Anton Hermann (1846-1905) artist

Hermann was born in Vienna and raised as Hermine Gartner. The father was a government councillor, and the elder brother was Theodor Gartner who became a noted linguist and philologist specializing in the Ruthenian (Ukrainian) language.

Hermann studied painting under Josef Hoffmann and Joseph von Fuhrich. Using the excuse that male attire made for easier working conditions, he adopted the pseudonym ‘Antonius Hermann’.  Hermann succeeded in being admitted at the  Akademie der bildenden Künste Wien (Vienna Academy of Fine Arts) to study even though no women were then admitted.

As Hermine Gartner, Hermann was engaged to the painter Carl Hofman in 1871, but that did not work out. Gartner became known as a painter of religious motifs and of portraits, taught painting in Munich, and carried out restorations in Kremsmünster Abbey in Upper Austria.

In 1899 Hermann retired to the Italian Riviera, and bought a house in Sori, south of Genoa. Hermann now dressed as male consistently, and often wore a black moustache – although he was sometimes spotted without it, and once it came off while he was in church. He worked as a language teacher.

Hermann died age 59, possibly of cancer. He was outed on his death-bed, which created quite a stir and was reported in Italian and German-language newspapers. Theodor Gartner, summoned by telegraph, came from Innsbruck and registered the death of his sister Hermine Gartner.

• Magnus Hirschfeld: Die Transvestiten: eine Untersuchung über den erotischen Verkleidungstrieb. Mit umfangreichem casuistischen und historischen Material. 2. Auflage. Verlag Wahrheit Ferdinand Spohr, Leipzig 1925: 404–405.

• Hanna Hacker. Frauen und Freundinnen: Studien zur "weiblichen Homosexualität" am Beispiel Österreich 1870-1938. University of Virginia, 1987: 146.

Wien Geschichte Wiki         Österreichisches Biographisches Lexikon        Wikipedia

Vardaman (1877 - 1945) female impersonator

Mansel Vardaman Boyle was born and raised in Santa Cruz, California. As a boy soprano, Boyle had been in demand for school entertainments. He played light juvenile parts with the Alcazar Theater Company,

Around 1896, the family moved to Butte, Montana when his father and brother found work there as miners. Mansel, then 19, worked as a clerk, and then as a stenographer and bookkeeper. Mansel was interested in theatre, especially music and singing, and was a member of the entertaining Overland Club, where his affinity for female clothing, a high singing voice and a natural proclivity as a performer were appreciated. An article in the local press in June 1902 commented: 

“Mr. Boyle impersonated a young danseuse, and his make-up, actions and singing barred to many the thought that he was not a woman”. 

His first solo amateur performance was at a New-Year party and then a female role in a performance of Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Gondoliers. This had gone down so well that friends suggested that he continue professionally.

The family moved back to California in 1903, this time to Alameda, across the bay from San Francisco. Mansel developed his female impersonation act, and was able to break into the Vaudeville circuit. He returned to Butte in April 1904 playing his solo act. He used his middle name as a stage name, and toured across the US, sometimes billed as the ‘celebrated French impersonator’. As was the custom at the time, Vardaman ended the act by removing his wig and thus revealing that was not the woman that many in the audience had taken him to be. In 1913-14 Vardaman made a world tour, that is Australia, South Africa and Britain. By 1916 he was billed as “Vardaman: The Gay Deceiver”, starred in a burlesque show with comics and female dancers where he was the only female impersonator. 

By 1920 Boyle was 43, and no longer able to pass as a young woman. For a while he was unemployed and lived with his sister in Alameda. His last performance was in 1925. In the late 1930s. Boyle was living with the gay silent-film star J. Warren Kerrigan.

He died in May 1945, age 68.

• “Appreciates the Wit”. The Butte Daily Post, June 6, 1902: 10.

• “The Hit of the Season: Entertainment given by the Overland Minstrels”. The Anaconda Standard, June 6, 1902:1.

• “How I Came to Enter Vaudeville” Daily Arkansas Gazette, Feb 23, 1909: 12.

• Trav S.D. “Vardaman: The Gay Deceiver. Travalance, January 17, 2014. Online

• “Vardaman: The Gay Deceiver”. BellingHistory, February 2023. Online.

• Tracy Thornton. “Butte men donned dresses and wowed crowds”. Montana Standard, Jun 28, 2024.

• Tracy Thornton. “Butte man in drag wowed the crowds”. The Billings Gazette (Montana), June 30, 2024.

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