RuPaul is one of the most famous, most flamboyant, and most talked about American pop culture figures in the world. The utterly regal, seven foot tall drag queen has his own hit television show, “RuPaul’s Drag Race“, several hit dance singles to his credit, and is beloved by people from all walks of life. Ru has been a leader in the LGBT movement, increasing visibility and acceptance in mainstream American life and challenging (and often overcoming) societal norms along the way. Both a source of public controversy and public celebration, RuPaul is the personification for change that New York City offers. Because his is an essential New York story in today’s Flashback Friday, let’s take a look at how this über-creative club kid forged his way to international celebrity.
RuPaul was born RuPaul Andre Charles in San Diego, California in 1960. Contrary to popular belief, RuPaul is his real name, given by his mother, a native of New Orleans. At the age of 16 Ru moved with his family to Georgia and, over the next few years, became heavily entrenched in the Atlanta drag queen and performance art scene. Some readers may be surprised to learn that Atlanta has, to this day, a strong and thriving art/music scene and a large population of gay and queer performance artists – a creative scene that melds in with the famous music community in Athens, Georgia (home of art rock bands REM and The B-52′s).
By the early 1980′s, Ru, performing as RuPaul Charles, was an Atlanta fixture, participating in underground films, singing with several short lived bands, and working as a go-go dancer in the city’s downtown nightclubs.
RuPaul soon caught the eye of NYC promoter Larry Tee, who was putting on controversial Genderfuck performance shows at The Pyramid Club on Avenue A in Manhattan (the legendary venue is still in operation to this day). In ’82 Tee began to invite RuPaul to perform and there the young drag queen found himself quickly making a name for himself in the Downtown/East Village/East Side performance world. In 1984 Mr. Charles migrated to New York City, a move he explained in this video made for the New Music Seminar.
In 1985, still straddling the NY and Atlanta areas, RuPaul started making quirky dance records for Funtone Records, a small independent label based in Atlanta. Here you can see that he was a micro celebrity at The Pyramid Club.
By this time, Ru was fully entrenched in Downtown art and music culture … just another club kid, not so different from those found in the Manhattan and Brooklyn nightclubs of today. This video gives us a glimpse of RuPaul’s day to day life at the Jane Hotel in the Meatpacking District.
This video (also filmed in 1986) captures RuPaul strutting from Times Square downtown to the East Village … a wonderful portrait of NYC in the mid 80′s and fascinating to see how much has changed (and how much as stayed the same).
In 1986 RuPaul starred in a bizarre, short mock Blaxploitation film called Starbooty. Made in Atlanta on a shoestring budget, the movie is now regarded as a gem of underground cinema.
Ru also made an album of 8 songs for the Starbooty soundtrack, released in 1986 as “RuPaul is Starbooty“. Here he is performing some of these early tracks and (his) first proper recordings in an Atlanta club.
By the late ’80′s, RuPaul was a famous underground figure in New York City and Atlanta, while his performances, spread by public access television programs in Europe, garnered him a name in the UK. He finally hit national US exposure when he was prominently featured in the music video for the 1989 The B-52‘s hit single, “Love Shack“.
Buoyed by the exposure from the “Love Shack” video and a decade of successful underground performances, RuPaul entered the 1990′s as a fixture on entertainment television, appearing on numerous morning and late night talk shows, making radio appearances, and performing his drag show in major venues in New York, Los Angeles, and London.
Now a household name, the former performance artist landed a recording contract with Tommy Boy Records in ’92, and released his first album with producer Eric Kupper (see Mr. Kupper discuss working with RuPaul in our exclusive interview here). The result was an irresistibly catchy dance/house album entitled “Supermodel of the World“, released in ’93 that yielded the hit single “Supermodel (You Better Work)“.
Having graduated to the mainstream, RuPaul was invited to present at the 1993 MTV Video Music Awards, which, at that time, was one of the most watched awards programs in the world.
MTV paired RuPaul with television legend Milton Berle. One of the pioneers of late night television, and a man who made his name in the late 1940′s and 1950′s performing a very different kind of drag (dressed as a woman but loud and abrasive), Berle was well known for his abusive sense of humor, insulting the audience as he entertained them. Here is Berle in drag on the Lucille Ball show in 1955.
As RuPaul and “Uncle Milty” were preparing to present their award backstage, Berle insulted the drag queen by groping him and making several lewd jokes which led to this infamous and tense, nationally televised exchange.
No longer the Downtown club kid of yore, RuPaul is now a bonafide international celebrity and pop culture icon. We hope you’ve enjoyed this artiste’s retrospective and we’ll leave you with his groundbreaking performance at MTV’s 1993 Spring Break subsequent to which he was given ‘The RuPaul Show’, his own time slot on VH1.