Deep Dive - The Cockettes and Fayette Hauser
History
As the psychedelic San Francisco of the ’60’s began evolving into the gay San Francisco of the ’70’s, The Cockettes, a flamboyant ensemble of hippies (women, gay men, and babies) decked themselves out in gender-bending drag and tons of glitter for a series of legendary midnight musicals at the Palace Theater in North Beach. With titles like “Tinsel Tarts in a Hot Coma” and “Pearls over Shanghai”, these all singing, all dancing extravaganzas featured elaborate costumes, rebellious sexuality, and exuberant chaos. The Cockettes were founded by “Hibiscus”, a member of a commune called KaliFlower that was dedicated to distributing free food and to creating free art and theater. They first performed as an informal group of friends in wild costumes doing a chorus line dance to “Honky Tonk Woman” at The Nocturnal Dream Shows, a weekly midnight eclectic film series at The Palace. The chorus line quickly evolved into bigger, wilder, and more lavish productions, and the Cockettes’ shows fast became not-to-be-missed events for the hippest of San Francisco’s free spirits. The audiences were often as wild as the shows, generating tremendous energy. New shows were created every few weeks – “Paste on Paste”, “Gone with the Showboat to Oklahoma”, and “Tropical Heatwave/Hot Voodoo”, were some of the early titles. The early shows were mostly non-narrative revues, with everybody making their own costumes, and creative spontaneity reigning supreme. But with “Pearls Over Shanghai” the Cockettes produced their first show with all original script, music and lyrics. Combining grand spectacle with the endearing awkwardness of a high school operetta production, The Cockettes thrilled the audiences as much with their unpredictability as with their triumphs. In anticipation of the televised wedding of President Nixon’s daughter Tricia, The Cockettes made a film called TRICIA’S WEDDING, featuring a transvestite Tricia, a drunken Mamie Eisenhower, a party crashing Lady Bird Johnson, and a drag Eartha Kitt spiking the punch with LSD, resulting in a mad orgy. The Cockettes also appeared in the films ELEVATOR GIRLS IN BONDAGE, and LUMINOUS PROCURESS. Kreemah and Goldie Truman Capote and Reed attended a San Francisco performance of “Tinsel Tarts in a Hot Coma”, and Reed wrote a glowing review in his nationally syndicated column, calling it “a landmark in the history of new, liberated theater…” “The Cockettes are where it’s at!” raved Capote. The Cockettes became national media darlings and were invited to perform what would turn out to be a tumultuous 3 week run in New York. Reed’s review had New York buzzing in anticipation, from upper east side society to the lower east side underground. Diana Vreeland and Oscar de la Renta greeted the Cockettes on arrival and Robert Rauschenberg threw them a party in his loft. The opening night audience included John Lennon, Gore Vidal, Angela Lansbury, and Anthony Perkins. But the freewheeling, anarchic, atmosphere that so electrified the San Francisco shows didn’t carry over to The Big Apple, where the opening night throng of celebrities and socialites were bewildered by The Cockettes’ seeming indifference to “professionalism”. The press hated them, and the audience walked out in droves. But after the Society crowds disappeared, the underground scene continued to attend, and the shows ran for three weeks with small but highly enthusiastic crowds.
The Cockettes returned to San Francisco to put on some of their most successful shows (“Journey to the Center of Uranus”, “Les Etoiles de Paris” and “Hot Greeks”) . They gave their last performance in the autumn of 1972. Some of them continued to perform together in other contexts, some began solo careers, and others departed from “show business” entirely. The Cockettes inspired the glitter rock era of David Bowie, Elton John, and The New York Dolls, and the campy extravaganzas of Bette Midler and The Rocky Horror Picture Show. “Their influence will be felt years from now,” wrote Lillian Roxon, in her Top of the Pops column during the troupe’s New York run. She proclaimed The Cockettes 15 years ahead of their time, and predicted, “Every time you see too much glitter or a rhinestone out-of-place, you (will) know it’s because of the Cockettes.
