September 28, 2023 • 51 mins
Connie Fleming. In this two-part episode honoring the legendary runway model, cabaret performer and NYC “door bitch”, Laverne gets allll the tea about Connie’s life then and now. These episodes are bursting with history, HERSTORY and fun, juicy details of incredible stories from back in the glorious (and terrifying) day.
Part II: The 90’s to Today
In this episode Laverne and Connie continue their no-holds-barred chat about her incredible life in New York City picking up in the 90’s as the famously “discerning” door guard at the most happening nightclubs. She shares more details about her runway career, including her time in Paris, as well as the end of her time as an accepted transgender high fashion model.
Please rate, review, subscribe and share The Laverne Cox Show with everyone you know. You can find Laverne on Instagram and Twitter @LaverneCox and on Facebook at @LaverneCoxForReal.
As always, stay in the love.
Links of Interest - PART 2:
Michael Alig, Fixture of New York City Nightlife, Dies at 54 (2020, New York Times)
Andy Warhol (Brief History, YouTube)
Madame Arthur and Carousel 1950’s Paris
International Chrysis in Photos
Split: Portrait of a Drag Queen (UCLA Film and Television Archive Panel Discussion, 2021)
International Chrysis (Boy Bar video, joined by Cody Ravioli)
Vivienne Westwood (Vogue)
Vivienne Westwood: Her Life and Career in Pictures (The Guardian)
André Leon Talley (New York Times Obit)
3 Vintage Trans Models You Might Not Know About (incl. Teri Toye)
Other Episodes Mentioned or Relevant:
The Groundbreaking Fashion Career of Tracey ‘Africa’ Norman
The Spirituality of Club Culture w/ Honey Dijon
CREDITS:
Executive Producers: Sandie Bailey, Alex Alcheh, Lauren Hohman, Tyler Klang & Gabrielle Collins
Producer & Co-Editor: Brooke Peterson-Bell
Co-Editor: Nikolas Harter
Associate Producer: Akiya McKnight
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to the Laverne Cox Show, a production of Shondaland
Audio in partnership with iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
I had found happiness and self work, and I was
not going to let the outside world take that away
from me. I had fought hard for that to start
loving myself.
Speaker 1 (00:36):
Welcome to the Laverne Cox Show. My name is Laverne Cox.
This is part two of my epic conversation with the
legendary Connie Fleming. If you happen to have missed the
first part from a couple of days ago, to yourself
a favor and listen to that one first. You'll want
to catch.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
All of it.
Speaker 1 (00:54):
Honey show notes check them out, and just a quick reminder,
the incomparable, inimminable Connie Fleming has been a legend and
icon of the New York City night life scene since
the nineteen eighties. She has graised the catwalks of Vibian
Westwood and Terry Muglaire, among others, and she has set
the tone at some of New York City's most exclusive nightclubs.
(01:16):
It is one of the most famously discerning door persons
in nightlife. Her history darling. In fact, she still refers
to herself as the door bitch. So, picking up where
we left off, Connie and I are talking about one
of the first times we ever crossed paths over twenty
five years ago. Please enjoy part two of my conversation
(01:38):
with the Legend, the Icon, the one and only Connie Flemming.
There was this one nighted Hero.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
Hero Is a party that Eric Conrad at the Maritime Hotel.
Speaker 1 (01:55):
Right, So, one night I was at Hero. I was
on the dance floor and I was dancing my little
heart out to Honey was turning us out, and these
two men, these two white men, come up to me
and they said, thank you so much for getting us in,
and they slipped me some cash and they were like,
thank you so much and that you know wonder and
am looking at the money. I'm like, they think I'm coming.
(02:16):
And I used to get confused for you a lot,
and we looked nothing alike.
Speaker 2 (02:20):
No, I got confused for you.
Speaker 1 (02:21):
Now every black girl in New York basically I was
confused for So they gave me this money. And then
later on the night you're come in from the door,
and I don't know if you remember this, I came up
to you and I was like, girl, here. These guys
thought I was you and they gave me money here
and you were and you looked at me. You were like, girl,
you should have kept it. And I was like, I
kept have.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
And I did.
Speaker 1 (02:46):
That's hard. I kept have the money.
Speaker 2 (02:47):
Oho.
Speaker 1 (02:48):
You remember this story?
Speaker 2 (02:49):
Do you remember that? I remember? I remember, and it's like,
you keep that money. And I wanted to go and
find them and push you in front of me, eat
and say and go and tell them to give you
the rest of that cash or you won't let them
in next week.
Speaker 1 (03:06):
That was one of those nights and those moments. I mean,
your legendary door you call yourself door bitch, legendary door person,
just infamous.
Speaker 2 (03:16):
As a door person. I am unflinching and I demand
respect because I remember before I first started. It was
when I was still modeling and I was backstage and
it was some sort of group show and the producers
(03:38):
were backstage arguing because the door person showed up and
they were like, maybe in DEMI drag and the producer
was backstage yelling, no fucking drag cleans, now fucking drag
leans at this door. I don't care. Wow, And that
(03:59):
when and to the back of my mind cut to
a couple of years later when Eric was doing poop
at the supper club and he was like, I need
a door person. I don't know what to do. He's like,
you're going to do it, and it's like okay, He's like,
you know, everybody, we need somebody that knows the core crowd,
(04:24):
the crowd from Europe. And for the next couple of years,
I really had to fight as a black trans woman
to be respected in that field because it's like, you know,
door people have come before me and after me, and
(04:48):
they aren't sort of given the narrative of being mean
as I am, and they demand as much respect as
I do. They are as unflinching and even more unflinching
than I am. But because I am in the skin
(05:11):
and who I am, you know that massage.
Speaker 1 (05:14):
Noir andransphobia rears its head. Yeah, all that coming together,
and it.
Speaker 2 (05:20):
All comes together and it's sort of like, why do
I have to listen to you? Why do I have
to be sort of human and nice to you? But
I draw a line in the sand, and that has
(05:40):
made me sort of this door nazi no club for
you that was coined that mister black.
Speaker 1 (05:53):
I feel like you've been doing doors for everybody. I
feel like when mister black happened, that's when like the
reputation went to this other level of like Connie being.
Speaker 2 (06:02):
Me, mister Blackett was a tiny space and you would
turn around and would be full, and we could not
get to the level of disturbing the neighborhood or capacity rules.
So I had to be super like I said no,
(06:25):
I meant no, don't ask me again, And that's when
it went to the level of like three people just left, Okay,
we have to wait for twenty people to leave before
I can start letting in again. The behind the scenes
logistics of curating a room, which it's on you know,
(06:48):
a sword's edge. You can let in two people and
they can destroy the room in seconds.
Speaker 1 (06:57):
When I think back to Limelight, I think you started
doing VIP sections after Poop that VIP section at Disco
two thousand Baby Ruby with Danceing and Kenny and so
there was that club kid room and like everybody can
get in there, you know, and they needed to have
a certain certain energy.
Speaker 2 (07:17):
Savoy yeah, to get in. And I think that's also
my reputation of being at VIP doors and denying people
that makes you come off as mean. But doing those
(07:38):
sort of VIP rooms, you get to see in real
time how it can shift and things can become awful.
Some people don't know how to act within seconds. Yes, yes,
and you can have you can have as much money
in the world, or you can try and shove as
(08:00):
much cash at me. But no, we have to be
here next week. We have to deal with the task force.
We have to deal with because you know, things also
shifted after Michael Aleck. That's a whole other situation, Michig.
Speaker 1 (08:19):
I was in New York and I just remember night
life shifting so drastically. It was Juliani becoming mayor, and
then the Michael Alec when he murdered Angel, and I
knew Angel. I'm sure you knew Angel. Yes, it's funny.
When I first moved to New York in ninety three,
Angel was always at Webster Hall makeup room and queen.
I just moved to the city and people always ask
(08:40):
me where the drugs were. I've never done a drug
in my life, but I met Angel and I was like,
he's he's over there, he's over there, he's got the
wings on. That's him. People always ask me I think
because I was in I was sort of ginger, non conforming,
what hadn't quite evolved into myself yet. But I had
my look and I would send him to Angel and
they would, you know, get there. We called it service
(09:02):
back in the day in the nineties. Oh my god, did.
Speaker 2 (09:05):
You get your services? Girl? Yes, yes, yes, yes, I remember.
Speaker 1 (09:13):
There was a period a party Monster is if you
care to watch, the documentary is better than the scripted film.
Looked at the story of Michael Alec and James Saint
James and that whole period in New York night life
where Angel was murdered, etc. And then he did when
Michael came out of prison, he did another documentary. It's
on Netflix.
Speaker 2 (09:32):
It's hard for me to watch because that's also what
I wanted to mention was that Nora Burns did a
play and she says in the play of that, like
eighties time, we are still in that sort of framework
of PTSD. It is and you you feel it, but
(09:54):
now we have a whole other set of traumas. If
you live in Texas or Florida.
Speaker 1 (10:02):
Yeah, and this is why I'm doing in trauma resilience therapy, Honey.
I mean the AIDS crisis. I wasn't in New York
in the eighties, but the whole the nightlife thing and
the aftermath of what my end. I never I met
Michael maybe once or twice and Marilla Lyne, like he
was always just twirling, trashed and a mess, like we
all just yeah wow. I just remembered like he was
(10:25):
a mess.
