Diamond Lil (1935 – 2016) performer, antiques dealer, columnist

Phillip Forrester was born and raised in Savannah, Georgia. He was in drag at age 5, and as a child sang on Savannah radio.

At Halloween 1953, he and a drag friend got dolled up and crashed a party at a local American legion. Only after several drinks did it come out that they were not cis women. They quickly left but driving home they were followed by two soldiers who shot out a tire on their car, and Forrester was orally raped.

"It was so scary: there's no words for it. But I made a decision that night that I was out. A real weird way to come out, though."

The first public drag performance was at age 18. She was popular with sailors in the port and would perform on ships docked there. Eventually this led to Forrester being discharged from the Georgia Air National Guard, and fired from a secretarial job at the Seaboard Railroad. The Savannah police arrested her several times, once on a drummed-up loitering charge.

It was time to move and she arrived in Atlanta in 1965. At that time she had a husband, and they started a small antiques shop near Peachtree and 11^th Streets. That area became ‘the Strip’ where bohemians and gays were to be found.

She dabbled in drag shows using the name Leslie Diamond. Jayne County wrote in her autobiography:

“It was considered a very big deal to go to straight clubs and pass as a woman, and there weren’t many of the queens who could pull it off. One who could was an older queen called Diamond Lil, who was the mother of all the young street queens in Atlanta.”

In 1968 a friend asked Diamond to headline a new drag show at Mrs P’s, a restaurant in the basement of the Ponce de Leon Hotel. There was an arrangement with the police: only on week-nights, and the show was not to be advertised. She took the name Diamond Lil as a last minute inspiration on the opening night. At first she mouthed to Motown records, but started singing with her own voice – one of only a few drag performers to do so.

For six months in 1970 there was a bar called the Club Centaur. Diamond and another drag artist, Phyllis Killer, performed backed by a live band. Diamond became known for her hard-driving rock’n’roll songs. She added in her own songs, and released them on 45s – some of them were played on jukeboxes across the city.

Diamond performed several times for the Georgia Gay Liberation Front. She also wrote, for the alternate weekly, The Great Speckled Bird, the first time after being caught in a police raid on a club in Savannah in 1970.

Diamond Lil, mid 1980s

In the early 1970s, Diamond moved to Sweet Gum Head, a focal point for the burgeoning drag scene. Other performers included Rachel Wells, Lavita Allen and Charlie Brown.

In 1972 Diamond did a benefit for the Committee on Gay Education at the University of Georgia and sang “Stand by Your Man.” UGA officials did all they could to throw the COGE off campus, but Lil’s support gave COGE financial backing and a public profile.

Diamond started a column in the gay paper, Sunset People, and then in the nightlife magazine, Cruise.





In 1984 Diamond Lil put out a full LP of original material, The Queen of Diamonds/Silver Grill. She was an acknowledged influence on  Lady Bunny and RuPaul who started out in Atlanta at this time. However, by then Diamond was losing her fans to AIDS. There were fewer places to perform, and she reduced her performances and concentrated on a new antiques business. She was writing for the bar magazine Etcetera – these articles were often obituaries.

In the 1990s she had a few revival shows. In 2002 she re-released her album on CD. She put out two more albums: Live at the Moonshadow Saloon, 2004, and Verge, Vigor and Vim, 2007. In 2014 the readers of the Georgia Voice newspaper voted her Best Icon; in 2015 Atlanta Pride and Touching Up Our Roots honored her in the first ever Our Founding Valentines event. After a struggle with cancer, Lil was moved into a hospice. She died age 80.

Lady Bunny is quoted in The Atlanta Journal Constitution:

"She was singing with a live band and I had never heard of a drag queen doing that. That really helped shaped my experience because it was not disco music, it was rock 'n' roll and it was original. What always interested me about Diamond Lil, she broke the boundaries of what most drag queens thought they could do. Most thought they could either lip sync or do a celebrity impersonation and she said no, I’m going to front a rock band and do original music...I did love the mock grandeur of her. I totally bought it, when you were in the same room with her, she was regal. She really was magic. She really was unique."

