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Marc Jacobs and Todrick Hall Are Guest Judges Monday on ‘RuPaul’s Drag Race’!


April 9: It’s YOUR Birthday, Bitch!

#BornThisDay: Designer, Marc Jacobs

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April 9, 1963Marc Jacobs was born in NYC, the son of a pair of theatrical agents. He was raised in the Majestic on Central Park West, one of my favorite buildings in Manhattan, by his grandmother who taught him how to knit. She also had the charming habit of telling shop owners that her grandson would someday be “the next Calvin”. She was right. Like Calvin Klein, Jacobs would grow-up to be noted for his youthful American sportswear presented to the public in provocative advertisements. Unlike Klein, whose designs embraced a new, clean, classic minimalism, Jacobs’ work looked forward with a nod to what was happening on the streets.

Jacobs spent his formative years shuttling between school and Studio 54. After his graduation from the High School of Art And Design, he entered Parsons School Of Design, where in his senior year, he created a collection of hand knit sweaters (made by his grandmother) which won him the Perry Ellis Golden Thimble Award.

After graduating, he designed under his own label, creating an irreverent homage to 1960’s hippie clothing. Now he designs smart clothing using rich materials for very rich people.

While still in school, Jacobs won Design Student Of The Year 1984 from Parsons. Since those early years Jacobs has won awards, awards and more awards, including: Perry Ellis Award For New Fashion Talent, the highest tribute possible in the American fashion world, and Women’s Wear Designer Of The Year by the CFDA.

That same year, a 21 year old Jacobs met 30 year old Robert Duffy, who became his business partner and BFF. With Duffy as Jacobs’s creative collaborator, and business partner, they formed Jacobs Duffy Designs Inc.

In spring 1992, Jacobs, working for Perry Ellis, famously showed his “Grunge Collection”, not understanding that the Seattle music scene’s look was anathema to fashion. Punk had been anti-fashion, but Grunge was no fashion at all. Besides, Grunge was already becoming something else. I know. I lived in Seattle in the 1990s and by the time that I had gathered my flannel shirts from the Goodwill bins, it was over. Jacob’s took some hard knocks in the press and from the industry. Kurt Cobain was photographed wearing a black T-shirt that read “Grunge Is Dead”. Courtney Love:

“Marc sent me and Kurt his Perry Ellis grunge collection. Do you know what we did with it? We burned it.”

Jacobs was very publicly fired from Perry Ellis. In 1993, he launched his own line, this time with real success. His clothing still carries a rock vibe. Jacobs Duffy Designs launched their own licensing and design company: Marc Jacobs International Company. In 1994, Jacobs produced his first full collection of menswear. In 1997, Jacobs was appointed creative director of the venerable Louis Vuitton, where he created that company’s first ready-to-wear clothing line. Jacobs has collaborated with many popular artists for his Louis Vuitton collections, including Stephen Sprouse, Takashi Murakami and Kanye West.

In the fall of 2013, Jacob left his position as creative director for Louis Vuitton after 15 years. Marc Jacobs International announced that it would spend the next three years preparing for an IPO. A new line of cosmetics was launched. A new CEO was installed. New designers were hired to reinvent Marc By Marc Jacobs, which was started in 2001 as a less expensive alternative to his women’s wear line.

In Spring 2014, Marc By Marc Jacobs folded. Jacobs then joined Instagram, even after he had announced that he was appalled by the whole social media thing.

Jacobs had been involved romantically with some hot Brazilian who was identified as a “chocolatier”, but who might be a porn star, the terms are interchangeable to me, but most certainly he has not had a Brazilian wax. My sources tell me that Jacobs is currently single, although I used follow him on Twitter where he posted photographs of the dude, along with his very cute dog, Neville, on a Caribbean beach early this year. Now I follow Neville on Twitter and Instagram. I like dogs more than people.

In 2014, Jacobs paid just over $2 million for an Ed Ruscha piece at auction, so I suppose he is doing alright.

Today, Marc is the head designer of Marc Jacobs, which absorbed the items and price points formerly available at Marc By Marc Jacobs, and he also serves as the creative director of Marc Jacobs International in its entirety.

