HUGE CHANGE IN OUR CULTURE?
Sometimes I think I am the most simple person in the world. My pronouns are he/him and yet …when you write a memoir, you do have to think about things you haven’t really thought about before.
LIKE …
I am this generation of drag performer that — it was so important for us to be taken seriously as professionals. We were apoplectic if somebody referred to us as just “drag queens” — if we detected the slightest bit of patronization.
But I get embarrassed reading old interviews where I had to make it absolutely clear that there was no ambiguity at all. If I put on a dress, it’s because it’s a play and nothing to do with who I really am.
And its bullshit.
BULLSHIT?
Because, listen. If I spent 50 years where my creativity is filtered through a female persona, there has got to be something rather deep about it. I don’t need to analyze it. But I do need to give it credit.
Somehow, though, I identify with being a fella — I have an androgenous nature. I enjoy both. A question of really — walking through one archway and coming back in.
AND NOW, THE RU PAUL’S OF THE WORLD HAVE TAKEN OVER. HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT THAT?
Well, its just so odd that on one hand you have the RuPaulisation of culture from all over the world and at the same time, there is this weird conservatism trying to outlaw drag. I think it’s all very cynical.
Can We Be — Outrageous?
WE ARE IN SUCH A POLITICALLY CORRECT MOMENT — DO YOU FEEL THAT THIS IS GETTING IN YOUR WAY AS A PLAYWRIGHT?
It is hard. I have a new play coming out and it is very likely my last. I would not want to be starting out today trying to do outrageous comedy when you can’t outrage any more.
I KNOW FROM YOUR BOOK THAT JOAN RIVERS WAS YOUR PAL. TALK ABOUT NOT GIVING A SHIT ABOUT WHAT WAS POLITICALLY CORRECT.
She’d be canceled every day! It was starting to happen before she died. And she was so defiant about it.
SURROUNDED BY ALL THINGS CHARLES. CREATED BY CHARLES. PAINTED BY CHARLES.
IF YOU COULD BE THAT 18 YEAR-OLD KID AGAIN – WHAT WOULD YOU ADVISE HIM?
If I could come back from the future I would say — it’s gonna work out, honey. There was a quote from Jean Cocteau I read about that age that had great resonance for me. I’m gonna paraphrase it but – “Whatever it is that people condemn you for — cultivate that — ‘cause that’s who you really are.” And that’s what I did.
AND IS THAT THEME HELPING YOU NOW?
Absolutely. When I get into some new area — like becoming a cabaret singer for the past fifteen years, I had to say to myself — what do I have to offer? And not be negative about it.
EVEN YOU.
Oh yeah. I thought, okay, I have a decent singing voice. But there are a lot of people who have a stronger voice than you. But I am a storyteller. I can take a song and make it into a little play.
And I’ll make that work.
SO YOU HAVE AN INNER DEMON…
Of course. It’s so easy to say — oh I can’t do that. And most things in life I cannot do. Everything is an issue. My Aunt used to say — your problem is that you don’t anticipate. And I don’t anticipate.
That’s why I always need somebody to help me. Somebody always needs to help me.
“I’m 69 now and I’ve had enough sex for the city of Cleveland. ”
LET’S TALK ABOUT YOUR REACTION TO THE OVER-THE-TOP REVIEW OF VAMPIRES LESBIANS OF SODOM BY FRANK RICH …
What a night. I had struggled for so long and this rave review in the New York Times came out and, backstage in the green room — the cast was carrying on as if the Titanic had been raised and the passengers and crew were alive. I mean…and there’s me.
I left the party in the green room, went into the dressing room, closed the door and just sobbed. I could see that this was 11 years or more of the struggle. So much discouragement. Doing all these cockamamie part time jobs to piece together a living. How I wish I could have just been — WHOOPIE!
SO WHAT IS NEXT FOR YOU?. I READ SOMEWHERE IT IS ABOUT A GRAND DAME WHO’S BEEN SEXUALLY AWAKENED.
Oh there you go — always going to the sex part.
AND BY A SAILOR!
I read a big fat biography of Henrik Ibsen, and I’m turning me into an Ibsen like character — a Hedda Gabler — a Mrs. Alving — kind of. I am Ibsen’s widow who, as you said, gets to be sexually awakened by a young sailor. It’s fun — and its comedy drama.
WHEN? WHERE?
"Ibsen's Ghost; An Irresponsible Biographical Fantasy." We open at the George Street Playhouse in New Brunswick, NJ, Jan 19 - Feb 4, and then at Primary Stages in NYC March 4 - April 14.
BUT YOU HAVE BEEN THREATENING LEAVING THE STAGE.
This “8 a week” is really difficult. When we were doing our last play, “The Confession of Lily Dare,” at The Cherrry Lane — just a 5 minute walk from here — I’d look out the window at 5pm and I’d think — oh, I have to now begin my day at 8:00 PM — peak energy, focus and concentration.
I’m getting older. And now it’s this insecurity that you’re gonna go up on a line and make a fool of yourself. So that’s why I really would doubt that after new this play, I would do it again. But then — you never know.
WHAT WOULD YOU FOCUS ON?
I think I would keep my hand in the cabaret world. It’s like 2 nights here and there. I’d do that and writing.
Life Is a Cabaret
I MISSED YOUR WHOLE CABARET MOMENT. HOW’D THAT HAPPEN?
Well, it’s been a while. In the early 90s, I was working at The Ballroom, a lovely cabaret room that was in NYC, where I’d be Josephine Baker like, changing gowns, doing sketches, singing, having dancers — that started me off.
