BONUS NUMBER 133: THE GREATEST MALE ACTRESS OF ALL TIME
(Did You Sleep With the Models?)
Ask me what I miss about New York, and I’ll answer, “Charles Ludlam.” And his Ridiculous Theatrical Company. And of course his partner in life and on the stage, Everett Quinton.
It’s sacrilege to refer to them as “drag queens.” There’s one of those on every corner, with a minimum of talent as they strut the glazed Kardashian look, or imitation Cher, Dolly, Beyoncé, and the rest.
Charles Ludlam and Everett Quinton, on the other hand, were male actresses and as such capable of rocking their theatre in Sheridan Square with louder laughter than you’d hear at a Broadway comedy and then evoking, in Act III of Camille, quiet pity and teary eyes as the courtesan Marguerite Gautier lies dying on her chaise longue: “I’m not suffering anymore, I feel better, so much better than I have ever felt before…I am going to live!” She appears to lapse into quiet sleep, but we know that Death is her final lover.
What brought on the earlier laughter?
Marguerite (to her maid): “I’m cold! Nanine, throw another faggot on the fire!”
Nanine: “There are no more faggots in the house.”
Marguerite: (a sly glance at the audience): “No faggots in the house?” (pause) “Open the window, Nanine. See if there are any in the street.”
Of course these lines can’t evoke the hilarity now that they did in ‘70s and ‘80s New York. The audience was 99% gay with similar cultural and pop culture reference points — everyone had seen Garbo as Camille and some had seen Maria Callas in La Traviata at the Met. Then, too, the initial production of Camille took place in 1973, long before AIDS, and by the 1980s production that I saw the Ludlam legend had morphed to epic proportions. The name Charles Ludlam had touched similar diva heights to that of Carol Channing, Diana Ross, Bette Davis, Mae West…True, those Ludlam heights were vertical New York ones and not yet spread across the nation and beyond, as they now are. His plays are performed in many countries.
Charles Ludlam’s wit remained undimmed even in the cold face of death. It is said that on the day before he died of AIDS in 1987 at age forty-four, a doctor at his hospital bed, to gauge his level of consciousness, asked, “Mr. Ludlam, do you know what day this is?”
“I’m sorry, doctor, I don’t. I haven’t read the Times today.”
Does one of the musclemen in the Salammbô cast look familiar? Yes? That’s because you’ve seen him several times in Did You Sleep With the Models? Take a look at Philip Campanaro in the color spread above. You’ve ogled him without the posing strap right here.
His first Substack appearance, under the model name Lorenzo De Palma, was in Bonus Number 34, which posted September 27, 2023. He returned a year later, Septembr 8, 2024, in Bonus Number 88.
It was owing to our magazine layouts that Charles Ludlam cast him in Salammbô. Like much of gay New York, he and Everett read Mandate and Honcho.