Speaker 2 (10:26):
Try getting paid from him at like five in the morning, girl,
because you had to chase him around, corral him and
get him to the office to go, oh, yeah, she
was working hours.
Speaker 1 (10:39):
And he's high as a kite. Yeah, and like been
up for days.
Speaker 2 (10:43):
Yeah, and trying to shove a pill in your mouth.
Speaker 1 (10:49):
There were characters, and a lot of people didn't survive either.
May they all rest in peace, but for those of
us who did, And I always felt like I was
on the periphery of all that. I was never fully
in in the club scene like I was in college
and I was doing I had my waitressing job and
I didn't I didn't party like, I didn't do drugs,
and so I was never like in the in person.
(11:10):
I never felt like I was like in the click.
But what was beautiful about being creative and putting a
look together in the nineties. Is that like you know
Kenny Kenny, another famous door person would always let me in.
You know, when you had a look in the nineties,
you could go anywhere, You could go anywhere, and it
was deep when that shifted. When that shifted, because I
(11:31):
never had problems getting into clubs bottle service and bottle
service shifting and bottle service took over. Everything was when
oh I can pay for my own fantasy. Yeah, I gagged,
I really gagged. I was like, wait, hold on, I'm
It wasn't even like I was famous or I was
just used to my energy being welcome.
Speaker 2 (11:55):
You were one of the kids, You were one of
those one of the driving engines up the sea.
Speaker 1 (12:00):
And what made a certain point value deeply valued as
a presence in nightlife and then was no longer deeply valued.
Speaker 2 (12:11):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (12:11):
Interesting shit.
Speaker 2 (12:12):
Well, I work with Lady Fag at battle Ham and
she does Spilt Milk and Holy Mountain and she values
the kids and a look and making that effort. And
it's that little bastion that is sort of growing now
(12:33):
and moving into Williamsburg and Queens and all like that.
So it isn't gone.
Speaker 1 (12:40):
No, you can never kill it. Altogether. It's yeah, it's
just the nineties clubs were so commercial. I mean, they
were so huge it couldn't last. But it was wonderful,
quite a ride, wonderful and we have our sort of
world now because of it, the strides that we have
made as a society. You know, their beginnings were there,
(13:04):
absolutely those interactions of all of these people coming together
and sort of widening and oh, you are not an ogre.
You are not going to cut me up and wear
me like the suit. Yeah. I was at Jackie sixty
almost every week. I just Johnny Danell saying conne girl,
(13:29):
the kund of girl, Johnny Daniell on the microphone. The
Jackie sixty days were so iconic. It was such an
avant garde kind of party. The shows that were happening.
I think you were a sugar plump Ferry one year
on point point shoot, yes.
Speaker 2 (13:43):
Yes, yes, show the Jackie Christmas Show.
Speaker 1 (13:46):
I mean the shows that happened to Jackie sixty. Oh
my god, I wish there was video from.
Speaker 2 (13:50):
That magical magical a magical space.
Speaker 1 (13:53):
This is an on fourteenth Street in like Washington, wagon
the meatpacking district, and so I think some of the
sex workers would come in and then some of the trade.
There was always traded Jackie sixty.
Speaker 2 (14:02):
They were always, always, always.
Speaker 1 (14:05):
I remember there was this one boy. I can't tell.
I can't tell all these boys, but I remember there
was this one boy. He was fine, and somehow I
ended up. He and I ended up, you know, okay,
and I didn't know we had a girlfriend. Then he's
telling me, as we're getting to know each other, my
girlfriend's upstairs. So then he became a regular. And one
night I came because remember Johnny used to do party naked,
(14:28):
like at the end of the night, girl party naked.
This man who months earlier was kind of shy and
came with his girlfriend. He was on stage fully naked,
party naked and probably high on something, and it was
just girl Jackie sixty, Jackie sixty. The invitations would always
(14:54):
be like legends, no, no dress code, but there wild
always be dress codes every week.
Speaker 2 (14:58):
No runners, no, no track suits, no this It was
incredible and doing the door there, we got to enforce it.
I remember one night it was a fetish night and
these business guys, you know, masters of the universe, came
and oh wanted to throw around their money and come
(15:20):
in and we're like no, and they're like why And
we pointed at the dress code and it was no suits,
and they're like, well, how do we get in? Take
it all off? You can go in in your underwear,
And they did, folded up their suits, left it at
the door, and they they left after I left. We
(15:46):
closed maybe around four four thirty. The door closed maybe
around three thirty. They were still inside. I heard that
one of them became a human, a human map.
Speaker 1 (15:59):
That was the wonderful thing about the nineties in New
York that everyone party together. You would have the businessmen
would come, and the Wall Street and Long Island and
Staten Island and Jersey. They were all there and we
were mingling.
Speaker 2 (16:17):
Yeah. It wasn't segregated. It was a full coming together
of everyone. Everyone needed to come together. Everyone needed to
see and look each other in the eye and maybe
get to tear down all of the the things that
(16:40):
we were taught, all of the things that were in
the news, all of the you know, there were so
many times where people looked at each other and went, oh,
I understand you, and I understand sort of your journey.
Speaker 1 (16:55):
Yeah, do you still feel like that? Isn't that exist?
In New York somewhere.
Speaker 2 (17:00):
In some spots like at Lebant Lebant, it's everyone.
Speaker 1 (17:05):
I love it.
Speaker 2 (17:06):
We want everyone to respect each other. We say at
the door, it's going to be this, this set, and
the other. If you don't like it, bounce. But it's hard.
It's hard now because everybody wants to be in sort
of their own little bubble, and it's it's not what
(17:28):
nightclubs are. Nightclubs are for you to experience not only
the music, but the atmosphere and the people.
Speaker 1 (17:36):
Yeah, I remember, it feels like it started with Warhol.
To me, I think about historically in New York. Warhol
introduced trans women and drag queens into parties, into his entourage,
and it seems like he was like, we need to
have this energy here. And it felt like that stayed
(17:58):
through the seven these eighties, nineties into the early two thousands,
and then things kind of started to splinter. But I
feel like that's when with candy and crisis. Yes, mister
Warhol saw crisis.
Speaker 2 (18:10):
In Hollywood Lawn, Hotti Woodlawn, and all of those girls.
But before the sixties there was also Madame Arthur's, which
I'm obsessed with.
Speaker 1 (18:20):
Tell Us about Madame Author's. I don't know Madam Author.
Speaker 2 (18:22):
Madame Arthur was Cooxynell, Bamby, April Ashley. This was in Paris.
Speaker 1 (18:30):
I know about the Carousel. Tell me more.
Speaker 2 (18:32):
Yes, I think Madame Arthur's was first, and then Carousel,
which I'm obsessed with. Yes, because Cooxy Noll and Bamby
and April actually were the beginnings of that sort of
frontier of transdem.
Speaker 1 (18:51):
The transwoman Showgirl, I mean Coxinell. I think it is
even before Christine Jorgensen if I recall correct or go contemporary.
Speaker 2 (19:00):
Because I think Jorgensen learned about the operation and everything
like that from Coxing Now.
Speaker 1 (19:06):
Yes, Coxingel and Bambi all.
Speaker 2 (19:09):
That what I think we forget in this time when
we had the sort of comfort of the Internet and
being able to voice on social media. Back then, in
my time, at the beginning of your time in the sixties, seventies, fifties,
(19:32):
there wasn't this. So there had to be a community
where we as trans people could be safe and get
employment because there were only two choices, stage or the corner.
Speaker 1 (19:47):
Or if you could live stealth and go in and hide.
Speaker 2 (19:51):
But there was also a price to pay for that too,
because that was also my apprehension when I first started
in Paris, was if I tried to go stealth, there
is so much that is known about me.
Speaker 1 (20:08):
It's going to come about.
Speaker 2 (20:09):
My beginnings in Boybar and in the dry community. I
can't deny, deny, deny.
Speaker 1 (20:16):
Yeah, and then it just becomes deeply painful. I interviewed
Tracy Norman last season for the podcast, and in the
repeated outings and losing everything and having to start over
again so intensely painful, and I think it's painful for
her to this day, the idea of disclosure.
Speaker 2 (20:36):
Because it meant death. Yeah, it meant death. Because even
Crisis Crisis's parents wanted to commit her. And she would
talk a little bit about Marcia B. Johnson and about
how Marcia would be committed and they would give her
thorizine injections in her spine, okay, and then she would
(20:59):
come out of Bellevue or wherever they committed her, and
it would take months for her to come back to
herself because that was also a thing at that time,
like you know, they would put you away and heavily
medicate you into on existence.
Speaker 1 (21:22):
Who was treated as a mental illness, which is so
disturbing when we're referred to in that way. Now it's
not new, this is now stuff. It's deeply disturbing. This
is a good time to take a little break. We'll
be right back though. All right, we're back. Do you
(21:52):
want to talk about meeting International Crisis in her influence
on you? She gave you April Ashley's book. Yeah, International
Crisis we mentioned earlier. Icon she's in the movie Queen
at very young, very young, sixteen. When I discovered her,
I was at Duwayne aka Milan. We used to be
(22:13):
roommates with Perfidia, and I went over to visit Dwayne
one one day and Fidia was there and there's a
huge photo of International Crisis on the wall, and I
was like, who is this? And Perfidia was like, this
is my mother. It was such a beautiful this is
my mother International Crisis and started just telling its stories
and I was just like, I'm still in awe of
(22:38):
this woman.
