Aug 18, 1999
Top: Ebony today (photo by Sukie) and in performer days. Below right: Showgirls and boys at David´s Place. More Photos
People Behind
the Headlines
Soulfully Yours,
Ebony by Sukie de la Croix
Nobody is really sure when the Halloween Balls started in Chicago, though we can certainly place the beginnings of the famous Finnie´s Balls on the South Side. They started in 1935 when a Black gay street hustler called Alfred Finnie held a ball in the basement of a bar on the corner of 38th Street and Michigan Avenue. It cost 25 cents to get in and was attended by a mostly Black crowd.
Even though Finnie died in 1943¯he was killed in a gambling brawl¯Finnie´s Balls continued up until the 䚌s, and were huge glamorous affairs, with upwards of 1,000 people attending. (For more information on Finnie´s Balls read "Before Paris Burned: Race, Class, and Male Homosexuality on the Chicago South Side, 1935 1960," by Allen Drexel, an essay included in Creating A Place For Ourselves, edited by Brett Beemyn, Routledge $16.99.)
Over the years, Finnie´s Balls changed the lives of thousands of lesbians and gay men, and one of those men was Ebony Carr (AKA Morie Carter). He now lives in Phoenix, Ariz., but I spoke to him recently on one of his rare visits to Chicago¯a city where he came of age.
Carr was born Sept. 6, 1936, in East St. Louis, in Southern Illinois, "My dad was a dentist and my mom was a homemaker," he said. "I´m the oldest of four kids and my dad was a hard worker; he gave us a lot of things to believe in and hold on to.
"At school I was always very quiet, very studious and introverted. I went to the first integrated high school in Illinois. You see, that´s back during segregation, but my dad was a strong believer that ´you´re just as good as anyone else, but no better,´ and that you are seen by your deeds. He was strong and opinionated, and basically you danced to his music. That was another reason I was always quiet, because I was trying to be the little guy that he wanted.
"I think I always knew I was a little different. I used to like to draw and I was quite an artist. I would always tell my mother I wanted to be a fashion designer. Even when I was small I was always attracted to women´s clothes. Not that they turned me on, but I thought they were pretty, and I knew how to take them and put them together. My dad and I used to have run ins because I liked to play with paper dolls ... and that wasn´t the masculine, or the boy thing to do.
"After I finished high school, I went off to Junior College, spent a year and a half at Junior College at Wayne State. I didn´t get a deferment, because I was drafted in the Army. You take an IQ test when you first go in the Army, and they test you for what they think you would best fit. So I was placed in the medical corps. That was somewhere in the late 䚂s. It was after Korea and several years before Vietnam. I don´t remember dates, only events.
"I´ll tell you about my Army days. I had a wonderful military career, there have always been gays in the military. I had basic training at Fort Leonard Wood, Mo., then I was transferred ... and that was ASA, secret intelligence ¯just outside of Boston, and that´s when I got a chance to meet other gay people.
"It was the year A Summer Place was a big hit ... (1959) ... and that was the movie with Sandra Dee. For my birthday I went to Provincetown, and I remember driving down the coast and having my first romantic feeling toward another person, who was an officer. He asked me if I would like to go to P town. I didn´t know what P town was. So we drove down and that was the first time I saw two guys kiss in the street. I walked into a post and almost knocked myself unconscious. I was very naive and gullible in those days.
"That´s when I had my first male to male encounter, and that was with the officer. When I was in service I dated several officers. Being skinny and slightly feminine, I was always attracted to bisexual and straight men. But that´s something I´ll remember always, driving down the East Coast and hearing the theme from A Summer Place.
"I never got a chance to go overseas. I wondered why, because they say ´Join The Army, See The World.´ Well, I didn´t see much of the world, but I did see a part of the gay world. After getting out I went back to Highland Park, Mich. My parents divorced when I was 16, and we moved to that suburb in Detroit. I remember going to a bar called the Woodward, it wasn´t even integrated then, and a Black kid could stand at the bar and wait a good half hour before the bartender would come over and acknowledge him. So with this, and coming out, and not being sure of who I was, what I wanted to be, and what I wanted to do, I thought, ´I can´t live here in Highland Park.´ I wanted to fulfil my dream, but I wasn´t sure what my dream was. So I told my mom that I would like to go to Chicago.
