December 18, 2024 • 17 mins
Drag may be under fire today by the enforcers of “family values,” but in the early 1900s female impersonators were the mainstay of family entertainment — on the vaudeville stage and the silver screen. Julian Eltinge, largely forgotten today, was hailed as America's greatest female impersonator at that time, entertaining audiences in the United States and Europe with perfect displays of feminine grace and manners.
In a conversation with journalist David Hunt, historian Andrew L. Erdman, author of "Beautiful: The Story of Julian Eltinge, America's Greatest Female Impersonator," shares fascinating insights into Eltinge's unique ability to engage audiences with his charismatic and boundary-pushing performances. Erdman explains how Eltinge's portrayals of women offered a thrilling yet non-transgressive lens through which audiences, especially men, could rethink societal norms.
As we trace Eltinge's transition from vaudeville to the silver screen, we uncover the challenges he faced in an evolving cultural landscape post-World War I. The shifting societal views on gender and sexuality, along with the decline of vaudeville, posed significant hurdles for his career. Yet, Eltinge's legacy remains an intriguing chapter in entertainment history.
This feature originally aired on This Way Out: The International LGBTQ Radio Magazine.
David Hunt is an Emmy-winning journalist and documentary producer who has reported on America's culture wars since the 1970s. Explore his blog, Tell Me, David.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Andy Erdman (00:03):
You'd see about 12 to 15 minutes of this very
beautiful and precisely made up,very detailed woman.
So he'd play like the Gibsongirl, he'd play Salome, he'd do
the vamp, the vampire girl, thebathing beauty, he'd do the
college girl, he'd do the oldtime Victorian lady.
And then at the end you'd seesomebody who stepped to the edge
(00:25):
of the stage and pulled off hiswig and was, you know, maybe
stuck a cigar in his mouth andall of a sudden became dude.
David Hunt (00:36):
Welcome to Tell Me, David.
Queer Stories Past and Present.
This story originally aired onThis Way Out, the international
LGBTQ radio magazine.
Conservatives in the UnitedStates have mobilized a
knock-down, drag-out fightagainst, well, drag.
(00:59):
They've put cross-dressing inthe crosshairs, passing laws
aimed at outlawing or at leastrestricting drag shows in states
like Tennessee, Montana,Florida and Texas.
But drag hasn't always been alightning rod for controversy.
(01:27):
I'm David Hunt.
In the early years of the 20thcentury, one of the highest-paid
entertainers in the UnitedStates was a female impersonator
, as drag performers were knownback then.
His name was William JulianDalton, but he went by the stage
name Julian Eltinge.
(01:48):
The foremost expert on Eltingeis scholar and historian Andrew
L Erdman.
His new book, published byOxford University Press, is
titled Beautiful the story ofJulian Eltinge, America's
(02:10):
greatest female impersonator.
Erdman joined me for aconversation about the popular
drag artist who got his start invaudeville.
Andy Erdman (02:20):
Julian Eltinge was a hugely popular female
impressionist, femaleimpersonator, from around 1900
through.
Really the height of his careerwas through the 1920s, although
he's famous until his death in1940.
Exemplar and celebrity of anage when men were doing a lot of
(02:44):
drag of all kinds, some being alittle more cartoonish, camp
comedic, some being very precise.
That was what Julian Eltingedid.
Very erotic, very feminine, allvery accepted as an art form
for mainstream audiences.
And he was just a mainstream,conventional, like kind of
(03:06):
ordinary kind of guy.
That's how he was positionedand that's part of what made him
so popular.
David Hunt (03:12):
If I could go back in time and see Julian Eltinge
on the bill at the OrpheumTheater, what would I see?
What would his performance belike?
Andy Erdman (03:30):
You'd see about 12 to 15 minutes of this very
beautiful and precisely made up,very detailed woman, different
personizations, or differentcharacterizations, I should say,
of women.
So he'd play like the Gibsongirl, which was an ideal type
created by Charles Dana Gibsonwho was the illustrator.
He'd play Salome, which in 1908, 1909 was this really popular
biblical character.
He'd do the vamp, the vampiregirl, the bathing beauty.
(03:51):
He'd do the college girl.
He'd old-time the Victorianlady, the Lillian Russell, all
of these.
So he's also a quick changeartist right, which audiences
love.
And you'd see one after theother.
