Leading Lady: A Memoir of a Most Unusual Boy
(By Charles Busch)
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| Author | Charles Busch |
Charles Busch dreamed of being on stage from the time he was a young boy, but it wasn’t until his college years that he finally found a way to let his full talent shine—as a Leading Lady.
Shocking his midwestern University theater department by playing a glamorous bawdy female role in his own play, he discovered that performing in drag for the first time he felt comfortable on stage. It would certainly not be the last.
Charles Busch, a Tony Award-nominated writer, has created a unique place in the entertainment world as playwright, LGBT icon, drag actor, director, and cabaret performer, with his extraordinary gift for connecting with and channeling the leading ladies of show business.
A born storyteller, Charles has a powerful journey to share. He was only seven years old when his mother died unexpectedly from a massive heart attack, and since then, Charles has been searching for loving, emotionally complex mother figures. In his teens, Charles moved to lower Park Avenue in Manhattan to live with his Aunt Lil, who was rather like a Jewish Auntie Mame. Lil encouraged Charles’ artistic talents and dreams and eventually he discovered his gifts for writing plays and performing as a “male actress.”
In short, pithy chapters, Charles writes of his close friendship with the brilliant Joan Rivers, who was his mother figure after Lil’s death, as well as his colorful interactions with such show business luminaries as Angela Lansbury (who observed her first Passover seder with Charles), Debbie Reynolds, Greta Garbo, Elaine Stritch, Linda Lavin, Carol Channing, Marian Seldes, Rosie O’Donnell, Claudette Colbert, Valerie Harper, Kim Novak, Bea Arthur, and many others.
Full of humor and heart, and including 16 pages of photographs, Leading Lady is perfect for theatre fans new and old, as well as anyone who knows the joy of finally finding the craft that makes their soul sing.”