"And I did. I remember getting off the train and into a cab. Now, my aunt once told me, ´One of the main things you do when you leave home, you always go to the YMCA.´ So I jumped in this cab with two suitcases and said to the cab driver, ´Lawson YMCA please.´ And I looked in the mirror at the cab driver´s face, which was a smirk, smile, a sort of a snicker. It dawned on me later, because in the 䚌s you can imagine how the Y was. Going to the Lawson YMCA opened a whole new world for Morie Carter.
"So I enrolled in nursing school. At the Y I made a good friend and he was a cosmetology student, and I was a nursing student. We also had a friend who worked for the Tribune. So all three of us decided to get this little one bedroom apartment in Old Town, and upstairs were two other students. We were all as poor as church mice. One was a dress designer, and Paul wrote a dog column, he wrote about dog shows, and Jimmy was going to beauty school. We were so poor we went to Lincoln Park and stole the picnic bench as our dining room table.
"So one day we were sitting in the kitchen and Paul looked at me and said, ´You know, you have a very unusual face.´ Then Jimmy said, ´Let me put some make up on it.´ So they painted my face and Jimmy had some wigs and pieces, and at that time, there was this yellow dress that Liz Taylor wore for the opening of her husband´s theater here in Chicago. Laurence had bolts of this yellow chiffon and he made this gown. Then we had another friend who worked in a floral shop. So I was the Barbie doll of my entire group. They whipped all of this up with the hair, with the flowers, big huge bouqets and went to Finnie´s Ball, and I won second place, a trophy and $300. With that we were able to buy food for months and pay the rent.
"After the Ball, people took pictures, and one of the orderlies was there, and he took the pictures back to the hospital where I was a student, and was showing them around, ´This is Morie, don´t you know who this is?´ So the pictures were confiscated, and I was called into the Dean of Admissions and questioned, ´Are these pictures of you? Are you a transvestite?´ I wanted to just die. I was going into my senior year in nursing, but I held my head up and just dropped out of nursing school. I couldn´t dare phone my mother and tell her I´d been kicked out of school for wearing women´s clothes. I had to go and find a job, and that´s when I went back to Chuck Renslow at Sparrows.
"I had met him one Halloween when I performed one song there, and I knew his manager, Johnny, who was a very nice guy. He had been impressed. I did Shirley Bassey´s ´Something.´ So when I went back and told them my plight, they said, ´Why don´t you come on down?´ and so I did, and after that I never looked back. Sparrows was quite a show bar, the ongoing place for female impersonation.
"That was Robey Lander´s show, and with Robey you were a chorus boy until you really proved yourself. So for about two weeks I was a chorus boy, doing male lead with Wanda Lust (Steve Jones), and he and I would pull our wigs off and do boy parts with the other girls. The first big thing that I did by myself was a Tina Turner song called ´Funky Mosquito´s Tweeter.´
"But you see, I wanted to be a Shirley Bassey, or a Dorothy Dandridge, and Robey told me, ´Ebony, you´re elegant. You can wear those gorgeous gowns and all that, but that´s not really you.´ I think we were able to listen in those days, kids now¯whether it´s female impersonation or learning any kind of trade¯ they don´t listen. She told all the kids in the cast, ´If you listen to me, you can go anywhere,´ and Lord knows I´ve been all over the country and done drag.
"When Sparrows closed, I went to David´s Place. That was a beautiful bar. By that time I had reinvented myself. I had audience appeal, but I wasn´t that sensational. It was entertaining, it was nice, like ´Thank you, now go off.´ But the moment I started doing Bluesy, uptempo songs like Big Mama Thornton´s, ´You Aint Nothing But a Houndog´ ... that´s when I really got popular. Every entertainer has to have hype. You have to have a legend, and back in those days, you had to have soul. My monogram was ´Soulfully Yours, Ebony.´
"And we did excerpts from shows like The King and I, Pippin, Raisin´ in the Sun, Cabaret, Godspell and Jesus Christ Superstar, which was one of the most beautiful things I had ever seen on a small stage in drag, with smoke machines and capes that went across the entire stage."