• Diamond Lil. ‘Diamond Lil, Most Glamorous Queen in the World, In Captivity’. The Great Speckled Bird, 3, 38, September 28, 1970:10-11. Online.
• Jayne County with Rupert Smith. Man Enough to be a Woman. Serpent's Tail, 1995: 29- 30, 160.
• James T. Sears, Rebels, Rubyfruit, and Rhinestones: Queering Space in the Stonewall South. Rutgers University Press, 2001: 81, 159.
• Tray Butler. “God save the Queen: If Diamond Lil is the grand dame of Atlanta drag, why can't she get a steady gig?” Creative Loafing, Oct 9, 2003. Online.
• Wesley Chenault & Stacy Braukman. Gay and Lesbian Atlanta. Arcadia Pub, 2008: 55, 62
• Patrick Saunders. “Atlanta drag icon Diamond Lil dies at 80”. Georgia Voice, August 9, 2016. Online.
• Shane Harrison. “Pioneering Atlanta drag performer Diamond Lil has died”. The Atlanta Journal Constitution, August 10, 2016. Online.

Diamond Lil in The Great Speckled Bird      Discogs           RateYourMusic.
____________

Other Diamond Lils.

Honora Ornstein, from Austria-Hungary, performed during the Klondike Gold Rush in the 1890s.

Evelyn Hildegard, also from Austria-Hungary, performer in California and Nevada in early 20^th century. Later a brothel keeper.

A 1928 play by Mae West, the basis of the 1933 film, She Done Him Wrong.

Katie Glass, a female wrestler in South Carolina in 1960s-1970s.

Trans woman performer in Hackney, London 1940s-1960s.

Marcus Craig New Zealand drag performer as Diamond Lil from 1972.

The 1970s rock group from Essex.

Phoebe Smith (1939–) Part II: state worker, activist

Continued from Part I.

Back in Atlanta early 1969 after a first visit to Dr Barbosa, Phoebe Smith was taken shopping by an aunt who bought her three dresses. Phoebe made an appointment with Harry Benjamin in New York for a hormone prescription. Two aunts and a cousin went to New York with her.

Phoebe attempted to return to work at Rich’s Department Store, but a few co-workers objected, and the supervisor said no. Phoebe appealed up two levels but without success.

A gay former co-worker gave a big party to introduce Phoebe to the local gay scene – but she did not feel that she belonged there.  She was interviewed for a local television news program.

In November Phoebe returned to New York to see Harry Benjamin, and was told that she was ready for the final surgery. She immediately wrote to Dr Barbosa, but he did not reply – and then by telegram – until March 31 giving an appointment for April 11. She was in the hospital for two weeks, and even when she left was in considerable pain.

At first she wanted to be open about her past when applying for jobs, but quickly found that that was not going to work. She took the Georgia State Merit test, and got a position in Disease investigation. In May 1971 she transferred to Medicaid.

She was now undergoing electrolysis, and for a short while worked with a local transsexual support group before it discontinued.

Phoebe several times met persons who knew someone who knew her previous self, but it did not become a problem. One man threatened to out her if she did not date him. In spring 1974 a trans woman whom Phoebe had spoken to with the support group applied to Medicaid in the hope of having her surgery paid for. They met at the elevator, and the woman introduced herself. This made Phoebe think that everyone was talking about her. A close work friend told her that “we all know and we still love you”.

In 1975 Phoebe transferred to Family and Children Services. One day a co-worker rushed in and exclaimed: “Y’all, there is a transsexual that works for the State!”. Again it turned out that most of the co-workers already knew, and never said.


By June 1979 Phoebe had written her first autobiography, Phoebe. She self-published it and advertised in trans newsletters. A thousand copies were printed, and a New York bookstore bought four hundred. Reactions at work were mixed. People she had not previously known became friendly; no man at work ever asked her out again.

In 1980 she put together a brochure, “The Journey from One to Forty was Difficult but Successful”. It included a photograph of herself at age one with father, and a photo at age 40. It criticized the report from Jon Meyers of John Hopkins of the previous year that had been used as an excuse to close its Gender Identity Clinic.

“I have worked for the State of Georgia for almost ten years. During my fourth year of employment, knowledge of my surgery became widespread. It was upsetting, but also a big relief to get it in the open.”

