by RuPaul
Anyway, I’ve always wanted to re-create that moment at the end of the movie when Olivia and John Travolta wave goodbye. I’ve watched this movie about a hundred times, and each time I always wave back at the television set at the end. I’ve also always wanted to play Olivia Newton John. I know her every line, every move, and every nuance in that movie like the back of my hand. So I was really excited about re-creating that waving scene.
There was just one hitch, Elton agreed to do all the famous couples. Except Grease. We went ahead and got the costumes anyway in the hope that once we were over in London I could persuade him. And I did.
Mind you, in terms of coups it really is a toss-up between getting Elton to do John Travolta or Marie Antoinette. When I first met with him in Atlanta, he proudly showed me his latest photos as Sharon—his drag persona. He was in a hotel in Hawaii looking devastating in an enormous hat with a bold floral pattern. I got the impression that he was very keen to do drag in the video, but that his management people were less keen. So we were never quite sure until the last moment if Marie Antoinette would ever appear on the set. When he finally did, he was so bound and tied—those Dangerous Liaisons costumes are very constricting—that he could hardly move, poor thing. Once he ditched the Little Bo Peep stuffed lamb and staff, he made a fantastic Marie Antoinette. And it was a thrill for me, too, because I got to do male drag for a change, as the Sun King Louis XIV.
Elton was a total pro. In between takes we entertained ourselves by playing Spotlight. This is a game where you make your opponent an object. Then they get to ask you questions to try and figure out what you’ve made them. At the beginning of the day we started out with normal, innocent objects—I made him a Rolls-Royce, and he made me a bird fountain. By the end of the shoot, we were turning one another into colostomy bags and boogers. It was the fastest video I’ve ever done. He was a joy.
The single was scheduled for release on Valentine’s Day, which also coincided with the Brits, England’s equivalent of the Grammys. Elton was asked to present this prestigious awards show—which was carried live on nationwide television—but on condition that I was his co-presenter.
Naturally, I was thrilled but anxious; I only had one nerve left—and it was sciatic. Sciatica is an extremely unpleasant and painful back condition where sharp pains shoot down the backs of your legs, even if you are just sitting still. It had been bothering me for some time but suddenly became chronic. At night I would just lie in bed crying with pain. I really missed my mother then, because I would have liked to just call her up and say, “Mom, it hurts so bad.” And I knew what she would say, too, “Ru baby, run a hot bath and put some Epsom salts in it and soak in that.” I could hear her voice playing in my head, and that was comforting. Still, there was no way I was going to do the Brits. In the end I relented. I didn’t want to let Elton down—he had been so good to me.
When I arrived I spent a couple of evenings with Elton—one at his house in Windsor, which is like an old museum. Even Elton doesn’t know how many rooms it has. As he took me on a tour of the house, we stumbled across a room that housed what was left of the famous Elton John eyewear collection, on display in glass cases. I had never seen so many eyeglasses in all my life. He explained that these were the ones that had too much sentimental value for him to part with. The house contained everything you could imagine: an indoor pool, a fitness center, and millions of dollars’ worth of art and antiques. The tour ended on a balcony that was a stone’s throw away from Windsor Castle. Elton’s other house in London is more contemporary. It is smaller, although it too has its own fitness center, pool, and every imaginable luxury as well. Both homes are gorgeous, and every room is filled with fresh flowers.
Elton was always very sweet and solicitous. One time at his house in Windsor, he asked me where my boyfriend was. I explained that he wasn’t with me this time because he doesn’t like appearing as “the boyfriend.” He listened and he said “You know, I’ve had that problem my whole life with relationships because of who I am, and people feeling that they don’t have an identity when they’re with me.” I told him that I’ve had a problem with men my whole life starting with my father. We talked about this, and I felt we really connected, he also having come from a broken home.
