Pride Guide 1999 GAY PEOPLE'S CHRONICLE

Singer's life, music and coming out explored in TV bio

by Michelle Nichols

I try not to preach at anyone. I think the best thing I can do is just be the best that I can be and be an example.

-Melissa Etheridge on being a role model

Lifetime Television is premiering Intimate Portrait: Melissa Etheridge on June 27 at 10 pm. The documentary follows Etheridge's life and career from early childhood to the present with precision. Narrated by Etheridge's friend, actress Kathy Najimy, the film is sprinkled with interesting com.mentary and antedotes by Tom Cruise, Brad Pitt, k.d. lang and Ellen DeGeneres.

Born in Leavenworth, Kansas, Etheridge had a typical middle class up-bringing. At the age of eight, she received a guitar as a gift from her father.

This event, according to Etheridge, cemented her future. Remembering this instrument, she recalled, "I can still remember the smell of the wood. It was the first time I felt that I had something that was real."

Reminiscing on life in a town best known for its federal prison, Etheridge describes her life as white bread and mayonnaise. She speaks of her first acknowledgement of her own sexuality when at the age of sixteen, she developed a crush on another female student. After graduating from high school, Etheridge enrolled at Berkeley College of

Melissa

started out as "just another midwestern girl with a guitar, and a love of music.

Music in Boston, where for the first time, she met and became friends with other lesbians. She recalls, on film, the experience of walking into a "women's bar" for the first time:

"I saw this whole room full of women, who were just like me, dancing and having a good time with each other. It was wonderful."

She began visiting women's bars regularly, and it was in these clubs that she began to make her living as a musician.

Etheridge left school to spend her time honing her music on stage. Eventually, she decided it was time to take the next step and move to Los Angeles.

Before leaving, Etheridge sat down with her parents and revealed to them that she was a lesbian.

"I gave my father the big build up, trying to prepare him," Etheridge recalls, "When I finally told him, 'Dad, I'm a homosexual,' he said, 'Oh, is that all?'

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Although both her parents admittedly did not understand what they called her "lifestyle," they were very supportive and wanted her to be happy. Elizabeth Etheridge, Melissa's mother, is interviewed and included in this film biography.

In Los Angeles, Etheridge developed a small but loyal bar following. Through a friend, she was introduced to her manager, Bill Leopold. She worked as a songwriter for A&M Records until Chris Blackwell, founder of Island Records, heard her perform and offered her a contract on the spot.

Her first, self-titled album was released on May 2, 1989 and produced the Grammynominated song "Bring Me Some Water." Although she didn't win, she was invited to perform the song on the awards program. This performance propelled her career on to another level. Since then, she has released

three additional albums, which include her Grammy-winning songs "Ain't It Heavy" and "Come to My Window."

Privately, Etheridge developed a relationship with her long-time video director and friend Julie Cypher. Lifetime's portrait chronicles the hardships that the two endured in the early stages of their relationship.

Cypher was still married (to La Bamba actor Lou Diamond Phillips) when her relationship with Etheridge began and it took some time to come to terms with her lesbian identity. However, eventually everything worked out. Subsequently, the couple has been together for ten years, and are the parents of two children.

A highlight of this film portrait is footage from the 1993 Triangle Ball for President Clinton's inauguration in Washington, D.C. Alongside her good friend, country singer k.d. lang, Melissa Etheridge came out by announcing that she was "proud to have been a lesbian" all of her life. Until then, Etheridge had neither confirmed nor denied her sexuality.

Fans of Melissa Etheridge can also see her in the Lifetime movie Jackie's Back (see below) on June 14 at 9 p.m. In August, Etheridge uses her talent as a storyteller to host How Could it Happen, a weekly prime time, reality-based series that will feature compelling true stories from women who have encountered twists of fate that have changed their lives.

'Mockumentary' dishes divas, with a big laugh

by Jeffrey L. Newman

Jennifer Lewis might as well be a gay man trapped in the body of a black woman.

"Child please, they made me. I'd say that to the world," says Lewis, as she breaks into a chorus of the gay anthem, "I Am What I Am."

"When I was doing the clubs in the '80s, gay men were the ones who came out for me. The gay boys really love me, they really do, and I love them."

The actress and night club performer, who caused quite a stir in 1995 playing the lesbian judge on the Robin Givens-Patricia Wetig TV show Courthouse, is set to leap from relative obscurity to household relativity with her brilliant Divas Live mockumentary Jackie's Back.

The Lifetime ("Television for Women"-and gay men) original film, which is based on characters Lewis created in her one-woman show over the last 20 years, airs June 14 at 9 pm. Written with a definite gay sensibility, the twohour telepic is a laugh-a-minute take-off on those estrogen-rich, attitude-heavy, backbiting, ego-stroking VH-1 specials.

"There's everything here from Eve Harrington and Margo Channing to Norma Desmond. It's hilarious-more than a hoot. When people come away from this, they will be entertained," says the 42year old performer, who got her

start as one of Bette Midler's infamous Harlettes.

"With everything going on in the world, this is the kind of diversion we need. When I heard about what happened in Colorado, I was heartbroken. From that moment, I said thank God there's no gun in my movie. We need something to make us laugh and smile. And this will.”