Later that year a new communications office was established, and Phoebe became its supervisor, but with a pay cut.

The sale of the autobiography resulted in mail, much of it from persons seeking information. This led to the idea of a newsletter, The Transsexual Voice. The first two issues were complimentary, and 30 copies were printed. Within a few months there were over 100 subscribers.

A subscriber contacted her wanting to find someone to train in electrolysis. Phoebe jumped at the chance and for the next 15 years they worked on each other.

By the mid-1980s there were over 300 subscribers including Leo Wollman, Rupert Raj and Michelle Hunt. Phoebe mailed packets of transsexual-related material to newspaper editors, television news programs, talk show hosts etc. Very few responded.

Through the 1980s Phoebe’s family health problems deteriorated. Her younger brother was diagnosed with cancer, and died at age 40. Her father died age 74 in 1989 after various health problems. Her mother needed daily care such that Phoebe had to discontinue The Transsexual Voice in 1995. Her mother died in 1998, when Phoebe was 59.

She retired in in 2000. She had worked for the State of Georgia for almost 30 years.

• Phoebe Smith. Phoebe. P Smith Pub Ind, 1979.
• Phoebe Smith. “FMI Forum: The Transsexual Voice”. Female Mimics International, 14,6, 1985. Online. This is the 1980 brochure, which is also found p106-8 in Phoebe’s 2015 book.
• Rupert Raj. “Tribute to Phoebe Smith”. Twenty Minutes, August 1989:3. Online.
• Joanne Meyerowitz. How Sex Changed: A History of Transsexuality in the United States. Harvard University Press, 2002:158.
• Phoebe Smith. From Sharecropper's Son to Who's Who in American Women. CreateSpace, 2014.
• Eve Shapiro. Gender Circuits: Bodies and Identities in a Technological Age: Second edition. Routledge, 2015: 158.
• Dallas Denny. “Creating Community: A History of Early Transgender Support in Atlanta”. dallasdenny.com, Nov 7, 2015. Online.

_____________________

Dr Barbosa’s $4,000 fee in 1969 would be $26,600 now!

Phoebe arrived for the first time at Dr Barbosa’s office only two months after Lynn Conway had completed surgery there.

There is no mention at all of Phoebe in Wesley Chenault, Stacy Lorraine Braukman, Gay and Lesbian Atlanta, Arcadia Pub 2008. Come to that, there is no mention of Jayne County or Dallas Denny either.

Phoebe had started electrolysis in 1971, after her two surgeries. In 1981 she trained as an electrologist and then for 15 years she and one other worked on each other. That is 25 years of electrolysis. I was done and complete in less than two years in the mid-1980s. Presumably there was not an electrologist in the Atlanta area at that time who knew how to do it on transsexuals.

It is striking in Phoebe’s autobiography that there is no mention at all of other trans people in Atlanta other than the trans woman who attempted to apply for Medicaid. The famous Atlanta trans women – Jayne County, Diamond Lil, Lady Bunny, RuPaul – were of a performance persuasion, and mostly took off for New York. However, apart from that there was trans man Jerry Montgomery, and Dallas Denny, who arrived in Atlanta in 1989. AEGIS and Southern Comfort Conference were established in Atlanta shortly afterwards.

Dallas Danny says: “With the Louisiana-based Erickson foundation no longer in operation, Phoebe’s Transsexual Voice was so far as I know for many years the only peer-produced transsexual-specific support publication in the world. Phoebe produced the last issue in 1995. It was an astonishing run, and helped thousands of people”.

Phoebe Smith (1939–) Part I: retail worker

(Phoebe transitioned in Atlanta in the 1960s.   In those days she had great difficulty in finding out about other transsexuals, and in finding any professionals who even knew where to point her, let alone to actually help.   If she were in New York or Paris, she would have had more information even in the 1960s – but she did not know that. Fortunately she was determined.)


James Smith was born to a family of sharecroppers in Irwin County, US Georgia. His relatives referred to him as a ‘sissy’ from an early age, and he was bullied at school, more so because of his disinterest in sports.

