Storme 20151/5/2023 ![]() She was photographed by renowned artist Diane Arbus, as well as other friends and lovers in the arts community, in three piece suits and "men's" hats. Offstage, she cut a striking, handsome, androgynous presence, and inspired other lesbians to adopt what had formerly been considered "men's" clothing as street wear. With her theatrical experience in costuming, performance and makeup, biracial DeLarverie could pass as either a man or a woman, Black or white. In 1987 Michelle Parkerson released the first cut of the movie, Stormé: The Lady of the Jewel Box, about DeLarverie and her time with the revue. During this era when there were very few drag kings performing, her unique drag style and subversive performances became celebrated, influential, and are now known to have set a historic precedent. As a singer, she drew inspiration from Dinah Washington and Billie Holiday (both of whom she knew in person). ĭuring shows audience members would try to guess who the "one girl" was, among the revue performers, and at the end Stormé would reveal herself as a woman during a musical number called, "A Surprise with a Song," often wearing tailored suits and sometimes a moustache that made her "unidentifiable" to audience members. The revue regularly played the Apollo Theater in Harlem, as well as to mixed-race audiences, something that was still rare during the era of Racial segregation in the United States. The Jewel Box Revue įrom 1955 to 1969 DeLarverie toured the black theater circuit as the MC (and only drag king) of the Jewel Box Revue, North America's first racially integrated drag revue. Whether or not DeLarverie was the woman who fought her way out of the police wagon, all accounts agree that she was one of several butch lesbians who fought back against the police during the uprising. "'Nobody knows who threw the first punch, but it's rumored that she did, and she said she did,' said Lisa Cannistraci, a friend of DeLarverie and owner of the Village lesbian bar Henrietta Hudson. Bystanders recalled that the woman, whose identity remains uncertain (Stormé has been identified by some, including herself, as the woman), sparked the crowd to fight when she looked at bystanders and shouted, "Why don't you guys do something?" After an officer picked her up and heaved her into the back of the wagon, the crowd became a mob and went "berserk": "It was at that moment that the scene became explosive." Some have referred to that woman as "the gay community's Rosa Parks". She was bleeding from a head wound as she fought back. Described by a witness as "a typical New York City butch" and "a dyke- stone butch," she had been hit on the head by an officer with a baton for, as one witness stated, announcing that her handcuffs were too tight. She fought with at least four of the police, swearing and shouting, for about ten minutes. She was brought through the crowd by police several times, as she escaped repeatedly. Stonewall uprising Īt the Stonewall rebellion, a scuffle broke out when a woman in handcuffs, who may have been Stormé, was roughly escorted from the door of the bar to the waiting police wagon. According to friend Lisa Cannistraci, DeLarverie carried a photograph of Diana with her at all times. Her partner, a dancer named Diana, lived with her for about 25 years until dying in the 1970s. She was picked up twice on the streets by police who mistook her for a drag queen. īiracial and androgynous, she could pass for white or Black, male or female. She realized she was lesbian near the age of eighteen. She stopped riding horses after being injured in a fall. For being a negro with a white face." She rode jumping horses with the Ringling Brothers Circus when she was a teenager. "The white kids were beating me up the Black kids were. As a biracial child, DeLarverie faced bullying and harassment from the other children. ![]() Her father paid for her education, and she was largely raised by her grandfather. ![]() ![]() She celebrated her birthday on December 24, Christmas Eve. According to DeLarverie, she was never given a birth certificate and was not certain of her actual date of birth. Her mother was African American and worked as a servant for his family. DeLarverie's father was white and wealthy. ![]()
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