15 November 2015
IOS Rainbow List 2015
The 2015 Independent on Sunday Rainbow List of 101 UK LGBT persons who made a difference is just published.
Previous IOS lists: 2014 2013
The count of Trans/Intersex/non-binary/etc persons is up to 30 from last years 18. Persons include:
1. Riley Carter Millington, actor playing Kyle in Eastenders on BBC1.
2. Sarah Graham, intersex advocate
5. Dawn Rachel Vago & Holly Greenberry, co-directors of Intersex UK.
8. Jack Monroe, chef, author and non-binary campaigner, announced this year that is trans.
11. Rebecca Root, actor in Boy Meets Girl on BBC2.
17. Annie Wallace, actor playing trans teacher in Hollyoaks on Channels 4. Previously a consultant for Hayley Cropper character on Coronation Street.
20 Jay Stewart, co-founder of Gendered Intelligence.
23. Juno Roche, co-founder of Trans Workers UK and Trans Teachers Network.
26. Payton Quinn, non-binary activist and comedian. One of those behind petition complaining about Germaine Greer at Cardiff University.
29. Jay Hayes-Light, director of UK Intersex Organisation.
34. Munrie Bergdorf, DJ and trans advocate.
38. Sabah Choudrey, trans activist of Pakistani descent, youth worker with Gendered Intelligence, co-founder of Trans Pride Brighton.
40. Charlie Craggs, founder Nail Transphobia.
44. Jacqui Gavin, senior civil servant and vice chair of a:gender.
48. Lewis Hancox, appeared in Channel 4’s My Transsexual Summer 3 years ago, and is involved in My Trans Story, also on Channel 4.
50. Fox Fisher, co-creator of Trans Pride Brighton and My Genderation documentaries, and an acting course for trans students at Royal Central School of Speech and Drama.
53. Bethany Black, actor and comedian, appeared in Russell T Davies’ Cucumber, Banana and Tofu, and will be in Doctor Who.
60. Emily Brothers, Labour Parliamentary candidate, also disability rights campaigner.
63. Joe Holliday, raised as a girl because of birth defect, now male, author of She’s a Boy.
68. Ayla Holdom, RAF officer, search and rescue pilot.
70. Laurie Penny, genderqueer journalist and author.
71. James Dawson, best selling young-adult author, whose This Book is Gay shortly to be placed in every primary and secondary school, has started to transition.
73. Juliet Jacques, writer released her memoir, Trans. WIKIPEDIA
74. James Morton, Scottish Transgender Alliance.
79. Stephanie Hirst, DJ, returned to radio on BBC Radia Manchester.
81. Helen Belcher, founder of Trans Media Watch.
87. Jake Graf, film-maker, 1st trans man on cover of QX magazine.
89. Jane Fae, journalist. GVWW
90. Jess Coal, UK Trans Info.
96. CN Lester, musician, co-founder Queer Youth Network.
Long Time Champions:
April Ashley GVWW WIKIPEDIA
Caroline Cossey/Tula GVWW Wikipedia
Boy George GVWW Wikipedia
Roz Kaveney GVWW Wikipedia
Paul O’Grady/Lily Savage GVWW WIKIPEDIA
Alice Purnell GVWW
Mark Rees GVWW
Stephen Whittle WIKIPEDIA
Ones to Watch:
Ellen Murray of Northern Ireland’s Gender Jam
intersex campaigner Elizabeth Jo Roberts
Jess Bradley of Action for Trans Health
Alec Scott Rook, the founder of Trans Men Support & Advice UK
12 November 2015
Le Carrousel and Madame Arthur: Part II: 1945 – 1961
The glory years for Marcel Oudjman's Ouizman's clubs were 1945-1960, when Le Carrousel was located at 40, rue du Colisée, near the Champs-Elysée.
Part I: before 1945. 75, rue des Martyres et 40, rue Pierre Fontaine
Bibliography
Part II: 1945 – 1961 40, rue du Colisée et Juan-les-Pins
Part III: 1962 and after, 22, rue Vavin, and Korte Leidsedwarsstraat nr. 45
Part II: 1945 – 1961 40, rue du Colisée (map) et Juan-les-Pins (map)
After 1945 Floridor and Marcel Ouizman converted the former Divan Japonais into a nightclub. They named it Madame Arthur after the song that Yvette Guilbert (who had recently died) had sung there. They were co-owners: the arrangement was a tontine, and when Floridor, who acted as host there, as he had at Binocle, died after a few months, Ouizman became the sole owner.
The clientele at the bar seemed to be gay, but it was otherwise in the salon. The show was so popular that it was put on five times from 23.00 till dawn. At this time the performers were 1930s style travestis who parodied women but did not openly identify as such, and arrived and left dressed as men.
The new host, Loulou, was a former priest who had abandoned his orders. He had an oratory in his apartment, and lived for 55 years with his lover, Hulla, who performed at the club. Loulou was also an award winning poet.
The first star was Maslova, a former ballet dancer, who at first performed under the name "Madame Arthur". He dominated the show for nearly 30 years. Other performers were Wanda Paris and Fifi Pervenche.
Ouizman was known at the club as Monsieur Marcel. He found a remarkable woman in Germaine Cartan. ++Foester says that he cohabited with her, put her in charge at Madame Arthur, but they never formally married. However they had three children, and other sources say that they were married.
Coccinelle later wrote:
An early visitor, in March 1948, was the US playwright Tennessee Williams who enthused about the 'most beautiful male whores' but ignored the travestis.
An association of neighbouring businesses initiated legal action and actually forced Le Carrousel to close, but M. Marcel was able to get around this, and when he re-opened in 1951, it was on the street floor.
