GAY PEOPLE'S CHRONICLE

Pride Guide 96: Section B

Lea Delaria will take Columbus Pride by storm

by Doreen Cudnik

Look out Columbus, because Lea Delaria's coming to Pride, and she'll be bringing her brand of brash, butch, no-holds-barred humor with her. An internationally known comic, jazz singer, and actor, Delaria makes no apologies for being a waaay-out dyke. Her bold style, in fact, led to her being the first openly gay comic on national television when she appeared on the Arsenio Hall Show in 1992.

Today, Delaria keeps herself plenty busy with recurring roles on The John Larroquette Show and Matlock, touring with her comedy act, making a name for herself as a jazz singer, and most recently, winning the coveted job of writing the screenplay (along with writing partner Maggie Cassella) of Leslie Femberg's award-winning book Stone Butch Blues. In her spare time, she continues her quest for the ultimate all-dyke party (who doesn't?) and cruises lucky femme girls everywhere she travels.

Doreen Cudnik: I know that Columbus is really looking forward to you being the eneec at the Pride Rally this year. How did that come about?

Lea Delaria: i think I'ma the grand marshal and that I'm performeme. I don't believe that I'm the emece. They just called and asked and 1

and yes

So, you're looking forward to coming to America's heartland?"

Oh yeah! I was just hanging out with Candace Gingrich this weekend, and she's the grand marshal at Long Beach Pride, and she gets to pick the winning float' Which, I'm totally bummed about, because whenever I'm grand marshal all I ever do is wave you just ride in a car and wave. So we need to lobby Columbus Pride to let me pick the Winning float!

What do you know about the Columbus queer community or Columbus in general?

but a whole lot. Ejust did a show at a college nearby Denton i pr versity in Granville), and we into Columbus. We drove into Co. lumbus and went to a bat Wall Street, and then we the fter-hours party at alled I think the Bank esbian thin:

So you remember Cleveland as being a fun place when you were here in 1992?

Oh, God yes... I had a ball when I was there, a real good time.

You're in Toronto now, are you working there?

I'm performing, yeah. I did their Pride last year--huge.

You get a chance with you job to do a lot of traveling, not only in the United States but abroad. What are some of your favorite places to hang out?

Oh, god... Jodie Foster's bedroom, that would be my most favorite place to hang out. But other than that, I like Sydney, Australia a lot. I liked Auckland, New Zealand. Montreal is one of my total favorite places, and London and Amsterdam. Those are probably the best places for good queer and dyke fun those places are really a party.

I have to say though, I liked New Zealand better that I liked Austra a. Everybody goes to the Mardi Gras in Sydney, but just in terms of interesting gav life, New Zealandmuch more interesting than Sydne Why is that?

The Native peopl aland we called "M

Zabolt in New Zealand there of this mix that happened. They really adopted a lot of the native culture down there as well, and m the Mari culture, there's nothing wrong with being gay. So you can walk around New Zealand and be openly gay. We're not as oppressed down there as we are in other places

They have this thing down there called the dragon boat races, which is essentially the Fourth of July. Everybody's having a picnic and there's huge fireworks and stuff like we have in the States. And I walked around with the girl I was dating down there holding hands and kissing, and no one even looked at us Imagine doing that at a Fourth of July celebration in Cleveland'

Gay and lesbian people have really experienced an increase in visibility recently. When you started in the business, did you foresee that you would be doing things like prime-time television? no i never thought it would! Yourdan't walk out talk about being queer when i started

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What do you see as having changed that, so that an out dyke could achieve the level of success that you have?

Oh, about 25. 30 years of queer people screaming for their rights. We've effected some change.

Speaking of change, where were you when you heard the Supreme Court's ruling on Amendment 2?

Where was ' Actually, I was at the gay and lesbian community cen ter in Los Angeles when it came down. So we all whooped it up pretty big. And I was in Toronto when it came down for Canada. they have their gay rights bill that just passed, and i was here when it happened. So that was pretty ext

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What was it like for you being

the surprise guest on the infa-

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Well, I really don't get that we were making television history because in my mind, there's been other things. Roseanne had a gay wedding just a few weeks before that, and there's been many openly gay and lesbian characters, so I really didn't get a sense that we were making television history at all.

I remember when I was there and we were getting ready to shoot, and the director said, "Are we all ready and I said. "Well, if you really want this to look like a lesbian wedding we need maybe thirty or forty niore fat dykes in tuxedos. And then we all laughed. But the fact is, that was Hollywood's version of what a les bian wedding it wasn't a lesbian wedding it's the male fantasy ve ston of what lesbians are all about Don't get me wrong, because that

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she's a friend. het polies are a clean as polities can be, and she's smart and she's funny, but she's a straight woman period, but at least she apologizes for it all the time!

It seems that even with the in creased visibility of gay and lesbian characters on television and in the movies, so much of it is straight actors playing gay roles.

Well that's because if you do come out, you don tretwork There are very few actors who are out ! always say "Ir. Hollywoodit seka to be gay as long as son restran That's my line 1

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