But going into television on The Red Skelton Show—that was really show business. I had worked prior to the show and had done a movie called The Love God {’with Don Knotts. I got an agent, took acting lessons, then did a thing called The Female Bunch, with Russ Tamblyn, which is today a cult classic, but is so tacky, so terrible. I think I tell the story in the book, that because we didn’t want to sleep with the grips, my girlfriend and I passed ourselves off as lesbians, and because of that… the dialogue was pretty much being invented as we went along, and the dialogue did take on a very lesbian overtone. [Laughs] And it was one of the first. Then I went to work at the Ambassador Hotel, and that led to the Skelton show. Usually you reverse that order, you do stage and then television and film, but I did film first and then television.
Then things really started to flower, with The Red Skelton Show. I started getting quite a bit of work. I did a lot of early television … in fact, recently I was auditioning and a young director looked at my resume and said, “My god, you were there at the very beginning of television!” You start feeling hair sprout from your ears and a cane. [Laughs] But I was there doing all that variety show stuff. I did The Andy Williams show, and Leslie Uggams and Dean Martin. The Partridge Family. A skunk had gotten on the bus, and so Danny goes around to get costumes for the family with a cigarette girl or something in Vegas, and he’s trying to get me out of my costume.
I also did Night Gallery. When Rod Serling interviewed me he said, “If I wanted a showgirl, I’d hire Kim Novak. If you pull any of that showgirl shit on me, I’m going to have you right out of there.”
Q: So you had a reputation as a showgirl?”
I did have that reputation … well, I didn’t dare try anything else! So I was walking around on stilts and in miniskirts and very breathy. Smiling a lot. Not just in film, but in real life also.
Q: You were selling sexiness as a commodity?’
I don’t even know that it was sexy. It was a particular look. Do you remember Little Annie Fannie, the cartoon? Big eyes and the lips and the little perky nose and the long legs. That was the image. It was just another version of drag. The ultimate drag queen was Mario Thomas. With the lashes and the hair. That whole image back then. I was very familiar with that. Once, when I was working at Finocchio’s, I was going to work, and I saw Ann-Margret, standing on the corner in all of her glory. And it was the same act.
Q: Did you have the political consciousness to make the connection back then?
No, but I was shocked to discover that some of the people I considered to be the most beautiful women in the world were going through the same traumas that I was. We had the same goals; we were going about it the same way; we were going to private clubs in Beverly Hills, trying to be noticed, trying to be discovered, trying to find a sugar daddy. It was the same damn thing.
Q: The life of a starlet?”
Exactly. And the “will somebody really love me for who I am?” This was not transsexual, it was being a woman.
Q: Did you enjoy your life as a starlet?”
I loved everything that went with it. The restaurants, the parties. People treat you with great—they might be snickering behind their hands, but I don’t think they were at that time. I don’t think the word “bimbo” had been invented yet, but we were invited just to decorate the tables. And with some of the Syndicate, the attitude was “just zip it if you’re not going to say something that’s ‘airhead.’” [Affects a breathy, dithery voice] “What’s your name again, I just can’t remember names for the life of me.”
Q: Did you ever have a sense of “they don’t know all of me “?
No. I don’t know whether that is because I have this theatrical mentality, that I can believe whatever. I think I’m a really good actress, because the character becomes very real for me. So I was still being the reflection in the eyes of those that wanted me. So I saw myself as they saw me. And it was very comfortable for me.
Q: When did that start to change for you?
I think that I came into my own when I woke up one day in my late fifties and realized that—it seems like it was overnight—that men have stopped turning around on the street to look. So it gave me the freedom to really deal with me. To see myself. It’s part of this whole gender thing, I think. Now at sixty-three (sixty-four in December), I get up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom (and I never had to do that) and I’m stumbling down the hall, and as I pass a mirror and see myself, I think, “I’m really happy with this body—it’s sagging, it’s falling, it’s all of that, but it’s me.” And it’s the me that I wanted to be. So maybe the stomach is breaching and maybe the boobs are sagging, but it feels genuine.
Q: So your experience of aging is a woman’s experience of aging?”
Yes. You know, a female friend of mine from the early years, whom I had not talked to in over forty years, called after she read the book and said, “I know you’re writing about a transsexual experience, but you’ve written my story.” And that’s very important to me. And I think that’s also extremely telling. We can label it any way we want to, but the experiences are the same.
Q: One of the questions that I’ve asked everyone whom I’ve interviewed for the book is “What is gender?”
I don’t even know what that means anymore, don’t know that I ever knew what it meant. To me, how you are perceived dictates how you are treated, and I have been treated with the female experience. I’ve had some bad experiences. Part of that too is being raised in different times, not knowing that you have the option to make choices. My sisters, for example, were raised with the “don’ts.” I didn’t have any of those so I really made some serious mistakes. It took me a long time to realize that if the bar is closing and I’m in a really wonderful conversation that I want to continue, it does not mean that I can go to someone’s apartment in the hope of continuing it. I’m a slow learner.
Q: What is it that made you aware from early on that you were female despite what your body was telling you?
For me … well, I’ve alluded earlier to this power structure, and that’s how I explain it. I was very aware from a very early age that I did not want the responsibility that is inherent for the male. All of that: Going off and fighting our wars and being responsible for keeping peace, I suppose. Protecting those you love. I wanted to be protected. Now maybe that’s just weak, but as life has progressed and I recall what I have experienced and survived, I don’t consider that to have been weak at all. It was just another way of viewing your function and your place in the world. I wanted to nurture, but I don’t think that is necessarily transsexual. I think there are a lot of men who are happy being men, who feel the same way. So I have no idea what the gender issue is about.