It should be mentioned that the nightclub was not strictly legal. In 1907, Paris Prefect of Police Louis Lépine had signed an order prohibiting transvestism outside of the Sunday, Monday, Mardi Gras and Thursday of Mid-Lent except with special permanent permission, and banned drag shows at dances and places where alcohol is sold. However these rules were only intermittently enforced.
1947 – 1961 were the years of "Le Grande Carrousel", when the nightclub was one of the most expensive clubs in Paris. April Ashley described the club:
In 1949, the Prefect of Police Roger Léonard signed an order that men were not allowed to dance with each other in public places. All contact between artists and the public was prohibited by the police: only special customers like Maria Callas, Josephine Baker and Marlene Dietrich had permission to go backstage to congratulate the artists.
In 1951 Coccinelle, aged 20, presented herself to Madame Germaine at Madame Arthur, and a year later she was a star at Le Carrousel. Press agentry spread the canard that Coccinelle was really a cis woman, which resulted in the rejoinder that "A woman as beautiful as Coccinelle can only be a man". Her looks were compared to those of Brigitte Bardot who was breaking into a film career at the same time.
Coccinelle was part of one of the earliest Carrousel tours – to the Casino de la Corniche, 9 km outside Algiers in 1952, where the future Bambi was in the audience. Just over a year later, Christmas 1953, Bambi debuted at Madame Arthur.
The programmes at Le Carrousel usually included a head shot of the performer's male
persona in the corner of the glamour photograph – even for Coccinelle and Bambi.
Coccinelle and Bambi were the first of a new type of performer, in that for them performance was a way to achieve womanhood, a womanhood that was continued offstage.
Similar performers began to arrive from other countries such as Pussy Katt (the first surgical transsexual in the US); Aaicha Bergamin from Amsterdam who was known as Nanny; and the Tunisian Dominot who used her earnings to pay for studies at the Comedie Francaise.
It became the practice that performers either purchased or made their own costumes in that the club-supplied ones were not so good. Some boosted their income by having a sugar daddy or by earning a percentage when they took customers to other bars after hours.
Old-style performers, transformistes, still arrived – that is those who changed to male clothing off-stage and were not working towards a sex change. Even these performers were different from those of the 1930s, many of whom had done what the English called 'cod drag', that is exaggeration and playing for laughs. The new performers aimed for glamour.
One of the transformistes was Les Lee, who arrived from Quebec in 1954. He was later able to translate when artists arrived who did not speak French.
1954 was also the year that, under Police duress, Le Carrousel was closed for three months, and even Madame Arthur was banned from permitting 'men' wearing female clothes. This was following the French defeat by the Vietnamese at Dien Bien Phu, right-wing and anti-Semitic abuse aimed at and an attempted assassination of the new Jewish Prime Minister, Pierre Mendès France, and turmoil over the North African colonies.
Madame Germaine sent Bambi to star in a Le Carrousel tour of Algeria during the closure, and this time it was Nana in the audience. Nana, like Bambi, moved to Paris, and worked in cabaret, but never at Madame Arthur nor at Le Carrousel.
Poppy Cooper, who did not transition to womanhood until the 1970s, was one of the British performers who had been in soldiers-in-skirts revues after World War II which had run their course. Cooper found employment at Le Carrousel by the mid 1950s and was taken to be an old-style performer. She commented:
In 1956 Coccinelle had found out about female hormones after meeting trans activist Marie André Schwidenhammer by chance on a train, and then in 1958 she was approached by Jenny, Dr Georges Burou's first transgender patient. Later that year Coccinelle also became a patient of Dr Burou.
Ouizman opened another Le Carrousel in Juan-les-Pins on the Côte d'Azur between Nice and Cannes. Toni and Bambi were to be seen in the best places on the Côte d'Azur so that people would say “It can't be true – surely they're girls" and then attend the show.
Over the next few years several of Monsieur Marcel's performers followed Coccinelle to Dr Burou's clinic in Casablanca, although Coccinelle was selective in whom she gave the details to. Bambi, April Ashley, Amanda Lear and Capucine are the best known of those who went.
By the late 1950s there was already a gay bar in Osaka, Japan named Carrousel in homage to the Parisian nightclub. The performer Karūseru Maki named herself from the Osaka bar. (Karūseru = Carrousel)
In 1959 Salvador Dalí came and wanted to paint Toni in her half-way state, which she declined. He did become a long-term friend of Peki/Amanda.
However problems were building at 40, rue du Colisée. Initially it was the basement and then the street floor of a block of offices. However these had now been turned into flats, and the new residents objected to the noise and tone of the club. Ouizman also went to court to object to the police regulations that made his business illegal, and he won the case. However the lease was not renewed, and he was forced to close Le Carrousel 31 December 1961.
___________________________________________________________
Both EN.Wikipedia and FR.Wikipedia have an article on Le Divan du Monde which is the name of the nightclub that is now at 75, rue des Martyrs. While they discuss Saint-Flour Musette, Brasserie des Martyrs and Divan Japonais, they are completely silent about Madame Arthur, both the song and the club. "In 1901, the Divan became the Théâtre de la Comédie Mondaine. It was later replaced by an erotic theatre. In 1994, it was reopened as Le Divan du Monde."
The FR.Wikipedia article on Le Carrousel has no mention of Marcel Ouizman (under any spelling), nor of Madame Arthur as a nightclub, and of course no link to its own article on Le Divan du Monde.
The list of notable pieds-noir on the EN.Wikipedia page and on the FR.Wikipedia page does not include Marcel Ouizman, Bambi or Nana.
