97 Fun Facts About Drag Queen

Which female impersonator had a Broadway theatre on 42nd Street named after him in 1912?

Julian Eltinge's theatre was rolled about 170 feet down 42nd Street in 1998 to become the entrance of a multiplex cinema.

In British Christmas pantomime, which stock comic character is played by a man dressed as a woman?

The dame is traditionally a man in women's clothes, while the principal boy, the young hero, is traditionally played by a woman.

What was Divine's birth name?

Harris Glenn Milstead wanted more male roles as a character actor, and he played a man, out of drag, in Trouble in Mind.

Divine was closely associated with which filmmaker?

John Waters cast Divine in Pink Flamingos (1972) and Female Trouble (1974), Baltimore-made films that built both their cult reputations.

Which 1988 film was the last Divine film released in his lifetime?

Hairspray cast Divine as Edna Turnblad, and soon after its release he died in his sleep while preparing to guest-star on Married... with Children.

The annual New York drag festival Wigstock was founded by which queen?

Lady Bunny, who had moved to New York with RuPaul and worked at the Pyramid Club, launched Wigstock in Tompkins Square Park as a spoof of Woodstock.

Wigstock was revived in 2018 by its founder and which actor?

Neil Patrick Harris and his husband David Burtka co-produced the 2018 revival with the festival's founder at Pier 17 in the South Street Seaport.

The Stonewall riots of June 1969 began at a bar in which New York neighbourhood?

Greenwich Village's Stonewall uprising was marked a year later by marches in New York, Los Angeles and Chicago, the first Gay Pride marches in US history.

Marsha P. Johnson, the Stonewall-era activist, was known by which nickname?

Saint of Christopher Street was one name for Marsha P. Johnson, who co-founded STAR with Sylvia Rivera to give transgender youth food and shelter.

Who directed the 1990 documentary on New York's Harlem ballroom scene?

Jennie Livingston paid about $55,000 to 13 of the film's performers, split by screen time, amid anger in the ball world over money.

In ballroom culture, what is a 'house'?

A chosen family that competes together: houses, led by a 'mother', often took in young ball walkers rejected by their biological families.

Which Harlem drag queens are credited with founding the first ballroom house?

Lottie and Crystal LaBeija started their ball for Black queens after Crystal stormed off a 1967 pageant she said was fixed for a white queen.

In which city was RuPaul born?

RuPaul Andre Charles was born in San Diego on November 17, 1960, and moved to Atlanta with his sister at 15, studying performing arts there.

RuPaul's 1993 breakthrough single was called what?

Supermodel (You Better Work) was his first big hit, arriving after years of struggling as a performer through the 1980s.

RuPaul became the first drag queen to front a major cosmetics campaign for which brand?

The 1994 Viva Glam campaign raised money for the MAC AIDS Fund.

What was the title of RuPaul's 1995 autobiography?

Lettin' It All Hang Out recounts RuPaul's run-in with his co-presenter Milton Berle at the 1993 MTV Video Music Awards.

RuPaul's Drag Race premiered in 2009 on which network?

Logo TV aired the first eight seasons from the February 2009 premiere; the show moved to VH1 for seasons 9 to 14 and to MTV from season 15.

Which production company makes RuPaul's Drag Race?

World of Wonder's founders, Randy Barbato and Fenton Bailey, began managing RuPaul in 1991 and steered him through his breakthrough hit single.

Who joined RuPaul's Drag Race as a permanent judge in season 3?

Michelle Visage took the seat after her friend Leah Remini pushed her to ask her CBS Radio bosses, who gave her permission.

On RuPaul's Drag Race, what must the week's bottom two queens do to stay in the competition?

Lip Sync for Your Life usually sends one queen home, but RuPaul has occasionally eliminated both, as in season 5 with Honey Mahogany and Vivienne Pinay.

The show's best-known celebrity-impersonation challenge spoofs which classic 1970s TV panel programme?

Snatch Game parodies Match Game, the 1970s panel show whose celebrities filled in blanks; contestants impersonate stars while answering RuPaul's prompts.

RuPaul's Drag Race's 'reading' mini-challenge takes its art of insult from which documentary?