Biography - Fayette Hauser
Fayette Hauser was born in Troy, New York and raised in Wanamassa, New Jersey, a suburb of the beach town of Asbury Park. At the age of 3 she embarked on a modeling career, which lasted until kindergarten set her in a more scholarly direction. Fayette graduated in 1967 from Boston University, College of Fine Arts with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in painting and sculpture.
Fayette lived for a year in Manhattan’s West Village with Lenny Kaye who became the guitarist for Patti Smith. She was involved with the underground scene there with filmmakers such as Jack Smith and Andy Warhol appearing in the Ronald Tavel-Andy Warhol film The Life Story of Juanita Castro. In the summer of 1968 Fayette went to Aspen, Colorado to paint. While there she was picked up hitch-hiking by Nancy Gurley, the wife of James Gurley, the guitarist for Big Brother and the Holding Company. Meeting Nancy was the event that changed the course of her life. Nancy brought Fayette to San Francisco and into the arms of the original counter-culture tribe, The Family Dog. She began to live communely with other artists and in the fall of 1969 she co-founded the avant-garde experimental theatre troupe The Cockettes. (see Cockettes) She performed, designed costumes and extensively photographed the troupe until it's demise in 1972. In the summer of 1972 Fayette went to Seattle to be with Tomata du Plenty and to perform with his troupe Ze Whiz Kidz. Tomata formed his group after performing with The Cockettes early in 1970 so he successfully brought the Cockette zeitgeist to Seattle. Ze Whiz Kidz were the first spin-off group of The Cockettes. They did shows every weekend at the Smith Tower, in the basement in a club called The Sub Room. It was an intimate location with a small stage so shows were fast and furious, lots of small skits and songs, all original material. In the fall of 1972 Fayette and Tomata moved to Lower Manhattan to perform in New York with the Underground Theater scene that was thriving in venues along the Bowery. They performed at the Cafe Cina, CBGB's where the Ramones opened for them in their show Savage Voodoo Nuns, The Bouwerie Lane Theatre in the Palm Casino Revue, 1973 & 1974 and the Club 82. Soon other Cockettes and Whiz Kidz joined them; Sweet Pam, John Flowers, Gorilla Rose and Screaming Orchids. In 1975 Fayette moved to Los Angeles to write for CBS Television. However the burgeoning Los Angeles performance scene was too enticing so Fayette along with Tomata du Plenty continued performing in many underground clubs like Al's Bar, The Anti-Club, The Brave Dod and The Whisky. In 1978 Fayette, along with Jeff McGregor and Chuck Ivey formed the band Interpol. The band featured original New Wave music in a Neo-Romantic, Goth style.
At the same time Fayette continued her education receiving an Associate Degree in Photography and becoming a professional photographer and graphic artist, photographing and designing album covers for many of the creative artists in the music scene of Los Angeles in the 70's and 80's.
Along with her photography Fayette created a small design business called Atelier Fayette which featured Wearable Art, one-of-a-kind clothing. Her clients included The Rolling Stones, New Kids on the Block, Arsenio Hall and Diana Ross. In the early 90's Fayette studied Method Acting with Susan Peretz, the then head of The Actor's Studio. At this time Fayette also was the Costume Designer on four feature films, The Russian Godfather, The Isle of Lesbos, My Brother Jack and High Cotton (not completed). She received two Dramalogue Awards for the plays Detective Story and A View from the Bridge. Later Fayette became a table-top prop stylist for Bon Appetite magazine simultaneously maintaining her small business, Atelier Fayette, which now focused on Antique French Textiles from the Art Nouveau Era, creating pillows for home decor which were featured in magazines such as House and Gardens. Fayette's photography work has been featured in galleries and museums and is currently a part of the exhibit West of Center: Art and The Counter-Culture Experiment in America, 1965-1977, first curated by the Denver Museum of Contemporary Art.
Fayette has presented an artist's talk and slide show as well as performance, travelling with the exhibit to all its various locales; Scottsdale MCA, Jordan Schnitzer Museum, U. of Oregon, Mills College Art Museum, Oakland. She has also presented her artist’s talk to the students at the University of Washington, Counter-Couture class 2 years in a row and to the Barbie design team at Mattel’s Handler Design Studio.
