BACKSTAGE AT THE JEWEL BOX REVUE

by Linda (5-F-5)

Virginia asked me to do a rundown on some professional imperson- ators, 80 ав soon as the Jewel Box Revue arrived in our town, I hied myself thither. There's not much to see back stage at the Jewel Box when they first arrive in a new town. Any show on the road as they are looks exactly the same. The big wardrobe trunks, the props, the extra curtains, they all lay unceremoniously at the back of a bare stage, waiting to be unwrapped.

The cast members weren't present the first night I arrived to interview the producer, Danny Brown. He's been producing imperson- ator shows for over thirty years.

"I can tell if a man will make a good-looking girl just by look- ing at his face," he told me I suppose after that many years he ought to be able to.

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"Out and out homosexuals, the effeminate males that mince and prance, they aren't any good. They overdo it."

At first I found this hard to believe but the next afternoon I saw it was true. There were members of the cast all over the theat- er, rehearsing dance routines and blocking out their stage movements on solos. They all wore pants when the rehearsal started out, but as I watched parts of male attire would disappear and in their places tights, high heels, even a wig showed on one crewcut head. But there was no sign of the feminine perfection I had been led to be- lieve existed in this group. They looked like a group of college boys getting ready for an annual show.

They

They

They were of different heights, many of them quite tall. had one factor definitely in their favor and that was weight. all seemed very trim. Even at that the show had to carry its own seamstress.

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"Men are built differently, Danny Brown explained. "We have to take the difference into consideration in their costumes."

All the members I saw being fitted upstairs in the costume room wore Frederick's girdles with the padded hips. Later I watched some of them dressing for the opening night and some didn't bother with the hip pads, but at least half of them do.

55.