Then about 15 years ago, I got a call for a gay cruise — and they had a budget. I called my friend Tom Judson for music and direction. And I decided I really wanted to sing this time. I took lessons, Tom pushed me with more complicated music, and I assumed I would be in drag, ‘cause — that is what people expect.
WE DO.
Yeah. But I’d be introduced as: Here he is Charles Busch — and I’d come out looking like Arlene Dahl and sing some Sondheim and Jimmy Webb. I no longer understood why I was in drag — other than they are expecting and I am enjoying. But …
ARE YOU GOING TO TELL ME YOU DE-DRAGGED?
I am. I did. I made the radical move to de-drag about seven years ago. I was just wearing black shirt black pants and I felt totally confident. The same act. People loved it.
BUT WHY WERE YOU BEING SO EITHER OR?
Exactly. Do I have to look like a cater waiter in this fluid time we are living in? So I had a costume designer friend of mine make me a green paisley suit with rhinestone buttons and wore very fancy shoes with a heel and a lot of eye make up on — and beads.
WHO’S THE INSPIRATION?
Kind of like Bruno Mars and Judy Garland at the Palace Theater.
AND THAT’S WHAT YOU’VE BEEN DOING?
Yes. Except Tom’s cats have killed my cabaret career.
WHAAA?
Tom has these two ancient cats who never liked me anyway — and he lives up the Hudson which is a big schlep. These cats are about 140 years old. Tom has to be home every day at 5PM to give one of the cats a shot for diabetes. He’d give me the cats’ room when I visited over night and I’d walk out of that door and these two black cats would be staring. It was — we’re really gonna fuck ‘im up now.
And they did.
Loss and Laurels
YOU HAD THIS HEART ATTACK. DID THAT CHANGE YOU IN ANY PROFOUND WAY?
It’s more than a heart attack, honey – I had an aortic aneurysm and I nearly died.
OMG.
And I have never been the same.
IN WHAT WAY?
My self-image. When I was a 7-year-old kid — we just had one death after the other. My mother, both my aunts lost their husbands, my grandparents, my dog died. Over and over.
Later, in therapy, I realized that we were depressed for all those years. Or maybe just I was. I was a sickly child but there was nothing wrong with me. I was never taken to a doctor. I was just sort of — fragile.
WHEN DID YOU COME OUT?
I never came out. I was just gay. But I became sexualized at 15, 16.
And suddenly the world became technicolor from black and white. And I felt great.
TELL ME ABOUT THAT TECHNICOLOR.
All of my Oliver Twist waif disappeared — and I was a cute boy in tight jeans, having a lot of sex right from the start.
I totally changed. I was invincible. I never did drugs or drank to excess because then I wouldn’t feel so great.
You know — you walk down the street and just breathe the air.
And then, at 47…
WHAT EXACTLY DID THEY DO TO YOUR BODY?
They had to cut me up — put a metal valve in, a Dacron graft, a bi-pass and all the sudden — I went right back to being that sickly kid.
I am just very careful now, and I was careless before in a wonderful way.
I find saying NO now very easy. And I don’t think that’s always a good thing.
HOW IS YOUR PHYSICAL CONDITION NOW
I’m totally artificial.
IF YOU COULD NAME A FEW SPECTACULAR HIGHLIGHTS IN YOUR LIFE – WHAT WOULD THEY BE? NAME THREE.
Maybe it’s a sad commentary but the highlights are all professional. Doesn’t everybody say — oh, my wedding day.
OR THE DAY I GAVE BIRTH…
1. Opening night of Vampire Lesbians of Sodomy. Cause I went from nothing to supporting myself. Overnight.
2. The opening night for The Lady in Question, 1989. Frank Rich in The New York Times — the last line was “That the lady in question is a man is beside the point. What matters is that the actor in question is a star.” Really emotional for me.
3. The opening night of The Allergist’s Wife on Broadway. I never thought I would have a Broadway hit. And that afternoon, I got a telegram and I thought — who the hell writes me a telegram. I opened it up and it said “Welcome to the big time! — Stephen Sondheim. WOW.
GOD, I AM CRYING.
Yeah. I guess I will leave it at that.
IT’S BEEN A TOUGH TIME FOR YOU. HOW ARE YOU DEALING WITH THE LOSS OF YOUR SISTER THIS YEAR?
I loved my sister more than anybody I’ve ever loved, and she was barely 3 years older than me. Once we became the same age — when I was 16 and she was 19 — we never had a single argument or moment of tension. We were bred to be devoted to each other.
WHAT WAS IT ABOUT HER?
She was a Peter Pan and Wendy kind of person — the most whimsical kooky person. Sometimes in theater you come across these “professional” kooky types. And I ain’t falling for it. I know the real deal — the real Sally Bowles, the real Holly Golightly. That was my sister. Yet, she was the most insightful person who really knew how human beings ticked. It’s that combination — why she’s Wendy and Peter Pan.
AND HOW ARE YOU NOW?
A part of me is missing. I can’t quite accept that she’s gone.
So you got me crying. What are you — Barbara Walters?
LOSS. AGING…I AM SO SORRY.
HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT AGING?
I don’t care for it very much.
Charles is everywhere. Find the gorgeous memoir Leading Lady, A Memoir of a Most Unusual Boy on amazon, the mad cap comedy The Sixth Reel on Prime and coming up March 2, Ibsen’s Ghost, an Irresponsible Biographical Fantasy at 59E59 Theaters. Whew. You’ll find him on FB @charlesBusch, IG @chasbusch. The posts are brill by the by. What’d you expect?