#bruce vilanch

[drag-tween]

BOOKS Local historian Owen Keehnen talks ‘70s and ‘80s queer nightlife in ‘Gay Chicago Memories: 1300 N. Wells’  - Windy City Times

Some Chicagoans may think that queer nightlife started in the city’s Northalsted (formerly Boystown) neighborhood. However, in the ‘70s and

[queerazonbooks]

🎉 Happy Birthday, Bruce Vilanch! (23 November 1948) 🎂

Here’s to the witty words, the sparkling spirit, and all those unforgettable moments you’ve gifted us—on stage, in laughter, and in life. May your day be as fabulous and full of joy as you make every room you enter.

[bitter69uk]

“There’s only one word to describe rich, dark, beautiful and rare. I’m going to call you … Mahogany!”

Yes! Twirl around in a chiffon cape, drizzle candle wax all over yourself and crank up “Do You Know Where You're Going To?” LOUD! Berserk so-bad-it’s-magnificent camp classic (and the film that inspired everything from Paris is Burning to Beyonce to RuPaul and generations of Black drag queen) Mahogany was released in American cinemas fifty years ago today (8 October 1975). In this lurid rags-to-riches melodrama, perennially fierce Diana Ross (pictured) portrays Tracy Chambers, a poor but determined aspiring fashion designer from the gritty slums of Chicago. Instead, she’s “discovered” by a sexually ambiguous and neurotic photographer (played by Tony Psycho Perkins) and winds up transformed into international supermodel Mahogany. But is success (and her decadent Euro-trash existence in La Dolce Vita Rome) all it’s cracked up to be? Sure, Roger Ebert dismissed Mahogany as a "big, lush, messy soap opera”, but when has that ever been a BAD thing? Writing in OUT magazine, Les Fabian Braithwaite is more insightful: “It's basically 105 minutes of Diana Ross owning everything and serving up hair, face, and body to the gods … I can never stress enough the importance of Diana Ross as a gay icon and Mahogany perfectly explains why. Both impossibly fabulous and impossibly camp, Ms. Ross is throwing tantrums, slapping people, fucking shit up, wearing an endless array of kimonos (as a matter of course), and just generally living her life. If Mahogany was made today, it would simply be called, Yas, Kween!” All of this AND Bruce Vilanch!

[nostalgia-eh52]

People July 15th 1974

Bruce Vilanch

[dorothy16]

via 📕

[colferpics]

Chris Colfer Instagram Story March 7, 2025

[colferpics]

chriscolfer: Congrats to my hilarious friend @/brucevilanch on his new book #ItSeemedLikeABadIdeaAtTheTime. I CANNOT WAIT to read it! [posted March 7, 2025]

[loudmessyperfect]

"Whoopi would’ve made it work"