In September 1953, the family pickup was hit by a flatbed truck. The father had his left arm crushed and had to give up farming; the mother was in constant pain afterwards. They moved to Atlanta. At the new school Smith was called ‘queer’.

In 1955 a neighbor showed him a magazine article about someone who had a sex-change operation, and asked him why he did not have it also. Smith wrote to a preacher on the radio that he had been listening to, and later phoned him. This was the first time that he ever told someone that he wanted to change sex. The preacher said that he saw nothing wrong or sinful in Smith’s desire, but couldn’t offer any help. In September 1956 Smith attempted suicide by taking his mother’s pain pills. After recovery he insisted on quitting school – he was then seventeen.

After temporary and part-time work, Smith found a position at Rich’s Department Store where he stayed for ten years. Every now and then there would be an article in the news about a transsexual, but when Smith attempted to correspond with a doctor or psychiatrist, he was told that a change of sex was impossible.

In November 1961 Smith was called to report to the Draft Board. He explained himself and was classified 4-F. If questioned he said that this was because of a bad back resulting from the 1953 road crash. Around this time, his father driving a cement mixer was hit by a train on a crossing. Smith’s younger brother joined the US Marines, but was discharged after being diagnosed with chronic bronchitis.

By 1964 Smith had rented a mailbox and was writing letters prolifically: to doctors, to medical universities, to politicians. Many were not answered; some were rudely answered. One, who was helpful, was Amy Larkin, the agony aunt at the Atlanta Constitution (actually a pseudonym for Olive Ann Burns (1924 – 1990) who later became renowned for her novel Cold Sassy Tree). Larkin passed anonymous information about Smith to Harry Benjamin in New York (who was then working with John Money so that the Johns Hopkins Gender Identity Clinic would open the next year). Benjamin wrote back that “there seems very little doubt that this patient is a transsexual”.

Larkin arranged an appointment with a local endocrinologist, but he, despite the letter from Benjamin, maintained that what was wanted could not be done.

Smith wrote to the Governor of Georgia who passed the letter to the Dean of the Medical College of Georgia who replied that the surgery was illegal within Georgia.

Smith contacted Atlanta Constitution journalist, Dick Herbert, who became interested and wrote a sympathetic story (by the standards of the time) using a pseudonym: “Long-Ill Tim Gets New Hope to Solve Endocrine Malady”.

Smith applied to Georgia Vocational Rehabilitation and Georgia Mental Health Institute. They responded with a mixture of ignoring him, giving a run-around and even rudeness. In 1968 Smith saw Christine Jorgensen on the Merv Griffin television show, and wrote to ask for Christine’s address. Christine put Smith in touch with a doctor, who in turn gave the names and addresses of two surgeons: Dr Burou in Casablanca and Dr Barbosa in Tijuana. Smith decided on the latter.

In January 1969, Smith moved out of the family home to stay with a friend; resigned his job; sent a letter to his parents saying for the first time that he was transsexual and asking them to borrow $4,200 against their house to lend to him. Smith paid $200 for a flight to Los Angeles, and then took a train to San Diego, crossed the border into Mexico at 2am. After resting in a hotel, Smith arrived at Dr Barbosa’s office – still in male clothes.

Dr Barbosa examined Smith and then explained that he required a full year of hormone therapy prior to surgery. Further examination discovered a thyroid problem. Dr Barbosa compromised and treatment for the thyroid condition was provided as well as an orchiectomy. While in the clinic, Smith contemplated a female name and decided on Phoebe.

She had brought a mail-order catalogue with her and made her first purchases of female clothing. On return to Atlanta, Phoebe was welcomed by her family and relatives. The mail-order purchases had arrived, and from that day on, she never wore male clothing again.

Continued in Part II.

7 trans persons in North Africa and 10 emigrants who changed things by example and/or achievement.

North Africa is a difficult place to be trans.  Which is why most persons listed here are emigrants.