It doesn't hurt either that the show's lineup is a gay man's dream list: Tim Curry, Whoopi Goldberg, David Hyde Pierce, Jobeth Williams and Julie Hagerty, plus Bette Midler, Liza Minnelli, Dolly Parton, Melissa Etheridge, Grace Slick, Diahann Carroll, Penny Marshall and Rosie O'Donnell. Dragster RuPaul, who Lewis had hoped would appear, bagged out at the last minute. "I made this movie for the gay children and the chocolate children,” says Lewis. “If the people in Idaho get it, fine. But it's really

for those who do get it-especially gay men. I love 'em for it."

Jackie's Back chronicles Jackie Washington, played by Lewis, a former one-hit wonder singer, who has as much diva attitude as she does talent. When a pompous English documentarian (Curry) gets the assignment to profile Washington on the eve of her comeback concert in Hollywood, he is mor-

The fictional Jackie Washington (Jennifer Lewis) in her first-and last film role.

tified to find out that she is considered a washed up has-been with a longer list of enemies than fans.

The result is a fabulous, raunchy and raucous comedy-a cross between The Women, Rocky Horror Picture Show and Valley of the Dolls, with a little AbFab tossed in.

"It's definitely all of that. It's got pieces of Tina, Billie, Bette [Davis], Diana, Judy, all of them in it. I hope it becomes a cult hit," Lewis says. "It's not me pointing my finger at anybody. My favorite is to make fun of me, and laugh at myself a little. This vehicle allowed me to do it all, and be funny."

Born and raised in the St. Louis suburb of Kinloch, Mo., Lewis says she's wanted to perform since she first performed in church when she was five-years-old.

Since her days as a Harlette, she's been featured in more then a dozen films, including Girl 6, Poetic Justice, Meteor Man, The

Mighty, What's Love Got To Do With It (as Tina Turner's mother) and The Preacher's Wife. The latter two movies earned her Image Award nominations for Best Supporting Actress. Later this year she can be seen in Mystery Man, with Ben Stiller, and Cast Away, with Tom Hanks.

Over the last two decades she has also been honing her cabaret act, from which Jackie's Back was born. "I've never had to compromise in my career," she says. “The thing about my career is that I've never done just one thing I've been a singer, actress, comedienne. I became an entertainer's entertainer. That's why they all came out for me people like Sidney Poitier, Nina Simone, Lena Horne-I'm telling people the truth. It's been an amazing journey."

The film, which took about a year-andhalf to complete, from concept to fruition, is a melting pot of all the various characters she's created over the years..

While Lewis is still relatively unknown, getting the stars to line-up for her star-turn debut wasn't difficult. First she called Goldberg, who been a friend since they did Sister Act, Sister Act II and Corrina, Corrina together. Then she rang up Midler, her former boss, who jumped on board the project.

"Bette's always been in my corner. And once I had Whoopi and Bette, it was easy to get Rosie, and then Penny," Lewis recalls. "I am really humbled. No one hesitated. They were all saying, 'It's time for Jennifer to get her day in the sun.' And once Marc Shaiman (Patch Adams) agreed to score, I really knew what the words 'amazing grace' meant."

As for the state of diva-ism itself, Lewis laughs off the entire idea of it.

"Anyone who calls themselves a diva is full of shit. There are only about ten true divas in the world—people like Maria Callas, Leontyne Price, Jesse Norman,” she says. Is she one of them?

"Hell yes. Absolutely. And I'm full of shit too," she says with a giant diva-esque laugh. "Anyone taking it seriously is in a lot of trouble."

Lewis says she is much more a diva of AIDS activism than a diva of the stage. A long-time AIDS fundraiser, Lewis has performed at everything from AIDS Project Los Angeles to small club venues around the country. Over the past 20 years, she's lost more than 200 of her "boys" to the disease.

"I can tell you every name on that list of 200 names. These are the guys who raised People like Michael Bennett from Dreamgirls. They dressed me and told me which songs to sing, which clothes to wear

me.

and how to walk on air. I lost a lot of angels," says Lewis. "This movie is for them. It's my way of saying, 'Yeah, I didn't compromise. I laid it on the line and laid down the law and never shied away-all because of you.”

She used take part in an Los Angeles fundraiser called Dives for Bolts

Whert

a half-dozen female performers would get in limousines and go to various gay clubs. They would sing for 15 minutes, while club patrons would throw money into a hat. Then they'd jump back into the limo and dash to the next club. The one-night-only event would raise thousands of dollars for people with HIV and AIDS.

"The gay boys gave to me and I gave back," she adds. "They were my family. It was all I ever knew."

As for Jackie's Back, Lewis says she hopes to demystify the myth.

"It's a very profound show trying to dismiss the diva," she says.

It wouldn't disappoint her either if it helped to raise her star status, too.

"If it doesn't, it will be okay, because with Jackie I can always say, 'Hey, you did all right. It wasn't you, it was them, and fuck them.'

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Spoken as a true diva.

Jeffrey L. Newman is a freelance writer living in New York. He can be e-mailed at editorjeff@aol.com.`

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