"More fun than a sex party!" -- Barbette Long before RuPaul eyed that first pair of six inch stilettos or Boy George donned a colorful caftan, a young man from the small town of Round Rock, Texas, barnstormed the stages of Europe's most lavish theaters and night clubs as Barbette, a beautiful aerialist drag queen who became a scandalous sensation throughout the Roaring Twenties. Performing his erotic, high-wire and trapeze routine in lavish, feminine regalia, Barbette shocked audiences by revealing his true gender at the very end of his act. From a child who picked cotton and walked his mother's clothes line to headlining at the Moulin Rouge in spectacular drag, Wildflower reveals long-forgotten secrets of this enigmatic performer: his arrest in London on morals charges, his bout with polio, his infamous collaborations with some of Hollywood's greatest stars - Orson Welles, Vincente Minnelli and Judy Garland, Jack Lemmon, and Tony Curtis as well as his hidden affair with French surrealist Jean Cocteau. Wildflower reveals the startling and at times heart-breaking story of Round Rock's first and greatest drag queen.
"More fun than a sex party!" -- Barbette Long before RuPaul eyed that first pair of six inch stilettos or Boy George donned a colorful caftan, a young man from the small town of Round Rock, Texas, barnstormed the stages of Europe's most lavish theaters and night clubs as Barbette, a beautiful aerialist drag queen who became a scandalous sensation throughout the Roaring Twenties. Performing his erotic, high-wire and trapeze routine in lavish, feminine regalia, Barbette shocked audiences by revealing his true gender at the very end of his act. From a child who picked cotton and walked his mother's clothes line to headlining at the Moulin Rouge in spectacular drag, Wildflower reveals long-forgotten secrets of this enigmatic performer: his arrest in London on morals charges, his bout with polio, his infamous collaborations with some of Hollywood's greatest stars - Orson Welles, Vincente Minnelli and Judy Garland, Jack Lemmon, and Tony Curtis as well as his hidden affair with French surrealist Jean Cocteau. Wildflower reveals the startling and at times heart-breaking story of Round Rock's first and greatest drag queen.
