The Cockettes
Encyclopedia
The Cockettes were a psychedelic
drag queen
troupe founded by Hibiscus
in the late 1960s in San Francisco's North Beach
neighborhood. The troupe performed outrageous parodies of show tune
s (or original tunes in the same vein) and gained an underground cult following that led to mainstream exposure.
In 1971, over differences in philosophy, the group split into two separate groups, the Cockettes and The Angels of Light. The Cockettes continued to work as paid performers while the Angels of Light chose to do free theatre without admission charge.
The Cockettes were the subject of a 2002
documentary, The Cockettes
neighborhood, Steven F. Arnold
let the Cockettes perform as part of his "Nocturnal Dream Show", a showcase of underground film
s, in exchange for free admission. The show soon became a "must-see" for San Francisco's hip community. Combining LSD
-influenced dancing
, set design, costume
s and their own versions of show tune
s (or original tunes in the same vein), the Cockettes took to the stage every 6 weeks, performing prior to the Saturday midnight "Nocturnal Dream Show". Show titles included Gone With the Showboat
to Oklahoma
, Tinsel Tarts In A Hot Coma, Journey to the Center of Uranus, Smacky & Our Gang, Hollywood Babylon
and Pearls Over Shanghai. Word quickly got out that nothing like these shows had ever been seen before, and within a few months the Cockettes were getting enormous attention from the media. Not only hippie magazines, such as Earth and Rolling Stone
, wanted stories on the Cockettes, but also mainstream magazines such as Look
, Life
and Esquire
were anxious to do features as well.
In 1971, The Cockettes released the short film Tricia's Wedding, lampooning the wedding ceremony of Richard Nixon
's daughter, Tricia Nixon; Nixon's chief of staff H. R. Haldeman
arranged a secret screening of the film for White House staffers.
community, was not then focused on money. Later, when Cockette audiences began to consist of celebrities such as Truman Capote
and members of European royal houses, the group insisted on being paid by the theatre owner. Even so, the amounts eventually paid were minimal.
In early 1971, over differences in philosophy, the group split into two separate groups, the Cockettes and The Angels of Light. The Cockettes continued to work as professional performers while the Angels of Light chose to do free theatre without admission charge.
's nationally-syndicated column. Whereas Hibiscus was dedicated to anarchy
and breaking down boundaries others in the group saw the potential of the efforts and they had even hired a director. Hibiscus was explicitly political and committed to free performances as a part of the hippie ethos. At the same time Sylvester was being noted as a stand out act for his singing. He was getting funding from Gregg Gobel, the son of George Gobel
, and had started to transform into an accomplished singer even hiring the Pointer Sisters
as his back-up singers. With Hibiscus, the defacto leader of the group now gone, plans for a New York City show that could catapult the group to even greater fame where set into motion and tied to a double bill of the Cockettes and Sylvester's new band. Although rock-promoter Bill Graham
passed on the opportunity for a New York show he did connect the group with Harry Zerler, "a wealthy talent scout for Columbia Records
" and booked Sylvester as the opening act.
News of the 47 Cockettes boarding the flight was covered by local television and in full drag the group took over the airplane even complimenting the stewardess' "drag
". Once in New York they were housed in a dingy hotel where heroin was easily scored but spent most of their time as celebrated guests at dozens of parties where they could eat and drink for free, running a tab at a local diner and getting free taxicab rides. Sylvester knew the Cockettes were not going to do well but he was determined to make his debut as a rock star and practiced with his band every day. The Cockettes were still transitioning from being "a happening" to actually doing structured performances. The group had one week to prepare but they had few resources and little energy after all the parties. They were however the talk of town and their show was the hot ticket.
In November 1971 the Cockettes, minus former Cockettes (now the Angels of Light), were booked for performances at the Anderson Theater in New York City. The venue had no sound or lighting systems and needed a curtain. The stage was also twice the size of the Cockettes usual one so all the sets had to be rebuilt from scratch in six days. They opened with "Tinsel Tarts In a Hot Coma", a send-up of films about Broadway in the 1930s. According to accounts of the time, "Everybody who was anybody" came to the Cockette's New York opening, including such celebrities as John Lennon
and Yoko Ono
, Liza Minnelli
, Truman Capote
, Gore Vidal
, and Angela Lansbury
. Also attending were Andy Warhol
and his own infamous gender-bending drag performers Holly Woodlawn
and Candy Darling
. But with the Cockettes' loose San Francisco magic, the opening night was a disaster (New Yorkers expected a tightly performed show). And in the theatre things went from bad to worse when Angela Lansbury walked out on the show, soon followed by Andy Warhol and most of the rest of the audience. After the show Gore Vidal quipped, "Having no talent is not enough." Apparently the New York professionals did not view the group as talented.
