Darcelle XV: Remembering the Oldest Drag Queen in the World (1930-2023)

Darcelle XV (a.k.a. Walter Cole) was 92, deemed the oldest drag queen in the world by The Guinness Book of World Records, and was still performing multiple times per week. In 1967 (two years before Stonewall!), Darcelle opened the Portland drag venue, Darcelle XV Showplace, which was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2020.

The club is still operating today.

We typically think of NYC as the center of drag, possibly the birthplace of drag, and I love that there’s a place in Portland where drag has been continuously performed—and celebrated—since the 1960s.

I had the opportunity to speak with Darcelle in 2023 a couple of weeks before she died. This is one of her last interviews. She is joined by her friend and longtime collaborator, Poison Waters.

They talk about the evolution of drag, coming out in the 1960s, and creating Darcelle with her longtime partner, Roxy Neuhardt (“it was a family job”). 

This interview has been edited and condensed.

Jeffrey Masters: You were doing drag in ’67?

Darcelle XV: 1967.

JM: I thought it was illegal back then, in terms of regulations and cross-dressing.

DXV: It was never really illegal in Portland, in Oregon, but we didn’t walk the streets in it. We got up and did the show and went back to the Levi’s.

JM: What was Levi’s?

Poison Waters: The blue jeans.

DXV: Blue jeans.

PW: He was saying he would get in drag and out of drag at the club, and not going from home to the club to the car in drag. Drag never left the club.

DXV: No.

PW: Because it was still underground, but again, it wasn’t illegal, it just was frowned upon and not widely accepted. So it was kind of like a speakeasy, if you knew, you knew. The part of town is called Old Town, so back then it really was just skid row, and bums and homeless people, kind of the seedy part of town, so to speak. So people came to the club to see the drag show, they only came for it. So it wasn’t like nobody was there that didn’t want to be there. So they weren’t doing drag in a place they weren’t supposed to be, does that make sense? So everybody was there for it, so there wasn’t any pushback, ’cause they weren’t taking it anywhere for anybody to push back.

JM: You opened in 1967. That’s two years before Stonewall. And even Stonewall has not been continuously running. It was a bagel shop, a Chinese restaurant, and yet you’ve been doing it ever since.

DXV: Yes. We haven’t stopped, we’re in our 56th year.

PW: And so Darcelle’s was recently added to the National Register of Historic Places, since it’s been ongoing for all these years. And COVID was the first time in all our history that we actually had to close. It was government-mandated, so of course, like everybody else, we had to close. And so many places, big and small, all around us never came back. But we had such an outpouring of community. People were, the minute we could have people back, they were lined up to keep the club going.

DXV: Poison Waters made it happen, along with me. I didn’t do it alone, that’s for sure. And my same cast came back as soon as we could unlock the doors, they didn’t go somewhere else to work.

JM: Going back to 1967, when you bought the tavern that became Darcelle’s Showplace, you were still married at that time, right?

DXV: Oh, yes. Yes, I was.

JM: Did your wife know that you were operating what became a gay bar?

DXV: No, she read it in the paper. We were already not together, I told her I was gay, it came out to her, but we weren’t working, living together then. But it still was the first time she knew that was in the paper. We were a little bit away from each other at that point.

PW: Estranged.

DXV: Estranged. But that doesn’t last long. No, it didn’t last long. We’re a family. I have a daughter and a son, and we have two grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.

JM: In terms of telling your family this, was the way they reacted to you being gay different than the way they reacted to finding out you were doing drag?

DXV: Well, I don’t think it mattered at all by then, whether I was doing drag or how I was appearing on stage, because it was very popular. And their friends had all been in our neighborhood, “You know me, let’s go see that bitch.”

PW: Yeah, I mean, I think that’s true, it probably would’ve been. I’ve never heard anybody ask that question before, that’s a good question. I think if the club had not been a success and readily accepted by the mainstream community, I think they probably would’ve had a different idea. But they’re like, “Hey, you’re popular and you’re on TV and you’re making money.”

DXV: And all the city commissioners and the mayor and everything. The mayor was in the other day and he said, “I want a picture of you, I’ve only got two years left, and you’re not really the mayor until you take a picture with Darcelle.”

PW: Yeah, Darcelle’s had all the mayors and the governors, everybody’s come through.

DXV: They were supportive.

JM: You’ve been doing this for more than 50 years…at what point did it become a celebrated thing where the mayor or the governor wants to take a picture with Darcelle? I imagine that with stigma and shame in the ’70s, that wasn’t the case.

DXV: Oh, that was in the ’80s, yeah.

JM: So it started to turn in the ’80s.

DXV: I think the ’70s and ’80s.

PW: I think the late ’70s, early ’80s, because Portland really is such a unique city that Darcelle kind of became an unofficial mascot. To have Darcelle at your event was a big deal. And I think at that point Darcelle had gotten so popular within the club, like we were saying, it never really left the club, but then the invitations started to say, “Come out of the club and come into the city.”

DXV: And we’ve been open so long that I have people come in and say, “Well, I had my 21st birthday here, and now I’m 56,” and then bring their children in.

JM: And so in terms of the safety of it all, we’re seeing drag shows be under attack around the country by state legislatures, in some places meeting armed protesters. Have you guys experienced anything like that in Portland?

DXV: There was the one gospel group in Old Town, and we were picketed. And they’d only come on Friday and Saturday, when the line was full, you know, a big thing to do, to shout demons at us with signs and everything, and then they stopped.

PW: We weren’t mad at all.

DXV: I wasn’t upset. In fact, when they stopped coming, people said, “Where’s the entertainment outside?”

PW: You know, the pre-show.