Neither the EN.Wikipedia nor the FR.Wikipedia pages on Juan-les-Pins mention that Le Carrousel had a branch there.
The Casino de la Corniche is infamous in retrospect for the bombing on 9 June 1957 which killed the band leader, Lucien Seror, known as Lucky Starway, the heart-throb of the Bab el Oued. Eight or ten others were killed and eighty-five wounded, many with loss of limbs. This and the resulting pied noir ratonnade were major events in the second phase of the Battle of Algiers 1956-7.
1961 was not an easy year in Paris. The Algerian Independence War was drawing to a close, and Algeria became independent in 1962. A particularly savage event was the October Paris Massacre directed by police chief Maurice Papon. A peaceful, but unauthorized, demonstration by Algerians was attacked by the police. Some Algerians were beaten unconscious and then thrown into the river Seine to drown; others were killed within the courtyard of the Paris police headquarters. The death toll is estimated as over 200. Papon had earlier been active in deporting French Jews to German concentration camp during the occupation. Also in 1961, Papon was personally awarded the Légion d'honneur by President Charles de Gaulle.
Bob Hope visited Le Carrousel de Paris. In Juan-des-Pins he took Toni April out to breakfast. However apparently he did not recognise her on the set of Road to Hong Kong, 1962.
Part I: before 1945. 75, rue des Martyres et 40, rue Pierre Fontaine
Bibliography
Part II: 1945 – 1961 40, rue du Colisée et Juan-les-Pins
Part III: 1962 and after, 22, rue Vavin, and Korte Leidsedwarsstraat nr. 45
Part II: 1945 – 1961 40, rue du Colisée (map) et Juan-les-Pins (map)
After 1945 Floridor and Marcel Ouizman converted the former Divan Japonais into a nightclub. They named it Madame Arthur after the song that Yvette Guilbert (who had recently died) had sung there. They were co-owners: the arrangement was a tontine, and when Floridor, who acted as host there, as he had at Binocle, died after a few months, Ouizman became the sole owner.
The clientele at the bar seemed to be gay, but it was otherwise in the salon. The show was so popular that it was put on five times from 23.00 till dawn. At this time the performers were 1930s style travestis who parodied women but did not openly identify as such, and arrived and left dressed as men.
The new host, Loulou, was a former priest who had abandoned his orders. He had an oratory in his apartment, and lived for 55 years with his lover, Hulla, who performed at the club. Loulou was also an award winning poet.
 |
| Maslova |
The first star was Maslova, a former ballet dancer, who at first performed under the name "Madame Arthur". He dominated the show for nearly 30 years. Other performers were Wanda Paris and Fifi Pervenche.
Ouizman was known at the club as Monsieur Marcel. He found a remarkable woman in Germaine Cartan. ++Foester says that he cohabited with her, put her in charge at Madame Arthur, but they never formally married. However they had three children, and other sources say that they were married.
Coccinelle later wrote:
"There was also the manager, Madame Germaine who, at that time, impressed me greatly. Tall, red-haired, still very bécébégé with strict tailoring and hair pulled back, I must admit it really did not look comfortable! In fact, it was only a facade, as I would discover later, when she invited me on several occasions to the sumptuous villa she and her husband owned in Sainte-Maxime. However, at Madame Arthur, she could be harsh, but in private, she proved simple, charming, generous." (Coccinelle par Coccinelle:51)Encouraged by the success of Madame Arthur, Marcel took over Le Carrousel, in October 1947, and moved it to 40, rue du Colisée, near the Champs-Elysée, initially in the basement. The proximity to the Palais de L'Elysée was considered scandalous at the time. The decor was luxurious but intimate, and circular in the style of ancient theatres. Zambelli, Maxi and Mado were the initial stars.
An early visitor, in March 1948, was the US playwright Tennessee Williams who enthused about the 'most beautiful male whores' but ignored the travestis.
An association of neighbouring businesses initiated legal action and actually forced Le Carrousel to close, but M. Marcel was able to get around this, and when he re-opened in 1951, it was on the street floor.
It should be mentioned that the nightclub was not strictly legal. In 1907, Paris Prefect of Police Louis Lépine had signed an order prohibiting transvestism outside of the Sunday, Monday, Mardi Gras and Thursday of Mid-Lent except with special permanent permission, and banned drag shows at dances and places where alcohol is sold. However these rules were only intermittently enforced.
1947 – 1961 were the years of "Le Grande Carrousel", when the nightclub was one of the most expensive clubs in Paris. April Ashley described the club:
“Through the foyer, through the Long Bar, to the tables and chairs for about a hundred. The Interior was Parisian red plush and gilt, with a small stage and band at one end.” (Odyssey: 50)There were 14 different shows, one each year, changed in January. They consisted of tableaux, and ended with a grand finale with singing and feathers. Micky Mercer was the token male impersonator. There were also intermissions when heterosexual dancing was encouraged.
In 1949, the Prefect of Police Roger Léonard signed an order that men were not allowed to dance with each other in public places. All contact between artists and the public was prohibited by the police: only special customers like Maria Callas, Josephine Baker and Marlene Dietrich had permission to go backstage to congratulate the artists.
In 1951 Coccinelle, aged 20, presented herself to Madame Germaine at Madame Arthur, and a year later she was a star at Le Carrousel. Press agentry spread the canard that Coccinelle was really a cis woman, which resulted in the rejoinder that "A woman as beautiful as Coccinelle can only be a man". Her looks were compared to those of Brigitte Bardot who was breaking into a film career at the same time.
Coccinelle was part of one of the earliest Carrousel tours – to the Casino de la Corniche, 9 km outside Algiers in 1952, where the future Bambi was in the audience. Just over a year later, Christmas 1953, Bambi debuted at Madame Arthur.