What had seemed so fabulous in San Francisco did not translate well in New York City. Also, the group did not have ample opportunities to rehearse, so their performances in New York were not their best. Of course, no one told New Yorkers that the Cockettes were rather anti-rehearsal. For the Cockettes, the idea was to have a blast onstage with the true spirit of Hollywood. For San Francisco, the Cockettes, in the late 1960's, were beautiful, funny, liberating, psychedelic messengers from the gods. For most New Yorkers, it was "You've got to be kidding!," and the celebrities the Cockettes had so wanted to impress were not impressed. Later, the Cockettes tried to explain their New York failure by commenting "the New York audiences did not understand us," (although it appeared perhaps New York had understood them). After a week of disastrous "Tinsel Tarts..." playing to empty houses, they performed their original musical "Pearls Over Shanghai" for the remaining 2 weeks of their contract, and the Village Voice gave it a rave. But it was too little too late. Sylvester and his band was the lone exception but he disassociated himself after several nights on advice from his business friends.
". At this time Divine, star of films by noted filmmaker John Waters
, joined the group, thus making her San Francisco debut. In that show Divine performed her song "The Crab at the Center of Uranus" while dressed as a lobster.
After the group disbanded in 1972, various Cockettes continued to perform, often as solo performers (John Rothermel, who was often cast in a lead roles due to his excellent singing voice and knowledge of 20's/30's music, had a successful cabaret career in San Francisco), but more often as a group, although no longer billed as The Cockettes. Later a few Cockettes formed the group Paula Pucker and the Pioneers, among others.
Tomata duPlenty, an early member, who left the group and went on to sing in the seminal L.A. synthpunk
band, the Screamers
. Du Plenty went on to play a Cockettes-inspired lead role in the punk rock musical Population: 1
.
Sylvester
's rendition of torch songs by the likes of Etta James
, Bessie Smith
, Ethel Waters
, Billie Holiday
, Dinah Washington
, and Lena Horne
during his solo spots were always a highlight. After the demise of the Cockettes, Sylvester became one of most profilic singers of the disco era.
Other core members of the Cockettes were Link (aka Link Martin, aka Luther Cupp), Gary Cherry, Rumi Missabu, Tahara (whose parents had been rodeo
clowns), Goldie Glitters, "Johnny Cockette", Sweet Pam (aka Pam Tent), Martin Worman
, Scrumbly Koldewyn (who wrote tunes to Link's Martin's lyrics), Fayette Hauser, Daniel Ware, Dusty Dawn, Linden, Brent Jensen, Pristine Condition, Reggie (aka Anton Dunigan), Miss Harlow (who had been an original Plaster Caster
) and Kreemah Ritz (originally known as Big Daryl) and Chris Kilo who produced a few of the early shows after the Angels/Cockette split. Many other people too numerous to mention performed in only one or two shows.
), The San Francisco Angels of Light, The New York Angels of Light and The Assorted Nuts. Many Cockettes also continue to perform in the theatre world today.
A 2009 revival of Pearls Over Shanghai (the screenplay was originally written by Link Martin) in San Francisco included the participation of Rumi Missabu and piano accompaniment by composer Scrumbly Koldewyn, with Tahara one of the costume collaborators.
On December 3, 2009 several members of the Cockettes (Fayette Hauser, Scrumbly Koldewyn, Rumi Missabu, Sweet Pam, Tahara) came together at SFMOMA for a rare screening of the films Tricia's Wedding, Palace, and Elevator Girls in Bondage followed by discussions and memorable Cockettes moments. There was an afterparty at the Cafe du Nord on Market Street near Noe Street at which the Cockettes-inspired New York drag troupe the Dixie Chicks performed.
documentary, The Cockettes
, directed by Bill Weber and David Weissman. The film debuted at the 2002 Sundance Film Festival
. It went on to a limited theatrical release and to play the film festival
circuit. At the premiere at San Francisco's Castro Theatre
many of the surviving Cockettes attended in genderfuck
drag. The Cockettes received the LA Film Critics Award as Best Non-Fiction Film of 2002 and the Glitter Award for Best Documentary of 2003.
In 1972 Hibiscus, the founder of the Cockettes and of the Angels of Light, left the Angels and moved to New York City. There he formed his own group also known as the Angels of Light. The focus of his group was mostly drag revues in which members wore heavily sequinned costumes and did Jayne Mansfield style parodies of women. He moved back to his home town, New York, in 1978, and with his family (Harris) started doing more organized shows, including the fairly popular off-off-Broadway show, "Sky High" (performing under the name of George O'Hara). In 1982 Hibiscus died of AIDS in New York City (supposedly the 224th person to die in that epidemic).
Jack Coe (aka Angel Jack) was another renown member of the Angels of Light. He was seen later on as a regular performer at Studio 54 in NYC. In the 1990s, he moved to his mother's home in Gulf Port, FL. to help care for her. While in Florida, he would make random appearances and do occasional solo performances throughout the club circuit. In his final years, he befriended underground multi-media performance artist Mikee Plastik, whom he did his final work with (costume design and photo shoot). Coe died of an AIDS related illness in 2001 in St. Petersburg, FL. at St. Anthony's Hospital (the same hospital where famed beat poet Jack Kerouac died).
In 1977 the Angels of Light San Francisco commune disbanded, although the group continued to perform until 1980. At present many of the male members of the Angels of Light have died of AIDS, while other members, still living, have moved on and currently live all over the world.