On the day of the Brits my sciatica was throbbing, so the chauffeured Daimler assigned to me had to take me first to an osteopath named Dr. Bender. I was in so much pain I could barely stand up. After the doctor did his thing, it was off to Alexandra Palace, where the Brit Awards were to be held. Once we got there they brought in a masseur who laid me out on the floor of my trailer. The show was to open with Elton and me singing “Don’t Go Breaking My Heart.”
RuPAUL’S FAVORITE ACTRESSES
-Cloris Leachman: Check her out in Young Frankenstein, High Anxiety, and The Last Picture Show
- Joan Collins: A real movie star. One of my favorite comeback stories.
- Faye Dunaway: She rules in Network and Chinatown, not to mention Mommy D.
- Susan Sarandon: From The Rocky Horror Picture Show to The Client.. .brilliant.
- Geraldine Page: In Sweet Bird of Youth and Summer and Smoke, she is truly transcendent. A great American actress.
- Cicely Tyson: Go head on, Miss Jane Pittman!
- Agnes Morehead: A fabulous film history before “Bewitched.”
- Beah Richards: Everybody’s favorite aunt. She plays Diana’s in Mahogany.
- Thelma Ritter: Pops up in every film made in the fifties.
- Diana Ross: Nominated for an Oscar for her acting debut, Lady Sings the Blues. The Boss can act.
- Marilyn Monroe: Underrated as an actress. Check outThe Misfits.
- Mildred Dunnock: Fierce on stage and screen.
- Joan Crawford: What can I say, the woman’s acting style is pure Kabuki theater.
- Cathrine O’Hara: I wish I could see more of her.
- Joan Cusack: She rules in Working Girl.
- Bette Davis: Need I say more?
- Jan Hooks: Funny, funny, funny...
- Lizbeth Scott: Greatest speaking voice on film.
- Eve Arden: Give me Mildred Pierce any day.
- Gena Rowlands: You must see Another Woman, Gloria, and Woman under the Influence.
- Carol Burnett: When I was at Bob Mackie’s studio, I tried on a fat suit she wore in a skit. What an honor.
- Edie McClurg: Give this genius her own television show ... please.
- Elizabeth Taylor: I could watch Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf every day for a year.
- Whoopie Goldberg: The most unlikely movie star. A true inspiration for all.
- Alfre Woodard: She’s up there with the greats.
- Grace Zambrinsky: Weird and wonderful.
- Diane Ladd: Truly a trip in Wild at Heart. Must see Alice Doesn ‘t Live Here Anymore andRamblin’ Rose.
- Rosalind Russell: A delight in everything she did.
- Anna Magnani: She makes you feel her every emotion. Rent The Rose Tattoo andBellissima.
- Jennifer Jason Leigh: In Single White Female she used the perfect murder weapon—a stiletto heel.
- Madeline Kahn: I lose myself laughing at Blazing Saddles, but she’s phenomenal in everything she does.
- Carroll Baker: I live for her in Baby Doll.
- Vivien Leigh: Drop dead gorgeous. See The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone.
- Grayson Hall: Night of the Iguana—what a nut!
- Ginger Rogers: A legendary dancer, but an unrecognized— and excellent—actress.
- Audrey Hepburn: Pure joy.
Just as I was about to make my grand entrance, waves of sharp pain shot through my body. I thought I was going to pass out, fall down the stairs, and arrive on stage a bag of bones in a beautiful mess. But I didn’t, and the song went off just fine.