Speaker 2 (22:39):
Of her journey because she defied explanation, she defied all
of the sort of rules for us back then. Yeah. Yeah,
And the first time we met it was at rehearsal
at boy Bar and I was like, who is this
white lady and what does she do here? Who's this
(23:01):
white woman? Then Matthew said, okay, crisis, We're going to
put in your tape and you can run through. And
the white lady got up and did this incredible number,
a season performer, mistress of Ceremonies, beautiful, stunning, and I
(23:26):
like grabbed Glamor Moores like who is that? And we're
trying not to be rude and let her go through
her number, and Glamor More is just whispering to me
Salvador Dali album cover for the OJS or the Ohio Players,
and just these little tidbits, and I'm like, oh my god,
(23:47):
oh my god, oh my god. And I think she
was also a judge at the first Miss Boy.
Speaker 1 (23:55):
Bar, so she managed to have some sort of mainstream success.
She was a fanswoman, showgirl and people knew her. There
was a documentary on YouTube split that sort of talks
about her a little bit, but I feel like it
doesn't fully give us the majesty.
Speaker 2 (24:14):
Yeah, because when it was made, it was right after
she passed, and I think that's maybe early nineties, so
it was still that narrative were calling our drag queen. Yeah,
a poor, deluded, whatever it was, but there are little
tidbits of her life and the beauty of her journey.
(24:39):
And even the filmmaker because it was reissued and we
had like a talk after the viewing of the film,
and the filmmaker is like, you know, even eye cringe
at the language because we did not have the language
back then to fully color her in all her glory
(25:06):
and all her facets.
Speaker 1 (25:08):
And this is the thing about like someone like her
and like so many of our transcestors who there wasn't
really even fully language. But we found a way to
be ourselves. Yes, in spite of it, we found a
way out of no way. Really, there was no blueprint. Really,
I mean there were you know the girls who had
come before us.
Speaker 2 (25:29):
Yes, just as you with me were too funky. That
was me with Tracy Africa. Oh my god, obsessed because
at the beginning, it's like in those days when you
would be sitting at someone's knee and asking them questions
in that time, it would lead to somebody that was
(25:51):
sick or dying or had already died in some kind
of horrifying way. So you had to ask for a
little tidbit you saw on their faces and in their
demeanor that if you would go one more question, it
would fall into despair. And we couldn't push each other
(26:14):
in that way. We were pushing each other with culture
because tomorrow wasn't promised. Yeah, so you had to give grace.
Speaker 1 (26:24):
You're alluding to it, and it keeps coming up. So
this is, you know, mid eighties, when boy Bar started
in nineteen eighty five, it is the height of Whenever
I talked to people who were in New York at
that time, people were dropping dead all around them. And
a dear friend of mine who was in the sixties
and he watched an episode of Pose and he survived
(26:46):
that period. He's seen he christ like, I hadn't processed
all the trauma of that time and this was like
just a few years ago. How the survival piece of
like am I next? How to survive this? And it's
just I'm so happy you're still here. I'm so happy
that we get to tell your story, and that you
(27:07):
get to tell your story in this context and others
on your terms where we have language. I was, I'm
talking to some queens. I was at a party in
la It was Edward Enfall's book party actually, and there
was some queens from RuPaul's Drag Race. I was telling
them about a night, but I had a hero. It's like, oh, honey,
de Jon was djaying and Connie was the door the door,
and they were like what what they and they knew
(27:28):
and these are twenty somethings drag race girls. Why who knew?
Who understand? They wanted the stories and they want to know,
and it's great that you're here to tell them. Oh, Connie.
Vivian Westwood. Muclair and Westwood were two designers that you
worked with around that same time, and both pass last year.
Speaker 2 (27:50):
I know, devastated, my two champions were gone.
Speaker 1 (27:56):
I remember reading about Van Laire that in the eighties,
because he was incorporating culture and leather that a lot
of people thought, even though he's the clothes sold really
well and the women loved the clothes, a lot of
people thought it was vulgar or too gay, or too
you know all that, and so it really is a
beautiful testament that you made it to couture.
Speaker 2 (28:17):
And uplifted these kind of non issues of fabric, fabric
being considered and put into the world of fetishism and
sex and naughty and dangerous. He showed it to you
in a way that was so beautiful that you had
(28:38):
to take it out of that. And we were also
happy that he was sort of taken into the cuture
world and seeing his talent was seen for what it is,
for his innovation, like Schiaparelli has done, like Chanelle did,
absolutely Balenciaga did it. It was a wonderful moment and
(29:02):
I was honored to be there and be part of
that moment in his life.
Speaker 1 (29:09):
Did you know Andre Leon Tally by the way.
Speaker 2 (29:11):
Not well, but in that show in which show in
Terry's first couture show, If you look at the video,
you can hear someone screaming Connie, and it's Andre Leon
Tally screaming my name. He is with Sandra Bernhardt.
Speaker 1 (29:34):
Who also walked for muguare You charity shows.
Speaker 2 (29:37):
Yes, for years, I did not believe that it was
him and that he knew me. There was an unedited
version and you can hear him screaming my name, and
I was just like it carries me.
Speaker 1 (29:54):
Andre was very in tune with what was happening downtown.
He was in tune with.
Speaker 2 (29:59):
What all of it, Yeah, and was conduit for worlds
to come together.
Speaker 1 (30:07):
Yes, I love him yelling your name because he was
so overjoyed. Obviously he couldn't contain himself. He was so
overjoyed to see you at Paris Couture. It's just to
Lousey's icons. And we lost to Miyaki last year. It
last year was a yes major. I mean, what are
your memories of working with west Wood?
Speaker 2 (30:27):
At the beginning, she would do shows at the Limelight,
and I remember the first one I got in. I
was able to get in to see the mini Crinolines
and I think it was Terry Toy's last season and
I got to see Terry Toy on the runway and
I was just like because I was so overjoyed to
(30:51):
see her. And we got to go to London. This
was just before Vogue broke and they brought us to
London to like, you know, show this new vague dance voguing,
and I think we met there and I was just like, oh,
(31:11):
I love you, bah wlahah blah blah. Okay. Cut to
like maybe two years later and I had just done
New Glare and she was doing a show again at
the Limelight and they called me and I walked into
the fitting and she was like, Oh, it's so wonderful
to see you. I'm so glad. It was so beautiful
(31:34):
to see you on the newclare one way. I wanted
this so much for you, And that came out of
her mouth and I had to bite my tongue from
not you know, just breaking down into tears because she
is she is our community, but just in London, Yeah,
(31:55):
that community of we are all creative together and we
have to push it.
Speaker 1 (32:03):
Sounds like what's going on with you is that everyone
saw it was just clear that you were a model,
like this girl should be modeling, and it usually is clear.
It's usually like models are like, they're not like everybody else.
Speaker 2 (32:17):
It's unicornish in a way.
Speaker 1 (32:20):
Yeah, and that crisis saw it, that other people saw it,
and then you got the opportunity. It's really a miracle
in a way. But it was also just meant to be.
It was supposed to happen. It was really supposed to happen.
And so my understanding is that when you went to
Paris those first several seasons, it was cute and then
(32:41):
it got not so cute quickly. Do you want to
talk a little bit about that there's a litter so
when I worked a Lucky Chang's DeAndre head stories. DeAndre
went embellish, but she had a story about a famous
supermodel who allegedly walked in the dressing room and said,
why are all these men in this fashion show? We
won't name this supermodel? Is that true? Did that happen?
Speaker 2 (33:03):
It was embellished? Okay, backstage I walk in. Supermodel is
getting her makeup done and she turns to her makeup
artist and said, don't make me look like a drag queen.
And I whispered to my makeup artist, it's a little
too late for that, honey. And that started the Because
(33:29):
you know, it was fine and dandy when I wasn't
sort of known. The core New York crowd knew of
my history as a boybark beauty blah blah, but anyone
outside of that, they all thought I was like a
New African girl. And they would always be like, you know, oh,
stay over here, don't go over there with.
Speaker 1 (33:50):
Them, don't go over there, meaning don't go to Europe,
don't go to.
Speaker 2 (33:54):
No, don't go and make yourself available to sort of
the top girls, because they kind of knew it would
make me visible in a way because some people didn't
know at the beginning, and then it started to be known.
(34:16):
But it was only one of the supermodels that was
not very happy with me, but the others touted me,
wanted me to work with them. You know. That was half,
and then the other half were like, oh no, I
don't want to. I don't want to be seen with them.
They are lowering us as women, blah blah blah, this,
(34:42):
that and the other. Because there's always been this narrative
in modeling too tall, too pretty, you know that old choke,
look for an Adam's apple. And you also have to
think of the sort of misogynist narrative in this field.
(35:03):
Women make more money than men, they have more power
than men. They can sort of wield their power, and
you have to pit them against each other, make them
into monsters. It's like Beyonce is a witch. Too successful,
(35:26):
too pretty, It can't be just talent.