In 1978, John Rothermel (who had had a successful solo cabaret career in San Francisco, after leaving The Cockettes) moved to New York, after a year-long stopover in his home town of Minneapolis, MN. He had always been a junk shop shopper and had become a collector of Art Deco while still in San Francisco. Later in New York, he became an early collector of Mid-Century Modern/post-WWII furniture and decorative arts. After he initially worked in New York as stage manager for Hibiscus' most successful New York off-off Broadway show "Sky High", he developed into one of the most knowledgeable collectors of Mid-Century Modern. He worked at the Greenwich Auction Room, and independently bought and sold furniture and decorative arts before dying of AIDS on 4/21/94. (Among his most important find was a wood and metal model designed by William Lescaze
as one of the finalists for the New York Museum of Modern Art
building. Certainly worth $10,000.00 or more, John's mother, Della, donated it to the MOMA after John died.)
Another interesting member was Frank Bourquin, using the name Inez Paloma. Frank was John Rothermel's roommate on Market Street. Frank was deeply into 1920's history and was friends with a bunch of Palo Alto record collectors centered around Ed Linotti, who was director of the Stanford University
music archives. Frank was working at the Post Office, but developed an ulcer and left on disability. He was featured in a number of the post-Hibiscus shows; one where he sung Happy-Go-Lucky You (and Broken-Hearted Me), a tune from 1932. Apparently, he later moved out to of San Francisco to Petaluma and was driving a cab, and died in late 1980s.
The Cockettes inspired a Brazilian drag troupe "Dzi Croquettes," which are the subject of a 2009 documentary film Dzi Croquettes
.
Psychedelic
The term psychedelic is derived from the Greek words ψυχή and δηλοῦν , translating to "soul-manifesting". A psychedelic experience is characterized by the striking perception of aspects of one's mind previously unknown, or by the creative exuberance of the mind liberated from its ostensibly...
drag queen
Drag queen
A drag queen is a man who dresses, and usually acts, like a caricature woman often for the purpose of entertaining. There are many kinds of drag artists and they vary greatly, from professionals who have starred in films to people who just try it once. Drag queens also vary by class and culture and...
troupe founded by Hibiscus
Hibiscus (entertainer)
Hibiscus was one of the leaders of the psychedelic gay liberation theatre collective group known as the Cockettes in early 1970s San Francisco; in today's theatrical parlance he would be considered to be a "Creative Director".-Early life:Harris was born in Bronxville, New York in 1949 to George...
in the late 1960s in San Francisco's North Beach
North Beach, San Francisco, California
North Beach is a neighborhood in the northeast of San Francisco adjacent to Chinatown, Fisherman's Wharf and Russian Hill. The neighborhood is San Francisco's Little Italy, and has historically been home to a large Italian American population. It still holds many Italian restaurants today, though...
neighborhood. The troupe performed outrageous parodies of show tune
Show tune
A show tune is a popular song originally written as part of the score of a "show" , especially if the piece in question has become a "standard", more or less detached in most people's minds from the original context...
s (or original tunes in the same vein) and gained an underground cult following that led to mainstream exposure.
In 1971, over differences in philosophy, the group split into two separate groups, the Cockettes and The Angels of Light. The Cockettes continued to work as paid performers while the Angels of Light chose to do free theatre without admission charge.
The Cockettes were the subject of a 2002
2002 in film
The year 2002 in film involved some significant events. The first significant releases of sequels took place between The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones, Men in Black II, Analyze That, Spy Kids 2: The Island of...
documentary, The Cockettes
The Cockettes (film)
The Cockettes is a 2002 American documentary film. It was directed by Bill Weber and David Weissman, and produced by Weissman. Its subject is the 1960s-70s San Francisco performance group The Cockettes. The film debuted at the 2002 Sundance Film Festival, where it was nominated for the Grand Jury...
Underground beginnings
On New Years Eve, 31 December 1969, at the Palace Theatre in San Francisco's North BeachNorth Beach, San Francisco, California
North Beach is a neighborhood in the northeast of San Francisco adjacent to Chinatown, Fisherman's Wharf and Russian Hill. The neighborhood is San Francisco's Little Italy, and has historically been home to a large Italian American population. It still holds many Italian restaurants today, though...
neighborhood, Steven F. Arnold
Steven F. Arnold
Steven Arnold was a California-based multi-media artist, spiritualist, gender bender, and protegee of Salvador Dali. His work consisted of drawings, paintings, rock and film poster art, makeup design, costume design, set design, photography, and film.Steven also played an instrumental role in...
let the Cockettes perform as part of his "Nocturnal Dream Show", a showcase of underground film
Underground film
An underground film is a film that is out of the mainstream either in its style, genre, or financing.-Definition and history:The first use of the term "underground film" occurs in a 1957 essay by American film critic Manny Farber, "Underground Films." Farber uses it to refer to the work of...
s, in exchange for free admission. The show soon became a "must-see" for San Francisco's hip community. Combining LSD
LSD
Lysergic acid diethylamide, abbreviated LSD or LSD-25, also known as lysergide and colloquially as acid, is a semisynthetic psychedelic drug of the ergoline family, well known for its psychological effects which can include altered thinking processes, closed and open eye visuals, synaesthesia, an...