Paris Is Burning taught viewers 'reading', and before its filming ended, one of its stars, Venus Xtravaganza, was found strangled.

Who inspired RuPaul's sign-off about needing to love yourself before loving somebody else?

His mother: RuPaul says the closing line comes from a tradition of sayings she passed on, mantras meant to realign you, and he says it every episode.

The winner of each season of RuPaul's show is crowned with what title?

Each winner is crowned America's Next Drag Superstar; BeBe Zahara Benet took the first title in 2009 with a $20,000 prize.

Which season 6 winner became the first drag queen to headline Wembley Arena?

Bianca Del Rio designed costumes for the New Orleans Opera and Broadway shows before her It's Jester Joke tour reached Wembley Arena in 2019.

Which season 5 winner also took the all-winners All Stars 7 crown in 2022?

Jinkx Monsoon won season 5 in 2013 and All Stars 7 in 2022, then made her Broadway debut as Mama Morton in Chicago in January 2023.

Trixie Mattel is originally from which state?

Wisconsin-born Brian Firkus built his drag name partly from the insult his abusive stepfather used, calling him 'a Trixie' when he acted feminine.

Trixie Mattel's long-running comedy partner is which fellow queen?

Katya (Yekaterina Petrovna Zamolodchikova) launched the web series UNHhhh with Trixie in 2016; their 2020 book Trixie and Katya's Guide to Modern Womanhood was a New York Times bestseller.

Trixie Mattel opened a themed motel in which resort town?

Palm Springs is home to the Trixie Motel, which she and then-partner David Silver bought and renovated on camera for the docuseries Trixie Motel.

Sasha Velour, winner of season 9, is known for which theatrical drag revue?

NightGowns began in Brooklyn in 2015, and Sasha Velour often performs bald in tribute to her mother, who died of cancer that year.

Bob the Drag Queen co-hosted which HBO series about staging drag shows in small towns?

We're Here had its first-season finale in Spartanburg, South Carolina, halted by COVID-19, so the hosts turned it into a conversation about their own lives.

Bob the Drag Queen's 2025 debut novel imagines which historical figure performing a concert?

Harriet Tubman: Live in Concert, published in 2025, imagines the abolitionist returning to record a hip-hop album with a producer named Darnell.

Which RuPaul's Drag Race season 5 runner-up went on to win All Stars 2 in 2016?

Alaska had auditioned for Drag Race every year since its first casting call, while partner Sharon Needles was cast on the first try.

Violet Chachki took her surname from a Yiddish word for what?

Chachki is a spelling of tchotchke, Yiddish for a small decorative trinket; 'Violet' comes from Jennifer Tilly's character in the 1996 film Bound.

Which 2024 winner became the first person of East Asian descent to win the American Drag Race?

Nymphia Wind, known for banana-inspired looks, won season 16, and weeks later performed for President Tsai Ing-wen at Taiwan's presidential office.

Which two British TV personalities rotated as judges on the first series of RuPaul's Drag Race UK in 2019?

Alan Carr and Graham Norton alternated in the fourth judging seat when the BBC Three series launched in October 2019; The Vivienne won that first series.

Barry Humphries's character Edna Everage began as a housewife from which Melbourne suburb?

Moonee Ponds housewife Edna Everage began as a drab, mousey hostess in a 1955 Melbourne revue and grew into a flamboyant megastar.

Female impersonator Danny La Rue, a star of British stage and TV, was born in which country?

Danny La Rue was born Daniel Patrick Carroll in Cork, Ireland, and later lost much of his savings restoring Walton Hall as a hotel.

The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert follows a bus trip across which country?

Australia's outback is the setting, and costume designer Lizzy Gardiner collected the film's Oscar in a dress made of American Express gold cards.

Which actor joined Wesley Snipes and John Leguizamo as a drag queen in To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything!?

Patrick Swayze played Vida, and tensions on the set ran so high that he and co-star Leguizamo squared up for a fistfight.

The Birdcage, starring Robin Williams and Nathan Lane, is set in a drag club in which neighbourhood?

The Birdcage moved La Cage aux Folles to South Beach, Miami; Nichols wanted Robin Williams as drag star Albert, but Williams chose Armand, handing Albert to Nathan Lane.