Articles
https://www.kqed.org/arts/13910612/the-cockettes-san-francisco-public-library-fayette-hauser-scrumbly
https://library.harvard.edu/collections/cockettes
https://www.vanityfair.com/style/2020/04/remembering-the-cockettes-trailblazing-drag-queens
https://www.them.us/story/the-cockettes-queer-theater-revolution
https://www.salon.com/2000/08/23/weissman/
https://dangerousminds.net/comments/the_cockettes_crash_and_burn_in_new_york_city_1971
https://walkerart.org/magazine/cockettes-acid-drag-freak-pride
https://littlevillagemag.com/prairie-pop-former-angels-of-light-reminisce-about-the-influence-of-their-brother-and-son-hibiscus/
https://www.messynessychic.com/2022/03/04/the-maximalist-psychedelic-hippies-who-popularized-drag-shows/
https://48hills.org/2022/05/the-cockettes-live-wildly-on-in-eternal-emissions/
Documentary and Video Playlist
The Cockettes - A flamboyant ensemble of gender-bending hippies, The Cockettes created a series of LSD-fueled musicals in early 1970s San Francisco. These extravaganzas featured outrageous costumes, rebellious sexuality, and exuberant chaos. 2002 | Stars: Larry Brinkin, Peggy Cass, The Cockettes | Director: Bill Weber, David Weissman
(Free at Link Below)
https://youtu.be/Njhps-mFGAk
Vintage Annals Archive Youtube Playlist
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLh4zYKaPKme4uAIrvnIKiQXw0IP6wboWS
Books
The Cockettes Acid Drag and Sexual Anarchy 1962-1972 by Fayette Hauser
http://fayettehauser.com/store.htmlMidnight at the Palace: My Life as a Fabulous Cockette by Pam Tenthttps://www.stevensbooks.com/products/midnight-at-the-palace-my-life-as-a-fabulous-cockette?variant_id=13680204
Websites
https://www.cockettes.com
http://fayettehauser.com/index.html
As the psychedelic San Francisco of the ’60’s began evolving into the gay San Francisco of the ’70’s, The Cockettes, a flamboyant ensemble of hippies (women, gay men, and babies) decked themselves out in gender-bending drag and tons of glitter for a series of legendary midnight musicals at the Palace Theater in North Beach. With titles like “Tinsel Tarts in a Hot Coma” and “Pearls over Shanghai”, these all singing, all dancing extravaganzas featured elaborate costumes, rebellious sexuality, and exuberant chaos. The Cockettes were founded by “Hibiscus”, a member of a commune called KaliFlower that was dedicated to distributing free food and to creating free art and theater. They first performed as an informal group of friends in wild costumes doing a chorus line dance to “Honky Tonk Woman” at The Nocturnal Dream Shows, a weekly midnight eclectic film series at The Palace. The chorus line quickly evolved into bigger, wilder, and more lavish productions, and the Cockettes’ shows fast became not-to-be-missed events for the hippest of San Francisco’s free spirits. The audiences were often as wild as the shows, generating tremendous energy. New shows were created every few weeks – “Paste on Paste”, “Gone with the Showboat to Oklahoma”, and “Tropical Heatwave/Hot Voodoo”, were some of the early titles. The early shows were mostly non-narrative revues, with everybody making their own costumes, and creative spontaneity reigning supreme. But with “Pearls Over Shanghai” the Cockettes produced their first show with all original script, music and lyrics. Combining grand spectacle with the endearing awkwardness of a high school operetta production, The Cockettes thrilled the audiences as much with their unpredictability as with their triumphs. In anticipation of the televised wedding of President Nixon’s daughter Tricia, The Cockettes made a film called TRICIA’S WEDDING, featuring a transvestite Tricia, a drunken Mamie Eisenhower, a party crashing Lady Bird Johnson, and a drag Eartha Kitt spiking the punch with LSD, resulting in a mad orgy. The Cockettes also appeared in the films ELEVATOR GIRLS IN BONDAGE, and LUMINOUS PROCURESS. Kreemah and Goldie Truman Capote and Reed attended a San Francisco performance of “Tinsel Tarts in a Hot Coma”, and Reed wrote a glowing review in his nationally syndicated column, calling it “a landmark in the history of new, liberated theater…” “The Cockettes are where it’s at!” raved Capote. The Cockettes became national media darlings and were invited to perform what would turn out to be a tumultuous 3 week run in New York. Reed’s review had New York buzzing in anticipation, from upper east side society to the lower east side underground. Diana Vreeland and Oscar de la Renta greeted the Cockettes on arrival and Robert Rauschenberg threw them a party in his loft. The opening night audience included John Lennon, Gore Vidal, Angela Lansbury, and Anthony Perkins. But the freewheeling, anarchic, atmosphere that so electrified the San Francisco shows didn’t carry over to The Big Apple, where the opening night throng of celebrities and socialites were bewildered by The Cockettes’ seeming indifference to “professionalism”. The press hated them, and the audience walked out in droves. But after the Society crowds disappeared, the underground scene continued to attend, and the shows ran for three weeks with small but highly enthusiastic crowds.