-influenced dancing
Dance
Dance is an art form that generally refers to movement of the body, usually rhythmic and to music, used as a form of expression, social interaction or presented in a spiritual or performance setting....
, set design, costume
Costume
The term costume can refer to wardrobe and dress in general, or to the distinctive style of dress of a particular people, class, or period. Costume may also refer to the artistic arrangement of accessories in a picture, statue, poem, or play, appropriate to the time, place, or other circumstances...
s and their own versions of show tune
Show tune
A show tune is a popular song originally written as part of the score of a "show" , especially if the piece in question has become a "standard", more or less detached in most people's minds from the original context...
s (or original tunes in the same vein), the Cockettes took to the stage every 6 weeks, performing prior to the Saturday midnight "Nocturnal Dream Show". Show titles included Gone With the Showboat
Show Boat
Show Boat is a musical in two acts with music by Jerome Kern and book and lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II. It was originally produced in New York in 1927 and in London in 1928, and was based on the 1926 novel of the same name by Edna Ferber. The plot chronicles the lives of those living and working...
to Oklahoma
Oklahoma
Oklahoma is a state located in the South Central region of the United States of America. With an estimated 3,751,351 residents as of the 2010 census and a land area of 68,667 square miles , Oklahoma is the 28th most populous and 20th-largest state...
, Tinsel Tarts In A Hot Coma, Journey to the Center of Uranus, Smacky & Our Gang, Hollywood Babylon
Hollywood Babylon
Hollywood Babylon is a book by avant-garde filmmaker Kenneth Anger which details the sordid scandals of many famous and infamous Hollywood denizens from the 1900s to the 1950s. First published in the US in 1965, it was banned ten days later and would not be republished until 1975...
and Pearls Over Shanghai. Word quickly got out that nothing like these shows had ever been seen before, and within a few months the Cockettes were getting enormous attention from the media. Not only hippie magazines, such as Earth and Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone is a US-based magazine devoted to music, liberal politics, and popular culture that is published every two weeks. Rolling Stone was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann Wenner and music critic Ralph J...
, wanted stories on the Cockettes, but also mainstream magazines such as Look
Look (American magazine)
Look was a bi-weekly, general-interest magazine published in Des Moines, Iowa from 1937 to 1971, with more of an emphasis on photographs than articles...
, Life
Life (magazine)
Life generally refers to three American magazines:*A humor and general interest magazine published from 1883 to 1936. Time founder Henry Luce bought the magazine in 1936 solely so that he could acquire the rights to its name....
and Esquire
Esquire (magazine)
Esquire is a men's magazine, published in the U.S. by the Hearst Corporation. Founded in 1932, it flourished during the Great Depression under the guidance of founder and editor Arnold Gingrich.-History:...
were anxious to do features as well.
In 1971, The Cockettes released the short film Tricia's Wedding, lampooning the wedding ceremony of Richard Nixon
Richard Nixon
Richard Milhous Nixon was the 37th President of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974. The only president to resign the office, Nixon had previously served as a US representative and senator from California and as the 36th Vice President of the United States from 1953 to 1961 under...
's daughter, Tricia Nixon; Nixon's chief of staff H. R. Haldeman
H. R. Haldeman
Harry Robbins "Bob" Haldeman was an American political aide and businessman, best known for his service as White House Chief of Staff to President Richard Nixon and for his role in events leading to the Watergate burglaries and the Watergate scandal – for which he was found guilty of conspiracy...
arranged a secret screening of the film for White House staffers.
Philosophical split
During their first year the Cockettes were not paid for performances, although tickets to the shows sold for $2.00, the proceeds going to the theatre owner (during the first year the Cockettes sneaked many audience members into the theatre free through the back door). The reason for the lack of interest in payment was that the group, having come out of the Haight Ashbury hippieHippie
The hippie subculture was originally a youth movement that arose in the United States during the mid-1960s and spread to other countries around the world. The etymology of the term 'hippie' is from hipster, and was initially used to describe beatniks who had moved into San Francisco's...
community, was not then focused on money. Later, when Cockette audiences began to consist of celebrities such as Truman Capote
Truman Capote
Truman Streckfus Persons , known as Truman Capote , was an American author, many of whose short stories, novels, plays, and nonfiction are recognized literary classics, including the novella Breakfast at Tiffany's and the true crime novel In Cold Blood , which he labeled a "nonfiction novel." At...
and members of European royal houses, the group insisted on being paid by the theatre owner. Even so, the amounts eventually paid were minimal.
In early 1971, over differences in philosophy, the group split into two separate groups, the Cockettes and The Angels of Light. The Cockettes continued to work as professional performers while the Angels of Light chose to do free theatre without admission charge.