Who wrote the music and lyrics for the musical Kinky Boots?

Cyndi Lauper's score won the 2013 Tony, and the story grew from a struggling Northamptonshire shoe factory that began making women's-style boots for men.

In Some Like It Hot, what names do Joe and Jerry take when they disguise themselves as women?

Josephine and Daphne are the disguises Joe and Jerry use to join an all-girl band and hide from mobsters after witnessing a gangland massacre.

Which drag queen's 1961 San Francisco supervisor bid made them the first openly gay US candidate?

José Sarria, the Black Cat Café performer, won nearly 6,000 votes for the Board of Supervisors in 1961 and later founded the Imperial Court System.

What slogan did drag queen Joan Jett Blakk use in her first presidential run?

'Lick Bush in '92!' was the slogan; Terence Alan Smith, as Joan Jett Blakk, had run against Richard M. Daley for mayor of Chicago in 1991.

Which drag queen was appointed San Francisco's first drag laureate in May 2023?

D'Arcy Drollinger got the post after keeping his SoMa nightclub Oasis alive through the pandemic, reopening it in June 2021.

A reported 1959 uprising by drag queens and others in Los Angeles is named after what kind of business?

A donut shop, Cooper Do-nuts, gave the uprising its name, but there is little evidence it happened beyond novelist John Rechy's account.

Which Disney villain of 1989 had her look modelled on the drag performer Divine?

Ursula borrowed Divine's signature eye makeup, jewellery and build after an animator sketched a vampy matron, and early designs even gave the sea witch a mohawk.

In which 1993 comedy does Robin Williams pose as an elderly British nanny to see his children?

Mrs. Doubtfire takes her surname from a newspaper headline that the desperate father spots mid-phone call, and the disguise won the film an Oscar for its makeup.

Which 1982 comedy stars Dustin Hoffman as a jobless actor who wins a soap role as Dorothy Michaels?

Tootsie earned ten Oscar nominations, Best Picture among them, yet won only one: Jessica Lange's supporting turn as the soap actress Dorothy befriends.

Which bearded drag act won Eurovision 2014 for Austria with the song Rise Like a Phoenix?

Conchita Wurst is the creation of Thomas Neuwirth, who ties the surname to a German saying that means it's all the same to me.

Which filmmaker created the gun-toting grandmother Madea and plays her himself on screen?

Tyler Perry based Madea on his mother and his aunt, first playing her in a 1999 stage play before the character moved to the cinema.

Which actor's first film role was Dr. Frank-N-Furter in The Rocky Horror Picture Show?

Tim Curry had already played the part on the London stage, and the film was largely ignored until midnight screenings in New York made it a cult hit.

Which future film star dressed as a woman to live in a women-only hotel in Bosom Buddies?

Tom Hanks played ad man Kip, alias Buffy, who moved in after his own apartment was demolished, with Peter Scolari as his friend Henry, alias Hildegard.

The Ru in RuPaul's birth name comes from roux, the cooking base of which Louisiana dish?

Gumbo and other Creole stews start from roux, and RuPaul is no stage name: he was billed under his full birth name on Georgia's early-1990s club scene.

Which Queen single's video, with the band in drag to spoof a soap, got little airplay on MTV?

I Want to Break Free had the band's drummer to thank for the drag idea, and Freddie Mercury's character was loosely based on a barmaid from the soap.

Which pop star named a 1990 number one after a dance from Harlem's queer Black and Latino scene?

Madonna called the song Vogue after the dance itself, and two voguing pioneers from the House of Xtravaganza were among the first dancers to audition for her.

Which comedian stars as an FBI agent disguised as a grandmother in Big Momma's House?

Martin Lawrence collapsed in sweltering heat while jogging in several layers of clothing to slim down for the part, which delayed the start of filming.

In which comedy do Shawn and Marlon Wayans play FBI agents who go undercover as two hotel heiresses?

White Chicks mattered so much to the Wayans brothers that they walked away from the third Scary Movie, a series they had co-written, to get it made.

Which 1978 French farce about a Saint-Tropez drag club was remade in Hollywood with Robin Williams and Nathan Lane?