Speaker 1 (35:30):
I mean, Tyra has talked very openly about how she
was pit against Naomi, and they did that famous interview
on The Tyra Show when they sort of talked about
it and yeah, sort of hashed it out. So that
is certainly a real thing, especially with the black models
when you finally left Paris. Did you ever have an agency? Yes,
you did have an agent. So when you stopped going
(35:51):
to Paris and modeling, what was going on?
Speaker 2 (35:54):
The pendulum of drag and fashion had swung the other way,
and from me always insisting about my transit, I was
labeled difficult and there were the things about, oh, I'm
not going to do the show if a man is
(36:16):
in the show. Once a pendulum swung, everyone was free
to come out of the fever dream and to go
back to business as usual.
Speaker 1 (36:28):
And major models are saying this. Yes, and it was
a thing too. I remember some models talked about back
in the day that brands would feel like there would
be a liability, like a legal liability having a trans model,
which doesn't make any sense to me, but that's what.
Did you ever hear anything like that?
Speaker 2 (36:47):
Yes, yes, when I would go for Go sees here
in New York. Well, we don't want our customers to
think that we are trying to fool them. We don't
want our customers to think that they are somehow a
reflection of who and what you are. Oh, we don't
(37:09):
want to be seen as being divisive, because back then
it was being fetishized, being criminal, being unhealthy, and mentally ill.
Speaker 1 (37:25):
How did that make you feel when you would get
this feedback? You know, I'm an actress, and so I've
heard all kinds of things, and it was like I
just kept pushing, But it was also like, will this
ever happen for me?
Speaker 2 (37:37):
Yeah? I had my childhood, my childhood of coming through
the fire and just getting up, dusting yourself off and
picking your chin up and walking ahead. Because I had
come to a space where I had found happiness and
(38:03):
self worth and I was not going to let the
outside world take that away from me. I had fought
hard for that to start loving myself, be okay with
who and what I am, and why am I going
(38:26):
to let you take that away from me?
Speaker 1 (38:31):
Amen?
Speaker 2 (38:32):
And Also I was always in a place in the
business where I got to see outside of myself and
the inner workings because I was sort of not really
paid attention to in certain ways and sort of forgotten.
So I got to see certain things. I got to
(38:55):
see trans girls who were stealthed and being discovered and
their careers being taken away from them. I had friendships
from nightclubs with hairdressers and bookers and agencies, they sort
of didn't have to maybe coddle me as much, and
(39:17):
they told me the real low down of they're not
going to book you because they're afraid of this, that,
and the other. So I was thankful, and at the
end it was sort of outing me for anybody who
did not know. The press would be like, oh, you
like her, you think she looks cute and that red
(39:40):
cowboy outfit, or like at the Vivian show and all
like that, Oh you like her, because I remember it
was that red cowboy outfit and there was this famous
French boxer and they were interviewing him and asking him
what he liked and he's like, oh, that black girl
(40:01):
in the red cowboy often, oh you thought she was pretty,
goading him, making him say how attractive and wonderful he
thought I was, and then lowering the boom wow and saying, oh, well,
you know that's a man, and then him having to
(40:25):
espouse violence and if I'd ever see that, and oh
they should all be killed to pull himself up out
of out of complimenting and liking what he saw. So
it was those sort of things that you see the
writing on the wall, like you know, Malamar Swan. You
(40:48):
see the ice closing in around your ankles, and I
had to say, okay, I will step away before I
am forced to.
Speaker 1 (41:01):
Yeah, I got to take a teen s break here.
We'll be right back. We're back. You had illustration, you
(41:22):
became a runway coach. You were always doing the door somewhere.
So you've done so many things and continue to do
so many things for you now at this stage of
your life, what is bringing you the most joy? Where
can folks find you beyond lebal and like, what are
you working on now? What's going on in the world
(41:44):
of kind of growth limming?
Speaker 2 (41:46):
I am working on some art on another shell. I
had my first show, solo show at another part the
Wonderful Gallery in Montreal. Art has always been part expression
and part therapy for me, and I started to draw
and started to post them on my Instagram and on
(42:06):
my Facebook and people are like, wait a minute, you
can draw or you can do this? Who wha wha
wha wha wha what. And by the end of it,
because I did it every day, Michael has said, you
have a show. And I had my first show in
Montreal last year. That show came here to the wonderful
(42:28):
Lower east Side Girls Club, which I work with now.
I want to teach them a little runway class so
that they have stature and their confidence and their beauty
comes through, and working at La BA and going to
delve into writing a memoir and seeing how that goes.
Speaker 1 (42:52):
Just the stories that I didn't know that you've shared
today are just so so iconic. And if you name names,
ain't the focals?
Speaker 2 (43:00):
Never?
Speaker 1 (43:02):
Are you in love? Are you dating? What's the way?
Speaker 2 (43:06):
I am trying to but I'm too old to take
the mess. I'm too old to like, run through your
field to get to mine, mow your lawn, tend your
grass and come to me. The grass is cute over here.
Speaker 1 (43:25):
Has there been a great love? Has there been like
a you know, as you travel the world, a great
love affair?
Speaker 2 (43:31):
The first was Joe Dietrich. He was an iconic model
in the eighties late eighties, and we fell in love
and I have to thank him every day. He treated
me like a princess. I was never below him, second
(43:54):
class citizen. He never treated me in any way disrespectfully.
He passed away from AIDS around I think it was
maybe ninety three, and it crushed me.
Speaker 1 (44:07):
How did he identify?
Speaker 2 (44:09):
I think he would be pan sexual. He would identify
as pan sexual the first verse. First first time I
went to Paris was with him. That was my first love.
And there have been loves here and there.
Speaker 1 (44:27):
Connie, I'm so, I'm really honored to speak with you.
Just the legacy, the legacy that you had.
Speaker 2 (44:35):
Oh.
Speaker 1 (44:35):
I don't want to end this, but end every podcast
with the question that comes from my therapy. The question
is what else is true? And that basically when things
are hard, when things are really difficult, we can focus
our energy on those difficult things, or there's something always
else is also true that can get us through. So
(44:56):
for you to date, Connie Fleming, what else is true?
Speaker 2 (45:00):
What else is true is laughter, not taking yourself too seriously.
My mom has taught me that to not take yourself
too seriously and to allow yourself to step out. Look
at the situation and have a chuckle about it. Yeah,
(45:23):
look at it and see the humor in it, See
my humanity in it, See that I can somehow get
through this.
Speaker 1 (45:35):
It's the lemonade. It's taking limits and making lemonade. When
you were talking about boy Bar earlier, it was like
this creating your own reality. And it's not a delusional thing.
It's a way to it's a way to survive. Yes,
this alternate space that we can exist in, and that
that was definitely what else is true.
Speaker 2 (45:56):
It was a place to connect, It was a place
to meet fellow artists. It was a place too. You
can do this, I can do that. Let us come
together and make something beautiful and a lot of that
stuff we are living on now.
Speaker 1 (46:13):
Yeah, absolutely, And it's beautiful that I get to live
the life that I'm living now, and that I get
to celebrate you and the life that you are living
and have lived, and what you've paved for us. You
(46:34):
were just living your life, but you've paved a way.
I hope you know from me to you how much
you mean to us, how much your life your work
means to us, To me personally.
Speaker 2 (46:49):
I see it in you and your strides. You know
when I fell and was like bruised and bumped, it
was for a reason, was for you to be here.
And I am so thankful, so overjoyed to see the
(47:11):
girls now, you and honey, and I mean, the language
that you have brought into the world is so important
and so vital and I thank you from the bottom
of my heart. You have gone out and fought the
good fight and made the world a better place in
(47:34):
so many ways and so many avenues that we can
now express ourselves.
Speaker 1 (47:41):
Thank you so much.
Speaker 2 (47:42):
And you are spreading your wings so wide that they
are frightened.
Speaker 1 (47:48):
Oh yes, oh yeah, they.
Speaker 2 (47:50):
Are deathly frightened. They are so afraid of their world crumbling,
and they are not able to hide their sins behind us.
Speaker 1 (48:05):
Yeah. Yeah, we can't be the scapegoats anymore. No, it's you,
it's not me exactly. This is all your stuff and
I will I refuse to take it on o tiviously.
The rong said, they hide us the way they hide
me away because I get too many dicks hard.
Speaker 2 (48:21):
Thank you, Thank you.
Speaker 1 (48:24):
That story you were telling about the guy looking at
you and the cowboy look.
Speaker 2 (48:27):
It's like sorry, han, but it's that's within you. Yes,
you have to go and work that out for yourself,
and you are not a bad person because of it.
Speaker 1 (48:40):
Thank you so much. Connie for joining me today.
Speaker 2 (48:43):
Thank you, Connie Fleming.
Speaker 1 (48:49):
Oh, an icon a legend for me and for Minnie,
and I hope that hearing a bit about her life.
