OREGON S GAY/LESBIAN/BI/TRANS NEWSMAGAZINE
SEPTEMBER 0 2009
show he answers simply: “I t’ll make you
laugh and make you cry.”
Just Call Me Darcelle chronicles Dar-
celle’s life in 10 non-chronological parts,
including his birth in 1930 during the
Depression— “when the high point was a
night out in Portland, which was like going
to Mecca!— to eat Chinese pork noodles;”
how he got his stage name; his relation­
ships with his wife, Roxy and his kids, his
escapades traveling cross country; growing
up the only child of a sawmill worker; and
the death of his mother when he wasn’t yet
10-years-old.
“That was... difficult,” he says. “Losing a
mother when you’re so young.”
Born Walter Cole, Darcelle grew up in
Linnton, Oregon and has lived in Linnton and
Portland his entire life. His family was poor. He
got one pair o f shoes a year, so by summertime,
“the soles were flapping.” Such poverty shaped
his drive to be successful in business.
Darcelle XV Showplace was not Darcelles
first business. H e’d owned Café Espresso,
which had the first espresso machine north of
San Francisco, an after-hours, booze-free jazz
club, and an ice cream parlor before, in 1967, he
bought an old bar in Northwest Portland.
“It was skid row back then and no gay man would
cross over the Burnside Bridge to come here. They told
me that! It wasn’t posh enough in those days. So I hired
a lesbian to run the place and we became qjostly a les­
bian bar, a tavern. Two or three of us would perform a
couple of nights a week, but we had no plan. Everything
just happened as it did!
“A woman named Susan Stanley wrote an article for
the Willamette Week back in the 1970s,” he continues.
“She called us the ‘Best Kept Secret’ and before you
know it people were coming to see us! All the gay men
traveled over the Burnside Bridge now, even bringing
their families to the show.
“Soon we were performing four or five nights a
week. We had to change the tavern around to fit the
show and eventually we were a club and not a tavern.
We got our liquor license, so we built on a kitchen. And
now we serve dinner and do a show with showgirls [in
drag], male dancers, and me!”
Darcelle didn’t grow up with dreams of dresses. One
night, when he was 37, he put on a dress for a perfor­
mance and the crowd loved it.
“And I thought, ‘Here we go!”
The dress stayed.
“I don’t dress in drag outside the club, unless I’m
DARCELLE ON WRITING HIS ONE-MAN SHOW:
“It was a sweat and sour experience. Dredging
up the past is definitely a sweet and sour
experience. But without my past I wouldn't be
who I am -the com ic, the performer."
pu
v Lustrions
V in ta g e D a rce lle (above ), w hose love o f the stage
is evident, a n d in re ce n t times, m e e tin g a n d
g re e tin g a few o f his c a d re o f fans
performing or doing something for charity. I’m not a
drag queen, that’s a different thing. I prefer to be called
a drag entertainer,” he explains, his gold and diamond
‘Darcelle’ bracelet glittering.
It’s striking to listen to Darcelle’s gravelly voice com­
ing out of Walter’s body, the combination. His ostenta­
tious bracelet with the old, red t-shirt and tan shorts.
His shaped eyebrows with his close-cropped, white
hair. The idea that when you do something you love for
so long, your job becomes a part o f your everyday life.
“It’s all about being happy! My life is just what I
Cycle (V W orks
Roxy joined the Showplace in 1975 and has
been its choreographer ever since. He also con­
sulted on Darcelle’s one-man show.
“H e’s the only one I trust to give me advice on
it, aside from Sharon, of course.”
Sharon Knorr worked with Darcelle before, direct­
ing a one-man show about the infamous Divine. She
also wrote, produced, directed and performed her one-
woman show, Why Cant I Marry the Cute Beatle, last
year. She is not only directing Darcelle again in Just
Call Me Darcelle, she co-authored it with him. But they
based much of the script, Darcelle is quick to note, on
an email sent to him by his friend Barbara Dunn.
“Barbara wrote to me and said that if I ever wanted
to write a book, I must do the following— and gave
me a list. So then I called Sharon and said, ‘Here’s our
outline!’After that, Sharon and I met for an hour every
Monday night until we finished it.”
W hen asked if the writing process was a difficult
one, he admits to mixed emotions: “Dredging up the
past is definitely a sweet and sour experience. But
without my past I wouldn’t be who I am— the comic,
the performer.”
Just Call Me Darcelle opens at Darcelle XV Show-
place September 27-28, and then continues a m onth­
long run there in November. He doesn’t perform the
show in drag, though it is obviously a major focus.
W ith a storied life to share, Darcelle has no expec­
tations for his latest effort. “L et’s see where it goes!” he
says. “Just be happy. I t’s being happy that has kept me
so young. Just be happy and come see the show!”vX ^
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want it to be— no regrets. None,” he waves his hand.
“Happiness is the most important thing. As I say in my
show, if you don’t like the one you’re with, leave ‘em; if
you don’t like your job, leave it. Be happy.”
And for those of you interested in astrology, yes,
Darcelle is a Scorpio.
In his 30s, Darcelle met Roc Neuhardt, aka Roxy
LeRoy.
“H e and I were dating before we started perform­
ing together,” Darcelle says. “Roxy had come to us
from the Hoyt Hotel on Glisan and Broadway. He •
was a dancer, famous for doing roller skating in drag
standing on his head. No wonder he had to get his
hip replaced!”
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