La Cage aux Folles began as a 1973 stage play by Jean Poiret that ran for almost 1,800 performances in France and later became a Broadway musical too.

Which actor won a Tony Award for playing the drag queen Lola in the Broadway musical Kinky Boots?

Billy Porter took Best Actor as the show won six Tonys, Best Musical among them, having first played Lola in a Chicago tryout the year before.

The 1994 road movie The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert won an Oscar in which category?

Best Costume Design went to Lizzy Gardiner and Tim Chappel, and Gardiner collected her statuette in a dress made from 254 expired American Express gold cards.

Which actor joined Tony Curtis in dressing as a woman to hide from the mob in Some Like It Hot?

Jack Lemmon played the double bass player Jerry, whose disguise works so well that an ageing millionaire pursues him and tangos with him until dawn.

The title of the drag road movie To Wong Foo refers to a signed photo of which Catwoman actress?

Julie Newmar's autographed picture rides along with the three queens until one of them gives it away to a friend made on the trip, and Newmar appears as herself.

Which 1998 rock musical follows a singer who left East Berlin as an American soldier's wife?

Hedwig and the Angry Inch grew out of sets at a New York drag-punk club, then ran for 857 performances off-Broadway and won the Obie Award.

Which British comedy troupe wore frocks to play the screeching housewives it called Pepper Pots?

Monty Python never used the Pepper Pots name on screen, and Terry Jones was the member most closely tied to the frumpy-hatted characters.

Which M*A*S*H corporal wore women's clothing in hope of a psychiatric discharge from the US Army?

Klinger never got his discharge: Colonel Potter let the dresses continue and later made him company clerk, and like the actor who played him he hails from Toledo, Ohio.

The drag act Verka Serduchka finished second at Eurovision 2007 while representing which country?

Ukraine sent Andriy Danylko's creation, a flamboyant sleeping-car attendant he first developed in 1990, with the song Dancing Lasha Tumbai.

Which British presenter hosted the quiz show Blankety Blank in drag as Lily Savage?

Paul O'Grady built Lily Savage in 1978 from traits of his female relatives, then dropped her in the 2000s to host chat shows as himself.

Which Saturday Night Live comedian played the Church Lady, pious host of Church Chat?

Dana Carvey worked up the character, whose full name is Enid Strict, in his stand-up act before he ever joined the cast.

Which 1970s TV comedian played Geraldine Jones, whose catchphrase gave computing the term WYSIWYG?

Flip Wilson played Geraldine on his own variety series, and one of her lines became engineers' shorthand for text editing that shows on screen what will print.

Which Looney Tunes character falls for a rabbit in drag as Brünnhilde in a 1957 Wagner spoof?

Elmer Fudd stops mid-chase at the sight of the disguised rabbit, in a 1957 film that became the first cartoon short selected for the National Film Registry.

After women were banned from kabuki in 1629, which male performers took over the female roles?

Onnagata became the norm once all-male casts took over, after a ban prompted by prostitution among actresses and violent quarrels between their patrons.

In Shakespeare's day, who normally performed female parts such as Juliet and Cleopatra?

Boy actors took the female parts until actresses reached the London stage at the Restoration, and Edward Kynaston became one of the last men celebrated for playing women.

Widow Twankey, named after a cheap tea and played by an older man, appears in which pantomime?

Aladdin first gave its comic widow the name Twankay in an 1861 version by Henry James Byron, a parody that set much of the style of the modern pantomime.

Which Pulitzer-winning rock musical features Angel, a drag queen among struggling New York artists?

Rent reworks the opera La bohème with HIV in place of tuberculosis, and the actor who played Angel earned one of the show's four Tony Awards.

Which British musical was inspired by a 2011 TV documentary on a 16-year-old schoolboy drag queen?

Everybody's Talking About Jamie tells the true story of Jamie Campbell and opened at Sheffield's Crucible Theatre in 2017 before moving to the West End.

Which singer's 2019 video You Need to Calm Down has drag queens playing her and other pop stars?

Taylor Swift is played in the video by Jade Jolie, one of several Drag Race alumni cast as pop divas, with Tatianna as Ariana Grande and Riley Knoxx as Beyoncé.

In which 2018 film does Bradley Cooper's country rocker discover a singer performing at a drag bar?