He has never had more control over himself, his body, the way he lives his life or presents his brand. When he was 47 years old, the designer revealed his dramatic transformation by going from schlump to hottie. I could look like Jacobs if I followed his example of consuming only vegan food and working out with a personal trainer for three hours a day, seven days a week. Again, proving my theory that it is easy to be beautiful when you are very, very rich. In addition, that wealth allows you to date porn stars.  He still smokes Marlboro Lights. An addict since being a teenager, Jacobs now says that he is done with drugs, including heroin and cocaine, after a stint in rehab in 2007.

Somewhat indiscreet on social media, Jacobs “accidentally” leaked a picture of his naked butt on Instagram last month, after which he responds with a Tweet saying:

 “Yeah… I’m a gay man. I flirt and chat with guys online.”

This past fall, Jacobs somehow spilled the beans on Instagram about hosting an orgy, if 10 guys is considered an orgy, that was organized on his Grindr account. I appreciated that he didn’t deny or apologize. Instead he wrote:

“Why not? I don’t have any hang-ups about those things. I don’t really care. Who’s kidding who? I’ve talked about having hair transplants, I’ve talked about my drug problems, I’ve talked about my drinking problems, I’ve talked about sex. I just think it’s so much better to be honest about those things. I always find it very dubious and I don’t really trust people who deny human instincts.”

Marc Jacobs International’s Twitter information includes the caption: “It’s yours to try”. What a perfect slogan!

Jacobs lives in Paris and NYC. His Paris studio is just steps away from the Louvre and Notre Dame. I can just imagine how he will be spending his birthday.

 

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#HelloBangBang!: A New Gun That Looks Like an iPhone – What Could Go Wrong?

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Ideal Conceal's Double Barreled .380 Caliber gun looks like a phone in a case when folded up

Ideal Conceal’s Double Barreled .380 Caliber gun looks like a phone in a case when folded up

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Senator Chuck Schumer of New York has asked the federal Department of Justice and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives to investigate a new gun that looks like an iPhone before it is released. Schumer said the gun,

…is just a disaster waiting to happen.

On its website, the company promoting the gun Ideal Conceal, shows something that really looks like an iPhone in its case, but it opens into a .380 caliber gun. It has a list price of $395.

Ideal Conceal’s CEO Kirk Kjellberg said the gun would likely be ready for sale later this year and he’s pushed back against the outrage, saying that there are already small, easily concealed guns with more firepower than two shots on the market.

The idea that this is going to cause some new big threat is just not true.

Kjellberg said he came up with the idea for the gun after a young child in a restaurant caught a glimpse of his weapon and pointed it out.

Senator Schumer said a gun looking like an everyday item could violate federal law, which was why he was asking the Justice Department and the ATF to investigate. Schumer spoke out last year against a phone case that made a phone look like a gun (below).

Just like toys that too much look like handguns should not be sold, handguns that look too much like toys should not be sold.

As I said, what could go wrong? How about this statistic, every day in America a TODDLER fires a loaded weapon.

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(T/Y Randy: via Koin)

The post #HelloBangBang!: A New Gun That Looks Like an iPhone – What Could Go Wrong? appeared first on The WOW Report.

#MustSee: This Drone Footage of Surfing in Teahupo’o is UNBELIEVABLE!

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Drone popularity skyrocketed in 2015. People are finding new uses for them everyday and we’ve seen impressive drone footage before. This video taken off of the coast of Teahupo’o in Tahiti takes the cake though.

Even if you’re not a surfer, it’s easy to appreciate the beauty of the ocean being captured by a small, flying unmanned quadcopter. And if you’ve ever piloted a drone, you know how difficult capturing these surf shots UP CLOSE really is. Watch.

(via Hi Consumption)

The post #MustSee: This Drone Footage of Surfing in Teahupo’o is UNBELIEVABLE! appeared first on The WOW Report.

