Skip to main content
My Shows
News on your favorite shows, specials & more!

Beautiful: The Story of Julian Eltinge, America's Greatest Female Impersonator – by Andrew L Erdman

Beautiful: The Story of Julian Eltinge, America's Greatest Female Impersonator by Andrew L Erdman

From the late 19th to the early 21st centuries, female impersonation was a hugely popular performance genre. Long before today's popular television shows, men in colleges, business, and even the military formed drag clubs and put on musicals and variety shows of all kinds with little fear of negative judgment. But no female impersonator was as famous, successful, or highly-regarded as Julian Eltinge (1881-1941). Eltinge, born William Dalton just outside Boston, started playing female characters and imitating women with his mother's encouragement as a child while his father shuttled his family around the Americas in search of a mining fortune that never materialized. The future drag star returned to Boston in his late teens where he quickly rose through the ranks of semi-amateur all-male musicals, then transitioned to vaudeville, and eventually starred in hugely successful musical comedies such as The Fascinating Widow (1910).


Available On:
Beautiful: The Story of Julian Eltinge, America's Greatest Female Impersonator on HardcoverBeautiful: The Story of Julian Eltinge, America's Greatest Female Impersonator on Kindle

Publisher: Oxford Univ Press

Released: 2024

Back to Books...

BroadwayWorld TV


Ticket Central
Hot Show
Tickets From $59
Hot Show
Tickets From $77
Hot Show
Tickets From $71
Hot Show
Tickets From $71