Halloween was a good night for drag shows: The whole world was in costume, and police were less likely to arrest performers. That may be why Buddy Clark, a former drag artist turned director, convinced Chuck’s Rathskeller club to host his brand-new Miss Gay Atlanta pageant on Oct. 31, 1970.
Atlanta’s drag scene was on the rise. What began as underground performances in basements and seedy nightclubs was emerging as popular entertainment. In Midtown bars and clubs along Cheshire Bridge Road, gay and straight crowds flocked to see female impersonators’ increasingly grandiose shows.
But Clark envisioned something even bigger for Miss Gay Atlanta. His pageant would have 25 contestants, three competition segments and a panel of judges from across the city. And it would take place at Chuck’s Rathskeller, the largest gay nightclub in town, located on Monroe Drive (and now the site of a Trader Joe’s).
Fifty-three years ago, in front of a packed crowd, Debra Danielle was crowned the first Miss Gay Atlanta. The pageant became a legend in Atlanta and beyond, helping to launch the careers of some of that era’s best-known drag performers.
“The Miss Gay Atlanta pageant became one of the first events that cast a spotlight on queer culture, before Atlanta even had an official Pride protest,” said Martin Padgett, author of “Night at the Sweet Gum Head,” which details the heyday of Atlanta’s 1970s drag scene. “That says something about the city’s culture and the influence of drag.”
Here Comes Miss Gay Atlanta
Leslie Ann Newman was part of one of the earliest drag groups in the city, Phyllis Killer & Her Darling Daughters. They played the Joy Lounge starting around 1962, led by Billy Jones as Phyllis.
“There were five of us that had all played around with drag, and he had this big idea that we would organize a show,” recalled Newman. “People just packed in to see it, and that was really the beginning of drag in Atlanta.”
Credit: Courtesy of Billy Jones Collection, Kenan Research Center at Atlanta History Center
Credit: Courtesy of Billy Jones Collection, Kenan Research Center at Atlanta History Center
Newman was a finalist in the first Miss Gay Atlanta and won second runner-up in 1971. At the 1970 competition, Newman performed Shirley MacLaine’s “If They Could See Me Now,” wearing a “little tuxedo tails with a top hat and a cane.” Newman didn’t remember the sportswear outfit — there are no surviving photos of the 1970 pageant — but Newman’s evening ensemble included a white gown with long, white gloves and big rhinestone earrings.
Debra Danielle’s win was a surprise, said Newman. Danielle was an unknown, and fellow contestants weren’t particularly impressed by Danielle’s performance. Some claimed Danielle was Clark’s roommate, whom he convinced to enter the pageant and then fixed the outcome.(Newman recalls the performer’s name as Debra Danielle, though others have recalled different names of that performer.)
Many contestants were upset with the results. Lavita Allen, later a star castmate at the Sweet Gum Head, flew into a rage as the finalists were announced.
“Lavita snatched her wig off and tried to drag me off the stage,” Newman said. “She pitched a real hissy.”
Newman’s Darling Daughters castmate, Ernestine Brown, was so offended at the results that Brown boycotted the next year’s pageant entirely. “She wouldn’t even go!”
As Danielle was crowned, Newman said, Clark unveiled another flourish: an edited version of the anthem “There She Is, Miss America,” tweaked to “There She Is, Miss Gay Atlanta.” The Miss America Foundation evidently caught wind of the altered version because Clark received a cease-and-desist letter shortly afterward.
“So that was the first and last of that,” Newman said, laughing.
‘Icing on the cake’
Clark’s pageant returned with an even bigger audience at Chuck’s Rathskeller in August 1971. British Sterling, a Black drag queen beloved by the other performers, took the title Miss Gay Atlanta. It should have been the beginning of a bright career, but on Oct. 15, 1972, Robert Lyons, the person behind Sterling, was murdered along with roommate Klaus Smith by two men they’d brought home from a party. The slayings rocked the drag community.
“She was one of the sweetest people who ever lived,” Newman said.
When Chuck’s Rathskeller closed, Clark moved the pageant to Sweet Gum Head, the famed nightclub owned by Frank Powell. And Rachel Wells, drag persona of John Green, set a goal to become Miss Gay Atlanta 1973.
“I had entered other contests during the year for fun and exposure, but to be Miss Gay Atlanta would be the icing on the cake,” Green wrote in a memoir called “Teased Hair and the Quest for Tiaras.” “I really wanted it.”
Wells performed “Maybe” by The Three Degrees — not one of Wells’ usual numbers, which were all claimed by other contestants — and smashed the microphone into pieces with flair at the end of the song. The audience went wild.
Wells’ towering beauty had already captivated Atlanta fans, but clinching Miss Gay Atlanta 1973 made Wells a true star, who went on to win Miss Gay Georgia and Miss Gay America.
Clark eventually moved to Washington, D.C., and Powell took over the pageant. Many of Atlanta’s best drag performers wore the Miss Gay Atlanta crown, including Lady Shawn, Taisha Wallace, Tina Devore, Lisa King and Hot Chocolate, many of whom later won national titles. Miss Gay Atlanta eventually faded out but led the way for other drag pageants such as Miss Hotlanta.
Yet at a time when drag performers could still be arrested for wearing female clothing, Clark built one of the most iconic pageants in the Southeast, helping cement Atlanta’s reputation as a drag powerhouse — one that continues to this day.
“I always wanted to be a part of that legacy,” Tina Devore, the stage persona of Tony DeSario, recalled in the book “Legends of Drag.” “Once I won Miss Gay Atlanta 1983, I really felt like I’d arrived.”
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