Autistic Artist, Jeremy Sicile-Kira, “Sees People’s Emotions Translated Into Color”

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Jeremy Sicile-Kira is autistic –and ARTistic. The 27 year-old has Synesthesia, a condition that produces a blending of the senses. In Sicile-Kira’s case, he can see people’s moods and auras represented in an array of colors, which he turns into paintings. Jeremy, who has very few verbal skills, told PEOPLE through an email,

I see color in everything that is alive – in people, animals, plants, even butterflies. Color is evident in everything to me. I see people’s emotions translated into color when I look at them. I see more great colors in people’s faces depending on their mood.

Jeremy’s mother, Chantal, says three years ago her son asked if everyone saw people in colors, like him.

I said no, and that makes you special! He has this incredible ability to sense people’s personalities. He can see pain and sadness and happiness and joy. He has a true gift.

After finding out he had synesthesia, Jeremy decided to start making artwork based on the colors swirling in his head. He meets with clients (if they live far away, he can Skype with them) in order to “read” their colors. It then takes him a few weeks to finish the painting.

I can make people happy [with my art] and I just feel grateful to have a way to give back to the world of people around me. I hope [the recipients] feel happy about their life and greatly feel and realize they are beautiful on the inside as well as outside.

Stephanie Rubino bought one of Jeremy’s originals at a silent auction to benefit autism two years ago.

We video-chatted and he asked me questions and got to know me. He used a letter board to communicate with me and I could tell he was intensely focused on me and on finding out who I was.

Three weeks later, Rubino, who has an autistic, received a canvas with waves of blended greens and yellows and blues and purples.

The colors represented me so accurately. It’s beautiful. I could just tell that for him, he’s doing this because it comes naturally and he loves doing it.

Jeremy’s first solo exhibit, Inner Dimensions, will take place in San Diego, California, starting Monday April 11, to coincide with Autism Awareness Month.

He hopes to sell enough of his paintings, which range in price from $175 to $1,800, to one day become completely self-sufficient.

I see beautiful colors in my dreams and I wanted to see that beauty in real life. [Painting] calms me. I love the movement of the brush… It’s like a musician truly playing a beautiful instrument: both have great melodies.

Painting is a release for me.“

As an artist, this is so inspiring and makes me kinda tear up. I know, I’m a sap, but I love this guy.

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(Photos, Chantal Sicile-Kira; via People)

The post Autistic Artist, Jeremy Sicile-Kira, “Sees People’s Emotions Translated Into Color” appeared first on The WOW Report.

#HELP!: Beach Sign Gets 3 Men Rescued from a Deserted Island in the Pacific

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Those movie clichés work sometimes! Three men swam to shore when a large wave capsized their 19-foot skiff on Monday night. Swimming through two miles of pitch back dark in the water before coming ashore on the tiny Pacific Island of Fanadik, several hundred miles north of Papua New Guinea.

Three days after their boat capsized, the men were rescued by a U.S. Navy plane that had spotted the H-E-L-P sign they made on the shore. The crew aboard a Navy plane spotted the men waving life jackets, standing next to piles of palm leaves arranged to spell out four capital letters:

H-E-L-P

Once found, their families were notified and they were put on a small local boat back to Pulap, from where they initially set out to sea.

The Coast Guard was first notified that they were missing just before noon on Tuesday, after which it immediately issued an urgent broadcast seeking assistance from the Navy and vessels in the area of the skiff’s last known location. Two cargo ships helped by conducting a combined 17-hour search. The Navy plane that ultimately spotted the men set off Thursday at 6 AM, taking only about two hours to find them. Lt. William White, a Coast Guard spokesman, said,

Our combined efforts coupled with the willingness of many different resources to come together and help, led to the successful rescue of these three men in a very remote part of the Pacific.

No injuries were reported and as far as we know, their names were Gilligan, the Skipper or the Professor either.

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(via Washington Post)

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April 10: It’s YOUR Birthday, Bitch!


#BornThisDay, Politician, Frances Perkins

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April 10, 1880– When you think about a New Yorker addressed as Madam Secretary, someone else’s name might pop in your head. History seems to have forgotten poor Frances Perkins. She was just one of the most influential women of the 20th Century, that’s all. If they actually knew their US History, those Right Wing Religious Conservatives’ heads would explode trying to grasp the story of the life of this accomplished gay woman. She is a Republican’s worst nightmare.