After David´s Place closed, Carr hung up his heels, "It was time for a reality check," he said. Carr went back to nursing and worked at St. Joseph´s hospital for the next ten years. Then, while taking some extended nursing courses at the University of Iowa, he met a man from Phoenix, "He would write nice love letters and he would come and visit. I´d never had a lover, someone who accepted everything that I was. He kept saying, ´Why don´t you come to Arizona?´ So one day I packed up and moved, and, along with nursing, I worked in my new lover´s framing business.
"I didn´t do drag, working shows can interfere with a relationship. He was a very shy, sensitive man ... I thought! Then I found Jack had been taking his love to town and after that I lost the respect. In the eight years we were together we had acquired four homes, the business had skyrocketed. So being very hurt I just let it all go.
"So you have to have something else in your life, and so I started back doing drag. This is in Phoenix, and Phoenix being a little Prairie town, they had never seen the likes of me. I wanted to make money, make money fast and be accepted because of my hurt ego from the relationship. I gave them Tony Midnite and Paul Brune gowns, I did everything except turn cartwheels and set a wig on fire, and that went on for about five or six years, and with the bars closing at 1 o´clock, I was still able to maintain a straight job. I was still in nursing."
For several years Carr was an HIV nurse and coordinator at Phoenix Baptist Hospital and has worked with some of the leading HIV physicians in the Southwest. He tells many stories of his experience with AIDS patients.
"One guy said to me, ´You´re just an old Black nigger drag queen, why aren´t you HIV?´ I had to walk away, because that really hurt. Near the end of the shift I went back and I told him, ´I don´t know why I´m not HIV, because I´ve done everything, possibly more things than you´ve done. But I think somewhere in a big book all our lives are written down and that´s the way it´s supposed to be. Our lives are hour glasses and the sand pours through, sometimes a little faster and sometimes a little slower. That´s our lot in life.´ I put my arms around him and gave him a hug, he cried, I cried, and he told me he was sorry."
"You see, I´ve always been a token. In East St. Louis, at the first integrated high school, I was one of 16 Black kids at this all white school. Even in the Army, there were quite a few Blacks that were drafted, but I was always a raisin in a bowl of buttermilk. I´ve always been a token.
"I´ve had a beautiful life. When I came out being gay was something special, now being gay is an attitude. That´s why they relate being gay to ´fairies,´ because fairies are mysterious. There was a mystique about it. Something magical and beautiful, and we kept it special. Once we lose that, we´ve lost the whole mystique of being gay."
"My gay fans have been so loyal, and so great¯at times, when other fans weren´t there. Gay fans usually love you when you´re in the dumps, the toilet. I have a very Judy Garland feeling about it. It´s a special thing." ¯ Cher to Toronto´s Xtra!
"I burst out laughing [when I tested HIV positive]. I guess because the people who told me were so serious. Also, I was relieved, because once you´ve got it you can´t catch it. I don´t think I´m the kind of person who could get away with not being positive. I can´t live like that¯if I´d had to be vigilant up to this day, it would´ve killed muotelinese." ¯ Former gay porn star and now author Aiden Shaw to Poz magazine, August issue.
"I heard about safer sex and understood it, but disregarded it. Nothing felt as deeply right as having sex I was told not to, doing it in a way that was dangerous and knowing I could suffer because of it." ¯ Aiden Shaw to Britain´s Positive Nation magazine, July/August issue.
"Nobody on this earth has the right to tell anyone that their love for another human being is morally wrong. I will never forget how it made me shudder to hear Pat Buchanan say that he stood ´with George Bush against the immoral idea that gay and lesbian couples should have the same standing in law as married men and women.´ Who is Pat Buchanan to pronounce anyone´s love invalid? How can he deny the profound love felt by one human being for another? ... Unfortunately, however, as long as people like Newt Gingrich and Pat Buchanan continue in public life, the fight to codify gay marriages will be a tough battle to win." ¯ Barbara Streisand to The Advocate, Aug. 17.
