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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