The programmes at Le Carrousel usually included a head shot of the performer's male
persona in the corner of the glamour photograph – even for Coccinelle and Bambi.Coccinelle and Bambi were the first of a new type of performer, in that for them performance was a way to achieve womanhood, a womanhood that was continued offstage.
Similar performers began to arrive from other countries such as Pussy Katt (the first surgical transsexual in the US); Aaicha Bergamin from Amsterdam who was known as Nanny; and the Tunisian Dominot who used her earnings to pay for studies at the Comedie Francaise.
It became the practice that performers either purchased or made their own costumes in that the club-supplied ones were not so good. Some boosted their income by having a sugar daddy or by earning a percentage when they took customers to other bars after hours.
Old-style performers, transformistes, still arrived – that is those who changed to male clothing off-stage and were not working towards a sex change. Even these performers were different from those of the 1930s, many of whom had done what the English called 'cod drag', that is exaggeration and playing for laughs. The new performers aimed for glamour.
One of the transformistes was Les Lee, who arrived from Quebec in 1954. He was later able to translate when artists arrived who did not speak French.
 |
| Coccinelle with US comedian Bob Hope |
Madame Germaine sent Bambi to star in a Le Carrousel tour of Algeria during the closure, and this time it was Nana in the audience. Nana, like Bambi, moved to Paris, and worked in cabaret, but never at Madame Arthur nor at Le Carrousel.
Poppy Cooper, who did not transition to womanhood until the 1970s, was one of the British performers who had been in soldiers-in-skirts revues after World War II which had run their course. Cooper found employment at Le Carrousel by the mid 1950s and was taken to be an old-style performer. She commented:
"There was more freedom there and you could go out onto the streets in drag if you wanted to, or go out with men to a restaurant after the show. …. French, Belgiums, Germans – they loved the travesti. The English seem different." (Kirk: 31)Another such British performer was Dolly/Tommy Osborne who commented:
"I liked Paris, but I wasn't too happy in the show. I was a singer and I used to go out there and belt out the numbers big and loud and forget about being in drag, but most of the audience was there purely for the sensation of seeing boys with tits. The boys were all incredibly beautiful. But they just couldn't do anything, bless them." (Kirk: 31)Toni April (April Ashley) arrived in 1956, and Peki d'Oslo (Amanda Lear) in 1958. Toni described the back stage:
“The dressing-room was divided in half by a row of back-to-back dressing-tables. On one side were the stars like Coccinelle and Bambi and on the other the polloi: two rows of narcissists transported in mirrors. Fortunately for my savoir-faire as well as my amour-popre I was seated with the stars, who were to instruct me in the techniques of make-up and presentation.” (Odyssey: 53)Only Coccinelle and Bambi addressed the patron as 'Marcel' rather than 'Monsieur Marcel' until Toni started doing so also.
In 1956 Coccinelle had found out about female hormones after meeting trans activist Marie André Schwidenhammer by chance on a train, and then in 1958 she was approached by Jenny, Dr Georges Burou's first transgender patient. Later that year Coccinelle also became a patient of Dr Burou.
 | |
| Toni & Bambi at Juan-les-Pins |
Ouizman opened another Le Carrousel in Juan-les-Pins on the Côte d'Azur between Nice and Cannes. Toni and Bambi were to be seen in the best places on the Côte d'Azur so that people would say “It can't be true – surely they're girls" and then attend the show.
Over the next few years several of Monsieur Marcel's performers followed Coccinelle to Dr Burou's clinic in Casablanca, although Coccinelle was selective in whom she gave the details to. Bambi, April Ashley, Amanda Lear and Capucine are the best known of those who went.
By the late 1950s there was already a gay bar in Osaka, Japan named Carrousel in homage to the Parisian nightclub. The performer Karūseru Maki named herself from the Osaka bar. (Karūseru = Carrousel)
In 1959 Salvador Dalí came and wanted to paint Toni in her half-way state, which she declined. He did become a long-term friend of Peki/Amanda.
___________________________________________________________
Both EN.Wikipedia and FR.Wikipedia have an article on Le Divan du Monde which is the name of the nightclub that is now at 75, rue des Martyrs. While they discuss Saint-Flour Musette, Brasserie des Martyrs and Divan Japonais, they are completely silent about Madame Arthur, both the song and the club. "In 1901, the Divan became the Théâtre de la Comédie Mondaine. It was later replaced by an erotic theatre. In 1994, it was reopened as Le Divan du Monde."
The FR.Wikipedia article on Le Carrousel has no mention of Marcel Ouizman (under any spelling), nor of Madame Arthur as a nightclub, and of course no link to its own article on Le Divan du Monde.
The list of notable pieds-noir on the EN.Wikipedia page and on the FR.Wikipedia page does not include Marcel Ouizman, Bambi or Nana.
Neither the EN.Wikipedia nor the FR.Wikipedia pages on Juan-les-Pins mention that Le Carrousel had a branch there.
The Casino de la Corniche is infamous in retrospect for the bombing on 9 June 1957 which killed the band leader, Lucien Seror, known as Lucky Starway, the heart-throb of the Bab el Oued. Eight or ten others were killed and eighty-five wounded, many with loss of limbs. This and the resulting pied noir ratonnade were major events in the second phase of the Battle of Algiers 1956-7.
1961 was not an easy year in Paris. The Algerian Independence War was drawing to a close, and Algeria became independent in 1962. A particularly savage event was the October Paris Massacre directed by police chief Maurice Papon. A peaceful, but unauthorized, demonstration by Algerians was attacked by the police. Some Algerians were beaten unconscious and then thrown into the river Seine to drown; others were killed within the courtyard of the Paris police headquarters. The death toll is estimated as over 200. Papon had earlier been active in deporting French Jews to German concentration camp during the occupation. Also in 1961, Papon was personally awarded the Légion d'honneur by President Charles de Gaulle.