"I would never wish for my son to be anything but what he is. He is bright, kind, sensitive, caring, and a very conscientious and good person. He is a very gifted actor and filmmaker. What more could a parent ask for in their child? I have been truly blessed. Most parents feel that their child is particularly special, and I am no different. I have a wonderful son. My only wish for my son, Jason, is that he continues to experience a rich life of love, happiness, joy, and fulfillment, both creatively and personally." ¯ Streisand.
"My parents are very supportive of me. God, I generally don´t like to go into personal issues, I´m pretty private. I was never in the closet, anyway, but I think that, within a family that´s heterosexual, you´re always going to be an outsider if you´re gay. I don´t think it´s easy to grow up gay anywhere, especially with the amount of fear and uncomfortableness that surrounds sexuality, let alone homosexuality. It´s painful. But I think we´ve made some big strides now, we don´t have to apologize for being gay. I believe we were created this way by God." ¯ Jason Gould, Barbra´s son, to London´s Gay Times in July of 1997.
"Clearly, coming out at the [1996] GLAAD Awards was the most important moment of my life. From that moment on I was able to join my life as an actor and an activist in a way I was never able to do before." ¯ Actor Mitchell Anderson (Party of Five) to The Advocate, Aug. 17.
"Instead of acting as if they will never exchange bodily fluids with each other¯which was never true anyway¯gay men are doing what they have done since the epidemic began: Deciding which bodily fluids to exchange with unique partners, and in what permutations of the active and passive roles of anal and oral sex. ... Many HIV positive men are deciding to have unsafe anal and oral sex with other men who they know also to be positive. HIV negative men are allowing partners who they know to be HIV negative to ejaculate inside of them. If they know someone to be HIV positive or are not sure, they mostly will either have safe sex or will be the active partner in unsafe anal or oral sex¯that is, not allow someone to boink them without a condom." ¯ From an editorial in Boston´s Bay Windows, written by Editor Jeff Epperly, July 1.
"The gay scripts I get are usually filled with bad characters and are just tragically bad, period. The movie I´m making now [The Next Best Thing with Madonna] is a script I rewrote, because the gay character was totally stereotypical in a very dull way. Good script, bad character." ¯ Gay actor Rupert Everett to www.gfn.com, July 26.
"We have organisations in America called Log Cabins; gay people who are Republicans. I don´t understand it myself. I´m kind of glad they´re there. Maybe they can make a difference, though I really think they are mistaken. For me it´s like being a Jew in the Nazi Party. But there´s a lot I don´t understand, like people who live in the closet. I just don´t know how anyone does that." ¯ Playwright/actor Harvey Fierstein to London´s Pink Paper, July 30.
"Rupert Everett in My Best Friend´s Wedding was so wonderful. He is like so many gay men that I know, which is like, handsome and debonair and sexy and witty and someone that you are attracted to and not some flaming poofter but A MAN." ¯ Chastity Bono to London´s Gay Times, August issue.
"There are some instances where people really want to do it [come out] but they don´t quite have the courage, so they put themselves in a situation where it happens. I look at George Michael¯why was he going into some public bathroom? I think that somewhere deep down he was pushing the envelope and he kinda wanted to get caught." ¯ Bono.
"My mother? Plastic surgery? Her wardrobe? I don´t know, you go ask her how many fucking shoes she has." ¯ Bono.
"Social activism and queer collectivism sadly seems (sic) to have been replaced by corporate logo ism. Thousands of rainbow coloured balloons and a ton of signage imprinted with Molson Dry and Labatt´s insignias assaulted the eye wherever one looked. I mean, what are we supposed to be celebrating here¯ queer Pride or beer Pride?" ¯ Letter to the editor of Toronto´s Xtra! from reader Ken Kaukola, July 29.
Copyright © 1999 Lambda Publications Inc. All rights reserved.
Lambda publishes Outlines, The Weekly Voice of the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Trans Community, Nightlines, Out Resource Guide, Clout! Business Report, Blacklines and En La Vida. 1115 W. Belmont 2D, Chicago, IL 60657; PH (773) 871-7610; FAX (773) 871-7609. Web at http://www.suba.com/~outlines/. E-mail feedback to outlines@suba.com!Q Lines
From left: a David´s Place performer´s bill, Wanda Lust, Little Ezzie, and Audrey Brien, more David´s Place regulars. 