And there's so much more that you understand that we've
always been here as trans people, and we have had
to fight and deal with so much to be ourselves,
(49:13):
and we have come through, with so many of us
with elegance and grace and with wisdom and beauty, intact
souls intact, when we could be tattered and torn nineteen
ninety New York. I got a taste of it, just
(49:35):
a teeny tiny taste of it, and it was a
scary place. And I can't even imagine trying to find
a way to transition and be yourself as a black
trans woman during that time. And that is the biggest
inspiration I think, even beyond all of our artistic achievements,
that she could be broken and battered, but she is
(50:00):
all and actualized and at peace and stunningly beautiful. Trans
is so beautiful. Connie is so beautiful. She is living history,
and I'm so grateful that I got to spend this
time with her. Thank you so much for listening to
(50:24):
the Laverne Cox Show. Please rate, review, subscribe, and share
with everyone you know. You can find me on Instagram, Twitter,
and TikTok at Laverne Cox and on Facebook at Laverne Cox.
For real, and please check out the show notes. There
are links to things that you must experience that we've
referenced in this podcast. Go crazy in the show notes.
(50:45):
Until next time, stay in the Live. The Laverne Cox
Show is a production of Shondaland Audio in partnership with iHeartRadio.
For more podcasts from Shondaland Audio, visit the iHeart Radio app,
Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Welcome to the Laverne Cox Show, a production of Shondaland
Audio in partnership with iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
I had found happiness and self work, and I was
not going to let the outside world take that away
from me. I had fought hard for that to start
loving myself.
Speaker 1 (00:36):
Welcome to the Laverne Cox Show. My name is Laverne Cox.
This is part two of my epic conversation with the
legendary Connie Fleming. If you happen to have missed the
first part from a couple of days ago, to yourself
a favor and listen to that one first. You'll want
to catch.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
All of it.
Speaker 1 (00:54):
Honey show notes check them out, and just a quick reminder,
the incomparable, inimminable Connie Fleming has been a legend and
icon of the New York City night life scene since
the nineteen eighties. She has graised the catwalks of Vibian
Westwood and Terry Muglaire, among others, and she has set
the tone at some of New York City's most exclusive nightclubs.
(01:16):
It is one of the most famously discerning door persons
in nightlife. Her history darling. In fact, she still refers
to herself as the door bitch. So, picking up where
we left off, Connie and I are talking about one
of the first times we ever crossed paths over twenty
five years ago. Please enjoy part two of my conversation
(01:38):
with the Legend, the Icon, the one and only Connie Flemming.
There was this one nighted Hero.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
Hero Is a party that Eric Conrad at the Maritime Hotel.
Speaker 1 (01:55):
Right, So, one night I was at Hero. I was
on the dance floor and I was dancing my little
heart out to Honey was turning us out, and these
two men, these two white men, come up to me
and they said, thank you so much for getting us in,
and they slipped me some cash and they were like,
thank you so much and that you know wonder and
am looking at the money. I'm like, they think I'm coming.
(02:16):
And I used to get confused for you a lot,
and we looked nothing alike.
Speaker 2 (02:20):
No, I got confused for you.
Speaker 1 (02:21):
Now every black girl in New York basically I was
confused for So they gave me this money. And then
later on the night you're come in from the door,
and I don't know if you remember this, I came up
to you and I was like, girl, here. These guys
thought I was you and they gave me money here
and you were and you looked at me. You were like, girl,
you should have kept it. And I was like, I
kept have.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
And I did.
Speaker 1 (02:46):
That's hard. I kept have the money.
Speaker 2 (02:47):
Oho.
Speaker 1 (02:48):
You remember this story?
Speaker 2 (02:49):
Do you remember that? I remember? I remember, and it's like,
you keep that money. And I wanted to go and
find them and push you in front of me, eat
and say and go and tell them to give you
the rest of that cash or you won't let them
in next week.
Speaker 1 (03:06):
That was one of those nights and those moments. I mean,
your legendary door you call yourself door bitch, legendary door person,
just infamous.
Speaker 2 (03:16):
As a door person. I am unflinching and I demand
respect because I remember before I first started. It was
when I was still modeling and I was backstage and
it was some sort of group show and the producers
(03:38):
were backstage arguing because the door person showed up and
they were like, maybe in DEMI drag and the producer
was backstage yelling, no fucking drag cleans, now fucking drag
leans at this door. I don't care. Wow, And that
(03:59):
when and to the back of my mind cut to
a couple of years later when Eric was doing poop
at the supper club and he was like, I need
a door person. I don't know what to do. He's like,
you're going to do it, and it's like okay, He's like,
you know, everybody, we need somebody that knows the core crowd,
(04:24):
the crowd from Europe. And for the next couple of years,
I really had to fight as a black trans woman
to be respected in that field because it's like, you know,
door people have come before me and after me, and
(04:48):
they aren't sort of given the narrative of being mean
as I am, and they demand as much respect as
I do. They are as unflinching and even more unflinching
than I am. But because I am in the skin
(05:11):
and who I am, you know that massage.
Speaker 1 (05:14):
Noir andransphobia rears its head. Yeah, all that coming together,
and it.
Speaker 2 (05:20):
All comes together and it's sort of like, why do
I have to listen to you? Why do I have
to be sort of human and nice to you? But
I draw a line in the sand, and that has
(05:40):
made me sort of this door nazi no club for
you that was coined that mister black.
Speaker 1 (05:53):
I feel like you've been doing doors for everybody. I
feel like when mister black happened, that's when like the
reputation went to this other level of like Connie being.
Speaker 2 (06:02):
Me, mister Blackett was a tiny space and you would
turn around and would be full, and we could not
get to the level of disturbing the neighborhood or capacity rules.
So I had to be super like I said no,
(06:25):
I meant no, don't ask me again, And that's when
it went to the level of like three people just left, Okay,
we have to wait for twenty people to leave before
I can start letting in again. The behind the scenes
logistics of curating a room, which it's on you know,
(06:48):
a sword's edge. You can let in two people and
they can destroy the room in seconds.
Speaker 1 (06:57):
When I think back to Limelight, I think you started
doing VIP sections after Poop that VIP section at Disco
two thousand Baby Ruby with Danceing and Kenny and so
there was that club kid room and like everybody can
get in there, you know, and they needed to have
a certain certain energy.
Speaker 2 (07:17):
Savoy yeah, to get in. And I think that's also
my reputation of being at VIP doors and denying people
that makes you come off as mean. But doing those
(07:38):
sort of VIP rooms, you get to see in real
time how it can shift and things can become awful.
Some people don't know how to act within seconds. Yes, yes,
and you can have you can have as much money
in the world, or you can try and shove as
(08:00):
much cash at me. But no, we have to be
here next week. We have to deal with the task force.
We have to deal with because you know, things also
shifted after Michael Aleck. That's a whole other situation, Michig.
Speaker 1 (08:19):
I was in New York and I just remember night
life shifting so drastically. It was Juliani becoming mayor, and
then the Michael Alec when he murdered Angel, and I
knew Angel. I'm sure you knew Angel. Yes, it's funny.
When I first moved to New York in ninety three,
Angel was always at Webster Hall makeup room and queen.
I just moved to the city and people always ask
(08:40):
me where the drugs were. I've never done a drug
in my life, but I met Angel and I was like,
he's he's over there, he's over there, he's got the
wings on. That's him. People always ask me I think
because I was in I was sort of ginger, non conforming,
what hadn't quite evolved into myself yet. But I had
my look and I would send him to Angel and
they would, you know, get there. We called it service
(09:02):
back in the day in the nineties. Oh my god, did.
Speaker 2 (09:05):
You get your services? Girl? Yes, yes, yes, yes, I remember.
Speaker 1 (09:13):
There was a period a party Monster is if you
care to watch, the documentary is better than the scripted film.
Looked at the story of Michael Alec and James Saint
James and that whole period in New York night life
where Angel was murdered, etc. And then he did when
Michael came out of prison, he did another documentary. It's
on Netflix.
Speaker 2 (09:32):
It's hard for me to watch because that's also what
I wanted to mention was that Nora Burns did a
play and she says in the play of that, like
eighties time, we are still in that sort of framework
of PTSD. It is and you you feel it, but
(09:54):
now we have a whole other set of traumas. If
you live in Texas or Florida.
Speaker 1 (10:02):
Yeah, and this is why I'm doing in trauma resilience therapy, Honey.
I mean the AIDS crisis. I wasn't in New York
in the eighties, but the whole the nightlife thing and
the aftermath of what my end. I never I met
Michael maybe once or twice and Marilla Lyne, like he
was always just twirling, trashed and a mess, like we
all just yeah wow. I just remembered like he was
(10:25):
a mess.
Speaker 2 (10:26):
Try getting paid from him at like five in the morning, girl,
because you had to chase him around, corral him and
get him to the office to go, oh, yeah, she
was working hours.
Speaker 1 (10:39):
And he's high as a kite. Yeah, and like been
up for days.
Speaker 2 (10:43):
Yeah, and trying to shove a pill in your mouth.
Speaker 1 (10:49):
There were characters, and a lot of people didn't survive either.
May they all rest in peace, but for those of
us who did, And I always felt like I was
on the periphery of all that. I was never fully
in in the club scene like I was in college
and I was doing I had my waitressing job and
I didn't I didn't party like, I didn't do drugs,
and so I was never like in the in person.
(11:10):
I never felt like I was like in the click.
But what was beautiful about being creative and putting a
look together in the nineties. Is that like you know
Kenny Kenny, another famous door person would always let me in.