You'd also see a guy or a womanwho really knew how to sing and
dance and had great rapportwith the audience and just down
to his finest details, knew howto hold and carry himself in all
(04:15):
of these personifications.
And then at the end you'd seesomebody who stepped to the edge
of the stage and pulled off hiswig and was, you know, maybe
stuck a cigar in his mouth andall of a sudden became dude, you
know, and he would say thankyou, and the audience would go
crazy and you'd get all of thatrush of excitement.
I mean, it was, it was, you cantell, it was a real thrill.
That was really his, his magic.
David Hunt (04:37):
Did families come to the shows?
Would there be children in theaudience?
Andy Erdman (04:41):
Vaudeville was just a variety show, all sorts of
different acts strung togetherfor an hour or two, usually a
pretty reasonable price.
There were different flavors ofvaudeville but Julian Eltinge
was really popular in big-timevaudeville.
That was the uh.
These were arranged in circuits, much like, you know, movie
chains are in circuits.
Um, the Keith Albee circuit wasreally the biggest of them, but
(05:04):
there were others the Orpheumcircuit, the Pantages circuit,
and they were absolutelyoriented towards a family
audience.
There were afternoon shows.
They really wanted to get womenand children in.
They would place vaudevilletheaters near like shopping
districts.
It seems that they struggled toget as many women and children
in to see shows as they wanted.
(05:25):
They struggled to get as manywomen and children in to see
shows as they wanted, but stillthe appeal was and it was
supposed to be very free fromsuggestion and free from
sexuality.
The truth was often otherwise,but that's how it kind of
presented itself, sort of a verysanitized, in an earlier age,
perhaps Disney-fied, sort ofentertainment.
So absolutely it was meant forall members of the family.
David Hunt (05:47):
Looking back, gender roles were so distinct in the
early 1900s and I feel likethere may have been some mystery
, especially for young men,around the so-called feminine
mystique.
Was that something that Eltingewas able to play on?
Andy Erdman (06:01):
That's a really good point and I hadn't thought
about it that way.
But I think for sure you havethis notion of the dual spheres.
You have the woman's sphere,which is domestic and private
and soothing, and then the malesphere, which is ambitious and
competitive and public.
Julian Eltinge does like you'resaying gave people, and men in
(06:26):
particular, a way to kind ofpoke through and somehow deal
with that massive and verybewildering apparent difference,
this essential difference, andwondering if it was so essential
after all.
And part of what Julian wasable to do is to at the same
time say men and women are arevery different and I can play
them both.
(06:46):
You know I can play them bothperfectly.
I'm not a transgressor here, soit's kind of mind bending.
David Hunt (06:52):
His act worked on one level, because he
demonstrated the correct way to,as we would say today, perform
female gender roles.
Andy Erdman (07:00):
Well, yeah, I mean, I mean almost nothing says
gender more, the performativityof gender, more than Julian
Eltinge who, at the very sametime, reinforced the essential,
the essential, the idea of theessentialness of gender, kind of
the illusion of it.
It's interesting.
What I think he begins to makeclear unintentionally is just
(07:20):
how performed gender is.
David Hunt (07:23):
Because if the most beautiful woman on the stage is
a man, what does that say aboutgender?
Andy Erdman (07:30):
Yeah, it says kind of that, and this is pretty
apparent that being a woman is ajob, it's a task one must
continually attend to, to kindof rise up to full womanliness.
He does it, he does it twice aday and he even sells products
for women to help them do it.
And there's this idea thatwomen are constantly failing to
be women as perfectly as hesucceeds at being a woman.
(07:52):
I mean, it's pretty, it'spretty funny in a way.
David Hunt (07:55):
How did he present himself when he was not
performing, when he was offstage?
Andy Erdman (08:00):
Certainly when in public or around journalists, as
a very kind of hetero coatedstraight man who was when he
wasn't in heels.
He didn't like being in heels,he liked wearing business suits
and riding horses and boxing.
There's endless pictures of himboxing and talking about boxing
(08:21):
.
Um, he liked to.
You know some of this is true.
I think he did really like tospend time on the land, kind of
working the land.
He owned various estates.
He was a hard drinker, he likedfishing, he liked carousing,
gambling.
He claimed to know a lot aboutbusiness I think he did and he
didn't, but he was just a sortof like, just an ordinary young
(08:44):
man and and the the press andthe media wanted to see him that
way rather than as this kind ofgender rebel, so they were
happy to promote that.