New York City trip
Once Hibiscus had left the group some of the members saw the departure as an opportunity to capitalize on the media attention from articles in The Rolling Stone and Maureen Orth's in The Village Voice as well as Rex ReedRex Reed
Rex Taylor Reed is an American film critic and former co-host of the syndicated television show At the Movies. He currently writes the column "On the Town with Rex Reed" for The New York Observer.-Life and career:...
's nationally-syndicated column. Whereas Hibiscus was dedicated to anarchy
Anarchy
Anarchy , has more than one colloquial definition. In the United States, the term "anarchy" typically is meant to refer to a society which lacks publicly recognized government or violently enforced political authority...
and breaking down boundaries others in the group saw the potential of the efforts and they had even hired a director. Hibiscus was explicitly political and committed to free performances as a part of the hippie ethos. At the same time Sylvester was being noted as a stand out act for his singing. He was getting funding from Gregg Gobel, the son of George Gobel
George Gobel
George Leslie Gobel was an American comedian and actor. He was best known as the star of his own weekly NBC television show, The George Gobel Show, which ran from 1954 to 1960 .-Early years:He was born George Leslie Goebel in Chicago, Illinois, His father, Hermann Goebel, was a...
, and had started to transform into an accomplished singer even hiring the Pointer Sisters
Pointer Sisters
The Pointer Sisters are an American pop/R&B recording act from Oakland, California that achieved mainstream success during the 1970s and 1980s. Spanning over three decades, their repertoire has included such diverse genres as pop, disco, jazz, bebop, blues, soul, funk, dance, country and rock.The...
as his back-up singers. With Hibiscus, the defacto leader of the group now gone, plans for a New York City show that could catapult the group to even greater fame where set into motion and tied to a double bill of the Cockettes and Sylvester's new band. Although rock-promoter Bill Graham
Bill Graham
William Carvel "Bill" Graham, PC QC is a former Canadian politician, who served as Minister of Foreign Affairs, Minister of National Defence, and Leader of the Opposition and interim Leader of the Liberal Party of Canada.-Personal life:...
passed on the opportunity for a New York show he did connect the group with Harry Zerler, "a wealthy talent scout for Columbia Records
Columbia Records
Columbia Records is an American record label, owned by Japan's Sony Music Entertainment, operating under the Columbia Music Group with Aware Records. It was founded in 1888, evolving from an earlier enterprise, the American Graphophone Company — successor to the Volta Graphophone Company...
" and booked Sylvester as the opening act.
News of the 47 Cockettes boarding the flight was covered by local television and in full drag the group took over the airplane even complimenting the stewardess' "drag
Drag (clothing)
Drag is used for any clothing carrying symbolic significance but usually referring to the clothing associated with one gender role when worn by a person of another gender. The origin of the term "drag" is unknown, but it may have originated in Polari, a gay street argot in England in the early...
". Once in New York they were housed in a dingy hotel where heroin was easily scored but spent most of their time as celebrated guests at dozens of parties where they could eat and drink for free, running a tab at a local diner and getting free taxicab rides. Sylvester knew the Cockettes were not going to do well but he was determined to make his debut as a rock star and practiced with his band every day. The Cockettes were still transitioning from being "a happening" to actually doing structured performances. The group had one week to prepare but they had few resources and little energy after all the parties. They were however the talk of town and their show was the hot ticket.
In November 1971 the Cockettes, minus former Cockettes (now the Angels of Light), were booked for performances at the Anderson Theater in New York City. The venue had no sound or lighting systems and needed a curtain. The stage was also twice the size of the Cockettes usual one so all the sets had to be rebuilt from scratch in six days. They opened with "Tinsel Tarts In a Hot Coma", a send-up of films about Broadway in the 1930s. According to accounts of the time, "Everybody who was anybody" came to the Cockette's New York opening, including such celebrities as John Lennon
John Lennon
John Winston Lennon, MBE was an English musician and singer-songwriter who rose to worldwide fame as one of the founding members of The Beatles, one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music...
and Yoko Ono
Yoko Ono
is a Japanese artist, musician, author and peace activist, known for her work in avant-garde art, music and filmmaking as well as her marriage to John Lennon...
, Liza Minnelli
Liza Minnelli
Liza May Minnelli is an American actress and singer. She is the daughter of singer and actress Judy Garland and film director Vincente Minnelli....
, Truman Capote
Truman Capote
Truman Streckfus Persons , known as Truman Capote , was an American author, many of whose short stories, novels, plays, and nonfiction are recognized literary classics, including the novella Breakfast at Tiffany's and the true crime novel In Cold Blood , which he labeled a "nonfiction novel." At...
, Gore Vidal
Gore Vidal
Gore Vidal is an American author, playwright, essayist, screenwriter, and political activist. His third novel, The City and the Pillar , outraged mainstream critics as one of the first major American novels to feature unambiguous homosexuality...
, and Angela Lansbury
Angela Lansbury
Angela Brigid Lansbury CBE is an English actress and singer in theatre, television and motion pictures, whose career has spanned eight decades and earned her more performance Tony Awards than any other individual , with five wins...