Bob Hope visited Le Carrousel de Paris. In Juan-des-Pins he took Toni April out to breakfast. However apparently he did not recognise her on the set of Road to Hong Kong, 1962.
10 November 2015
Le Carrousel and Madame Arthur: Bibliography
Part I: before 1945. 75, rue des Martyres et 40, rue Pierre Fontaine
Bibliography
Part II: 1945 – 1961. 40, rue du Colisée et Juan-les-Pins
Part III: 1962 and after. 22, rue Vavin, and Korte Leidsedwarsstraat nr. 45
For photographs of the performers, the best site is Queer Music Heritage.
QMH=Queer Music Heritage
Bibliography
Part II: 1945 – 1961. 40, rue du Colisée et Juan-les-Pins
Part III: 1962 and after. 22, rue Vavin, and Korte Leidsedwarsstraat nr. 45
For photographs of the performers, the best site is Queer Music Heritage.
- E Carlton Winford. Femme Mimics. Winford Company, 1954. Online.
- "Les Boys of Paris". She: The Man's Picture Magazine, 1, 11, December 1957: 22-5. Online
- Alessandro Blasetti (dir) Europa di notte. With Coccinelle. Italy/France 201 mins 1959,
- " 'French fooler' Bambi". Femme Mimics, 1, 6, 1963.
- "Dutch Treat". Boys will be Girls, 1,2, 1963. Online.
- "Merry Madhouse ... le Carrousel". Female Mimics, 8, 1967. Online
- Roger Baker. Drag: A History of Female Impersonation on the Stage. Triton Books, 1968: 190-1.
- Jacques-Louis Delpal. Les travestis. Éditions Jacques Chénot, 1970: 135-7.
- Barbara Buick. L’Eiquette. La Jeune Parque, 1971.
- "Amsterdam's Mme Arthur's". Drag, 4, 13, 1973.
- Tennessee Williams edited by Donald Windham. Tennessee Williams' Letters to Donald Windham, 1940-1965. Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1977: entry for 9 March 1948, p212.
- Duncan Fallowell & April Ashley. April Ashley's Odyssey. Jonathan Cape, 1982: 49-72, 79-80, 91-6.
- Renée Richards & John Ames. Second Serve: The Renée Richards Story. Stein and Day, 1983: 148.
- Kris Kirk with photographs by Ed Heath. Men In Frocks. London: Gay Men's Press 1984: 29-31. Review
- Coccinelle. Coccinelle. Filipachi, 1991.
- Lawrence Senelick. The Changing Room, Sex, Drag and Theatre. Routledge, 2000: 389-90, 392.
- Wu Jiwen translated by Fran Martin, “Rose is the Past Tense of Rise,” in Angelwings: Contemporary Queer Fiction from Taiwan. University of Hawaii Press, 2003: 221-245
- Mark McLelland. Queer Japan from the Pacific War to the Internet Age. Rowan & Littlefield Publishers, 2005: 111-6. 109
- Martin Pénet. "L'expression homosexuelle dans les chansons françaises de l'entre-deux-guerres: entre dérision et ambiguïté". Revue d’histoire moderne et contemporaine 4, 53-4, 2006: 106-127. Online.
- Maxime Foerster. "Paris et l'âge d'or de la culture cabaret transgenre". Chp 4 in Histoire des transsexuels en France. H&O éditions, 2006:69-84.
- Maxime Foerster. "On the History of Transsexuals in France". In Cantal Zabus & David Coad (eds) Transgender Experience: Place, Ethnicity, and Visibility. Routledge, 2013.
- Bambi. "Cabaret". In Karine Espineira, Arnaud Alessandrin & Maud-Yeuse Thomas (eds). La Transyclopédie : tout savoir sur les transidentités. Paris: Des Ailes sur un tracteur, 2012.
- Marie-Pierre Pruvot. J'inventais ma vie Tome 2 : Madame Arthur. Ex aequo, 2013.
- Marie-Pierre Pruvot. J'inventais ma vie Tome 3 : La Carrousel Ex aequo, 2013.
QMH=Queer Music Heritage
08 November 2015
Le Carrousel and Madame Arthur: Part I: before 1945.
Part I: before 1945. 75, rue des Martyres et 40, rue Pierre Fontaine
Bibliography
Part II: 1945 – 1961. 40, rue du Colisée et Juan-les-Pins
Part III: 1962 and after. 22, rue Vavin, and Korte Leidsedwarsstraat nr. 45
75, rue des Martyres (map) et 40, rue Pierre Fontaine (map)
In 1861 the ballroom Sant-Flour Musette at 75, rue des Martyres, Paris was turned into the Brasserie des Martyrs which was patronized by the poet Charles Baudelaire. In 1871 it became the concert-café Divan Japonais. The painters Toulouse-Lautrec and later Pablo Picasso were frequent visitors, and the cabaret singer Yvette Guilbert became famous there, where she was sketched by Toulouse-Lautrec. One of her best known songs was "Madame Arthur" (a name that would later become that of the nightclub). In 1901 it became the Théâtre de la Comédie Mondaine.
In the 1920s and 1930s Parisian travestis were found at La Petite Chaumière, 2, rue Berthe beneath Sacré-Coeur, (run by Monsieur Tagada and where one could find Zigouigoui) and at Chez Bob et Jean where one could find the transformiste Jean D'Albret, and of course at the balls at "Magic City", 188, rue de l'Université, that were photographed by Brassaï in 1933.