Surgeons & psychiatrists

• Georges Burou (1910 – 1987) pioneer surgeon in Casablanca, invented penile inversion surgery. 1000s of patients. GVWW
• Ludwig Levy-Lenz (1889 – 1966) one of Hirschfeld’s surgeons, fled to Egypt in 1936, where he opened a clinic that did transgender surgery. GVWW
• Ezzat Ashamallah, peformed surgery on Sally Mursi, 1988. He was temporarily suspended from the Doctors’ Syndicate.
• Mahmoud Eteifi, Asyut, Egypt, arrested 2010 for transgender surgery. NewsArticle
• Hashem Bahary, psychiatrist, Al Azhar University, Cairo, runs a clinic for trans persons. YouTube.

Cleric

Muhammad Sayyid Tantawy (1928 – 2010) grand mufti and then Grand Imam of Al-Azhar Mosque in Cairo, issued a fatwa that Sally Mursi’s change was necessary for her health but that before the operation she should for one year dress, behave and comply with all obligations of Islam for women, except for marital obligations. This fatwa was the first Sunni ruling about sex changes.

Persons

1. Hatshepsut (1508 – 1482 BCE) Egyptian Pharaoh who wore the same kilt and false beard as the male pharaohs. EN.WIKIPEDIA
2. Hasan el Belbeissi (182? - ?) Egyptian belly dancer immortalized by Gustave Flaubert. GVWW
3. Sisa Abu Daooh (1950 - ), Luxor, Egypt, lived and worked as a man for 40 years. Awarded prize as 'best mother' by President al-Sisi. NewsArticle
4. Sally Mursi (1966 - ) Cairo, medical student refused completion of studies, dancer. GVWW
5. Hanan al Tawil (1966 – 2004) actress. GVWW
6. Noor Talbi (1969 - ) Moroccan dancer, model, actress. GVWW
7. Nourhan (198? - ) Cairo, engineer, academic at Al Azhar University, transferred to administration. NewsArticle.

Emigrants

1. Marcel Oudjman (? - ?) from Algeria, moved to Paris and became owner of La Carrousel and Madame Arthur. Part 1 Part II
2. Dominot (1930 - 2014) from Tunisia, actress, performer in Rome. GVWW
3. Marie-Pierre Pruvot/ Bambi (1935 - ) from Ysser, Algiers. Became star at Madame Arthur/ La Carrousel. Then a school teacher and a novelist. GVWW
4. Nana (1939 - ) from Oran, Algeria, became a performer/sex worker in Paris. Later she married. GVWW
5. Marie-France Garcia (1946 - ) from Oran, Algeria, active in FHAR and Les Gazolines in Paris, also a singer. GVWW
6. Bibiana Manuala Fernandez Chica (Bibi Andersen) (1954 - ) actress, performer, born in Tangiers, found fame in Spain. GVWW ES.Wikipedia
7. Pascale Ourbih (1972 - ) from Algeria, model, actress Green Party candidate in Paris. GVWW
8. Randa (198? - ) fled Algeria where her life was threatened. Lives in Lebanon, and is author of The Memoirs of Randa the Trans – first trans autobiography in Arabic. NewsArticle
9. Carla Massoud, from Egypt, now lives in Germany with her husband. NewsArticle BBC
10. Achan/Layla Kingston, born in Libya to South Sudanese Dinka Bor parents. Now lives in Pennsylvania. NewsArticle

Alex Starke (1898–?) dentist

Born as Clara Jenny Starke In Erfurt, Thuringia, Alex, apparently anatomically intersex, moved to Berlin, where he worked as a dentist and, with expert evidence from Magnus Hirschfeld, he applied for a Transvestitenschein (police permission to wear men’s clothing) in September 1919. Hirschfeld had advised that a gender-neutral name like ‘Alex’ was more likely to be accepted. In September 1920, he successfully petitioned a local court in downtown Berlin to change his legal name to Alex, and in November the civil register in Erfurt was accordingly changed. As per usual practice with any name change, he was obliged to pay for announcements in the Deutsche Reichsanzeiger and the Preussische Staatsanzeiger – which in effect outed him.

In 1928 Alex was medically examined twice. The one report said that he had a ‘dual sexuality-bisexuality’ (Doppelgeschlechtigkeit-Bisexualität); the other found him to be female.

In 1930 he wrote an article for Die Freundin magazine about how the then transvestite scene in Berlin was focused on entertainment and did not cater to the needs of actual transvestites.

