{"id":12877,"date":"2017-04-27T17:54:13","date_gmt":"2017-04-27T21:54:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/?p=12877"},"modified":"2017-05-04T10:05:07","modified_gmt":"2017-05-04T14:05:07","slug":"material-girl","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/material-girl\/","title":{"rendered":"Material Girl"},"content":{"rendered":"

May 2017 | view this story as a .pdf<\/a><\/p>\n

One of the first professional female impersonators<\/strong> in America, Tom Martelle<\/strong> was a star of the 1920s stage<\/strong> and a regular sensation in Maine. <\/span><\/h3>\n

By William D. Barry & Danielle Fazio<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\"May-17-Tommy\"Who\u2019s the fine-looking girl over there who just nodded to you? I wouldn\u2019t mind knowing her myself,\u201d writes journalist Philip B. Sharpe for Sun-Up Magazine<\/em> in May, 1925, a glossy publication in vogue from 1923 to 1932. The \u201cgirl\u201d in question was in fact a Mr. Tom Martelle <\/strong>(alternately spelled Martell), one of the most celebrated female impersonators of the era and a keen visitor to Vacationland. The story, tucked between articles about \u201cWet and Dry Fishing\u201d and the Quoddy Hydro Project, and styled \u201cA Case of Dual Personality\u2013But No Jekyll and Hyde,\u201d may have come as a surprise to Sun-Up<\/em> readers more used to the magazine\u2019s usual modus operandi<\/em>: \u201cResort features\u2026Adventure, Romance, Beautiful Pictures\u2013a magazine just chock full of good things.\u201d More enticingly, the story captures female impersonation and vaudeville theater in New York, punctuated with two photographs of Martelle, in and out of drag, captioned \u201cTommy the Boy\u201d and \u201cTommy the Girl.\u201d Adventure, romance, and beautiful pictures: check, check, and checkmate. <\/span><\/p>\n

Although Martelle had been astonishing East Coast audiences since 1911 (his sheet music\u2013words and music by Martelle\u2013can still be found in flea markets, antique shops, and on eBay), information about the performer is scarce. Almost nothing can be read about him beyond the 1930s. The Sun-Up <\/em>feature captures rare details about this forgotten figure. Sharpe writes that Martelle was born in Los Angeles, \u201ctwenty-eight years ago this month,\u201d placing his birth date in 1897. He often visited Maine to perform at the Jefferson Theater on Free Street and enjoy the open roads. \u201cMotoring has always had a strong appeal to Mr. Martelle, and the State of Maine has been visited by him during several vacation tours in the past few years.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

Just five years later, Martelle\u2019s name disappears almost completely from the playbills of history. In the 21st century, his obit is still below the digital radar. Conversely, his brief but brilliant career is well documented in newspaper clippings and promotional materials of the era. <\/span><\/p>\n

Emerging onto the show business scene in 1911, Martelle was billed as \u201cThe Boy With the Pretty Gowns.\u201d \u201c[Martelle\u2019s] success continued to build by the end of the teens when he was in a production of Julian Eltinge\u2019s famous musical The Fascinating Widow,<\/em>\u201d says JD Doyle<\/strong> of the Queer Music Heritage<\/strong> radio show. \u201cEltinge was definitely the most famous female impersonator of the time\u2013he even had a New York theater named for him [Eltinge 42nd Street Theatre, now Empire Theater].\u201d Martelle\u2019s big break came in 1923 with the release of the musical comedy The Gay Young Bride,<\/em> followed by The Fashion Girl<\/em>, Some Girls<\/em>, and Glorious Annabelle<\/em>. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cOne clue to his popularity is that he was among the very few whose image was used in the venue advertisements of the time,\u201d Doyle says. \u201cThe most common billing given to him was as \u2018The Foremost Delineator of Feminine Types.\u2019 He was especially known for his dazzling costumes.\u201d Doyle is both intrigued and frustrated by the shooting star of Tommy Martelle. \u201cSo, what happened to him after the 1920s? I\u2019d love to know.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

Naughty Vacationland\u2013A Vanishing Act<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

The Sun-Up<\/em> exchange offers a unique insight into the temper of the times. A May, 1925 Portland newspaper article lists scandalous local personalities tongue-in-cheek: \u201cCharmatta Ballad, a musician;\u201d \u201cLillian Fairservice, a maid;\u201d and \u201cCatherine King [who] lives next door to George Queen.\u201d Mirroring this, the city was up for grabs. Large downtown buildings were under construction, Prohibition was being giddily ignored, and in slick local periodicals, writers were crafting cheeky shorts such as \u201cHow to be Successful With Men\u201d and \u201cThe Flapper in Search of a Husband.\u201d Indeed, Rockland-born poet Edna St. Vincent Millay (\u201cMy candle burns at both ends\u201d) was the very spirit of the Flaming Youth and Roaring Twenties caprice. When it suited her, she wore trousers and daringly took on the persona of Vincent.<\/span><\/p>\n

But the fun couldn\u2019t last. Following the financial crash of 1929 and the Great Depression, Portland was one of the most financially flattened communities in the country. The Jefferson Theater (where John Wilkes Booth performed, and where local performing \u201creached its peak of excellence\u201d) was torn down in 1933, Millay faded somewhat from the limelight (though she returned to Ragged Island, off Orr\u2019s Island, each summer), and no one seems to know what became of Tom Martelle. Austerity tightened its belt on the glamour of the twenties, and throughout America, local laws such as Detroit\u2019s 1944 ordinance prohibited people from appearing in the \u201cdress of the opposite sex.\u201d And with the shifting tides of culture, \u201cThe Foremost Delineator of Feminine Types\u201d seems to be lost to the footnotes and ephemera of history. <\/span><\/p>\n

The Man Behind the Make-Up<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

The art of female impersonation may have titillated a 1920s readership, but from a modern perspective, the gender bias and gender anxiety may be the most striking fact of the story. Sharpe is quick to expound upon Martelle\u2019s masculinity, \u201cMr. Martelle is a real he-man. Off stage he has none of the feminine traits which I have found in other female impersonators and costume models that I have met.\u201d Martelle himself indulges in some hedged political correctness: \u201cGirls, as a rule, act more than men. They are continually acting\u2026I am casting no insult against their sex\u2013If I was a woman-hater, I never would be working in this profession.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Sun-Up <\/em>story ends with beauty advice for Martelle\u2019s female fans. \u201cWhen you get right down to it, you can\u2019t fool the men a great deal. Powder is necessary, but rouge and lipstick look sad in the eyes of men, who often say, \u2018I wonder what she would look like without that Junk.\u2019\u201d Apparently the professional female impersonator failed to see the irony in his comments. But if a sexual history of our state is ever to be written, it is visible and crying for notice between the pages of magazines, biographies, newspapers, and documents that a true, often colorful, understanding of sex, gender, and social history has always dreamed of coming forward to surprise and delight.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

May 2017
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