Some have said that he did.
He did male drag as well as hedid female drag.
David Hunt (09:03):
You're listening to This Way Out the international
LGBTQ radio magazine.
I'm David Hunt.
Let's listen to a movie trailerfrom 1929 that features one of
Hollywood's biggest stars,Julian Eltinge.
Trailer (09:18):
Pardon me, Miss Eltinge , would you speak a few words
over this station?
Gladly, thank you.
Greetings, ladies and gentlemen.
Well, here I am, back inHollywood making my first
talking picture.
I have had several ladies onthe set and ladies around the
different studios ask me thisyear as to who is making my
costumes.
I suppose that today Hollywoodleads the world in the making of
(09:40):
gown creations.
You see, we have so manymarvelous movie stars who need
so many clothes and costumes.
That has brought all the finestdesigners from all parts of the
world to Hollywood.
David Hunt (09:53):
Now back to my conversation with scholar and
historian Andy Erdman, authorof Beautiful: The Story of
Julian Eltinge, America'sGreatest Female Impersonator.
Andy Erdman (10:05):
He was a very clever and effective
entrepreneur and marketer and hemarketed himself as this real
professional who took greatpride in his work like any other
professional man, and he spenthours in the dressing room
making up and he came up withall these special emulsions and
solutions and preparations tomake his skin look ivory white,
because of course whiteness isequated with beauty and so he
(10:29):
does a great job of quiteeffectively showing how
seriously he takes it.
And at the same time I thinkthere just wasn't quite the
stigma around men putting ondresses and dressing up as women
.
It just wasn't necessarilythought to be quite the horror
show that some would later cometo to think of it as, both in
the 1930s and 40s and then youknow, as we're seeing in our day
(10:51):
, he was always very popularwith with women.
I think part of themischaracterization of Julian
Eltinge is that somehow he wasmore popular with women than
with men, which I don't thinkwas true.
I think men, for all differentreasons, loved also the kind of
freedom and sexuality andperformativity and illusionism
that he brought to the wholeaffair.
You know, because you alwayshave these men in the audience
(11:13):
saying like, well, if you were alady, I should steal a kiss
forthwith, you know, and likethere's some free.
That's what the theater lets usdo.
It lets us have some freedomfrom the confines that we live
in.
David Hunt (11:24):
I asked Erdman to tell me more about Eltinge's
career in Hollywood, where hegot his first starring role in a
silent movie, the CountessCharming, in 1917.
Andy Erdman (11:34):
Yeah, so after vaudeville Julian Eltinge goes
on to be in these bespokemusical comedies that are
written for him, where he playsa young guy who very much is
sort of Julian Eltinge character, who likes just smoking and
gambling and looking at theladies.
And then all of a sudden hemust dress up as a countess or a
widow or something, which hedoes beautifully and perfectly.
(11:58):
And then there's all theseerotic shenanigans and then he
ends up getting the girl andfinding the diamonds or whatever
, and those are very successful.
I think he gets tired of it andbecomes formulaic and he wants
to go make movies and his moviesare actually successful.
At first he makes three moviesthat are very successful.
They're sort of like 50, 60minute comedies.
(12:18):
I think that they fit in wellenough to what Hollywood is
making at the time in sort ofmainstream silent movie fare.
And then he has a movie that hasto be pulled with the end of
World War One.
It's a World War One themedmovie and it it has to be pulled
because audiences don't want tosee war themed stuff anymore.
Audiences don't want to seewar-themed stuff anymore.
(12:38):
And you know, much like today,the vagaries of the market can
kind of very quickly.
This is what he discovered candestroy a movie actor's career.
And now he's getting older tooand movies are able to do more
in terms of their illusionism.
So he kind of goes from being avery singular kind of performer
at the top of a trade to justkind of another comic silent
(13:00):
film actor, and it's not reallywhat he's built for.
You know, he's able, in a wayhe's more successful than other
vaudevillians who make thetransition.
But his run is a decent one,but it ends kind of abruptly.
David Hunt (13:13):
In the 1920s and 30s , society's views of gender and
sexuality began to change.
How did that impact Eltingecareer?
Andy Erdman (13:22):
gender and sexuality began to change.
How did that impact Eltinge'scareer?
In the 20s you start to havethe decline of vaudeville
popularity and the rise ofnightclub and speakeasy culture,
lounge culture.
