Cross-Dressing Gender-Bending Female Impersonators Photo Archive, 1920s-1990s

Female Impersonators

Photograph

[LGBTQ] [Cross-Dressing] Collection of eight photographs, 1920s–1990s, traces the evolution of female impersonation and cross-dressing entertainment across the twentieth century, spanning early vaudeville-era performers through television and film portrayals of gender variance. The archive captures both underground stage culture and mainstream representation, illuminating shifting public attitudes toward cross-dressing in American performance history. Early real photo postcards advertising Francis Blair as “Dancer De Luxe” demonstrate commercial promotion of female impersonation in the 1920s, while later silver gelatin photographs depict drag performers in 1960s stage attire and publicity stills from film and television exploring gender disguise as narrative device. One image references Jamie Farr’s portrayal of a cross-dressing soldier in 1979 television, described in accompanying press text as “the first time a man played a man who would dress as a woman,” underscoring changing media engagement with gender nonconformity.

Collection of eight photographs. Sizes range from 3.5 x 5.25 inches to 8 x 10 inches. Includes two real photo postcards from the early 1920s advertising Francis Blair; four silver gelatin photographs from the 1960s showing drag performers in contemporary women’s fashion; publicity still of Reg Varney in The Best Pair of Legs in the Business (1973); and images of Danielle Carter in tiger print stage costume. Several photographs retain original press articles or captions en verso. The archive chart a movement from theatrical female impersonation in live revue culture to mediated representation in film and television. They illustrate how cross-dressing functioned alternately as spectacle, satire, subcultural identity, and emerging topic of public conversation. Photographs crisp with minimal edge wear; versos clean where visible. Overall very good condition. A cross-generational visual archive of twentieth-century gender-nonconforming performance.

Item #20189

Price: $880.00