. Also attending were Andy Warhol
Andy Warhol
Andrew Warhola , known as Andy Warhol, was an American painter, printmaker, and filmmaker who was a leading figure in the visual art movement known as pop art...
and his own infamous gender-bending drag performers Holly Woodlawn
Holly Woodlawn
Holly Woodlawn is a Puerto Rican-born transgendered actress and former Warhol superstar, who appeared in his movies Trash and Women in Revolt .-Early life:...
and Candy Darling
Candy Darling
Candy Darling was an American actress, best known as a Warhol Superstar. A male-to-female transsexual, she starred in Andy Warhol's films Flesh and Women in Revolt , and was a muse of the protopunk band The Velvet Underground.-Early life:Candy Darling was born James Lawrence Slattery in Forest...
. But with the Cockettes' loose San Francisco magic, the opening night was a disaster (New Yorkers expected a tightly performed show). And in the theatre things went from bad to worse when Angela Lansbury walked out on the show, soon followed by Andy Warhol and most of the rest of the audience. After the show Gore Vidal quipped, "Having no talent is not enough." Apparently the New York professionals did not view the group as talented.
What had seemed so fabulous in San Francisco did not translate well in New York City. Also, the group did not have ample opportunities to rehearse, so their performances in New York were not their best. Of course, no one told New Yorkers that the Cockettes were rather anti-rehearsal. For the Cockettes, the idea was to have a blast onstage with the true spirit of Hollywood. For San Francisco, the Cockettes, in the late 1960's, were beautiful, funny, liberating, psychedelic messengers from the gods. For most New Yorkers, it was "You've got to be kidding!," and the celebrities the Cockettes had so wanted to impress were not impressed. Later, the Cockettes tried to explain their New York failure by commenting "the New York audiences did not understand us," (although it appeared perhaps New York had understood them). After a week of disastrous "Tinsel Tarts..." playing to empty houses, they performed their original musical "Pearls Over Shanghai" for the remaining 2 weeks of their contract, and the Village Voice gave it a rave. But it was too little too late. Sylvester and his band was the lone exception but he disassociated himself after several nights on advice from his business friends.
Notable members
After the New York bomb, the Cockettes came back to San Francisco and performed their final show in the summer of 1972, "Journey to the Center of UranusUranus
Uranus is the seventh planet from the Sun. It has the third-largest planetary radius and fourth-largest planetary mass in the Solar System. It is named after the ancient Greek deity of the sky Uranus , the father of Cronus and grandfather of Zeus...
". At this time Divine, star of films by noted filmmaker John Waters
John Waters (filmmaker)
John Samuel Waters, Jr. is an American filmmaker, actor, stand-up comedian, writer, journalist, visual artist, and art collector, who rose to fame in the early 1970s for his transgressive cult films...
, joined the group, thus making her San Francisco debut. In that show Divine performed her song "The Crab at the Center of Uranus" while dressed as a lobster.
After the group disbanded in 1972, various Cockettes continued to perform, often as solo performers (John Rothermel, who was often cast in a lead roles due to his excellent singing voice and knowledge of 20's/30's music, had a successful cabaret career in San Francisco), but more often as a group, although no longer billed as The Cockettes. Later a few Cockettes formed the group Paula Pucker and the Pioneers, among others.
Tomata duPlenty, an early member, who left the group and went on to sing in the seminal L.A. synthpunk
Synthpunk
Synthpunk is a music genre combining elements of electronic music and punk rock. The term was coined by Damian Ramsey in 1999 as an attempt to retroactively identify a small sub-genre of punk music from 1977 to 1984 that involved musicians playing synthesizers in place of electric...
band, the Screamers
The Screamers
The Screamers were a punk rock group active in the Los Angeles, California area in the late 1970s. The Screamers were pioneers of a genre now known as "synthpunk," and can also be classified as art punk....
. Du Plenty went on to play a Cockettes-inspired lead role in the punk rock musical Population: 1
Population: 1
Population: 1 is a 1986 punk rock musical film written and directed by Rene Daalder.The film stars Tomata du Plenty of the Screamers as a defense contractor who somehow becomes the sole survivor of a nuclear holocaust. In his solitude, he traces the history of U.S...
.
Sylvester
Sylvester James
-Studio albums:-Live albums:-Compilation albums:* Mighty Real UK #62* 12 By 12 * Immortal -Singles:-Additional recordings:*Lights Out San Francisco...
's rendition of torch songs by the likes of Etta James
Etta James
Etta James is an American blues, soul, rhythm and blues , rock and roll, gospel and jazz singer. In the 1950s and 1960s, she had her biggest success as a blues and R&B singer...
, Bessie Smith
Bessie Smith
Bessie Smith was an American blues singer.Sometimes referred to as The Empress of the Blues, Smith was the most popular female blues singer of the 1920s and 1930s...
, Ethel Waters
Ethel Waters
Ethel Waters was an American blues, jazz and gospel vocalist and actress. She frequently performed jazz, big band, and pop music, on the Broadway stage and in concerts, although she began her career in the 1920s singing blues.Her best-known recordings includes, "Dinah", "Birmingham Bertha",...