The nightclub Chez Josephine, at 40, rue Pierre Fontaine, near the Moulin Rouge, was founded in 1926 by Giuseppe Pepito Abatino, a Sicilian former stone mason who passed himself off as a count, for his wife, the US dancer, Josephine Baker, and some years later the nightclub was renamed Carrousel de Paris. Through the 1930s it was a fashionable restaurant-nightclub and the likes of Baker, her sometime lover Violette Morris, Jean Cocteau, Colette, and later Edith Piaf were frequently seen there.
For masculine women there was the Monocle on Edgar-Quinet Boulevard in Montparnasse, and from 1938 Chez Frede (which managed to stay open during the German occupation).
Also in 1938 there was the club Le Binocle (named in homage to the Monocle), down a bleak alley close to the Moulin Rouge. Marcel Ouizman (sometimes Oudjman, Ouissmann or Wutsman), a Jewish pied noir from Algeria, was the owner; Floridor was the host; Zambelli was the featured performer. Le Binocle was known for its black musicians and female dancers, but the men preferred to dance together. Every month there was a big transvestite night when contestants dressed according to an announced theme: la Belle Epoque, 1880, and so on. A jury, chaired by the popular singer, Mistinguett, elected the most beautiful transvestite, to acclaim from the audience. However the police closed the club after a year and a half, in the austerity period that preceded the coming war.
Ouizman survived the war working as a bartender. He managed to avoid the mass roundups and deportation of Jews from Paris, especially that of 16-17 July 1942.
__________________________________________________________________________
Part of this information is from Jacques-Louis Delpal's Les travestis, 1970, which is quoted in Foerster's Histoire des transsexuels en France. Apparently Delpal's book was quickly banned (see the FR.Wikipedia page). The book was translated into Spanish, but no other language, and has become a rarity. Foerster describes his book as "well informed but curious".
There are inconsistencies. Foerster quotes Delpal on Le Binocle but Delpal does not mention Ouizman by name. Foerster simply says that Ouizman arrived in Paris before the war and worked as a barman. Which raises questions about how he ended up as the owner of Madame Arthur as we will see in Part II. However Bambi (2012) specifies that he was the owner of Le Binocle.
Other Madame Arthurs:
The song by Yvette Guilbert (1865 - 1944) IMDB.
That one talks talks, talks, talks, talks about for a long time,
Without newspapers, without anything, without advertising
She had many lovers,
Everyone wanted to be her friend,
Everyone courting her, why?
It's that without being really beautiful,
She had a special something!)
Full text YouTube
Bibliography
Part II: 1945 – 1961. 40, rue du Colisée et Juan-les-Pins
Part III: 1962 and after. 22, rue Vavin, and Korte Leidsedwarsstraat nr. 45
75, rue des Martyres (map) et 40, rue Pierre Fontaine (map)
In 1861 the ballroom Sant-Flour Musette at 75, rue des Martyres, Paris was turned into the Brasserie des Martyrs which was patronized by the poet Charles Baudelaire. In 1871 it became the concert-café Divan Japonais. The painters Toulouse-Lautrec and later Pablo Picasso were frequent visitors, and the cabaret singer Yvette Guilbert became famous there, where she was sketched by Toulouse-Lautrec. One of her best known songs was "Madame Arthur" (a name that would later become that of the nightclub). In 1901 it became the Théâtre de la Comédie Mondaine.
In the 1920s and 1930s Parisian travestis were found at La Petite Chaumière, 2, rue Berthe beneath Sacré-Coeur, (run by Monsieur Tagada and where one could find Zigouigoui) and at Chez Bob et Jean where one could find the transformiste Jean D'Albret, and of course at the balls at "Magic City", 188, rue de l'Université, that were photographed by Brassaï in 1933.
The nightclub Chez Josephine, at 40, rue Pierre Fontaine, near the Moulin Rouge, was founded in 1926 by Giuseppe Pepito Abatino, a Sicilian former stone mason who passed himself off as a count, for his wife, the US dancer, Josephine Baker, and some years later the nightclub was renamed Carrousel de Paris. Through the 1930s it was a fashionable restaurant-nightclub and the likes of Baker, her sometime lover Violette Morris, Jean Cocteau, Colette, and later Edith Piaf were frequently seen there.
For masculine women there was the Monocle on Edgar-Quinet Boulevard in Montparnasse, and from 1938 Chez Frede (which managed to stay open during the German occupation).
Also in 1938 there was the club Le Binocle (named in homage to the Monocle), down a bleak alley close to the Moulin Rouge. Marcel Ouizman (sometimes Oudjman, Ouissmann or Wutsman), a Jewish pied noir from Algeria, was the owner; Floridor was the host; Zambelli was the featured performer. Le Binocle was known for its black musicians and female dancers, but the men preferred to dance together. Every month there was a big transvestite night when contestants dressed according to an announced theme: la Belle Epoque, 1880, and so on. A jury, chaired by the popular singer, Mistinguett, elected the most beautiful transvestite, to acclaim from the audience. However the police closed the club after a year and a half, in the austerity period that preceded the coming war.
Ouizman survived the war working as a bartender. He managed to avoid the mass roundups and deportation of Jews from Paris, especially that of 16-17 July 1942.
__________________________________________________________________________
Part of this information is from Jacques-Louis Delpal's Les travestis, 1970, which is quoted in Foerster's Histoire des transsexuels en France. Apparently Delpal's book was quickly banned (see the FR.Wikipedia page). The book was translated into Spanish, but no other language, and has become a rarity. Foerster describes his book as "well informed but curious".