Julian Eltinge also starts tobecome more interested in
creating this artist's colonyand this kind of spa retreat
center down in San Diego County.
So he's playing smaller venues,kind of trying to raise money
(13:43):
to keep himself afloat.
There's not the same money invaudeville.
He's not making movies, he goesinto debt.
He goes on tour.
He makes more money Towards theend of the 20s.
You know the 20s is an era ofrelative liberality but of
course forces of reaction, kindof like in the 1970s, are
starting to kind of stir up.
They don't like all thisfreedom.
And then in the late 20s,particularly around the trials
(14:08):
of Mae West and she wrote theseplays that were very provocative
and showed the sexualunderworld and the gay
underworld and a lot ofcross-dressing, and so it starts
to fall into disfavor.
And then of course in the 30s,with everything that's happening
with the economy and politics,there's a real fear cast over
America.
And you know what happens intimes of fear the seeming
(14:32):
cultural transgressors aretargeted rather than the actual
problems.
This is my view.
Problems, this is my view.
And so, yeah, Eltinge, andEltinge is always held in higher
regard because he's always moreof a gender conformer in his
weird way and he doesn't want toraise a stink, he's a little
bit libertarian in his views, sohe's one of the last ones
that's kind of called to thecalled on the carpet and he
(14:54):
eventually has this kind of dayin court.
But the whole, the wholecultural attitude of liberality
and acceptance collapses andturns into a kind of reactionary
fist.
David Hunt (15:07):
Finally, why, personally, did you decide to
focus on Julian Eltinge?
Andy Erdman (15:12):
I came across Julian when I was writing my
last book about another kind ofgreat forgotten artist, eva
Tanguay, who was another kind of, in her own way, gender rebel
and big star in vaudeville.
They knew each other, they hadthis kind of sham engagement
together that played out in thepress.
And I came across Julian and Ithought, both from a
psychological, sociological andhistorical standpoint, here's a
(15:35):
fascinating person and it reallyhits that time period, both
from intellectual history andjust kind of pop culture history
that I love.
I'm always drawn back to sortof I don't know New York and
kind of the entertainment worldof like 1890 to 1930.
It's just, it's just fascinatingto me and I kind of dove in and
there's been so muchspeculation about Julian but
(15:57):
there was never a thorough bookabout him.
And boy, there was a lot ofgood.
If you know, I had to dig a lot, but there's a lot of good
stuff out there and I just Ilike to tell stories and so this
seemed like a good one to tell,particularly given the time
frame that we're in.
David Hunt (16:12):
So I'd like to thank my guest scholar and historian,
Andy Erdman, author ofBeautiful, the Story of Julian
Eltinge, America's GreatestFemale Impersonator.
On this week's feature, weheard music by the Voice of
Hollywood, Kyle Cox and theSouthside Aces.
For This Way Out, I'm DavidHunt.
You'd see about 12 to 15 minutes of this very
beautiful and precisely made up,very detailed woman.
So he'd play like the Gibsongirl, he'd play Salome, he'd do
the vamp, the vampire girl, thebathing beauty, he'd do the
college girl, he'd do the oldtime Victorian lady.
And then at the end you'd seesomebody who stepped to the edge
(00:25):
of the stage and pulled off hiswig and was, you know, maybe
stuck a cigar in his mouth andall of a sudden became dude.
David Hunt (00:36):
Welcome to Tell Me, David.
Queer Stories Past and Present.
This story originally aired onThis Way Out, the international
LGBTQ radio magazine.
Conservatives in the UnitedStates have mobilized a
knock-down, drag-out fightagainst, well, drag.
(00:59):
They've put cross-dressing inthe crosshairs, passing laws
aimed at outlawing or at leastrestricting drag shows in states
like Tennessee, Montana,Florida and Texas.
But drag hasn't always been alightning rod for controversy.
(01:27):
I'm David Hunt.
In the early years of the 20thcentury, one of the highest-paid
entertainers in the UnitedStates was a female impersonator
, as drag performers were knownback then.
His name was William JulianDalton, but he went by the stage
name Julian Eltinge.
(01:48):
The foremost expert on Eltingeis scholar and historian Andrew
L Erdman.
His new book, published byOxford University Press, is
titled Beautiful the story ofJulian Eltinge, America's
(02:10):
greatest female impersonator.
Erdman joined me for aconversation about the popular
drag artist who got his start invaudeville.