In September 1939, Alex. petitioned for the birth register to be altered to say that he had been a boy, not a girl. Five months later he gave up this attempt as hopeless, but his file was now on a desk at the supervisor of registry offices (Standesämter).

The Nazi officials who were now running the Standesämter were outraged that such changes of gender were permitted in the Third Reich. They expected the Erfurt Standesamt to rescind the name change, after which the Berlin Transvestitenschein would also be revoked. However a change in the law in 1932 had required an executive decision by the interior administration for such decisions, potentially at ministerial level. Furthermore, from October 1939 all proceedings in change-of-name cases had been suspended for the duration of the war as a labour-saving measure.

The Standesämter persevered, arguing that this was not a private case but a matter of interest to the state. The Interior Ministry issued a ruling in May 1941. They ruled that as Starke had lived as a man since 1920, it would be an ‘unjustifiable hardship’ and maybe even ‘impossible’ for him to have to start living as a woman. The name change was not to be rescinded, however he was not to be allowed to marry.
*Not the 21^st century actor

• Alex Starke. „An alle Transvestiten. Die Welt der Transvestiten.“ Die Freundin, 6, 15, 1930.
• Rainer Herrn, Schnittmuster des Geschlechts. Transvestismus und Transsexualität in der frühen Sexualwissenschaft, Giessen, 2005: 128, 152.
• Jane Caplan. “The Administration of Gender Identity in Nazi Germany“. History Workshop Journal, 72, Autumn 2011: 174-5

Andrea Susan Malick (1939 – 2015) photographer, cinematographer.

Jack Malick, a photographer, was a regular participant from the age of 21 in Susanna and Marie Valenti’s Chevalier D’Eon Resort and later Casa Susanna. Malick’s femme name was at first Jacqueline, but when he and his first wife Bonnie, endowed that name on their daughter, Malick took the name Andrea Susan. Andrea, who had a developing room, became the official photographer for the resort - this was at a time when commercial film developers might react unfavourably.

David/Gail Wilde, one of the richer members, bought Andrea an expensive Roleiflex camera (which cost over $1,000) with the request that Andrea learn how to process color film. Gail also requested a copy of each photograph taken. Gail collected them in expensive albums.

When in 1964 Susanna wanted to make movies, Andrea stepped up with a professional 16mm camera. Two films were shot in the same weekend in Marie’s wig store in New York.

When David Wilde and Joan Bennett decided to move out of Manhattan, it was Jack, already living in Scarsdale, who introduced them to a local real-estate agent. As part of the move Joan insisted that David’s femme persona, including the photograph collection, be left behind. After a night of drinking, Gail’s photograph collection was put out on the garbage, and disappeared overnight.

Andrea 1993

Malick was the cinematographer on Leo Wollman and Doris Wishman’s groundbreaking Adam or Eve, 1971, which was later recut with additional material and rereleased as Born a Man ... Let Me Die a Woman, 1978, (although Malick is uncredited on the actual prints). He was lighting director or cinematographer on mainly television films through the 1980s and 1990s.

Andrea was a regular at Fantasia Fair in Provincetown. She hosted the Fashion Show many years from 1976.

In 1985, Jack was briefly in the news when his Scarsdale home was burgled and he shot the intruder, wounding him.

In 1991 Andrea was the director and cameraperson on the video Bridges to Beauty which apart from the two producers had a totally trans cast and crew. As the airlines would not insure the camera equipment, Andrea drove from New York to Los Angeles for the gig and then back.

Andrea was nominated Ms Fantasia Fair in 1994, and in the newsletter for that year was described: “Andrea passes very well and travels extensively as her girl self, and has been just about everywhere from Disney World to virtually every city (and supermarket ) in the world”.

In 2013 Andrea visited fellow Fantasia Fair director, Miqqi Alicia in Toronto and was shown the 2005 book Casa Susanna complied by Robert Swope and Michel Hurst containing photographs from the 1960s. Andrea recognized many of them as her own work. She announced herself as the photographer at Fantasia Fair, 2013.