“The accusation that I am a woman is incontrovertible.”

On March 25, 1911, Perkins was having a picnic with friends in Washington Square when they heard fire engines. Running to the scene of the fire, Perkins witnessed in horror as 47 workers, mostly young women, jumped from the eighth and ninth floors of the building to their deaths on the street below. 146 workers perished as flames engulfed the upper three stories of the building. According to Perkins, that fire at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory was “the day the New Deal was born”. In response to the tragic fire, the NY Citizen’s Committee On Safety was established to prevent a further tragedy in the city’s factories. At the suggestion of Theodore Roosevelt, Perkins was hired as the group’s executive secretary.

Perkins was named Secretary Of Labor by President Franklin Roosevelt in 1933. She was the first female Cabinet Secretary. She dedicated her life to improving the lives of American working-class people even as she faced challenging and complex concerns of her own. Perkins’ ideals would become the building blocks for the most important social welfare legislation in the history of the USA:  Social Security, Unemployment Compensation, child labor laws, and the 40 hour work week.

She started her job as Secretary at the apex of the Great Depression. Perkins pushed for massive public works projects that created millions of jobs for unemployed workers. She reinvigorated the beleaguered labor movement, boosting living standards across the country. As head of the Immigration Service, she fought to bring European refugees to the USA, chased from their homes by those damn Nazis. Her greatest triumph was helping create Social Security… and don’t I know it.

Perkins accomplished all these progressive programs for FDR’s administration while confronting personal issues including a husband who was often institutionalized with severe psychiatric problems and her only child’s manic depression, problems not well understood during her era.

At the same time, Perkins was in a 20 year deeply secret romantic relationship with Mary Harriman Rumsey (sister of Averell Harriman, a Democratic Governor of NY). The pair lived together in Washington DC, hosting parties for the famous and powerful, film stars and politicians. It makes me wonder if the couple played on a softball league with Eleanor Roosevelt and Lorena Hickok.

During FDR’s first year in office, he kept all the lesbians happy by naming Rumsey to lead the new Consumer Advisory Board that had been authorized under the New Deal. Rumsey’s job was to watch that retail prices did not increase proportionately more than the increase that wage earners received. The program was dropped after The Great Depression, but started up again under Obama during our own recent Depression in the last decade.

Rumsey died in a riding accident in 1934. Perkins dealt with her loss by throwing herself into the work on her progressive reforms. Because she had to be in the closet about her relationship with Rumsey, Perkins could not publically grieve. She lost her home which was in Rumsey’s name. Any attempt on the part of Rumsey to provide for Perkins would have raised eyebrows in scandal addictive DC.

On April 12, 1945, when FDR died suddenly, Truman became President. Perkins had served for the entire 12 years of the Roosevelt administration. Although she stayed for Truman’s first few weeks as the new POTUS, she was the first of the FDR’s holdovers to resign. After disagreeing with her new boss, Perkins suggested to Truman that he find a “great, strong man to fill her shoes”.

Perkins wrote a bestselling memoir about her time with FDR, The Roosevelt I Knew (1946). She left this world in 1965, at 85 years old.

Perkins was depicted in a stunning WPA mural displayed in the Maine Department Of Labor headquarters, the native state of her parents. In 2011, Maine’s charming Republican governor, Paul LePage, ordered the removal of the mural, saying he had received complaints about the mural from business officials & from an anonymous source charging that it was reminiscent of “communist North Korea where they use those sort of murals to brainwash the masses”. LePage also ordered the name of conference room in the Maine Department Of Labor to be changed. The room had been named The Frances Perkins Room.

“The people are what matter to government, and a government should aim to give all the people under its jurisdiction the best possible life.”

The post #BornThisDay, Politician, Frances Perkins appeared first on The WOW Report.

#RealEstatePorn: These Abandoned Modern Houses Beg To Be Restored

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Why are deserted interiors so sad? I guess we can imagine the lives lived, now moved on to a new town or to the afterlife. Maybe we’ve all seen too many horror movies, but they just seem creepy. But if you look at them as architecture gems to be restored, then you can see future lives lived in the same once-chic rooms. As with most things in life, it’s all about perspective.