Andy Erdman (02:20):
Julian Eltinge was a hugely popular female
impressionist, femaleimpersonator, from around 1900
through.
Really the height of his careerwas through the 1920s, although
he's famous until his death in1940.
Exemplar and celebrity of anage when men were doing a lot of
(02:44):
drag of all kinds, some being alittle more cartoonish, camp
comedic, some being very precise.
That was what Julian Eltingedid.
Very erotic, very feminine, allvery accepted as an art form
for mainstream audiences.
And he was just a mainstream,conventional, like kind of
(03:06):
ordinary kind of guy.
That's how he was positionedand that's part of what made him
so popular.
David Hunt (03:12):
If I could go back in time and see Julian Eltinge
on the bill at the OrpheumTheater, what would I see?
What would his performance belike?
Andy Erdman (03:30):
You'd see about 12 to 15 minutes of this very
beautiful and precisely made up,very detailed woman, different
personizations, or differentcharacterizations, I should say,
of women.
So he'd play like the Gibsongirl, which was an ideal type
created by Charles Dana Gibsonwho was the illustrator.
He'd play Salome, which in 1908, 1909 was this really popular
biblical character.
He'd do the vamp, the vampiregirl, the bathing beauty.
(03:51):
He'd do the college girl.
He'd old-time the Victorianlady, the Lillian Russell, all
of these.
So he's also a quick changeartist right, which audiences
love.
And you'd see one after theother.
You'd also see a guy or a womanwho really knew how to sing and
dance and had great rapportwith the audience and just down
to his finest details, knew howto hold and carry himself in all
(04:15):
of these personifications.
And then at the end you'd seesomebody who stepped to the edge
of the stage and pulled off hiswig and was, you know, maybe
stuck a cigar in his mouth andall of a sudden became dude, you
know, and he would say thankyou, and the audience would go
crazy and you'd get all of thatrush of excitement.
I mean, it was, it was, you cantell, it was a real thrill.
That was really his, his magic.
David Hunt (04:37):
Did families come to the shows?
Would there be children in theaudience?
Andy Erdman (04:41):
Vaudeville was just a variety show, all sorts of
different acts strung togetherfor an hour or two, usually a
pretty reasonable price.
There were different flavors ofvaudeville but Julian Eltinge
was really popular in big-timevaudeville.
That was the uh.
These were arranged in circuits, much like, you know, movie
chains are in circuits.
Um, the Keith Albee circuit wasreally the biggest of them, but
(05:04):
there were others the Orpheumcircuit, the Pantages circuit,
and they were absolutelyoriented towards a family
audience.
There were afternoon shows.
They really wanted to get womenand children in.
They would place vaudevilletheaters near like shopping
districts.
It seems that they struggled toget as many women and children
in to see shows as they wanted.
(05:25):
They struggled to get as manywomen and children in to see
shows as they wanted, but stillthe appeal was and it was
supposed to be very free fromsuggestion and free from
sexuality.
The truth was often otherwise,but that's how it kind of
presented itself, sort of a verysanitized, in an earlier age,
perhaps Disney-fied, sort ofentertainment.
So absolutely it was meant forall members of the family.
David Hunt (05:47):
Looking back, gender roles were so distinct in the
early 1900s and I feel likethere may have been some mystery
, especially for young men,around the so-called feminine
mystique.
Was that something that Eltingewas able to play on?
Andy Erdman (06:01):
That's a really good point and I hadn't thought
about it that way.
But I think for sure you havethis notion of the dual spheres.
You have the woman's sphere,which is domestic and private
and soothing, and then the malesphere, which is ambitious and
competitive and public.
Julian Eltinge does like you'resaying gave people, and men in
(06:26):
particular, a way to kind ofpoke through and somehow deal
with that massive and verybewildering apparent difference,
this essential difference, andwondering if it was so essential
after all.
And part of what Julian wasable to do is to at the same
time say men and women are arevery different and I can play
them both.
(06:46):
You know I can play them bothperfectly.
I'm not a transgressor here, soit's kind of mind bending.
David Hunt (06:52):
His act worked on one level, because he
demonstrated the correct way to,as we would say today, perform
female gender roles.
Andy Erdman (07:00):
Well, yeah, I mean, I mean almost nothing says
gender more, the performativityof gender, more than Julian
Eltinge who, at the very sametime, reinforced the essential,
the essential, the idea of theessentialness of gender, kind of
the illusion of it.