There are inconsistencies. Foerster quotes Delpal on Le Binocle but Delpal does not mention Ouizman by name. Foerster simply says that Ouizman arrived in Paris before the war and worked as a barman. Which raises questions about how he ended up as the owner of Madame Arthur as we will see in Part II. However Bambi (2012) specifies that he was the owner of Le Binocle.
Other Madame Arthurs:
- There was Madame Arthur(Modesto Mangas), the major Spanish female impersonator during Franco's dictatorship.
- Eduardo Gion made a documentary about Modesto Mangas in 2011 called Madame Arthur.
- There was a 1967 Spanish film called Madame Arthur, directed by Carlos Serrano..
- The Italian musical-comedy film, Totò di notte n. 1, 1962 lists a Madame Arthur as an actor (this is probably Modesto Mangas)
- There was a male-run lesbian bar in Montréal called Chez Madame Arthur at 2170 rue Bishop, in the 1970s. There was a call for a boycott in 1974. It is probably the bar featured in Marie-Claire Blais' 1978 novel Les nuits de l'Underground.
- There is a band called Madame Arthur
- There is a play by Isabelle Sojfer, Le voyage de Madame Arthur, which features Yvette Guilbert. Trailer.
- Aaïcha Bergamin ran a short-lived club in Amsterdam in the 1980s.
The song by Yvette Guilbert (1865 - 1944) IMDB.
Madame Arthur est une femme(Madame Arthur is a woman
Qui fit parler, parler, parler, parler d'elle longtemps,
Sans journaux, sans rien, sans réclame
Elle eut une foule d'amants,
Chacun voulait être aimé d'elle,
Chacun la courtisait, pourquoi ?
C'est que sans être vraiment belle,
Elle avait un je ne sais quoi !
That one talks talks, talks, talks, talks about for a long time,
Without newspapers, without anything, without advertising
She had many lovers,
Everyone wanted to be her friend,
Everyone courting her, why?
It's that without being really beautiful,
She had a special something!)
Full text YouTube
06 November 2015
Aaïcha Bergamin (1932 – 2014) performer, sex worker, drug smuggler
Leonhard Meisjes was raised in Amsterdam with three sisters.
At age 19 Leonhard was sent to a psychiatric hospital after being found by mother in bed with a Jamaican dancer, but escaped and fled to Paris, where, known as Nanny, she found work as a performer in Le Carrousel, and elsewhere. She became known for her Marlene Dietrich impersonation.
After more wandering in Nice, Berlin and Antwerp, Aaïcha returned to Amsterdam, acquired black-market female hormones and made a living as a prostitute, despite police harassment. They would confiscate the clothes that she was wearing, even underwear, even trousers without a fly, on the grounds that such clothes were forbidden to men, and send her home naked. She had repeatedly to buy replacement clothing and to pay fines.
Nanny had confirmation surgery in 1972.
She went on to marry four times, the last, when she was in her 60s, the husband being a Moroccan 42 years younger.
She worked in De Wallen, Amsterdam's red-light area, but initially the police refused to let her hire a window, despite her anatomy, in that she was registered as a man. After several appearances in court, she was examined by a sexologist, Dr Van Emde Boas who said:
Later she opened a club, initially called the Bar Oporto, but then Madame Arthur, at de Warmoesstraat 131 at the corner of de St. Annastraat ( map), where she repeated her Marlene Dietrich act. But after two years the building was demolished.
A Chilean trans woman, who had danced in her club, fixed it for her to smuggle cocaine from Brazil.
Afterwards she lived in her parents' home in Amsterdam Oud-West. In 1991 she published her autobiography, Aaïcha: het bizarre conflict van een als man geboren vrouw.
She died age 82 of lung cancer, and was buried anonymously. However trans activists raised funds to buy her a tombstone.
________________________________________________________________________________
"Much later I saw pictures of such an operation. They filled me with fear." Just as well that Aaïchadid not go to Dr Burou. April Ashley tells us that he showed such photographs of previous patients as part of deciding whether a prospective patient was serious.
Do not confuse Aaïcha's Madame Arthur with that of the same name, also in Amsterdam but at Korte Leidsedwarsstraat nr. 45 whuch was opened in 1961 by Marcel Oudjman, the owner of the Paris Madame Arthur and Le Carrousel.
At age 19 Leonhard was sent to a psychiatric hospital after being found by mother in bed with a Jamaican dancer, but escaped and fled to Paris, where, known as Nanny, she found work as a performer in Le Carrousel, and elsewhere. She became known for her Marlene Dietrich impersonation.
After more wandering in Nice, Berlin and Antwerp, Aaïcha returned to Amsterdam, acquired black-market female hormones and made a living as a prostitute, despite police harassment. They would confiscate the clothes that she was wearing, even underwear, even trousers without a fly, on the grounds that such clothes were forbidden to men, and send her home naked. She had repeatedly to buy replacement clothing and to pay fines.
Nanny had confirmation surgery in 1972.
“Veel later zag ik foto's van een dergelijke operatie. Ze joegen me de stuipen op het lijf.” (Much later I saw pictures of such an operation. They filled me with fear.)She closed up after the first operation in Amsterdam, and was operated on again in England two years later. She then changed her name to Aaïcha Bergamin.
She went on to marry four times, the last, when she was in her 60s, the husband being a Moroccan 42 years younger.
She worked in De Wallen, Amsterdam's red-light area, but initially the police refused to let her hire a window, despite her anatomy, in that she was registered as a man. After several appearances in court, she was examined by a sexologist, Dr Van Emde Boas who said:
“Wat ze van tevoren had, gaat ons niet aan. Ik raad u aan deze mevrouw als vrouw te beschouwen.” (What she was before, does not concern us. I advise you regard this lady as a woman.)With this and her passport finally changed, the vice squad finally left her alone to practice her profession. She became the first trans madam in the city.
