Queer Places:
Garden of Allah, 1215 1st Ave, Seattle, WA 98101
Jack Starr aka Jackie Starr (born 1915), called "the most beautiful man in
America" by gossip columnist Walter Winchel, and "the male Gypsy Rose Lee",
was one of the most successful female impersonators at the Garden of Allah.
Starr was a classically trained singer, a ballet dancer, an actor, and an
excellent striptease artist. By 1929, he was performing in drag in Chicago and
during the 1930s, he performed in New York. He joined the Jewel Box Revue in
the late 1930s and moved to the west coast by 1940. He headlined at the Garden
of Allah for the next ten years. Around 1950, Starr married a man named Bill
Scott. The two remained together until Scott's death sometime in the late
1960s. Starr died in the late 1980s. The Garden of Allah was opened in 1946 by
Fred Coleman and Frank Reid. It was Seattle's first gay-owned and operated gay
bar. It was located in the basement of the Arlington Hotel, on 1st Avenue
between University Street and Seneca Street. It was a known for vaudeville
acts and female impersonation. The Garden of Allah was described as a safe
place for both gay men and lesbians to gather. It closed in 1956.
Jack Starr grew up on a farm in the US Midwest. His parents encouraged his desire to be an actor, and he studied voice, acting and classical ballet. His elder sister was dressing him in female clothing from age five.
By the age of 14 he was doing drag in mob-controlled speakeasies in Chicago: both solo and in the line of chorines. He played the drag circuit in the 1930s, and did a tour of South America, and of Europe. Jackie met a Prince who wanted to take her home.
“I was tempted but I’m glad I didn’t because he was killed in a coup and I’d have been killed too.”
In Washington DC Jackie went out with senators. Later she moved to Greenwich Village, and tried acting and singing. She also did ballet, both as male and as female. She was one of only a few men in the US who could dance en pointe. She was a fill-in for the noted stripper
Gypsy Rose Lee, and she also danced as a Rockette at the Radio City Music Hall (and was also married briefly to another Rockette).
Jackie Starr posing nude with a fur, probably Seattle, approximately 1947
Jackie & Bill's wedding
At left is Jack Starr, a successful female impersonator whose stage name was Jackie Starr — called “the most beautiful man in America” by gossip columnist Walter Winchell. At right is Billy DeVoe. It’s 1950 and they are at the Garden of Allah, Seattle’s first gay-owned and operated gay bar, where DeVoe often emceed.Don Paulson and Skippy LaRue photograph collection, UW Libraries Special Collections
In the late 1930s, Starr was one of the first artists to join the Jewel Box Review. Starr was one of only a few Jewel Box Revue artists to be dating a woman. He married a second woman, and they had a child.
Starr was in the merchant marine during WWII.
When the Garden of Allah in Seattle opened in late 1946, Starr was quickly signed up as the headliner. By this time Starr was in her mid-30s, and was regarded as past her peak, although she gave class to the show. She stayed for the full ten years of the club’s existence. She could make a striptease last twenty minutes, finishing in a g-string. Walter Winchel, the syndicated columnist called Jackie "the most beautiful man in America".
Bill Scott and his wife, known as Sister Faye, were street preachers, although most donations to their mission went to Faye’s heroin habit. Bill was devastated when she left town without him (she later died in a car accident, while high). Bill was both bisexual and homophobic, and also worked as a trucker.
He was in recoil from a sex-only affair with a gay man, when he found himself in the Garden of Allah and Jackie was on stage. They married. They had a formal wedding and reception, in the home of a friend who played the part of a minister. Performer Skippy LaRue was the maid of honor and a lesbian the best man. They partied till 9am, and afterwards the couple had a big fight.
However the marriage persisted. Jackie, as the woman, ran their daily affairs and the apartment, however sexually she was the top.
Later Scott also married a woman who was supposed to inherit, with the idea of spending the money on Jackie. The inheritance never happened, and the second wife died. Scott moved back in with Jackie, and they ran a restaurant together.
Towards the end Scott had to have both legs amputated, and Jackie took care of him till he died in the late 1960s.
Jackie lived the last ten years of her life in a mobile home near the Seattle-Tacoma airport. She was as meticulous as ever in her appearance, and when she and her friends went to the Golden Crown drag bar in Seattle, the younger generation of drag performers would crowd around.
My published books:
BACK TO HOME PAGE