DXV: The pre-show.

JM: So they went away on their own eventually?

DXV: Yes.

JM: Wow. I mean, while you’re known for being a drag queen, you had to be a businessman to keep this club running for 50 years. A big part of that too, the business side, was run by your partner Roxy, right?

DXV: Right, right.

PW: Roxy was kind of like the artistic director of the whole thing, so all the visuals, and then Darcelle was the creative person to then figure it out. Roxy would say, “Here’s what we want it to look like, now you figure out how to do it.” And then on the business side Roxy would handle the payroll and the books, and Darcelle would handle the bookings and all that. They worked in tandem for almost 50 years.

JM: And so from the very beginning you were always partners in love and business.

DXV: Right. I met him at a bar, a gay bar, and then I drove him home, but nothing ever happened. He thought I had a sugar daddy somewhere.

JM: Why did he think that?

DXV: Because, you know, in the gay world, first thing you do is have sex, and then you enjoy who it is. How’s that? For three months, nothing, nothing like that happened. We got to know each other, and I knew that this was more than something that just was a passing night.

JM: And what told you that?

DXV: Just getting to know him. Just getting to know him. I knew it’d be better if we did work this in over a one-night stand, and it worked. If we hadn’t have gotten together, there probably wouldn’t be a Darcelle.

JM: How was he involved in the building of Darcelle?

DXV: Well, first of all, he was one of the critics that I listened to. If anybody else told me the things he told me, I wouldn’t have created what Darcelle is. And what he told me, I took, and knew that it was for love and for caring.

PW: Roxy created Darcelle’s look, the face, and how, you know, the trademark appearance, and also came up with the name, because he had worked with someone named Darcelle before.

DXV: Denise Darcel, in Vegas.

JM: Oh, wow. So Darcelle was very much a group project.

DXV: It was more like just a family job. None of this has been planned, nothing was planned like that, it just happened.

JM: That’s such an intense collaboration. What has it been like performing Darcelle now that he’s passed away?

DXV: The night he died, I was at the hospital with him, and I was thinking about going home, and I went downtown, and I didn’t want the audience to know that that had happened, and I got ready and did the show. And it was important to me to keep going.

JM: One thing I was wondering is that in recent years we’ve seen a massive mainstreaming of drag, in part from Drag Race and other things. How have you seen that change or affect your business there?

DXV: Well, it’s good for us all. I never have really watched Drag Race, because it was always on when I was working.

PW: The thing is, it’s so accessible now. If you wanted a dress in 1967, they didn’t have dresses like that, you had to sew the pearls on, or sew the rhinestones, or glue the feathers on. Well now, you just click on Amazon and it’s at your house tomorrow, a fully realized drag, a wig, and lashes, and all that stuff. All the queens now have such accessibility, and for the most part are using it to their advantage. So yeah, all of our cast members, and even the queens around town, we have a huge drag community in Portland, and everybody’s looking the best they ever have, just because it’s available and it’s cheaper than it used to be.

JM: Oh, because I can get a 24-inch pink wig at my door tomorrow.

PW: Yes, for $19.99, where if you wanted that in the past it would be $200, and then you’d have to dye it yourself in the bathtub. Everything’s just so easy now.

JM: Oh, and I guess too, you do your drag and then you can also walk down the street home in full drag. There are places where it’s safe to do that.

DXV: Well, pretty much everybody knows who Darcelle is, and anybody who’s in drag is a Darcelle. The name Darcelle has become a word locally synonymous with drag. I mean, I’m half Darcelle’s age and I’m Black, but people still say, “Hi, Darcelle,” if they see me in drag. And they’ll say, “Oh, Darcelle, can I have a picture?” And you don’t correct people, you say, “Sure, let’s take a picture.”

JM: That is so funny.

PW: You know, when people say the mainstreaming of drag has happened since Drag Race, well, Darcelle’s was never been a gay club, it was always open to everyone, and we have 90% heterosexual audiences. The gay people that come in, they’re bringing in their family. So we don’t really have a big gay crowd. And so we’ve always been, in our minds, mainstream drag, that’s just kind of what we do. So while in different parts of the country drag queens are now finally getting to perform for straight people, that’s all we’ve been performing for. So we weren’t really like a dark underground drag club that was only for gay people, we never were that. So it’s kind of different for us.

JM: Darcelle, you’re now 92. It sounds like everything’s also set up for this to continue after your death.

DXV: When’s that gonna happen?

PW: Do you know something we don’t know?

DXV: They just renewed my driver’s license for another 15 years, I thanked them very much. And my doctor said, “Well, there’s 15 years left on your pacemaker battery.” I said, “Well, okay, tell me when it’s getting low.”

PW: His daughter now is running all the financials, the son had been working, he’s still an active part of it. And then just those of us that have been there for 10-plus years, it really is a family. Everybody has their job, everybody has their responsibilities.

DXV: And they do their job beautifully.

PW: And there’s no reason, if Darcelle and I both were on a bus and it went over a cliff, the club could still continue tomorrow, because everybody is invested. We’re all in this together.

DXV: And I hope that, I think it’s pretty sure it will, but I hope it does happen.

PW: Yeah, there’s no reason why it shouldn’t continue its success, with the groundwork that’s been laid.

DXV: See, I’m not at all scared of dying, I can talk about it, because I have so many friends that did it too, during the episodes of the AIDS crisis. And all my family, they’re gone, except for my children.

But they did it, I’ll do it.

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Click here to listen to the full interview on the LGBTQ&A podcast.

LGBTQ&A features interviews with the most interesting lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer people in the world. Hosted and produced by Jeffrey Masters. ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@jeffmasters1⁠⁠⁠

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