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Lady
in red (and every other color imaginable)
Auntie Mame reflects on a nearly 20-year
career that began with a dare
By
LOANN HALDEN
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 On
a fateful day during Key West's Fantasy Fest, Ron Wayne was
striding down Duval Street in one of the butch Halloween costumes
he preferred (we're talking gladiator, here), when an accompanying
friend decided he'd had enough of his own feminine attire.
With the pronouncement that he was sick and tired of his dress,
he took it off and threw it into the gutter.
Wayne looked
at him like he was crazy, and rescued the red, lacy garment from
its ignoble fate. At that moment, he announced that if he ever were
to wear a dress, that one was right up his alley.
I
said, 'This would be the kind of dress I would want'
because it was kind of whorey and slutty and fringey, laughs
Wayne, as he recalls the scene from three decades earlier like it
were yesterday. This was back in the '70s and I took
the dress home and I saved it and then when I needed it, there it
was.
And boy,
did he put it to good use.
Only those
who knew him back then are likely to recognize the name Ron Wayne.
Over the course of a nearly 20-year performance career, he's
achieved infamy with his bawdy, over-the-top drag persona, Auntie
Mame.
Like the
dress, the name Auntie Mame came along before Wayne
ever considered doing drag. Two young men he used to hang out with
during Miami happy hours asked if they could call him that, he says.
They
said, 'You're just like the movie, just like Auntie
Mame. You're opening all new windows for us and teaching us
this and that.' I said, 'Call me whatever you want.'
It kinda stuck.
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RON
WHO? Auntie Mame holds up a picture sans makeup,
taken, oh say, a few years back. Before becoming a drag performer,
Ron Wayne worked as maitre d' at several Miami Beach
hotels.
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With
the gown and the moniker, it was only a matter of time.
The Boston native
had left behind his rigid upbringing in private schools for the sun of
South Florida after graduating high school. He shuttled back and forth
long enough to earn an undergraduate degree in business administration
(Which did me no good at all, he laughs), but found his
niche as a maitre d' in various Miami Beach hotels from 1965 to
1987.
My parents
were strict Boston background, he says. They wanted me to
get a college degree and I was really never into it. I just wanted to
have fun. I wasn't the type that wanted to be a scholar.
In 1987, while
working as a manager for the Boardwalk, he got into an argument with one
of the drag queens there over her performance style. She suggested that
he should apply the lipstick where his mouth was.
I said,
'You know, honey, to this day no one can dare me to do anything.'
At that time I had a little beard and hairy chest and I said, 'Even
if I do it comedy-style, I'm still going to do it.' And I
did it, he says with pride.
It started
out as a joke, a dare, a fun thing and it ended up a profession.
Auntie Mame took
cues from performers she admired in her youth. Of particular appeal was
Milton Berle, whose autographed photo hangs among other signed celebrity
shots of the era in her Hollywood, Fla., home.
I always
idolized him. I liked the way he would come out as Carmen Miranda in that
high camp drag look. I modeled myself after him with big, big lips and
overstated eyes, Mame says. I calmed down a little, but
I still have the big eyes.
[Back then] I couldn't lip synch, I couldn't do anything, but I was very good on the mic. I put lots of makeup over my beard. I had [the] one red dress with a hairy chest. At the beginning, forget it, I would only wear slippers with flowers and poofs on them. To this day I wear moderate heels. I went to a thrift store and bought some cheap earrings and necklaces and bangles -- whatever I could throw on that would look tacky and fun.
With the support
of local clubs and friends in the community like gay columnist Mrs. Beasley,
Auntie Mame's career took off. She still has the original red dress,
but now it shares storage space among hundreds of sequined gowns in every
color under the rainbow, enough wigs and feathers to give Cher a run for
her money, and a hat adorned with seafood that would make Uncle Miltie
proud.
Auntie Mame
has her own room and a half now. Mame is taking over one whole area of
my house. Poor Ron's clothes are going to Goodwill. It takes a lot
of space, she chuckles.
I have a
lot of the [outfits] made. I have several people [I use]. I'll see
something I want and they'll design it for me. I go to the stores,
which is embarrassing, to the big ladies' rack. I have a friend
who works for Royal Caribbean and so I'll buy some of their costumes
and headdresses when they're done with them.
The years have
also allowed her to fine-tune her performance skills - without ever taking
it too seriously. She might pull out a standard like Over the Rainbow,
but there'll be nary a Judy Garland move in sight - she once sang
the number with feathers in her hair. The song stylings of friends and
fellow performers Jimmy James (Bette Davis singing Feliz Navidad)
and Randy Roberts (Fag Hag Blues) and the X-rated comedy
of New York's Cashetta (Quick Sniff of Poppers) factor
heavily into Auntie Mame's lineup.
She's particularly
fond of Ruth Wallis (Boobs) as well.
[Wallis]
was 50 years ahead of her time with some of her double entendres: 'Gay
Young Lad from Trinidad' and the 'Pizza Song.' No one
would ever think they were written 50 years ago, Mame says.
These days Auntie
Mame has South Florida gigs four nights a week at Trixies in Hollywood
and Boardwalk in Fort Lauderdale. She pops up a couple of times a year
at Georgie's Alibi in Wilton Manors and makes guest appearances
throughout the state - like her upcoming XXX show Easter weekend at Georgie's
Alibi in St. Petersburg (with the Boardwalk dancers and plenty of costume
changes in tow). New Orleans, Provincetown and Boston have also experienced
the force that is Auntie Mame. In February, she even made her first international
appearances: a two-show stop in Cejas, Spain.
From the
time I put my last ice cube in my triple scotch until the time I walk
out the door, is one hour, Mame says, of her prep time.
Although she ranks
among the state's golden oldies on the drag queen circuit, celebrating
her 60th birthday last year, Auntie Mame shows no signs of slowing down.
Songwriter and friend Chuck Prentiss composed an original tune for her
to mark the big 6-0, appropriately named Time of My Life.
I really
enjoy what I'm doing. It makes me feel very good when I make people
laugh, Auntie Mame says. Whether they laugh at me, with
me, or because of me, whatever it is, it makes me feel good to know that
at least I'm entertaining someone.
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