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#RealEstatePorn: A Deserted 57-Room New York Mansion Sits Decaying

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Just a few miles outside of New York City, there’s this sprawling, 57-room mansion that sits on 6 acres. It has a bowling alley, indoor tennis court, two bars, and a library. And its opulent interiors, with grand staircases and multiple chandeliers is entirely abandoned for decades.

Built in the late 1930s, and last lived in in the 70s, the owner supposedly bought lavish mansions like this and left them to decay. The building itself, needs some TLC, but the collections inside remain untouched. If these walls could talk.

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(via Atlas Obscura: Photos, Bryan Sansivero)

The post #RealEstatePorn: A Deserted 57-Room New York Mansion Sits Decaying appeared first on The WOW Report.

Presidential Candidate Levonia Jenkins’ Promises, “RuPaul‘s Drag Race Will Play in the Back of Every Taxi!”

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Finally there’s a candidate for POTUS that is serious about the REAL issues of the day. Like getting rid of those robots on Grindr! Levonia Jenkins has tossed her wig hat in the ring as a PNP candidate. Her slogan,

“Vote for the Weave!”

is catchy. Look out Mr. Trump, there’s a new hot mess trying too grab attention! Watch.

(via Queerty)

The post Presidential Candidate Levonia Jenkins’ Promises, “RuPaul‘s Drag Race Will Play in the Back of Every Taxi!” appeared first on The WOW Report.

Get Into This CNBC Interview with RuPaul, Randy Barbato, Fenton Bailey, and Tammie Brown on Mama Ru’s Rise to Drag Icon!

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In a new piece for CNBC, RuPaul discusses the work ethic it took to become the drag icon as well as a Hollywood celebrity, meeting World of Wonder founders Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato, and his ultimate secret to success!

On his rise to becoming an icon, RuPaul said to CNBC:

You know, I started out in this business in rock and roll bands and stumbled into drag. Drag just happened to be my vehicle for my creativity. So you know, it’s afforded me the opportunity to create new shows, to make music.

For my tribe, the people I found years ago, we’ve found sanctuary in the irreverent, in the off-center, in the quirky … And that’s how we stay entertained and that’s how we stay engaged in what would otherwise seem to be a really cruel world. A really harsh world.

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According to World of Wonder founder Randy Barbato:

The thing about RuPaul is he has always been a star,” Barbato told CNBC. When Barbato and Bailey first met RuPaul, he was putting up posters in Times Square with a picture of himself that read: “RuPaul is everything,” Barbato recalled. “We thought, ‘Oh my god, every minute he is not on television, it is a crime against humanity.'”

From the very beginning, RuPaul’s brand was complete, according to Barbato. The first time he met RuPaul, Barbato said, “He was kind of edgy and dangerous, but completely laser-focused.”

Read the rest, including quotes on Mama RuPaul from RuPaul’s Drag Race star Tammie Brown here!

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The post Get Into This CNBC Interview with RuPaul, Randy Barbato, Fenton Bailey, and Tammie Brown on Mama Ru’s Rise to Drag Icon! appeared first on The WOW Report.

The Time Has Come… For Nene Leakes to Lip Sync For Her Life! The RHOA Star to Channel RuPaul on ‘Lip Sync Battle’!

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The fabulous Nene Leakes of The Real Housewives of Atlanta (and real-life drag inspiration) is channeling Mama RuPaul on this week’s episode of Lip Sync BattleNene wears a Marie Antoinette/Marilyn Monroe-hybrid look (similar to Ru in the original “Supermodel” video) and sashays out on stage serving up Vogue realness with some fierce backup dancers.

Watch Nene WORK below and watch the full episode this Thursday on Spike.

Oh, and in case you forgot:

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The post The Time Has Come… For Nene Leakes to Lip Sync For Her Life! The RHOA Star to Channel RuPaul on ‘Lip Sync Battle’! appeared first on The WOW Report.

Alyssa’s Secret: Alyssa Describes A Day In The Life


Watch RuPaul Put Michelle Visage’s Madonna Knowledge To The Test On This Clip From ‘Gay For Play’!