Later she opened a club, initially called the Bar Oporto, but then Madame Arthur, at de Warmoesstraat 131 at the corner of de St. Annastraat ( map), where she repeated her Marlene Dietrich act. But after two years the building was demolished.
A Chilean trans woman, who had danced in her club, fixed it for her to smuggle cocaine from Brazil.
“De eerste keer smokkelde ik zes kilo. Dat ging goed, dus ik vroeg of ik wat meer kon meenemen, want ik kreeg per kilo betaald. Twee jaar lang landde ik om de paar maanden op Schiphol met 45 kilo coke. Ik had een peperdure nertsmantel aan, zo een waarin Wilhelmina heeft gelopen. Dan loop je niet direct in de armen van de douane.” (The first time I smuggled six kilos. That went well, so I asked if I could bring some more because I got paid per kilo. For two years I landed every few months at Schiphol with 45 kilos of cocaine. I had an expensive mink coat on, such as [Princess] Wilhelmina would wear. Then I walked directly into the arms of customs.)Aaïcha spent five years in prison.
She died age 82 of lung cancer, and was buried anonymously. However trans activists raised funds to buy her a tombstone.
- Ab Pruis & Aaïcha Bergamin. Aaïcha: het bizarre conflict van een als man geboren vrouw. (The bizarre conflict of a man born a woman) Amsterdam: Stichting Vrije Kommunikatie, 1991.
- Jaap Stam. “Schoonheids-foutje”. De Volkskrant, 7 december 2013. www.volkskrant.nl/archief/schoonheids-foutje~a3558047.
- Alex Bakker. “Transgenderpionier Aaïcha krijgt alsnog een grafsteen”. Het Parool, 28-07-15. www.parool.nl/parool/nl/4/AMSTERDAM/article/detail/4108940/2015/07/28/Transgenderpionier-Aaicha-krijgt-alsnog-een-grafsteen.dhtml.
- Bert Woudstra. “Aaïcha Bergamin (1932 – 2014)“ www.bertsgeschiedenissite.nl/TGNH/Transgenderpioniers/Aaicha%20Bergamin/aaicha_bergamin.html.
________________________________________________________________________________
"Much later I saw pictures of such an operation. They filled me with fear." Just as well that Aaïchadid not go to Dr Burou. April Ashley tells us that he showed such photographs of previous patients as part of deciding whether a prospective patient was serious.
Do not confuse Aaïcha's Madame Arthur with that of the same name, also in Amsterdam but at Korte Leidsedwarsstraat nr. 45 whuch was opened in 1961 by Marcel Oudjman, the owner of the Paris Madame Arthur and Le Carrousel.
04 November 2015
Brooklyn Daily Eagle, 12 November 1954
There were years when the police harassed and even arrested those 'cross-dressed' at New York's National Variety Artists' Carnival and Costume Ball. At the other times the Ball winners were noted in the straight press.
02 November 2015
Daya Rani (1959 – 2015) electoral candidate
Although illiterate, in 2004, 2009 and 2014 Daya Rani contested the Ghaziabad Lok Sabha constituency in the General Election as an independent. In 2007 she ran for the Uttar Pradesh assembly. She stressed her gender identity:
"Why are people with me? Because other politicians fill their homes and cupboards. And I have no children, husband, wife or heirs. Whatever family I have is these people and I live off these people and I will fight for these people with the politicians who have not delivered on their promises."However in 2014 the District Magistrate cancelled her nomination.
On the morning of 4 July 2015, Daya Rani was found dead in her room. She had been shot through a hole cut in the wire mesh over her window, and the gun fired as a train passed so as not to be heard.
Two days later the police arrested Waris and one other at the Ghaziabad bus stand, and found a country-made pistol and a knife. The accused had the idea that by murdering Rani, they could obtain her wealth, said to be 1,00,00,000 rupees or more. In addition, Waris, was married to Rani's niece, Geeta, against Rani's wishes. Later Rani had provided accommodation for Geeta and her child, but not for Waris.
- "A very different glass ceiling to break". The National, March 9, 2009. www.thenational.ae/news/world/south-asia/a-very-different-glass-ceiling-to-break.
- "Transsexual runs for Indian presidency". Russia Today, 16 Apr, 2009. www.rt.com/news/transsexual-runs-for-indian-presidency.
- Purusharth Aradhak. "Kinnar set to take on 'outsiders' Singh, Ilmi". The Times of India, Mar 24, 2014. http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/news/Kinnar-set-to-take-on-outsiders-Singh-Ilmi/articleshow/32568773.cms.
- "Photos :: Daya Rani files nomination". Prokeraia, Mar 24 2014. www.prokerala.com/news/photos/independent-candidate-for-upcoming-2014-general-169484.html.
- "Daya Rani Kinnar's murder case cracked, two held". Zeenews, July 6, 2015. http://zeenews.india.com/news/uttar-pradesh/daya-rani-kinnars-murder-case-cracked-two-held_1625794.html.
- Darren Wee. "India transgender politician who ran for president shot dead: Two men have confessed to her murder". Gay Star News, 30 July 2015. www.gaystarnews.com/article/india-transgender-politician-who-ran-for-president-shot-dead.
____________________________________________________________________________
Most of the news articles refer to Daya Rani as "Daya Rani Kinnar". However 'kinnar' is a local word for 'hijra'. Thus it is like referring to "Sylvia Rivera Transgender". Not a good practice. Not at all!
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