“Moms Mabley? She was a very good friend of mine. We used to go to the Theresa Hotel, Frank’s Restaurant, and Johnny Walker’s—that was the one black gay bar, uptown. Billie Holiday used to come there, and Lionel Hampton, Dinah Washington, Sarah Vaughan. Everything was accepted. You were just another freak, barking along.”
Butches, Femmes, and Mobsters: The Three Lives of Malvina Schwartz
Hugh Ryan | Hazlitt | October 12, 2016 | 4,855 words
Butches, Femmes, and Mobsters: The Three Lives of Malvina Schwartz
At Hazlitt, read Hugh Ryan on the oral history of drag king Malvina Schwartz, a.k.a. Buddy Kent, a.k.a. Bubbles Kent.
So he put me behind the bar, and I was in full drag at this point: pants, vest, shirt, tie, short hair. I worked like that for a year. Then the liquor board came in and thought I looked too young. One reached across the bar, touched my face and said, “He isn’t even a shaver!” But Ernie had all the connections. He took the men in the back, paid them off, and from then on, he said, “I’ll have you tend bar from eight to twelve. After midnight a girl cannot be behind the bar.” Because now my cover was blown: I was a girl.
At Hazlitt, read Hugh Ryan on the oral history of drag king Malvina Schwartz, a.k.a. Buddy Kent, a.k.a. Bubbles Kent.