Adam Barta Had A Moment With Alaska 5000 During Her ‘Cher And Cher Alike’ Show!

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WOWPresents Network Partner Adam Barta caught up with Alaska 5000 and her swarthy sidekick Handsome Jeremy doing an amazing Cher in their new show “Cher and Cher Alike”!

Watch the video to find out what is Alaska’s inspiration for Cher, what her pre-show rituals are, which RuPaul song she wants Ru to give her the rights to cover as Cher, and which Season 8 queen she’s rooting for!

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#Oops!: Trump’s Kids, Eric & Ivanka, Won’t Be Voting For Daddy in New York

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Eric (left) & sister Ivanka aren't registered Republicans. Brother Donald, Jr is a registered Republican

Eric (left) & sister Ivanka aren’t registered Republicans. Brother Donald, Jr is a registered Republican


Donald Trump is favored to win big in New York next week, but it looks like he’ll be two votes short no matter what. Eric and Ivanka Trump won’t be eligible to vote for their father in the closed Republican Party primary after missing the deadline to register with as Republicans. They are both registered are registered voters who are “not enrolled in a party.” Trump said this morning on Fox TV,

They were unaware of the rules and they didn’t register in time. So Eric and Ivanka, I guess, won’t be voting.

The deadline for registered voters to change party enrollment was Oct. 9, 2015, more than six months ago. The deadline to register as a new voter was March 25.

“They feel very, very guilty. They feel very guilty. But it’s fine. I understand that.”

Donald Trump Jr., as well as Donald and Melania Trump, are registered Republicans, the records show. New York has a closed primary and only registered members may participate in a party’s primary. Trump’s younger daughter, Tiffany, 22, is a registered Republican in Philadelphia. (via ABC News)

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John Polly’s Extra Lap Recap, RuPaul’s Drag Race Season 8 Episode 6 | Wizards of Drag

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HEY, DRAG RACE FANS! It’s Season 8 of RuPaul’s Drag Race, and John Polly RUcaps every episode of RuPaul’s Drag Race, on Extra Lap Recap. This week John recaps the sixth episode, “Wizards of Drag.” Featuring the cast from Lifetime’s Little Women: LA.

SPOILER ALERT: The eliminated queen will be revealed, so don’t view the recap if you haven’t watched the full episode!

The post John Polly’s Extra Lap Recap, RuPaul’s Drag Race Season 8 Episode 6 | Wizards of Drag appeared first on The WOW Report.

#BornThisDay: Actor/Singer/Dancer, Ann Miller

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April 12, 1923Ann Miller

I have made it my life’s work to school the baby gays about the great entertainers that came before Beyoncé, Lady Gaga, and even before Madonna. I am talking about those who came on the scene a long, long time ago. Today’s #BornThisDay notable may not be known to you kids. She was often the secondary lead in films even at her zenith, but I think she is fabulous, and fabulous does not come easy.

Ann Miller was born Johnnie Lucille Ann Collier in a small Texas town. Her parents had expected a boy. She began dance lessons as a 3 year old to strengthen her legs that were damaged by a case of Rickets. When little Johnnie was 10 years old she met the greatest tap dancer who ever lived, Bill “Bojangles” Robinson, at a local theatre and he gave her a few quick lessons. She liked tapping and decided to make it her specialty. Her parents divorced and she and her mother headed to Hollywood, determined to make it big in the movies. Upon arrival, they hocked everything they owned, even their automobile, just to survive.

When she turned 11 years old, she was already 5’9’’. Johnnie pretended to be of legal age and she booked a gig dancing for $25 a week at the Sunset Club in Hollywood. She changed her name to Ann Miller. She performed her machine-gun tapping for a thrilled crowd. At the Black Cat Club, she gathered up the coins customers threw on stage to help pay the bills. Her mother received no alimony or child support and this was the middle of the Great Depression.

Miller was just 13 years old when was discovered by Lucille Ball while doing a gig at the Bal Tabarin Club in San Francisco. Ball introduced Miller to the studio execs at RKO. Using a fake birth certificate showing that she was 18 years old, Miller landed a seven year contract, plus a role in New Faces Of 1937 (1937). Her first good role was in the terrific Stage Door (1937), in which she danced with Ginger Rogers, and had scenes opposite Ball, Katharine Hepburn, and Eve Arden.