In between awards I would hobble off, pray for the pain to go away, and get into another costume. Changing costumes was about the only thing I had to do other than read all the double entendres that ha
d been scripted on the TelePrompTer. I am convinced that there is one scriptwriter from hell who writes all award shows all over the world. For example, only a few months earlier I had been on the Billboard Music Awards telecast presenting an award with Queen Latifah. “Ru, congratulations on winning the best maxi single sales award of 1993,” she said, to which I was to reply, reading from the TelePrompTer, “Baby, it was the best twelve-inch maxi single sales award.” Then she had the punch line, “Honey, I’m not going to touch that one.” Ho! Ho! Ho! I may be a drag queen, but why does that mean all I am interested in is stupid dick jokes? It was no different with the Brits. The Pet Shop Boys opened the show by laying on this spectacle of 200 Welsh miners wearing mining lamps and singing the vocals to “Go West” by the Village People. Genius. After the number, as the miners went offstage, the line on my TelePrompTer was, “I haven’t seen so many helmets in my whole life,” making a joke on helmets, which in England— only in England—means the same thing as “head,” as in “tip of penis.” Talk about lame. A critic wrote that I did not understand the humor—too right!
In the end, it was all worth it. The single went to number 7 in the British charts and did some action in Europe too, which necessitated flying off—by private jet—to Italy and Germany to do some gigs. I loved doing the San Remo festival in Italy. We had a police escort to and from the airport, with sirens blaring as we raced up one-way streets the wrong way and drove on the pavement just to get to the stadium on time.
A part of my fame has nothing to do with me. I came along at just the right time. After Reagan, the pendulum had swung so far over to the right that my arrival signaled that it was crashing all the way back to the other side. People were curious, opening up, and no longer wanted to be held hostage by their prejudices and assumptions. Spring was in the air!
Because I am not the sole and exclusive author of this process, I have been able to watch it one step removed. That’s why I often think of myself in the third person, not because I think I am royal—although I am a queen—but because I see RuPaul as a product. The RuPaul experience is rather like a ride in a theme park: you put a quarter in the slot and off I go.
At every step of the way during this fantastic voyage, I have been like a kid in a candy store. My progress as a star has been a series of milestones, and as each one has gone by I’ve said to myself, now I’ve really made it. And then the next one comes along. On one level there are the obvious ones that are indicators of reaching a certain saturation—performing on Pleasure Island at Disney World in Orlando (I have always thought of Mickey and me as soulmates), or doing MTV’s Spring Break at Daytona (they ran and ran that thing).
On another level it has been the things that seem the most trivial that have meant the most to me. Like having my own Winnebago for the Supermodel shoot. Of course after San Remo, I am satisfied with nothing less than presidential-style motorcades with police escorts. Then there was the time I first saw a RuPaul poster up on the street, a poster that I had not put up there myself. That was so overwhelming for me, I had to run inside, grab my video camera, and tape it. As I was doing this a friend came by and asked me what I was doing. When I told him, I think he thought I had lost my mind. After that you can imagine my reaction when I saw my very own billboard on Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles. I stood across the street and looked at it for about half an hour—people thought I was crazy then too, because no one hangs out on the streets in L.A. I think I actually cried with happiness. Another one of those sweet moments was when I went to Bloomingdale’s to do something or other, and there was a mannequin of me in the window. Then there was the time my UK record label put up huge life-size posters of me in bus shelters. They were always very generous and spent a fortune on promotion. But they really outdid themselves when they released “House of Love” as a single. For the cover they did a Warhol-like portrait of me a la Jackie O. and Marilyn Monroe. At last, I had my own Warhol!
Generally, this whole process of turning into a pop icon has been a lot of fun. I’ve been used as a punch line for jokes on TV shows like, Martin, Fresh Prince, In Living Color and Saturday Night Live. Then there are the less welcome bits, like becoming part and parcel of Howard Stern’s routine. One week he thought I was a hot mama, then the next week he’d poke fun at me because I wouldn’t go on his show. (What self-respecting person in their right mind would?)
Somewhere along the line, though, the stakes got a little higher, and I realized that I was losing control of the whole process.
The press started making up stories—complete fabrications. Beyond a certain point they have to, because after the first story—“She’s a He!” (which was in fact the page-three headline in the National Enquirer)— what are you going to say? One of my favorites is in the Weekly World News with the headline “Disco Diva RuPaul tells 400 fans to get lost.” According to the paper, RuPaul showed up out of drag at a video rehearsal and demanded that 400 faithful fans be taken out of the theatre because he didn’t want them to see him like that. Well, obviously with what we know about RuPaul, RuPaul would never do that.