You know, when you had a look in the nineties,
you could go anywhere, You could go anywhere, and it
was deep when that shifted. When that shifted, because I
(11:31):
never had problems getting into clubs bottle service and bottle
service shifting and bottle service took over. Everything was when
oh I can pay for my own fantasy. Yeah, I gagged,
I really gagged. I was like, wait, hold on, I'm
It wasn't even like I was famous or I was
just used to my energy being welcome.
Speaker 2 (11:55):
You were one of the kids, You were one of
those one of the driving engines up the sea.
Speaker 1 (12:00):
And what made a certain point value deeply valued as
a presence in nightlife and then was no longer deeply valued.
Speaker 2 (12:11):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (12:11):
Interesting shit.
Speaker 2 (12:12):
Well, I work with Lady Fag at battle Ham and
she does Spilt Milk and Holy Mountain and she values
the kids and a look and making that effort. And
it's that little bastion that is sort of growing now
(12:33):
and moving into Williamsburg and Queens and all like that.
So it isn't gone.
Speaker 1 (12:40):
No, you can never kill it. Altogether. It's yeah, it's
just the nineties clubs were so commercial. I mean, they
were so huge it couldn't last. But it was wonderful,
quite a ride, wonderful and we have our sort of
world now because of it, the strides that we have
made as a society. You know, their beginnings were there,
(13:04):
absolutely those interactions of all of these people coming together
and sort of widening and oh, you are not an ogre.
You are not going to cut me up and wear
me like the suit. Yeah. I was at Jackie sixty
almost every week. I just Johnny Danell saying conne girl,
(13:29):
the kund of girl, Johnny Daniell on the microphone. The
Jackie sixty days were so iconic. It was such an
avant garde kind of party. The shows that were happening.
I think you were a sugar plump Ferry one year
on point point shoot, yes.
Speaker 2 (13:43):
Yes, yes, show the Jackie Christmas Show.
Speaker 1 (13:46):
I mean the shows that happened to Jackie sixty. Oh
my god, I wish there was video from.
Speaker 2 (13:50):
That magical magical a magical space.
Speaker 1 (13:53):
This is an on fourteenth Street in like Washington, wagon
the meatpacking district, and so I think some of the
sex workers would come in and then some of the trade.
There was always traded Jackie sixty.
Speaker 2 (14:02):
They were always, always, always.
Speaker 1 (14:05):
I remember there was this one boy. I can't tell.
I can't tell all these boys, but I remember there
was this one boy. He was fine, and somehow I
ended up. He and I ended up, you know, okay,
and I didn't know we had a girlfriend. Then he's
telling me, as we're getting to know each other, my
girlfriend's upstairs. So then he became a regular. And one
night I came because remember Johnny used to do party naked,
(14:28):
like at the end of the night, girl party naked.
This man who months earlier was kind of shy and
came with his girlfriend. He was on stage fully naked,
party naked and probably high on something, and it was
just girl Jackie sixty, Jackie sixty. The invitations would always
(14:54):
be like legends, no, no dress code, but there wild
always be dress codes every week.
Speaker 2 (14:58):
No runners, no, no track suits, no this It was
incredible and doing the door there, we got to enforce it.
I remember one night it was a fetish night and
these business guys, you know, masters of the universe, came
and oh wanted to throw around their money and come
(15:20):
in and we're like no, and they're like why And
we pointed at the dress code and it was no suits,
and they're like, well, how do we get in? Take
it all off? You can go in in your underwear,
And they did, folded up their suits, left it at
the door, and they they left after I left. We
(15:46):
closed maybe around four four thirty. The door closed maybe
around three thirty. They were still inside. I heard that
one of them became a human, a human map.
Speaker 1 (15:59):
That was the wonderful thing about the nineties in New
York that everyone party together. You would have the businessmen
would come, and the Wall Street and Long Island and
Staten Island and Jersey. They were all there and we
were mingling.
Speaker 2 (16:17):
Yeah. It wasn't segregated. It was a full coming together
of everyone. Everyone needed to come together. Everyone needed to
see and look each other in the eye and maybe
get to tear down all of the the things that
(16:40):
we were taught, all of the things that were in
the news, all of the you know, there were so
many times where people looked at each other and went, oh,
I understand you, and I understand sort of your journey.
Speaker 1 (16:55):
Yeah, do you still feel like that? Isn't that exist?
In New York somewhere.
Speaker 2 (17:00):
In some spots like at Lebant Lebant, it's everyone.
Speaker 1 (17:05):
I love it.
Speaker 2 (17:06):
We want everyone to respect each other. We say at
the door, it's going to be this, this set, and
the other. If you don't like it, bounce. But it's hard.
It's hard now because everybody wants to be in sort
of their own little bubble, and it's it's not what
(17:28):
nightclubs are. Nightclubs are for you to experience not only
the music, but the atmosphere and the people.
Speaker 1 (17:36):
Yeah, I remember, it feels like it started with Warhol.
To me, I think about historically in New York. Warhol
introduced trans women and drag queens into parties, into his entourage,
and it seems like he was like, we need to
have this energy here. And it felt like that stayed
(17:58):
through the seven these eighties, nineties into the early two thousands,
and then things kind of started to splinter. But I
feel like that's when with candy and crisis. Yes, mister
Warhol saw crisis.
Speaker 2 (18:10):
In Hollywood Lawn, Hotti Woodlawn, and all of those girls.
But before the sixties there was also Madame Arthur's, which
I'm obsessed with.
Speaker 1 (18:20):
Tell Us about Madame Author's. I don't know Madam Author.
Speaker 2 (18:22):
Madame Arthur was Cooxynell, Bamby, April Ashley. This was in Paris.
Speaker 1 (18:30):
I know about the Carousel. Tell me more.
Speaker 2 (18:32):
Yes, I think Madame Arthur's was first, and then Carousel,
which I'm obsessed with. Yes, because Cooxy Noll and Bamby
and April actually were the beginnings of that sort of
frontier of transdem.
Speaker 1 (18:51):
The transwoman Showgirl, I mean Coxinell. I think it is
even before Christine Jorgensen if I recall correct or go contemporary.
Speaker 2 (19:00):
Because I think Jorgensen learned about the operation and everything
like that from Coxing Now.
Speaker 1 (19:06):
Yes, Coxingel and Bambi all.
Speaker 2 (19:09):
That what I think we forget in this time when
we had the sort of comfort of the Internet and
being able to voice on social media. Back then, in
my time, at the beginning of your time in the sixties, seventies, fifties,
(19:32):
there wasn't this. So there had to be a community
where we as trans people could be safe and get
employment because there were only two choices, stage or the corner.
Speaker 1 (19:47):
Or if you could live stealth and go in and hide.
Speaker 2 (19:51):
But there was also a price to pay for that too,
because that was also my apprehension when I first started
in Paris, was if I tried to go stealth, there
is so much that is known about me.
Speaker 1 (20:08):
It's going to come about.
Speaker 2 (20:09):
My beginnings in Boybar and in the dry community. I
can't deny, deny, deny.
Speaker 1 (20:16):
Yeah, and then it just becomes deeply painful. I interviewed
Tracy Norman last season for the podcast, and in the
repeated outings and losing everything and having to start over
again so intensely painful, and I think it's painful for
her to this day, the idea of disclosure.
Speaker 2 (20:36):
Because it meant death. Yeah, it meant death. Because even
Crisis Crisis's parents wanted to commit her. And she would
talk a little bit about Marcia B. Johnson and about
how Marcia would be committed and they would give her
thorizine injections in her spine, okay, and then she would
(20:59):
come out of Bellevue or wherever they committed her, and
it would take months for her to come back to
herself because that was also a thing at that time,
like you know, they would put you away and heavily
medicate you into on existence.
Speaker 1 (21:22):
Who was treated as a mental illness, which is so
disturbing when we're referred to in that way. Now it's
not new, this is now stuff. It's deeply disturbing. This
is a good time to take a little break. We'll
be right back though. All right, we're back. Do you
(21:52):
want to talk about meeting International Crisis in her influence
on you? She gave you April Ashley's book. Yeah, International
Crisis we mentioned earlier. Icon she's in the movie Queen
at very young, very young, sixteen. When I discovered her,
I was at Duwayne aka Milan. We used to be
(22:13):
roommates with Perfidia, and I went over to visit Dwayne
one one day and Fidia was there and there's a
huge photo of International Crisis on the wall, and I
was like, who is this? And Perfidia was like, this
is my mother. It was such a beautiful this is
my mother International Crisis and started just telling its stories
and I was just like, I'm still in awe of
(22:38):
this woman.
Speaker 2 (22:39):
Of her journey because she defied explanation, she defied all
of the sort of rules for us back then. Yeah. Yeah,
And the first time we met it was at rehearsal
at boy Bar and I was like, who is this
white lady and what does she do here? Who's this
(23:01):
white woman? Then Matthew said, okay, crisis, We're going to
put in your tape and you can run through. And
the white lady got up and did this incredible number,
a season performer, mistress of Ceremonies, beautiful, stunning, and I
(23:26):
like grabbed Glamor Moores like who is that? And we're
trying not to be rude and let her go through
her number, and Glamor More is just whispering to me
Salvador Dali album cover for the OJS or the Ohio Players,
and just these little tidbits, and I'm like, oh my god,
(23:47):
oh my god, oh my god. And I think she
was also a judge at the first Miss Boy.