A Star Is Born moved the couple's first meeting to a drag bar at its leading actress's suggestion, and Drag Race favourite Shangela plays the MC there.

Which Disney sequel casts Ginger Minj and two fellow Drag Race queens as drag witches?

Hocus Pocus 2 has the trio impersonate the Sanderson sisters during a contest, with Ginger Minj as a drag version of Bette Midler's Winifred.

Which BBC sitcom stars creator Brendan O'Carroll in drag as Agnes, a role first written for radio?

Mrs. Brown's Boys began on radio in 1992 and passed through books, stage plays and straight-to-DVD films before television, with O'Carroll's relatives in much of the cast.

In Norse myth, which god is dressed as a bride in Freyja's place to trick the giant Thrym?

Thor goes in a bridal headdress with Loki as his handmaiden, and the trick pays off when the giants fetch his stolen hammer to bless the bride.

Drag Race star Manila Luzon built a stage name from a capital city and an island in which country?

The Philippines supplied the name twice over: the performer's maternal roots lie in Manila, the capital, which stands on the island of Luzon.

The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, drag activists formed in San Francisco in 1979, dress as what?

Nuns in full habits were the look when three men first walked through the Castro on Easter weekend, and the order grew to use camp for social and political causes.

Drag Story Hour, begun in San Francisco in 2015, has performers read to children in which venues?

Public libraries inspired the idea: the writer who founded it had taken her baby son to library events that she found welcoming but heteronormative.

Which Drag Race season 8 finalist took her name from a British fashion model and a 1990s rapper?

Naomi Smalls pairs Naomi Campbell with Biggie Smalls, and the queen later joined the rotating cast of the Drag Race Live residency in Las Vegas.

Before Drag Race, Adore Delano reached the semi-finals of which TV talent show in 2008?

American Idol viewers met the singer under the name Noriega, when outspoken exchanges with judge Simon Cowell stood out in the show's seventh season.

Which gravel-voiced playwright won two Tonys for Torch Song Trilogy, starring as a drag queen?

Harvey Fierstein owes that rasp to an overdeveloped fold in his vocal cords, and he once performed a drag routine of his own built around an Ethel Merman impression.

In which 1982 musical film does a poor soprano find fame posing as a man who impersonates women?

Victor/Victoria was adapted from a German film comedy of 1933 and earned seven Oscar nominations, winning for its score.

Which activist co-founded the group STAR with Marsha P. Johnson to help homeless young drag queens?

Sylvia Rivera had herself been taken in by local drag queens as a youngster, Johnson among them, and long identified as a drag queen herself.

Before Stonewall, in 1966, trans women and drag queens fought police at which San Francisco eatery?

Compton's Cafeteria was a Tenderloin gathering place, and the clash spilled outside as patrons fought back with high heels and heavy bags, three years ahead of Stonewall.

Drag queens sail to Fire Island Pines in an annual invasion first staged in 1976 on which holiday?

Fourth of July 1976 saw the first crossing, made by water taxi in protest after a Pines restaurant denied entry to a visitor in drag.

Which all-male drag troupe, founded in New York in 1974, sends up the classics in tutus?

Les Ballets Trockadero gave its first show in a second-storey loft in the Meatpacking District, and its men dance the female roles as well as the male ones.

Which drag queen, whose name puns on being caught red-handed, won Celebrity Big Brother UK in 2018?

Courtney Act was nearly called Ginger Le'Bon, and found fame on a TV singing contest before finishing as a Drag Race runner-up in 2014.

Which Texan Drag Race favourite named herself after a child star of the sitcom Who's the Boss?

Alyssa Edwards borrowed from Alyssa Milano when an emcee asked for a stage name, and the surname came later from a drag mentor, Laken Edwards.

Which Drag Race runner-up became the first out trans woman to originate a lead role on Broadway?

Peppermint made the breakthrough as Pythio in Head Over Heels, a 2018 musical built around the songs of The Go-Go's.

Which self-taught star of Harlem's voguing scene later walked the runway for Jean-Paul Gaultier?

Willi Ninja drew on Fred Astaire and haute couture for his moves, and in 1982 he founded a house of his own despite never having belonged to one.