Another favorite was the reported fight between me and Boy George, in a nightclub, where he was supposed to have actually ripped my wig off! That was in the British press, where they care even less about facts than in America. On the eve of the Brits, the Sunday Mirror printed a piece about my supposed sleazy past as a star of porno films. They ignored the fact that my films like Voyeur and American Porn Star were avant-garde comedies and treated them as if they were the real thing.
It can be scary. Sometimes I feel like I’ve sold my soul. But most of the time, I just laugh it off and resign myself to the fact that it is all part of the deal of becoming public domain.
And that’s why I feel I have never changed. I’ve always conducted myself as a star. Always.
When I was down, I was simply, from my point of view, a superstar in exile. When the rest of the world didn’t know I was a star, I conducted myself as one, believing that sooner or later the rest of the world would catch up with me. That was why it was funny for me to see people treating me as less than a superstar, because they didn’t know any better. But then when super-stardom really did come knocking on my door, nothing really changed except other people’s behavior toward me. People who wouldn’t give me the time of day were all googly eyed over me. I know what it’s like to be down and I know what it’s like to be up, and I know that there’s no real difference between the two. The only thing that changes is your point of view, and that you can always change. It’s a question of mind over matter.
The truth is that success is something between you and your own butthole. Only you know how far you’ve come. Only you know how far you want to go. Only you know what lesson there is to be learned. This journey is my journey, the highs and the lows, the successes and the disappointments. So whatever it may mean to other people, it means the world to me, because it’s mine, and no one can ever take that away from me.
Everything I know today, and the most important lessons I’ve learned, were all learned the hard way—through life’s painful experiences. The rest I got from television. For example, when I was twenty-eight and living in L.A., I had been in showbiz for seven years and had nothing to show for it. I had no money, couldn’t get a job. I couldn’t even get arrested. I spent the holidays holed up at my mother’s house watching television. And as fate would have it, PBS was running the Bill Moyers series The Power of Myth by Joseph Campbell. At the end of the six-hour series I knew it was kismet that I was there in the place of my birth to watch it. It was all about the goddess, and how, because we live in a masculine culture, her energy hasn’t been evident for about two thousand years. It helped me realize that with the harmonic convergence, the Wall coming down in Germany, the end of the greed decade, and people recognizing their spirituality, that the goddess energy was making her comeback now.
Watching that program also made me realize that I should not despair, because I was a part of that energy, and that there wa
s a place for me in her revival. It helped me see the woods as a whole, so I was no longer lost among all the trees.
My energy is goddess energy because of my ability to open myself up to people. That’s my feminine side. I’m nurturing to people. I am approachable. I don’t bite, and so it’s easy for them to approach me: “Come to me, my hands are open, I will not hurt you, you are welcome here.” That’s my forte.
In today’s masculine culture, hiding our emotions and our feelings is seen as a sign of strength and power, whereas being loving and giving is seen as a sign of weakness. In the presence of the goddess the opposite is true. Strength is being loving and giving. Feminine energy has very little to do with being effeminate. It is not soft and frilly.
Which is more important, the bee or the flower? On the one hand, there’s the bee, busy and buzzing away with typical male aggressiveness. On the other hand, there’s the flower, lying back and letting the bee come to it to get the pollen. The flower opens up to let this happen. In our society we think that the bee is more powerful and important. But the bee’s work can’t be done without the nurturing flower opening up and saying, “Come to me.” There’s tremendous power in that surrender, in being the nurturing one.
The eighties was trouser-wearing, ball-breaking, go-getting at whatever cost and at whoever’s expense. But this is the nineties. We’ve had enough of the masculine. It’s abrasive to us now, and we don’t like it anymore. We are welcoming back femininity, goddess power, and we want that—we’re thirsty for the nurturing.