Club My-O-My: New Orleans Vintage Drag

Text

Club My-O-My was a female impersonator club that originated and ended in the French Quarter. It flourished after first being kicked out of an informal, after-hours home in a fur warehouse in the Vieux Carre in the early 1930s, according to oral history in the New Orleans gay community. The Club My-O-My joined the older Wonder Bar in the West End area of New Orleans. The Wonder Bar eventually closed; from the 1930s through the 1960s, the My-O-My served as a popular part of New Orleans nightlife for tourists as well as residents.

The New Orleans club was one of several in the United States whose impersonators performed for heterosexual as well as homosexual audiences. Grayline Tours brought tourists by the busload for decades until a 1972 fire destroyed its lakefront location. The club relocated to the French Quarter for a short while before closing for good. The once risque club had been rendered too tame by the sexual revolution and changes in dress and mores. For the majority of its existence, the club allowed only white patrons and white performers.

The videos featured below were produced in association with New Orleans PBS Affiliate WYESTV-12 in 1996 and edited by Courtney Eagan and Billie Norris.