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07 May 2010

Pudgy Roberts (? - ) female mimic.

Pudgy was a New York female impersonator most famous in the late 1960s.

He also wrote two novels, Dormitory Mates, 1968 and Seafood, 1969, an how-to book, and edited a monthly magazine.   ++He also wrote for Gay Power, 1969-70, and ran a business distributing flyers.

Avery Willard made a short film about him, and he was one of the first drag queens to do comic relief in a porno movie, The Sexualist, 1975.






  • Pudgy Roberts. Female impersonator's handbook. Newark: Capri Publishers, 1967.  Selections 
  • Gil Truman.  "Girls Who Are And Can't: An Interview with Pudgy Roberts".   Female Mimics, 1,12, Spring 1968.    Online at:  http://paganpressbooks.com/jpl/PUDGY.HTM.
  • Avery Willard (dir). Camp Burlesgue. With Pudgy Roberts impersonating Bette David, Carol Channing, Tiny Tim, Marlene Dietrich, Lily Tomlin, Judy Garland and Barbra Streisand. US 6 mins 1969.
  • Kemal Horulu (dir)  The Sexualist: A Voyage to the World of Forbidden Love.  With Pudgy Roberts as Papamabuto.  US 73 mins 1973. 
  •  Donald Greenhaus. “Without Abstract”. Society. Vol 11,1 November 1973. www.springerlink.com/content/h6870muw8m283033/fulltext.pdf?page=1.
  • Pudgy Roberts (ed). The great female mimics. New York: Mark Lithographers. 1963-79. Monthly magazine.  Sample 
  • Laurence Senelick. The Changing Room: Sex, Drag and Theatre. Routledge xvi, 540 pp 2000: 384, 395, 403n15.
  • Mark Singer.  Mr. Personality: Profiles and Talk Pieces from The New Yorker.  Mariner Books, 2005: 95-8. 
IMDB     Queer Music Heritage  
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I met Pudgy once, when we were both in Lee Brewster's boutique.
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    2 comments:

    1. Diana Salameh6/2/11 01:17

      I met Pudgy Roberts in 1975 when he he came to Charlotte NC. to perform at Oleens Lounge, the top drag showbar in N.C.at the time. I was part of Oleens House show then and got to know Pudgy well during the two weeks he stayed in Charotte. He was such a talented preformer and my favorite was his impersonation of Bette Davis. Every thing was done live, not like the lip synking done today.

      ReplyDelete
    2. jes14/4/15 18:57

      In 1982 I almost moved in with Pudgy to be his boytoy. What an amazing person.

      ReplyDelete

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