, Billie Holiday
Billie Holiday
Billie Holiday was an American jazz singer and songwriter. Nicknamed "Lady Day" by her friend and musical partner Lester Young, Holiday had a seminal influence on jazz and pop singing...
, Dinah Washington
Dinah Washington
Dinah Washington, born Ruth Lee Jones , was an American blues, R&B and jazz singer. She has been cited as "the most popular black female recording artist of the '50s", and called "The Queen of the Blues"...
, and Lena Horne
Lena Horne
Lena Mary Calhoun Horne was an American singer, actress, civil rights activist and dancer.Horne joined the chorus of the Cotton Club at the age of sixteen and became a nightclub performer before moving to Hollywood, where she had small parts in numerous movies, and more substantial parts in the...
during his solo spots were always a highlight. After the demise of the Cockettes, Sylvester became one of most profilic singers of the disco era.
Other core members of the Cockettes were Link (aka Link Martin, aka Luther Cupp), Gary Cherry, Rumi Missabu, Tahara (whose parents had been rodeo
Rodeo
Rodeo is a competitive sport which arose out of the working practices of cattle herding in Spain, Mexico, and later the United States, Canada, South America and Australia. It was based on the skills required of the working vaqueros and later, cowboys, in what today is the western United States,...
clowns), Goldie Glitters, "Johnny Cockette", Sweet Pam (aka Pam Tent), Martin Worman
Martin Worman
Martin Worman was an actor, playwright, lyricist, director, female impersonator, activist and academic, working in the United States, primarily in San Francisco and New York City from the late 1960s through the early 1990s. He is most known for being a member of the psychedelic San Francisco drag...
, Scrumbly Koldewyn (who wrote tunes to Link's Martin's lyrics), Fayette Hauser, Daniel Ware, Dusty Dawn, Linden, Brent Jensen, Pristine Condition, Reggie (aka Anton Dunigan), Miss Harlow (who had been an original Plaster Caster
Cynthia Plaster Caster
Cynthia Plaster Caster , whose real name is Cynthia Albritton, is an artist and self-described "recovering groupie" who creates plaster casts of famous persons' penises and breasts. She began her career in 1968 by casting penises of rock musicians. She later expanded her subjects to include...
) and Kreemah Ritz (originally known as Big Daryl) and Chris Kilo who produced a few of the early shows after the Angels/Cockette split. Many other people too numerous to mention performed in only one or two shows.
Current lineup
In its history numerous performers and performing groups have spun off from the Cockettes, including, among others, the Seattle Ze Whiz Kidz (including actors Tomato Du Plenty and Screaming Orchids; the first Whiz Kidz show was a musical based on the life of Yma SúmacYma Súmac
Yma Sumac was a noted Peruvian soprano. In the 1950s, she was one of the most famous proponents of exotica music. She became an international success based on her extreme vocal range, which was said to be "well over four octaves" and was sometimes claimed to span even five octaves at her peak.Yma...
), The San Francisco Angels of Light, The New York Angels of Light and The Assorted Nuts. Many Cockettes also continue to perform in the theatre world today.
A 2009 revival of Pearls Over Shanghai (the screenplay was originally written by Link Martin) in San Francisco included the participation of Rumi Missabu and piano accompaniment by composer Scrumbly Koldewyn, with Tahara one of the costume collaborators.
On December 3, 2009 several members of the Cockettes (Fayette Hauser, Scrumbly Koldewyn, Rumi Missabu, Sweet Pam, Tahara) came together at SFMOMA for a rare screening of the films Tricia's Wedding, Palace, and Elevator Girls in Bondage followed by discussions and memorable Cockettes moments. There was an afterparty at the Cafe du Nord on Market Street near Noe Street at which the Cockettes-inspired New York drag troupe the Dixie Chicks performed.
Documentary
The Cockettes were the subject of a 20022002 in film
The year 2002 in film involved some significant events. The first significant releases of sequels took place between The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones, Men in Black II, Analyze That, Spy Kids 2: The Island of...
documentary, The Cockettes
The Cockettes (film)
The Cockettes is a 2002 American documentary film. It was directed by Bill Weber and David Weissman, and produced by Weissman. Its subject is the 1960s-70s San Francisco performance group The Cockettes. The film debuted at the 2002 Sundance Film Festival, where it was nominated for the Grand Jury...
, directed by Bill Weber and David Weissman. The film debuted at the 2002 Sundance Film Festival
Sundance Film Festival
The Sundance Film Festival is a film festival that takes place annually in Utah, in the United States. It is the largest independent cinema festival in the United States. Held in January in Park City, Salt Lake City, and Ogden, as well as at the Sundance Resort, the festival is a showcase for new...
