Vardaman: The Gay Deceiver
Written and published in The Betty Pages in February 2023
Vardaman - Whatcom Museum - Warwick Collection
Among the thousands of photographs at the Whatcom Museum’s photo archives is the Jim Warwick collection of publicity shots of vaudeville performers from the early 1900s. Warwick worked for theaters in Bellingham for more than 50 years. Along the way he collected these photographs, many of them autographed by the performers that came through town. Warwick’s daughter donated over 700 of these photographs to the Whatcom Museum.
Among the collection is an image with no information other than “photo of a woman, mounted on a gray board. The words ‘the Vardaman’ appear printed in red ink beneath the image.” In the portrait the subject is wearing an off-the shoulder garment, jeweled necklaces, and a large Edwardian era hat.
When I saw this image, I immediately recognized Vardaman from previous research. I knew something that the person who cataloged the photo did not – that Vardaman was a “female impersonator.”
I had previously run across Vardaman in the Bellingham Herald on a vaudeville bill from the summer of 1904, advertising “the Auburn-Haired Beauty.” Further described in the paper as “the celebrated Vardman (sic) the female impersonator… can hardly be told from a female, so clever is he.” A promotional photograph ran alongside the write-up, showing Vardaman in yet another off-the-shoulder garment and fabulously large hat.
Though billed as a “celebrated French impersonator,” Mansel Vardaman Boyle was born in Santa Cruz, California in 1877. Vardaman’s family moved to Butte, Montana where he first got involved with the theater scene. Thanks to his distinctive name and hometown newspapers that couldn’t get enough of him, there is an unusually accessible amount of archival material illustrating Vardaman’s life.
In the early 1900s the Butte society pages often mentioned Mansel V. Boyle:
“Samuel Mayer and Mansel Boyle, bachelors, entertained last night. Delightful evening was spent in their elegant apartments… at a ping-pong party and musicale.”
“…Mr. Arthur Marks and Mr. Mansel Boyle gave a Bohemian entertainment in their rooms... The party enjoyed music and cards until a late hour when the hosts served a Dutch supper.”
Planning to head to New York to study “comic opera and the drama,” his friends in Butte gave “an entertainment” as a send-off. Naturally the talented young performer participated, performing “A Lesson in Flirtation” from Ludwig Englander’s popular musical comedy “The Strollers.”
Around 1903, Mansel Boyd hit the vaudeville circuits of the country performing under his middle name, using such tag-lines as ‘the auburn-haired beauty’ and ‘the Gay Deceiver.’
Vardaman’s schtick involved performing in elaborate “feminine attire,” before snatching off his wig and revealing his maleness… “till the auburn hair was disposed of no one suspected.” One newspaper reported “Vardaman, the Gay Deceiver, put one over on the audience. But just how this was done would be telling, and it isn’t fair to tell. In fact, the act is worth seeing, and if it does not get a laugh out of you, then – well, there is no laugh in you.”
Newspapers reported on the expensiveness and details of Vardaman’s costumes. The rhinestone buttons on one dress were said to cost $5 each (according to an inflation calculator that amounts to $168.63 per button in today’s world).
“Each gown is finished with all the care and elaboration which nice dresses demand. His favorite gown is of white lace, over all the regulation underskirts; the taffeta drop, the chiffon interlining. Appliqued silk roses finish the hem, and the hat of lace with blue plumes is a source of pride to him. A Dolly Vardan gown of pink, with tiny fluffy pink roses and a garden hat of fine white straw with pink roses also fills the feminine auricle of his heart with honest approbation.”
Reporters remarked that Vardaman was “one of several men, who, discovering that they have pretty arms, good shoulders and a high singing voice decide to try their fates on the stage as women instead of men,” and further quipped, “it is surprising what a lot of extremely lady-like men have risen to embrace this new opportunity.”
Like many “female impersonators” of the era, when not on stage Vardaman presented as very masculine, which served both as a contrast to enhance the “illusion” of the act, but also as protection in a world hostile towards cross-dressing when not part of a performance.
When Vardaman returned to his hometown in 1906, The Butte Miner published rave reviews along with a story of a publicity stunt in which “the ladylike youth spent an agreeable five minutes of Mayor Smith’s time” while dressed in his performance attire. The mayor reportedly never suspected the deception until Vardaman announced: “these corsets are tough on a fellow’s ribs and I am dry as a desert.”
Vardaman enjoyed considerable success on the vaudeville circuit and performed abroad in Europe and Australia. Returning to the United States around 1916 Vardaman teamed up with a burlesque company called “The Champagne Belles.”
Advertisements for the Champagne Belles Burlesque starring Vardaman appeared in the Muscatine News Tribune (Iowa) in 1916
By the 1920s while motion pictures were on the rise and vaudeville in demise, Vardaman had reached middle age. He retired from the stage and worked as a live-in cook for a theater owner. Vardaman never married nor was ever recorded as having a romantic relationship with a woman. When Vardaman passed away in 1945, an obituary remarked for several paragraphs on his family’s pioneer legacy before concluding with “years ago he was on the stage as a female impersonator.”
Vardaman is one of many “impersonators” who graced the vaudeville stages of Bellingham in the early 1900s, but one of few whose images I have discovered among the local historical collections. Most of the photos lack context and are usually just a description of what is depicted, and assumptions have been made based on appearances. The gender-binary was very entrenched in 1904 at the time of Vardaman’s visit to Bellingham, and only beginning to expand in our culture today. We don’t know how Vardaman might identify using today’s categories, as they simply did not exist in his lifetime. We can only wonder whether Vardaman, the Gay Deceiver, would enjoy still being able to fool us after all these years.
Some of Vardaman’s other lewks - various promotional photographs.
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For further reading:
Mansel V. Boyle. Gay History Wiki. http://gayhistory.wikidot.com/mansel-v-boyle
Trav S.D. Vardaman: The Gay Deceiver. Wordpress. 2014. https://travsd.wordpress.com/2014/01/17/stars-of-vaudeville-856-vardaman/
Vardaman Collection, 1881-1927. Princeton University Library. https://findingaids.princeton.edu/catalog/TC089
Percy teamed up with another female impersonator who went by Lou Lalonda. Percy and Lou were billed at Bellingham’s Grand Theater on Holly Street in September of 1905. At the time of their performance in Bellingham, papers described them as “two pretty young ladies who easily win applause.”