It's interesting.
What I think he begins to makeclear unintentionally is just
(07:20):
how performed gender is.
David Hunt (07:23):
Because if the most beautiful woman on the stage is
a man, what does that say aboutgender?
Andy Erdman (07:30):
Yeah, it says kind of that, and this is pretty
apparent that being a woman is ajob, it's a task one must
continually attend to, to kindof rise up to full womanliness.
He does it, he does it twice aday and he even sells products
for women to help them do it.
And there's this idea thatwomen are constantly failing to
be women as perfectly as hesucceeds at being a woman.
(07:52):
I mean, it's pretty, it'spretty funny in a way.
David Hunt (07:55):
How did he present himself when he was not
performing, when he was offstage?
Andy Erdman (08:00):
Certainly when in public or around journalists, as
a very kind of hetero coatedstraight man who was when he
wasn't in heels.
He didn't like being in heels,he liked wearing business suits
and riding horses and boxing.
There's endless pictures of himboxing and talking about boxing
(08:21):
.
Um, he liked to.
You know some of this is true.
I think he did really like tospend time on the land, kind of
working the land.
He owned various estates.
He was a hard drinker, he likedfishing, he liked carousing,
gambling.
He claimed to know a lot aboutbusiness I think he did and he
didn't, but he was just a sortof like, just an ordinary young
(08:44):
man and and the the press andthe media wanted to see him that
way rather than as this kind ofgender rebel, so they were
happy to promote that.
Some have said that he did.
He did male drag as well as hedid female drag.
David Hunt (09:03):
You're listening to This Way Out the international
LGBTQ radio magazine.
I'm David Hunt.
Let's listen to a movie trailerfrom 1929 that features one of
Hollywood's biggest stars,Julian Eltinge.
Trailer (09:18):
Pardon me, Miss Eltinge , would you speak a few words
over this station?
Gladly, thank you.
Greetings, ladies and gentlemen.
Well, here I am, back inHollywood making my first
talking picture.
I have had several ladies onthe set and ladies around the
different studios ask me thisyear as to who is making my
costumes.
I suppose that today Hollywoodleads the world in the making of
(09:40):
gown creations.
You see, we have so manymarvelous movie stars who need
so many clothes and costumes.
That has brought all the finestdesigners from all parts of the
world to Hollywood.
David Hunt (09:53):
Now back to my conversation with scholar and
historian Andy Erdman, authorof Beautiful: The Story of
Julian Eltinge, America'sGreatest Female Impersonator.
Andy Erdman (10:05):
He was a very clever and effective
entrepreneur and marketer and hemarketed himself as this real
professional who took greatpride in his work like any other
professional man, and he spenthours in the dressing room
making up and he came up withall these special emulsions and
solutions and preparations tomake his skin look ivory white,
because of course whiteness isequated with beauty and so he
(10:29):
does a great job of quiteeffectively showing how
seriously he takes it.
And at the same time I thinkthere just wasn't quite the
stigma around men putting ondresses and dressing up as women
.
It just wasn't necessarilythought to be quite the horror
show that some would later cometo to think of it as, both in
the 1930s and 40s and then youknow, as we're seeing in our day
(10:51):
, he was always very popularwith with women.
I think part of themischaracterization of Julian
Eltinge is that somehow he wasmore popular with women than
with men, which I don't thinkwas true.
I think men, for all differentreasons, loved also the kind of
freedom and sexuality andperformativity and illusionism
that he brought to the wholeaffair.
You know, because you alwayshave these men in the audience
(11:13):
saying like, well, if you were alady, I should steal a kiss
forthwith, you know, and likethere's some free.
That's what the theater lets usdo.
It lets us have some freedomfrom the confines that we live
in.
David Hunt (11:24):
I asked Erdman to tell me more about Eltinge's
career in Hollywood, where hegot his first starring role in a
silent movie, the CountessCharming, in 1917.
Andy Erdman (11:34):
Yeah, so after vaudeville Julian Eltinge goes
on to be in these bespokemusical comedies that are
written for him, where he playsa young guy who very much is
sort of Julian Eltinge character, who likes just smoking and
gambling and looking at theladies.
And then all of a sudden hemust dress up as a countess or a
widow or something, which hedoes beautifully and perfectly.