Speaker 1 (23:55):
Bar, so she managed to have some sort of mainstream success.
She was a fanswoman, showgirl and people knew her. There
was a documentary on YouTube split that sort of talks
about her a little bit, but I feel like it
doesn't fully give us the majesty.
Speaker 2 (24:14):
Yeah, because when it was made, it was right after
she passed, and I think that's maybe early nineties, so
it was still that narrative were calling our drag queen. Yeah,
a poor, deluded, whatever it was, but there are little
tidbits of her life and the beauty of her journey.
(24:39):
And even the filmmaker because it was reissued and we
had like a talk after the viewing of the film,
and the filmmaker is like, you know, even eye cringe
at the language because we did not have the language
back then to fully color her in all her glory
(25:06):
and all her facets.
Speaker 1 (25:08):
And this is the thing about like someone like her
and like so many of our transcestors who there wasn't
really even fully language. But we found a way to
be ourselves. Yes, in spite of it, we found a
way out of no way. Really, there was no blueprint. Really,
I mean there were you know the girls who had
come before us.
Speaker 2 (25:29):
Yes, just as you with me were too funky. That
was me with Tracy Africa. Oh my god, obsessed because
at the beginning, it's like in those days when you
would be sitting at someone's knee and asking them questions
in that time, it would lead to somebody that was
(25:51):
sick or dying or had already died in some kind
of horrifying way. So you had to ask for a
little tidbit you saw on their faces and in their
demeanor that if you would go one more question, it
would fall into despair. And we couldn't push each other
(26:14):
in that way. We were pushing each other with culture
because tomorrow wasn't promised. Yeah, so you had to give grace.
Speaker 1 (26:24):
You're alluding to it, and it keeps coming up. So
this is, you know, mid eighties, when boy Bar started
in nineteen eighty five, it is the height of Whenever
I talked to people who were in New York at
that time, people were dropping dead all around them. And
a dear friend of mine who was in the sixties
and he watched an episode of Pose and he survived
(26:46):
that period. He's seen he christ like, I hadn't processed
all the trauma of that time and this was like
just a few years ago. How the survival piece of
like am I next? How to survive this? And it's
just I'm so happy you're still here. I'm so happy
that we get to tell your story, and that you
(27:07):
get to tell your story in this context and others
on your terms where we have language. I was, I'm
talking to some queens. I was at a party in
la It was Edward Enfall's book party actually, and there
was some queens from RuPaul's Drag Race. I was telling
them about a night, but I had a hero. It's like, oh, honey,
de Jon was djaying and Connie was the door the door,
and they were like what what they and they knew
(27:28):
and these are twenty somethings drag race girls. Why who knew?
Who understand? They wanted the stories and they want to know,
and it's great that you're here to tell them. Oh, Connie.
Vivian Westwood. Muclair and Westwood were two designers that you
worked with around that same time, and both pass last year.
Speaker 2 (27:50):
I know, devastated, my two champions were gone.
Speaker 1 (27:56):
I remember reading about Van Laire that in the eighties,
because he was incorporating culture and leather that a lot
of people thought, even though he's the clothes sold really
well and the women loved the clothes, a lot of
people thought it was vulgar or too gay, or too
you know all that, and so it really is a
beautiful testament that you made it to couture.
Speaker 2 (28:17):
And uplifted these kind of non issues of fabric, fabric
being considered and put into the world of fetishism and
sex and naughty and dangerous. He showed it to you
in a way that was so beautiful that you had
(28:38):
to take it out of that. And we were also
happy that he was sort of taken into the cuture
world and seeing his talent was seen for what it is,
for his innovation, like Schiaparelli has done, like Chanelle did,
absolutely Balenciaga did it. It was a wonderful moment and
(29:02):
I was honored to be there and be part of
that moment in his life.
Speaker 1 (29:09):
Did you know Andre Leon Tally by the way.
Speaker 2 (29:11):
Not well, but in that show in which show in
Terry's first couture show, If you look at the video,
you can hear someone screaming Connie, and it's Andre Leon
Tally screaming my name. He is with Sandra Bernhardt.
Speaker 1 (29:34):
Who also walked for muguare You charity shows.
Speaker 2 (29:37):
Yes, for years, I did not believe that it was
him and that he knew me. There was an unedited
version and you can hear him screaming my name, and
I was just like it carries me.
Speaker 1 (29:54):
Andre was very in tune with what was happening downtown.
He was in tune with.
Speaker 2 (29:59):
What all of it, Yeah, and was conduit for worlds
to come together.
Speaker 1 (30:07):
Yes, I love him yelling your name because he was
so overjoyed. Obviously he couldn't contain himself. He was so
overjoyed to see you at Paris Couture. It's just to
Lousey's icons. And we lost to Miyaki last year. It
last year was a yes major. I mean, what are
your memories of working with west Wood?
Speaker 2 (30:27):
At the beginning, she would do shows at the Limelight,
and I remember the first one I got in. I
was able to get in to see the mini Crinolines
and I think it was Terry Toy's last season and
I got to see Terry Toy on the runway and
I was just like because I was so overjoyed to
(30:51):
see her. And we got to go to London. This
was just before Vogue broke and they brought us to
London to like, you know, show this new vague dance voguing,
and I think we met there and I was just like, oh,
(31:11):
I love you, bah wlahah blah blah. Okay. Cut to
like maybe two years later and I had just done
New Glare and she was doing a show again at
the Limelight and they called me and I walked into
the fitting and she was like, Oh, it's so wonderful
to see you. I'm so glad. It was so beautiful
(31:34):
to see you on the newclare one way. I wanted
this so much for you, And that came out of
her mouth and I had to bite my tongue from
not you know, just breaking down into tears because she
is she is our community, but just in London, Yeah,
(31:55):
that community of we are all creative together and we
have to push it.
Speaker 1 (32:03):
Sounds like what's going on with you is that everyone
saw it was just clear that you were a model,
like this girl should be modeling, and it usually is clear.
It's usually like models are like, they're not like everybody else.
Speaker 2 (32:17):
It's unicornish in a way.
Speaker 1 (32:20):
Yeah, and that crisis saw it, that other people saw it,
and then you got the opportunity. It's really a miracle
in a way. But it was also just meant to be.
It was supposed to happen. It was really supposed to happen.
And so my understanding is that when you went to
Paris those first several seasons, it was cute and then
(32:41):
it got not so cute quickly. Do you want to
talk a little bit about that there's a litter so
when I worked a Lucky Chang's DeAndre head stories. DeAndre
went embellish, but she had a story about a famous
supermodel who allegedly walked in the dressing room and said,
why are all these men in this fashion show? We
won't name this supermodel? Is that true? Did that happen?
Speaker 2 (33:03):
It was embellished? Okay, backstage I walk in. Supermodel is
getting her makeup done and she turns to her makeup
artist and said, don't make me look like a drag queen.
And I whispered to my makeup artist, it's a little
too late for that, honey. And that started the Because
(33:29):
you know, it was fine and dandy when I wasn't
sort of known. The core New York crowd knew of
my history as a boybark beauty blah blah, but anyone
outside of that, they all thought I was like a
New African girl. And they would always be like, you know, oh,
stay over here, don't go over there with.
Speaker 1 (33:50):
Them, don't go over there, meaning don't go to Europe,
don't go to.
Speaker 2 (33:54):
No, don't go and make yourself available to sort of
the top girls, because they kind of knew it would
make me visible in a way because some people didn't
know at the beginning, and then it started to be known.
(34:16):
But it was only one of the supermodels that was
not very happy with me, but the others touted me,
wanted me to work with them. You know. That was half,
and then the other half were like, oh no, I
don't want to. I don't want to be seen with them.
They are lowering us as women, blah blah blah, this,
(34:42):
that and the other. Because there's always been this narrative
in modeling too tall, too pretty, you know that old choke,
look for an Adam's apple. And you also have to
think of the sort of misogynist narrative in this field.
(35:03):
Women make more money than men, they have more power
than men. They can sort of wield their power, and
you have to pit them against each other, make them
into monsters. It's like Beyonce is a witch. Too successful,
(35:26):
too pretty, It can't be just talent.
Speaker 1 (35:30):
I mean, Tyra has talked very openly about how she
was pit against Naomi, and they did that famous interview
on The Tyra Show when they sort of talked about
it and yeah, sort of hashed it out. So that
is certainly a real thing, especially with the black models
when you finally left Paris. Did you ever have an agency? Yes,
you did have an agent. So when you stopped going
(35:51):
to Paris and modeling, what was going on?
Speaker 2 (35:54):
The pendulum of drag and fashion had swung the other way,
and from me always insisting about my transit, I was
labeled difficult and there were the things about, oh, I'm
not going to do the show if a man is
(36:16):
in the show. Once a pendulum swung, everyone was free
to come out of the fever dream and to go
back to business as usual.
Speaker 1 (36:28):
And major models are saying this. Yes, and it was
a thing too. I remember some models talked about back
in the day that brands would feel like there would
be a liability, like a legal liability having a trans model,
which doesn't make any sense to me, but that's what.