The Cockettes returned to San Francisco to put on some of their most successful shows (“Journey to the Center of Uranus”, “Les Etoiles de Paris” and “Hot Greeks”) . They gave their last performance in the autumn of 1972. Some of them continued to perform together in other contexts, some began solo careers, and others departed from “show business” entirely. The Cockettes inspired the glitter rock era of David Bowie, Elton John, and The New York Dolls, and the campy extravaganzas of Bette Midler and The Rocky Horror Picture Show. “Their influence will be felt years from now,” wrote Lillian Roxon, in her Top of the Pops column during the troupe’s New York run. She proclaimed The Cockettes 15 years ahead of their time, and predicted, “Every time you see too much glitter or a rhinestone out-of-place, you (will) know it’s because of the Cockettes.
Biography - Fayette Hauser
Fayette Hauser was born in Troy, New York and raised in Wanamassa, New Jersey, a suburb of the beach town of Asbury Park. At the age of 3 she embarked on a modeling career, which lasted until kindergarten set her in a more scholarly direction. Fayette graduated in 1967 from Boston University, College of Fine Arts with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in painting and sculpture.
Fayette lived for a year in Manhattan’s West Village with Lenny Kaye who became the guitarist for Patti Smith. She was involved with the underground scene there with filmmakers such as Jack Smith and Andy Warhol appearing in the Ronald Tavel-Andy Warhol film The Life Story of Juanita Castro. In the summer of 1968 Fayette went to Aspen, Colorado to paint. While there she was picked up hitch-hiking by Nancy Gurley, the wife of James Gurley, the guitarist for Big Brother and the Holding Company. Meeting Nancy was the event that changed the course of her life. Nancy brought Fayette to San Francisco and into the arms of the original counter-culture tribe, The Family Dog. She began to live communely with other artists and in the fall of 1969 she co-founded the avant-garde experimental theatre troupe The Cockettes. (see Cockettes) She performed, designed costumes and extensively photographed the troupe until it's demise in 1972. In the summer of 1972 Fayette went to Seattle to be with Tomata du Plenty and to perform with his troupe Ze Whiz Kidz. Tomata formed his group after performing with The Cockettes early in 1970 so he successfully brought the Cockette zeitgeist to Seattle. Ze Whiz Kidz were the first spin-off group of The Cockettes. They did shows every weekend at the Smith Tower, in the basement in a club called The Sub Room. It was an intimate location with a small stage so shows were fast and furious, lots of small skits and songs, all original material. In the fall of 1972 Fayette and Tomata moved to Lower Manhattan to perform in New York with the Underground Theater scene that was thriving in venues along the Bowery. They performed at the Cafe Cina, CBGB's where the Ramones opened for them in their show Savage Voodoo Nuns, The Bouwerie Lane Theatre in the Palm Casino Revue, 1973 & 1974 and the Club 82. Soon other Cockettes and Whiz Kidz joined them; Sweet Pam, John Flowers, Gorilla Rose and Screaming Orchids. In 1975 Fayette moved to Los Angeles to write for CBS Television. However the burgeoning Los Angeles performance scene was too enticing so Fayette along with Tomata du Plenty continued performing in many underground clubs like Al's Bar, The Anti-Club, The Brave Dod and The Whisky. In 1978 Fayette, along with Jeff McGregor and Chuck Ivey formed the band Interpol. The band featured original New Wave music in a Neo-Romantic, Goth style.