. It went on to a limited theatrical release and to play the film festival
Film festival
A film festival is an organised, extended presentation of films in one or more movie theaters or screening venues, usually in a single locality. More and more often film festivals show part of their films to the public by adding outdoor movie screenings...
circuit. At the premiere at San Francisco's Castro Theatre
Castro Theatre
The Castro Theatre is a popular San Francisco movie palace which became San Francisco Historic Landmark #100 in September 1976. Located at 429 Castro Street, in the Castro district, it was built in 1922 with a Spanish Colonial Baroque façade that pays homage—in its great arched central window...
many of the surviving Cockettes attended in genderfuck
Genderfuck
Genderfuck refers to the conscious effort to mock or "fuck with" traditional notions of gender identity, gender roles, and gender presentation. It falls under the umbrella of the transgender spectrum.-Genderfucking:...
drag. The Cockettes received the LA Film Critics Award as Best Non-Fiction Film of 2002 and the Glitter Award for Best Documentary of 2003.
Related acts
In early 1971 a few members of the original group broke away from the Cockettes and formed their own theatre group, The Angels of Light. The Angels became a well-known and highly creative San Francisco theatre group during the 1970s. Angels performances were free, with no admission charge. The Angels lifestyle included communal living in an old three-story Victorian house in San Francisco on the north side of Haight Street just west of Divisadero Street.In 1972 Hibiscus, the founder of the Cockettes and of the Angels of Light, left the Angels and moved to New York City. There he formed his own group also known as the Angels of Light. The focus of his group was mostly drag revues in which members wore heavily sequinned costumes and did Jayne Mansfield style parodies of women. He moved back to his home town, New York, in 1978, and with his family (Harris) started doing more organized shows, including the fairly popular off-off-Broadway show, "Sky High" (performing under the name of George O'Hara). In 1982 Hibiscus died of AIDS in New York City (supposedly the 224th person to die in that epidemic).
Jack Coe (aka Angel Jack) was another renown member of the Angels of Light. He was seen later on as a regular performer at Studio 54 in NYC. In the 1990s, he moved to his mother's home in Gulf Port, FL. to help care for her. While in Florida, he would make random appearances and do occasional solo performances throughout the club circuit. In his final years, he befriended underground multi-media performance artist Mikee Plastik, whom he did his final work with (costume design and photo shoot). Coe died of an AIDS related illness in 2001 in St. Petersburg, FL. at St. Anthony's Hospital (the same hospital where famed beat poet Jack Kerouac died).
In 1977 the Angels of Light San Francisco commune disbanded, although the group continued to perform until 1980. At present many of the male members of the Angels of Light have died of AIDS, while other members, still living, have moved on and currently live all over the world.
In 1978, John Rothermel (who had had a successful solo cabaret career in San Francisco, after leaving The Cockettes) moved to New York, after a year-long stopover in his home town of Minneapolis, MN. He had always been a junk shop shopper and had become a collector of Art Deco while still in San Francisco. Later in New York, he became an early collector of Mid-Century Modern/post-WWII furniture and decorative arts. After he initially worked in New York as stage manager for Hibiscus' most successful New York off-off Broadway show "Sky High", he developed into one of the most knowledgeable collectors of Mid-Century Modern. He worked at the Greenwich Auction Room, and independently bought and sold furniture and decorative arts before dying of AIDS on 4/21/94. (Among his most important find was a wood and metal model designed by William Lescaze
William Lescaze
William Edmond Lescaze was a Swiss-born American architect, and is one of the pioneers of modernism in American architecture....
as one of the finalists for the New York Museum of Modern Art
Museum of Modern Art
The Museum of Modern Art is an art museum in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, on 53rd Street, between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It has been important in developing and collecting modernist art, and is often identified as the most influential museum of modern art in the world...
building. Certainly worth $10,000.00 or more, John's mother, Della, donated it to the MOMA after John died.)
Another interesting member was Frank Bourquin, using the name Inez Paloma. Frank was John Rothermel's roommate on Market Street. Frank was deeply into 1920's history and was friends with a bunch of Palo Alto record collectors centered around Ed Linotti, who was director of the Stanford University
Stanford University
The Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University or Stanford, is a private research university on an campus located near Palo Alto, California. It is situated in the northwestern Santa Clara Valley on the San Francisco Peninsula, approximately northwest of San...
music archives. Frank was working at the Post Office, but developed an ulcer and left on disability. He was featured in a number of the post-Hibiscus shows; one where he sung Happy-Go-Lucky You (and Broken-Hearted Me), a tune from 1932. Apparently, he later moved out to of San Francisco to Petaluma and was driving a cab, and died in late 1980s.
The Cockettes inspired a Brazilian drag troupe "Dzi Croquettes," which are the subject of a 2009 documentary film Dzi Croquettes
Dzi Croquettes
Dzi Croquettes is a 2009 Brazilian documentary about a Brazilian dance and theater group.-Awards:*2009 - Festival do Rio - Best Documentary Jury Award...
.
External links
- A site with information about The Cockettes and the 2002 documentary about their history.
- The website for the definitive documentary about the troupe with a history brief
- Martin Worman papers, 1960-2008. Billy Rose Theatre Division, New York Public LibraryNew York Public LibraryThe New York Public Library is the largest public library in North America and is one of the United States' most significant research libraries...
(index of resources about the Cockettes)