During this era, Miller had attention-getting supporting roles in You Can’t Take It With You (1938), and Room Service (1938) with the Marx Brothers. Miller was the one who introduced Lucy to Desi Arnaz. Later, that famed couple bought RKO Studios. Miller’s final film at RKO was Too Many Girls (1940) with Lucy & Desi. She took a chance at working on stage and won raves on Broadway in George White’s Scandals in 1939 & 1940.

In 1940 Miller was traded to Republic Pictures where she sparked many an otherwise dreary film. In 1945, she dated powerful MGM boss Louis B. Mayer, who asked her to marry him. She turned him down. Mayer swallowed a handful of sleeping pills and immediately sent his chauffeur to summon her to his death bed. The ambulance arrived first.

Instead of Mayer, Miller married Reese Milner, the wealthy heir to a steel business. They lived together on the largest ranch in California and raised prized cattle. A bully and a cad, Milner tossed Miller down a flight of stairs at their home. She was eight months pregnant and tragically lost her baby daughter. Miller filed for divorce from her hospital bed. Mayer told her: “If you’d married me, none of this would have happened.” In 1958, Miller married her second millionaire, an oil man who looked like the first husband. Three months later, he broke her arm. A third marriage in 1960 to another oilman was annulled within a year.

Miller was still in a back-brace when she danced to Shakin’ The Blues Away in Easter Parade (1948) with Fred Astaire and Judy Garland. Mayer gave her a seven year contract at MGM and Miller gained terrific roles in the studio’s spectacular Technicolor musicals: On The Town (1949), Small Town Girl (1952), Kiss Me Kate (1953) and Hit The Deck (1955). Her last musical film was an odd remake of the classic The Women (1939) titled The Opposite Sex (1956), which I caught on TCM while enjoying cancer treatment, and I thought I might be hallucinating.

In the 1960s, Miller replaced the original stars in the Broadway productions of Hello, Dolly! and Mame. In 1970, Miller had her greatest popularity and became a true Camp Icon by tap dancing on top of a giant can of soup surrounded by  a bevy of high-kicking chorus girls, 20 foot fountains, and a 24-piece orchestra in a commercial for Great American Soups. In the spot, after her big finish, she tapped her way into a kitchen and her exasperated husband says: “Why must you always make such a big deal out of everything?”

In 1972, while appearing in a stage production of Anything Goes, Miller was knocked in the head by a steel beam which was part of the fire curtain. She was unable to walk for the next two years, but her life was actually saved by her famous, enormous, lacquered black wig. In 1979, Miller and MGM pal Mickey Rooney both made comebacks and bunches of dough in the musical Sugar Babies, which ran for two years on Broadway and went on the road for seven more years!

“I have worked like a dog all my life, honey. Dancing, as Fred Astaire said, is next to ditch-digging. You sweat and you slave and the audience doesn’t think you have a brain in your head.”

Miller was still working at the end of the 20th century, appearing in a successful revival of Stephen Sondheim‘s classic musical Follies in 1998. Her last film was Mulholland Drive (2001). David Lynch plus Ann Miller, what a really nutty world.

Miller published a pair of well-written memoirs, Miller’s High Life (1972) and Tops In Taps (1981), oddly a chapter title in my own memoir. She officially set a record for the world’s fastest tap-dancing with 500 taps a minute. Miller writes that she regretted never having children or finding true love:

“No matter what you’ve achieved, honey, if you aren’t loved, you ain’t nothing but a hound dog … I can still tap, but who wants to pay an old lady to tap sitting down?”

Miller took her final bow in early 2004, gone from lung cancer. She was 80 years old. A fan found the grave of her baby, who Miller had named Mary. Baby Mary was exhumed and her tiny coffin was laid on top of her mother’s. They are buried together next to Miller’s mother at Holy Cross Cemetery in Culver City with a view of the former MGM Studios.

The post #BornThisDay: Actor/Singer/Dancer, Ann Miller appeared first on The WOW Report.

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