Queer Places:
Joy Lounge, 551 Ponce De Leon Ave NE, Atlanta, GA 30308
Club Centaur, 1037 Peachtree St NE, Atlanta, GA 30309
Westview Cemetery
Atlanta, Fulton County, Georgia, USA
William Allen "Billy" Jones (July
15, 1921 – February 25, 2003), known as Atlanta’s “Still Living Legend”,
launched the Phyllis Killer Oscars in 1968 as a high-camp tribute to those
working behind the show scenes. Billy was raised on Myrna Loy, the
glamorous comedic movie star of the 1930s who portrayed Nora Lee in the
Thin Man detective film series. Joining the navy in WWII (“I had been very
much influenced by Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire in The Fleet’s In”),
Jones returned to Atlanta to make Peachtree beautiful as a decorator. In
the mid-1960s, Jones approached Frank Powell, who had just opened the Joy
Lounge, about a female impersonation show. Although it was against the
law, Phyllis Killer and Her Darling Daughters began performing on a
makeshift stage, charging 50c cover.
William Allen Jones was born in Griffin, Georgia, to Henry Hiram Jones Jr.
(1898-1983) and Myrtle Barber Jones (1901-1992). He had six siblings:
Frank Hiram Jones (1919-1995), Roselyn Jones Wilson (1922-2016), Raymond
Jones (1926- ), Aurie Jean Jones Brown (1927-2016), Henry Hiram Jones III
(1929-1929), and Myrtle Jones Hunt (born 1932).
After serving in the Navy in World War II, Jones moved back to Atlanta. He designed traffic-stopping display windows for the old Franklin Simon women's store on Peachtree Street, one of which featured a jukebox and jitterbug dancers, said his sister Roselyn Wilson of Snellville.
He had a collection of 900 movies, and every square inch of wall space in his house
was covered with stars' photographs, many of whom were his friends, said another sister, Myrtle Hunt of Atlanta.
Jones was high camp and comedy in drag.
Performing as Phyllis Killer, Shirley Temple Jones, and Billy Jones and
his Darling Daughters, Jones brought respectability and visibility to drag shows, said Moon. He organized and emceed the popular Phyllis Killer Oscars for 17 years, honoring the city's best drag performers.
"His goal was to bring drag to Peachtree Street, and he did in Club Centaur," said Gresham. People by the tour bus load came to his shows.
In time, Jones began delivering meals on wheels. Saddened by the poverty he saw, he volunteered at Cosby Spears Towers. His success in giving the older residents a new sense of purpose led to a paid position, said Gresham. He was repeatedly honored for his accomplishments over 20 years as director of the senior center.
"Billy was one of the sweetest, kindest, and wackiest men you'd ever want to meet," said
Moon. "He lived his life larger than most of us."
Billy Jones brought Atlanta gays out of the closet.
It was the early 1960s and, as he told his friend Hal Gresham of Atlanta, "It's time for us to get these people out of the closet and into the street."
That he did. He brought drag shows to Peachtree Street, was a founding member of the Atlanta Gay Center and participated in every Gay Pride March but one, said his friend Earl Moon of Atlanta. He was raising the gay profile in Atlanta before the Stonewall riots in 1969 that gave birth to the modern gay rights movement.
The Atlanta History Center sought out Jones' collection of gay publications, which he recently donated to its Kenan Research Center.
"We were thrilled to get it," said Kenan director Michael Rose of Smyrna. "That collection documents the gay life in the South and in the nation." There is 7 cubic feet of publications in Jones' collection - many early underground magazines and newspapers - and it is a significant addition to the center's gay and lesbian material, said Rose.
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