Darcelle XV: The Oldest Drag Queen in the World (ft. Poison Waters)

LGBTQ&A

Jeffrey Masters

Society & Culture

4.7 • 703 Ratings

🗓️ 5 April 2023

⏱️ 16 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Darcelle XV (Walter Cole), the world's oldest drag queen, died on March 23, 2023. She was 92.

Since 1967, Darcelle has been performing and running the Portland drag venue, Darcelle XV Showplace, which was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2020. I had the opportunity to speak with Darcelle and her friend and collaborator, Poison Waters (Kevin Cook) a few weeks before her death.

This is part of our special series, the LGBTQ+ Elders Project. You can listen to previous interviews with LGBTQ+ elders like Angela Davis, Miss Major Griffin-Gracy, André De Shields, and Dr. Charles Silverstein.

LGBTQ&A is hosted and produced by Jeffrey Masters. @jeffmasters1

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Hey, I'm Jeffrey Masters, and we are technically on a break right now, but I've been recording interviews for our new season,
0:11.5	and one of those that recorded last month was with Darcell the 15th, aka Walter Cole.
0:19.0	Darcell was known for being the oldest drag queen in the world. That's something
0:23.3	that was certified by the Guinness World Records. And unfortunately, Darcell died last week
0:28.3	at the age of 92. We are not officially back for our new season, but I wanted to share our
0:34.3	interview today since it was one of her last. So you're going to hear Darcell speak about how much drag has changed in the last 50 years,
0:42.2	and she also talks about her bar and drag venue that's called Darcel 15 Showplace,
0:47.1	and it's in Portland, Oregon.
0:49.2	That club opened in 1967 and has been continuously running ever since.
0:55.0	In 2020, it was even added to the National Register of Historic Places.
1:00.0	Now, Darcel is joined in our interview by Kevin Cook, aka Poison Waters.
1:05.0	Poison is another great Portland drag queen who's performed and worked with Darcel for many, many years,
1:12.0	and also lived just a few doors down.
1:15.1	So without further ado, this is LGBTQ and A with the late Darcell the 15th.
1:21.8	Here she is. I'm going to start at the beginning.
1:35.2	You were doing drag in 67?
1:38.6	I thought it was actually like illegal back then in terms of like regulations and like cross-dressing.
1:44.5	It was never really illegal in Portland, in Oregon, but we didn't walk the streets in it.
1:50.4	You know, we got up and did the show and went back to Levi's.
1:54.7	What was Levi's?
1:56.2	The blue jeans.
1:57.0	Blue jeans.
	...

Transcript will be available on the free plan in -725 days. Upgrade to see the full transcript now.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Jeffrey Masters, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Jeffrey Masters and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.