Andrea at the premier of the play

The next April Dallas Denny met with Andrea, and with permission identified her online. Jack’s daughter Jacqueline contacted Harvey Fierstein who was producing the play Casa Valentina. Jack and Jaqueline were invited guests at a preview, and then Andrea and Jaqueline at the premier of the play, April 1, 2014. A presentation re Andrea’s work was prepared for Fantasia Fair, 2014. However a medical emergency forced Andrea into hospital instead. Dallas interviewed her on video in hospital.

Andrea/Jack died at age 75. The 2015 Fantasia Fair was dedicated to her.

• Doris Wishman (dir). Born A Man... Let Me Die A Woman. Hosted by Leo Wollman, camera by Andrea Susan Malick (uncredited) with trans persons Leslie, Lisa Carmelle, Deborah Harte, Ann Zordi, and porn stars Harry Reem, Angel Spirit and Vanessa del Rio. Scientific and medical advisor: Dr Leo Wollman. US 78 mins 1978.
• “Scarsdale Man Wounds Intruder”. New York Times, January 11, 1985. Online.
• Bridges to Beauty. Dir & camera: Andrea Susan Mitchell, with Vicki Vargas, Virginia Prince, Diahanna Taylor, Melissa Foster. US 1991.
• “JoAnne Roberts Service & Product Reviews: Bridges to Beauty Video”. En femme magazine, 24, June 1991: 8-9. Online.
• “Behind the Scenes: Making the “Bridges to Beauty” Videos. International Tran Script, 1,1, October 1991: 19-22. Online.
• Ladylike, 16, 1993: Cover, 40, 42. Online.
• Fantasia Fair Newsletter 96. Online.
• Michel Hurst & Robert Swope. Casa Susanna. PowerHouse Books, 2005.
• Kate Cummings. Katherine's Diary- the Story of a Transsexual. Beaujon Press, 2008: 131.
• Dallas Denny. “The Historical Roots of Casa Valentina”. Chrysalis, May 10, 2014. Online.
• Dallas Denny. “Identified! Casa Susanna Photographer Comes Forward”. Chrysalis, May 13, 2014. Online.
• Andrea Susan Malick & Dallas Denny. “In the Beginning: How My Photos of 1950s Crossdressers Inspired a Hit Show on Broadway”. Chrysalis, Nov 24, 2015. Online.
• Dallas Denny interviews Andrea Susan Malick. Video. Part I. Part II.
• Dedication. Fantasia Fair Participants’ Guide, 2015. Online.
• Isabelle Bonnet. Les Photographies des Travestis de La Casa Susanna. Mémoire de Master 1, Université Paris 1 Panthéon Sorbonne, 2015 : 10-11, 48, 73.
• Katherine Cummings email to Zagria. 2 Nov 2017.

Obituary IMDB

----------------------

The Fantasia Fair Newsletter 96 says “She was one of 37 who attended the first unofficial gathering of CDs in Hunter, N.Y. in 1967”. However under the name Jack/Jacqueline she is mentioned in Katherine’s Diary as being at the Chevalier D’Eon Resort in 1962.

Bonnet p48 says that Jack Malick told her that he was a friend of Stanley Kubrick and worked on 2001: A Space Odyssey, 1968. The credits for the film, which was made in the UK and Spain, mainly at Borehamwood and Shepperton studios, list a team of 11 for Special Photographic Effects, one of whom is ‘John Jack Malick’. IMDB treats this John Jack Malick as a separate person from Jack Malick. Jack’s full name was Jack John Malik (see the Obituary), so if they are the same person, the credits scrambled his name. This site on Jack’s son Gary, claims that Jack won the Best Visual Effects Oscar for 2001. However that Oscar, the only one won by the film, went to Stanley Kubrick.

There is no mention of Jack Malick in Brian Kellow’s The Bennetts: An Acting Family, which has sections on the marriage of David and Joan Bennett.

Jack in the video interview says that when the Wildes moved to Scarsdale, Gail’s photograph collection was put out on the garbage, and disappeared overnight. He assumes that these are what were found by Roberts Swope decades later. Katherine Cummings says that Gail left her books and publications with a friend. Katherine is ‘100%’ sure that the Robert Swope's find is Susanna’s collection, not Gail’s.