Minette
RECOLLECTIONS OF A PART-TIME LADY
Preface
Come in, boys. Don’t mind the 2-watt bulbs: Your eyes will get used to it. I think it shows the flat off better, don’t you? My friend Crazy Arthur says, “Minette, if your flat was a movie, it would be called ‘Dust Be My Destiny.’” I used to say that I was more decorative than practical, but I can’t really even say that anymore. Let’s go into the front parlor. And I’ll tell you about the queens.
Queens are not a new thing, honey. Impersonators have been around as long as there has been a theater. Until the Restoration in 1660, all female roles on the English stage were played by impersonators. Of course, I don’t go back that far. My pictures of the queens go back to the turn of the century — they adorn my sheet music covers. It was a high point in American popular music, and I love playing those pieces here in this parlor, on that piano you see. Yesterday I washed the keys with milk so my fingers feel gorgeous making music. There on the music rack is Julian Eltinge, greatest of all.
Julian Eltinge was a huge vaudeville, movie and uptown Broadway star from about 1904 to 1930. Her vaudeville salary was second only to Eva Tanguay, and Pickford, America’s Sweetheart, once played a supporting role to la Eltinge. She had everything, honey. A Julian Eltinge magazine, a Julian Eltinge cosmetics line, and the beautiful Eltinge Theater on 42nd Street with the Eltinge penthouse on top. It later became the Laff Movie, but in its day it was glamour.
Miss Eltinge had a high voice — not falsetto — and she conducted herself about the stage in the most genteel manner. Then, in the middle of the show, she would pull off her wig and flex her muscles and challenge any hecklers to a bout of fisticuffs in the alley. The publicity was that Miss Eltinge was straight, because I don’t think the average person knew what “gay” was. A lot of fellows had a chance to fool around, but they didn’t talk, see. And there was no common culture then, no boob tube, so people just knew their own circles.
Julian Eltinge retired around 1930 and made a comeback engagement in 1941 at the Copacabana. She died in the middle of the run.
Second only to Miss Eltinge in fame was Karyl Normand, a Kieth’s headliner who co-authored hit songs like “Nobody Lied When They Said I Cried Over You,” in 1922. My sister Tommy Bishop worked with her once, and said that she was a very high-minded lady. They worked together at the Frontenac in Detroit, a posh supperclub: Miss Norman was the big time. They had tables with cloths that went all the way to the floor. Tommy would sometimes save time by taking care of business under the table. And Miss Norman didn’t approve of that. “Tommy, Tommy, you’re a lovely thing, but you can’t do that. This is not the Vieux Carre.”
I’ll get out my photograph album to remind me of the stories. But first of all, have some tea, boys. This is one of my Mystery Teas, because I’m not quite sure what’s in it, except that passionflower is the headliner and there’s a little support from ginger and peppermint. It’s tepid but it’s wet. And have some other tea, too. This is a red-gold tea from Colombia. I call it my Strawberry Blonde. Teatime usually waits until sundown, but when it’s time to look at the album, it’s time for tea.
Most of my early pictures are gone, so I’ll bring you up to dragtime days without much photographic accompaniment.
Backstage Youth
I was born Jacques Minette and my parents were French. “Minette” means many things: “pussycat,” “pussy,” or “suck me.” It isn’t too easy to translate, and it’s not a word used in polite company I’ve heard, but I think it sounds gay. It’s me, especially without the “Jacques.” My mother painted landscapes and still lifes. My father was a commercial artist but he got arthritis in his hand and couldn’t paint anymore. He went through the first world war, with all that dampness. It got to him later. First he had a nervous breakdown that went into shingles that became neuritis that became arthritis and finally a dropsical condition. So my father was sick for years, always going to anyone that claimed a cure. I went to work to help pay the bills.
This is a real woman, not a queen, my aunt. She was the house singer for a two-a-day burlesque. Elegant burlesque, with a supper matinee and a dinner matinee. She was the one that got me started in show business when I was three, partly to keep me out of trouble and out of her makeup kit. So I became a show business kid.
I never minded any of the problems of growing up as a show business kid. Everybody else worried about it and worried about me. People used to say, “Isn’t that terrible, a small child in shows, with no parents to watch out for him?” I say: “Look, you got one mother: I got fifteen.”
My aunt would help me with my acts. I did impressions and songs that were big at the time. I did Mae West with a cigarette holder and a Meri Widow hat, and Belle Baker doing “All of Me” and Ethel Waters doing “Am I Blue.” Ethel Waters introduced it in a talky and I almost wore a hole in the record learning that — we had the heavy tone arms then.
I used to do impressions of Ruth Etting. Sophie Tucker, Eddie Cantor, Kate Smith, and Maurice Chevalier, and I would have done the Boswell Sisters, but I only had one head. One of my favorite numbers was “Brother Can You Spare a Dime.” They dressed me up in an outsized derby like Little K.O. from the Moon Mullins comic strip and put me on the runway with a little tin cup. I made extra money on that number.
Don’t get me wrong — I wasn’t pushed into this show business. I got into it myself. I would much rather work than go to school. To me, school was prison. I had a generation gap with all the kids that were my own age. I thought I was an adult trapped in a child’s body. There were sort of meanie-like teachers and I was different from any of the other kids. I was a princess and they were just common kids. I didn’t know I was a princess then. Fortunately, my first lover protected me and I could run well.
I quit show business when I was six, for one year. But nobody was working in the family, so I went back to work. I nearly got expelled from school. We had this little show at the end of the year. “We can’t use him.” the school said. “He’s professional.” They weren’t so hip — they called me “him.” But they let me anyway, even though I was a professional; when the piano player tried me out it was fine. But when I did “Frankie and Johnny” for the teachers they were shocked. I used to end up “Frankie and Johnny” by saying, “Why don’t you come up and see me sometime? I got etchings. On the ceiling.” A Mae West routine. That’s all I said, but oh it really upset them. For once my mother stood up for me. She said, “If you think that’s filthy, you’ve got a dirty mind.” Yeah.
I didn’t really understand what it meant to say, “Why don’t you come up and see me sometime?” I might have known it was sexual, but I didn’t really know what “sexual” was.
When I was a kid, I used to think of myself as a little girl. When I was particularly feminine, my aunt would say “D.D.G.” That meant, “delicate, dainty girl.” I saw impersonators, but I didn’t know what they were.
I thought they were another type, like a soubrette or an ingénue. I just thought they were these extraordinary women. When my aunt would talk about a fairy, she would always say, “Oh, he’s so artistic.” So I thought fairies were these certain people who were born with genius, and when I saw someone acting swishy I thought he was a genius and a fairy. I always wondered why Franklyn Pangborn wasn’t a star.