At the same time Fayette continued her education receiving an Associate Degree in Photography and becoming a professional photographer and graphic artist, photographing and designing album covers for many of the creative artists in the music scene of Los Angeles in the 70's and 80's.
Along with her photography Fayette created a small design business called Atelier Fayette which featured Wearable Art, one-of-a-kind clothing. Her clients included The Rolling Stones, New Kids on the Block, Arsenio Hall and Diana Ross. In the early 90's Fayette studied Method Acting with Susan Peretz, the then head of The Actor's Studio. At this time Fayette also was the Costume Designer on four feature films, The Russian Godfather, The Isle of Lesbos, My Brother Jack and High Cotton (not completed). She received two Dramalogue Awards for the plays Detective Story and A View from the Bridge. Later Fayette became a table-top prop stylist for Bon Appetite magazine simultaneously maintaining her small business, Atelier Fayette, which now focused on Antique French Textiles from the Art Nouveau Era, creating pillows for home decor which were featured in magazines such as House and Gardens. Fayette's photography work has been featured in galleries and museums and is currently a part of the exhibit West of Center: Art and The Counter-Culture Experiment in America, 1965-1977, first curated by the Denver Museum of Contemporary Art.
Fayette has presented an artist's talk and slide show as well as performance, travelling with the exhibit to all its various locales; Scottsdale MCA, Jordan Schnitzer Museum, U. of Oregon, Mills College Art Museum, Oakland. She has also presented her artist’s talk to the students at the University of Washington, Counter-Couture class 2 years in a row and to the Barbie design team at Mattel’s Handler Design Studio.
Articles
https://www.kqed.org/arts/13910612/the-cockettes-san-francisco-public-library-fayette-hauser-scrumbly
https://library.harvard.edu/collections/cockettes
https://www.vanityfair.com/style/2020/04/remembering-the-cockettes-trailblazing-drag-queens
https://www.them.us/story/the-cockettes-queer-theater-revolution
https://www.salon.com/2000/08/23/weissman/
https://dangerousminds.net/comments/the_cockettes_crash_and_burn_in_new_york_city_1971
https://walkerart.org/magazine/cockettes-acid-drag-freak-pride
https://littlevillagemag.com/prairie-pop-former-angels-of-light-reminisce-about-the-influence-of-their-brother-and-son-hibiscus/
https://www.messynessychic.com/2022/03/04/the-maximalist-psychedelic-hippies-who-popularized-drag-shows/
https://48hills.org/2022/05/the-cockettes-live-wildly-on-in-eternal-emissions/
Documentary and Video Playlist
The Cockettes - A flamboyant ensemble of gender-bending hippies, The Cockettes created a series of LSD-fueled musicals in early 1970s San Francisco. These extravaganzas featured outrageous costumes, rebellious sexuality, and exuberant chaos. 2002 | Stars: Larry Brinkin, Peggy Cass, The Cockettes | Director: Bill Weber, David Weissman
(Free at Link Below)
https://youtu.be/Njhps-mFGAk
Vintage Annals Archive Youtube Playlist
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLh4zYKaPKme4uAIrvnIKiQXw0IP6wboWS
Books
The Cockettes Acid Drag and Sexual Anarchy 1962-1972 by Fayette Hauser
http://fayettehauser.com/store.htmlMidnight at the Palace: My Life as a Fabulous Cockette by Pam Tenthttps://www.stevensbooks.com/products/midnight-at-the-palace-my-life-as-a-fabulous-cockette?variant_id=13680204
Websites
https://www.cockettes.com
http://fayettehauser.com/index.html