(11:58):
And then there's all theseerotic shenanigans and then he
ends up getting the girl andfinding the diamonds or whatever
, and those are very successful.
I think he gets tired of it andbecomes formulaic and he wants
to go make movies and his moviesare actually successful.
At first he makes three moviesthat are very successful.
They're sort of like 50, 60minute comedies.
(12:18):
I think that they fit in wellenough to what Hollywood is
making at the time in sort ofmainstream silent movie fare.
And then he has a movie that hasto be pulled with the end of
World War One.
It's a World War One themedmovie and it it has to be pulled
because audiences don't want tosee war themed stuff anymore.
Audiences don't want to seewar-themed stuff anymore.
(12:38):
And you know, much like today,the vagaries of the market can
kind of very quickly.
This is what he discovered candestroy a movie actor's career.
And now he's getting older tooand movies are able to do more
in terms of their illusionism.
So he kind of goes from being avery singular kind of performer
at the top of a trade to justkind of another comic silent
(13:00):
film actor, and it's not reallywhat he's built for.
You know, he's able, in a wayhe's more successful than other
vaudevillians who make thetransition.
But his run is a decent one,but it ends kind of abruptly.
David Hunt (13:13):
In the 1920s and 30s , society's views of gender and
sexuality began to change.
How did that impact Eltingecareer?
Andy Erdman (13:22):
gender and sexuality began to change.
How did that impact Eltinge'scareer?
In the 20s you start to havethe decline of vaudeville
popularity and the rise ofnightclub and speakeasy culture,
lounge culture.
Julian Eltinge also starts tobecome more interested in
creating this artist's colonyand this kind of spa retreat
center down in San Diego County.
So he's playing smaller venues,kind of trying to raise money
(13:43):
to keep himself afloat.
There's not the same money invaudeville.
He's not making movies, he goesinto debt.
He goes on tour.
He makes more money Towards theend of the 20s.
You know the 20s is an era ofrelative liberality but of
course forces of reaction, kindof like in the 1970s, are
starting to kind of stir up.
They don't like all thisfreedom.
And then in the late 20s,particularly around the trials
(14:08):
of Mae West and she wrote theseplays that were very provocative
and showed the sexualunderworld and the gay
underworld and a lot ofcross-dressing, and so it starts
to fall into disfavor.
And then of course in the 30s,with everything that's happening
with the economy and politics,there's a real fear cast over
America.
And you know what happens intimes of fear the seeming
(14:32):
cultural transgressors aretargeted rather than the actual
problems.
This is my view.
Problems, this is my view.
And so, yeah, Eltinge, andEltinge is always held in higher
regard because he's always moreof a gender conformer in his
weird way and he doesn't want toraise a stink, he's a little
bit libertarian in his views, sohe's one of the last ones
that's kind of called to thecalled on the carpet and he
(14:54):
eventually has this kind of dayin court.
But the whole, the wholecultural attitude of liberality
and acceptance collapses andturns into a kind of reactionary
fist.
David Hunt (15:07):
Finally, why, personally, did you decide to
focus on Julian Eltinge?
Andy Erdman (15:12):
I came across Julian when I was writing my
last book about another kind ofgreat forgotten artist, eva
Tanguay, who was another kind of, in her own way, gender rebel
and big star in vaudeville.
They knew each other, they hadthis kind of sham engagement
together that played out in thepress.
And I came across Julian and Ithought, both from a
psychological, sociological andhistorical standpoint, here's a
(15:35):
fascinating person and it reallyhits that time period, both
from intellectual history andjust kind of pop culture history
that I love.
I'm always drawn back to sortof I don't know New York and
kind of the entertainment worldof like 1890 to 1930.
It's just, it's just fascinatingto me and I kind of dove in and
there's been so muchspeculation about Julian but
(15:57):
there was never a thorough bookabout him.
And boy, there was a lot ofgood.
If you know, I had to dig a lot, but there's a lot of good
stuff out there and I just Ilike to tell stories and so this
seemed like a good one to tell,particularly given the time
frame that we're in.
David Hunt (16:12):
So I'd like to thank my guest scholar and historian,
Andy Erdman, author ofBeautiful, the Story of Julian
Eltinge, America's GreatestFemale Impersonator.
On this week's feature, weheard music by the Voice of
Hollywood, Kyle Cox and theSouthside Aces.
For This Way Out, I'm DavidHunt.
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