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HomeMy WebLinkAboutClinton News-Record, 1977-04-07, Page 171 Is she a he? Great Imposters fool many BY CHRIS ZDEB Is she a he, or isn't she?,With costumes and makeup so real, only the Great Imposters themselves know for sure! The Great Imposters is a Toronto based group consisting of four men who impersonate women on the stage. Although 80 percent of its audience realize that the women performing • under the stage lights, are actually men there are always a few skeptics who can't believe that what they see isn't what they are getting. Danny Love, 21, Jackie Loren, 19, Michelle DuBarry, 45, and Rusty Ryan, 29, a -e the Great Imposters, and to the bes of their knowledge, are the only griup of female impersonators in Ontario, maybe in the whole of Canada, who still travel the night club and hotel • circuit. Last week they packed the house every night they played at the Elm Haven. According to group leader DuBarry, the Great Imposters have fans that travel up to 100 miles just to see them perform. 'We're booked right up until next October," he said, indicating the group is riding a wave of popularity right now, quite a change from the low period they recently performed through: "Over the last year we've really built • up the act and our following," DuBarry said. Each of the four men is versatile and flexible in his stage performance that combines comedy and music, but each has also come to be identified with a t specific performer. "Jackie is known for his Cher im- personation, I'm known for my Carol Channing and Carol Burnett charac- ters," Love explained, with DuBarry adding that he had come to be identified with Vicki Carr, and Rusty with a Mama Cess type of impersonation. For months, each of the men studies the character he will impersonate, watching television specials, looking through books and magazines, and at pictures to 'pick up C tails of that per- son's modes and actions, as well as her appearance. On stage, they put together the in- formation they research with the lavish costuming (sewn by DuBarry) that the character is known to wear. A record of the woman each "man is impersonating is played behind the scenes with the Great Imposters miming the voice on stage. Only Love uses his own voice when impersonating Carol Channing. Their ability to copy their subjects so realistically have led many an audience to believe that it really is Carol Channing singing on the stage, even though they have been told that is is only an impersonator. The success of their impersonations rests with the fact that each man likes the character he is impersonating. In fact, he must, to carry out the charade with such realism. "All of the women we impersonate are dynamic performers like Barbara Streisand. or Cher, people whose For the non-bellievers, the, Great Impostors posed to show themselves as they appear off stage. The four men spend up to two hours to make up and dress for 4 their performances. The result is four beaut4ful women who have fooled many an audience with their realism. (News -Record photo) HERE COMES SUMMER! t.rA 10 % OFF ALL POOL CHEMICALS ORDERED BEFORE APRIL 15th BLUE HORIZON POOLS A Division of CHAS. BRUINSMA CONSTRUCTION -RR 2, GODERPCH 524-9804 4 exaggerated movements can be readily copied on stage," DuBarry explained. DuBarry is a 20 -year veteran of 'the stage, almost five years as a Great Imposter. Female impersonators have., come a long way to be accepted as "regular" adult entertainment, but DuBarry remembers when audiences weren't so liberal -minded. ' "In 196; it was something new for a 'straight' audience to see female im- personators, he said. Although they were accepted in 'gay' or homosexual bars, female impersonators were not readily accepted by the gen,pral public. DuBarry's career as a female im- personator began with performances in after -hour clubs. People he worked with in the theatre during the day would tell him about this female impersonator they had seen the night before, never realizing that by day, the impersonator was DuBarry himself. "Then, you wouldn't talk about being a female impersonator," he said. All four Great Imposters experienced some hostility from people who learned of their profession when they started out, but even the majority of their family members have come to accept their act. Most of the people who come to see them perform, do so because they like them, DuBarry said, citing. only one - show they put on in Guelph as being one" number they'd never like to encore. "One woman actually came up to Rusty and spit on his dress," Love said. It was -a --hostile audience composed of a lot of people that Ryan said "could not handle their own minds. "The people who don't understand us are the people who don't want to un- derstand. They come in to watch the show and they find themselves liking what they see, and it upsets them," Ryan said. The majority of their audiences today are quite different. "People today have travelled more ,and are more liberal. thinking," DuBarry said. "Some come out to see you for the first time out of curiousity but they usually come back because they like the show." The Gyeat Impostors put on adult entertainment that caters to a middle-of- the-road audience. While entertaining the audience, the Great Impostors are. also giving vent to 'the hand' in each of them. We've all got a desire to be in show business, and when we perform on stage, we fulfill a need in us to entertainand to be loved as entertainers," Ryan said. Off the stage, however, they are very private people. "Performing on stage is a release, similar to a clown's per- formance in the circus," DuBarry said. "Once we've expressed this release, we go back to being private people." Each member of the group . is' responsible for his own makeup with the' -- right look under the flood lights coming only on stage, after many trys and failures. "The makeup looks good only under the stage lights," DuBarry said. "Once we're seen under normal lighting, everyone can see that we're only men made up as women." Each man must shave -off his body hair once a week: a ritual that all have mastered without much difficulty, but which was pretty painful the first time; especially for Italian Jackie Loren, who said he was endowed with an overabundance of hair. Loren, the youngest Great Impostor, has been with the group for two years. He first dressed up as a woman for a Hallowe'en party,' turning later to perform 'after school as. a female im- personator. Ryan and DuBarry, co- ordinators of the present Great Imposters, saw Loren's performance and later approached him to join the group. A .new -comer to the world of female impersonators, Loren has won five trophies in club -sponsored contests to select the most realistic -looking female impersonator. - "Jackie's won a lot of bets from people who just can't believe that he isn't a woman out of costume,"; DuBarry said. Love's hunger for show, business got him started in the business, and for a small individual it was simple to be convincing as a man wearing women's clothes. He worked with another group, ,...the Fabulous Freaks, who worked out of Vancouver, before tracking down the Great Imposters and being taken on as a group member. Rusty Ryan saw his -first female im- personator seven years ago and became so interested in the actors thathe moved into a house with somefemale im- personators. "Before I knew it, they had a dress on me," he said, "and ever since I've been oh the stage." The group travels together as a family, DuBarry said, and because the group members don't have their own families neat them when they itravel, they adopt each other as each other's family. They don't see themselves as travelling around in the same group forever, but each. Great Imposter said that he would continue to work in show business when he left the group. Even DuBarry, at 45, shows no evidence of quitting the group, though he finds himself wondering just how long he can go on performing When they finally do decide to leave the group, they will be able to take with them memorable moments they will 'never forget: the time Ryan was parading across the stage dressed as a woman only to have his wig snag on an overhead beam and get left behind as he continued to walk on; or the, time an enthusiastic fan grabbed Love off the stage in the middle of a song, and carried him off. For people reading this article and wondering if the Great Imposters are transvestites, the answer is no, and as far as they're concerned their personal sexuality should not enter into how they perform on stage, because as DuBarry explained, that's all it is, a performance, a theatrical act. "We've not been accepted as a high level of entertainment, .yet, but we're getting there," he said. JACK ROORDA DECORATING For Expert PAINTING AND WALLPAPERING Phone 4827862 ti CLINTON NEWS -RECORD, THURSDAY, APRIL 7, 1977 Looks can be deceiving, because the ravishing beauties pictured above are actually female impersonators, the Great Impostors. Left to right, Danny Love, Jackie Loren, Michelle DuBarry and Rusty Ryan, entertain audiences throughout the province, in what is probably one of the most unusual acts on the hotel and night club circuit. Technics by Panasonic. We've got your turntable in Direct Drive or Servo Belt Drive. Technics gives spectacular specs for both! 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