Did you ever hear anything like that?
Speaker 2 (36:47):
Yes, yes, when I would go for Go sees here
in New York. Well, we don't want our customers to
think that we are trying to fool them. We don't
want our customers to think that they are somehow a
reflection of who and what you are. Oh, we don't
(37:09):
want to be seen as being divisive, because back then
it was being fetishized, being criminal, being unhealthy, and mentally ill.
Speaker 1 (37:25):
How did that make you feel when you would get
this feedback? You know, I'm an actress, and so I've
heard all kinds of things, and it was like I
just kept pushing, But it was also like, will this
ever happen for me?
Speaker 2 (37:37):
Yeah? I had my childhood, my childhood of coming through
the fire and just getting up, dusting yourself off and
picking your chin up and walking ahead. Because I had
come to a space where I had found happiness and
(38:03):
self worth and I was not going to let the
outside world take that away from me. I had fought
hard for that to start loving myself, be okay with
who and what I am, and why am I going
(38:26):
to let you take that away from me?
Speaker 1 (38:31):
Amen?
Speaker 2 (38:32):
And Also I was always in a place in the
business where I got to see outside of myself and
the inner workings because I was sort of not really
paid attention to in certain ways and sort of forgotten.
So I got to see certain things. I got to
(38:55):
see trans girls who were stealthed and being discovered and
their careers being taken away from them. I had friendships
from nightclubs with hairdressers and bookers and agencies, they sort
of didn't have to maybe coddle me as much, and
(39:17):
they told me the real low down of they're not
going to book you because they're afraid of this, that,
and the other. So I was thankful, and at the
end it was sort of outing me for anybody who
did not know. The press would be like, oh, you
like her, you think she looks cute and that red
(39:40):
cowboy outfit, or like at the Vivian show and all
like that, Oh you like her, because I remember it
was that red cowboy outfit and there was this famous
French boxer and they were interviewing him and asking him
what he liked and he's like, oh, that black girl
(40:01):
in the red cowboy often, oh you thought she was pretty,
goading him, making him say how attractive and wonderful he
thought I was, and then lowering the boom wow and saying, oh, well,
you know that's a man, and then him having to
(40:25):
espouse violence and if I'd ever see that, and oh
they should all be killed to pull himself up out
of out of complimenting and liking what he saw. So
it was those sort of things that you see the
writing on the wall, like you know, Malamar Swan. You
(40:48):
see the ice closing in around your ankles, and I
had to say, okay, I will step away before I
am forced to.
Speaker 1 (41:01):
Yeah, I got to take a teen s break here.
We'll be right back. We're back. You had illustration, you
(41:22):
became a runway coach. You were always doing the door somewhere.
So you've done so many things and continue to do
so many things for you now at this stage of
your life, what is bringing you the most joy? Where
can folks find you beyond lebal and like, what are
you working on now? What's going on in the world
(41:44):
of kind of growth limming?
Speaker 2 (41:46):
I am working on some art on another shell. I
had my first show, solo show at another part the
Wonderful Gallery in Montreal. Art has always been part expression
and part therapy for me, and I started to draw
and started to post them on my Instagram and on
(42:06):
my Facebook and people are like, wait a minute, you
can draw or you can do this? Who wha wha
wha wha wha what. And by the end of it,
because I did it every day, Michael has said, you
have a show. And I had my first show in
Montreal last year. That show came here to the wonderful
(42:28):
Lower east Side Girls Club, which I work with now.
I want to teach them a little runway class so
that they have stature and their confidence and their beauty
comes through, and working at La BA and going to
delve into writing a memoir and seeing how that goes.
Speaker 1 (42:52):
Just the stories that I didn't know that you've shared
today are just so so iconic. And if you name names,
ain't the focals?
Speaker 2 (43:00):
Never?
Speaker 1 (43:02):
Are you in love? Are you dating? What's the way?
Speaker 2 (43:06):
I am trying to but I'm too old to take
the mess. I'm too old to like, run through your
field to get to mine, mow your lawn, tend your
grass and come to me. The grass is cute over here.
Speaker 1 (43:25):
Has there been a great love? Has there been like
a you know, as you travel the world, a great
love affair?
Speaker 2 (43:31):
The first was Joe Dietrich. He was an iconic model
in the eighties late eighties, and we fell in love
and I have to thank him every day. He treated
me like a princess. I was never below him, second
(43:54):
class citizen. He never treated me in any way disrespectfully.
He passed away from AIDS around I think it was
maybe ninety three, and it crushed me.
Speaker 1 (44:07):
How did he identify?
Speaker 2 (44:09):
I think he would be pan sexual. He would identify
as pan sexual the first verse. First first time I
went to Paris was with him. That was my first love.
And there have been loves here and there.
Speaker 1 (44:27):
Connie, I'm so, I'm really honored to speak with you.
Just the legacy, the legacy that you had.
Speaker 2 (44:35):
Oh.
Speaker 1 (44:35):
I don't want to end this, but end every podcast
with the question that comes from my therapy. The question
is what else is true? And that basically when things
are hard, when things are really difficult, we can focus
our energy on those difficult things, or there's something always
else is also true that can get us through. So
(44:56):
for you to date, Connie Fleming, what else is true?
Speaker 2 (45:00):
What else is true is laughter, not taking yourself too seriously.
My mom has taught me that to not take yourself
too seriously and to allow yourself to step out. Look
at the situation and have a chuckle about it. Yeah,
(45:23):
look at it and see the humor in it, See
my humanity in it, See that I can somehow get
through this.
Speaker 1 (45:35):
It's the lemonade. It's taking limits and making lemonade. When
you were talking about boy Bar earlier, it was like
this creating your own reality. And it's not a delusional thing.
It's a way to it's a way to survive. Yes,
this alternate space that we can exist in, and that
that was definitely what else is true.
Speaker 2 (45:56):
It was a place to connect, It was a place
to meet fellow artists. It was a place too. You
can do this, I can do that. Let us come
together and make something beautiful and a lot of that
stuff we are living on now.
Speaker 1 (46:13):
Yeah, absolutely, And it's beautiful that I get to live
the life that I'm living now, and that I get
to celebrate you and the life that you are living
and have lived, and what you've paved for us. You
(46:34):
were just living your life, but you've paved a way.
I hope you know from me to you how much
you mean to us, how much your life your work
means to us, To me personally.
Speaker 2 (46:49):
I see it in you and your strides. You know
when I fell and was like bruised and bumped, it
was for a reason, was for you to be here.
And I am so thankful, so overjoyed to see the
(47:11):
girls now, you and honey, and I mean, the language
that you have brought into the world is so important
and so vital and I thank you from the bottom
of my heart. You have gone out and fought the
good fight and made the world a better place in
(47:34):
so many ways and so many avenues that we can
now express ourselves.
Speaker 1 (47:41):
Thank you so much.
Speaker 2 (47:42):
And you are spreading your wings so wide that they
are frightened.
Speaker 1 (47:48):
Oh yes, oh yeah, they.
Speaker 2 (47:50):
Are deathly frightened. They are so afraid of their world crumbling,
and they are not able to hide their sins behind us.
Speaker 1 (48:05):
Yeah. Yeah, we can't be the scapegoats anymore. No, it's you,
it's not me exactly. This is all your stuff and
I will I refuse to take it on o tiviously.
The rong said, they hide us the way they hide
me away because I get too many dicks hard.
Speaker 2 (48:21):
Thank you, Thank you.
Speaker 1 (48:24):
That story you were telling about the guy looking at
you and the cowboy look.
Speaker 2 (48:27):
It's like sorry, han, but it's that's within you. Yes,
you have to go and work that out for yourself,
and you are not a bad person because of it.
Speaker 1 (48:40):
Thank you so much. Connie for joining me today.
Speaker 2 (48:43):
Thank you, Connie Fleming.
Speaker 1 (48:49):
Oh, an icon a legend for me and for Minnie,
and I hope that hearing a bit about her life.
And there's so much more that you understand that we've
always been here as trans people, and we have had
to fight and deal with so much to be ourselves,
(49:13):
and we have come through, with so many of us
with elegance and grace and with wisdom and beauty, intact
souls intact, when we could be tattered and torn nineteen
ninety New York. I got a taste of it, just
(49:35):
a teeny tiny taste of it, and it was a
scary place. And I can't even imagine trying to find
a way to transition and be yourself as a black
trans woman during that time. And that is the biggest
inspiration I think, even beyond all of our artistic achievements,
that she could be broken and battered, but she is
(50:00):
all and actualized and at peace and stunningly beautiful. Trans
is so beautiful. Connie is so beautiful. She is living history,
and I'm so grateful that I got to spend this
time with her. Thank you so much for listening to
(50:24):
the Laverne Cox Show. Please rate, review, subscribe, and share
with everyone you know. You can find me on Instagram, Twitter,
and TikTok at Laverne Cox and on Facebook at Laverne Cox.
For real, and please check out the show notes. There
are links to things that you must experience that we've
referenced in this podcast. Go crazy in the show notes.
(50:45):
Until next time, stay in the Live. The Laverne Cox
Show is a production of Shondaland Audio in partnership with iHeartRadio.
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