by Pamela E. Apkarian-Russell

What do cross dressing, monkeys and fruit have in common? I’m willing to bet you won’t know the answer to this one. Edwardian actress Edna Wallace Hopper appeared in the part of “Little Dutch” in the play “About Town” dressed as a young Dutch boy. Clogging about the stage in wooden shoes, she smoked a long stemmed pipe and blew smoke rings about the stage. Blowing smoke rings became very fashionable among the theater going, salon frequenting crowd.

Though the play is all but forgotten today, it is remembered because of one line, “There isn’t going to be no core.” which caught the fancy of the both the public and caricaturists over many a decade. The artist Clarence Lawson Woods, who is perhaps, best known for his monkeys acting like humans was one of many artists that did renditions of one dominant animal consuming the entire apple, core and all to the consternation and dismay of his fellow smaller and weaker creature. Wood’s monkeys, especially Ole Granpop, endeared themselves to audiences in both American and Europe. His pictures graced many a calendar and were very popular with garages and gas stations even up to the 1960s when it was fashionable to give away calendars with character. Pa and his fellow monkeys appear on blotters which the banks gave away in the good old days when they were locally owned and people could go into the bank and see the same bank employees year after year, call them by name, and be instantly recognized by them in return. This pre service industries era was one in which people had faces and were not treated like crash dummies with names that could and were sold in the millions for pennies. Wood’s monkeys were fiercely independent and extremely individualistic unlike the faceless crash dummies of today. One could relate to them as one hopefully can not relate to the crash dummies.


Tim Burton’s “Ed Wood” about the wacky film maker who was the most inept and unvisionary film maker of all time, portrays Wood as he really was, a man who would steal his girl friends angora sweater and wear it, and a man who made the worst movies ever made. Cross dressing was a very important part of theater entertainment from the early days of the theater when women were not allowed on the stage and the youngest boy got to be the female lead. Years later the musical hall, vaudeville, and theater actresses dared all and crossed the line by showing their legs and form dressed as men. Bernhardt wearing tights playing the part of Hamlet, was showing what she could not, nay would not dare to bare, as a woman. Vesta Tilley was the best known of the cross dressing actresses of her time and there are many postcards of her including those on and off a bike and various stages in-between!

With the coming of television comics like Milton Berle and Jack Benny had a high time romping about in drag. The English have always had a propensity toward cross dressing and the music hall comics took full advantage of that trait and exploited it to the fullest. It quickly spread to America and as if it was okay for the very proper British it was acceptable in the USA. Many European artists made their fortunes crossing the Atlantic and strutting their stuff before a shocked and adoring American public. The actresses of the era, those we refer to as the Edwardians, appeared on the insert cards in tobacco, and tried to look more saucy and seductive than any of the others. They also, appear prolifically on real photo postcards which were sold at the theaters they preformed in as well as in postcard shops and venues that sold such things in theater districts, beach promenades and areas one tended to see the leisurely affluent stage door johnnies and their would be imitators.

Cross dressing has reached new heights with plays like "Victor Victoria" starring Julie Andrews, and "La Cages aux Folles", both of which were made into movies. Perhaps the penchant for furs and feathers and soft frilly fabrics go back to earlier days when men did not wear the same boring-shaped clothing all the time. There is very little difference in shape and style between a pair of jeans and a pair of trousers that belong to a suit. The Three Musketeers, and other movies depicting earlier historical eras, are a perfect example. Capes, feathers in their chapeaus, silk and velvet, tights, frilly cuffs. Etc. etc. are hardly what men have been allowed to wear for the past hundred and fifty years. Men’s clothing has been boring and the addition of an alligator on a shirt or someone else’s name hasn’t improved it. Designer? It doesn’t exist. Damon Runyon’s Gangsters were about the only ones who refused to conform to the norm but then everyone else began to copy them. The sameness of designer clothing is mundane carried to new lengths. Old Grandpop, Lawson Wood’s main monkey could do better, at least it would be more fun. There must be a reason that photos of actors dressed in period costumes, drag, and is outrageous get ups are so much more popular and demand higher prices than those dressed in twenty four hour 9-5 garb! The revival in costume parties and collecting of costumes and dress of different eras may have a definite sociological basis.

When one sees a production of the “Rocky Horror Picture Show” and the audience properly attired as characters from the show you know that there is a great need to dress up and dress to ones tastes. There are some great collectibles from Rocky Horror, not the movie, but the live shows, which has a lively and long standing cult following. There isn’t much difference between these dress up and enjoy the show crowd and the group that lands up in get ups for the football shows. Different strokes for different folks. Frankly, after what happened on Sept 11th, the comic relief is probably healthy. If nothing else it will horrify Bin Ladin and Fallwell, and that in itself can provide healing. Costumes, whether it is one of monkeys, Dr Frankenfurter, or Elvira, are for costume parties or…????? But then I dress Halloween almost every day of the year so you might expect me to feel this way.

Thank Heavens we are living in the good old USA. Happy Thanksgiving