Joyce Glasser reviews Maisie (August 5, 2022) Cert 15, 75 mins.
In Cinemas and on BFI Player and Bohemia Euphoria from Bohemia Media.
At 75 minutes, Lee Cooper’s affectionate, intimate biography documentary Maisie, does not overstay its welcome, nor has its eponymous subject, who is still making appearances to cheering crowds at his Brighton haunts at the age of 85. David Raven, who has performed for fifty years as Maisie Trollette, is the oldest drag artiste (he does not identify with the term Drag Queen) in the UK.
In what must be described as a bonus, we witness the long overdue meeting between Maisie and his US counterpart, Darcelle XV, 89, certified by the Guinness Book of Records as the oldest Drag Queen in the world.
But first we are treated to a visit to David without the wig, make-up, over-the-top gowns and costume jewellery pottering around his garden, or as he calls it, his “retreat,” where his sense of improvisational humour is evident. The rose bush attacked him on the way to the garden shed where his 40 gowns are stored. As for his pansies, well, ‘I don’t need to grow too many of them’ he mutters, referring to the old fashioned pun.
His modest home is a meeting point for friends and colleagues, including theatre producer Allan Cardew and fellow drag artists Miss Jason (Jason Sutton) and Miss Dave Lunn (Dave Lynn) who meet to discuss plans for David’s 85th birthday bash. There’s even a call from the Brighton Museum wanting to know if David still wants to be represented in an exhibition.
Most readers will not have heard of Maisie, but there are those who will remember the Eighties when David Raven made his name as part of a cabaret act at LGBT venues around London like The Black Cap and The Vauxhall Tavern. David proudly reminds us that these cabaret acts are rooted in the British tradition of pantomime. It was the ninth producer of the long-running BBC Doctor Who series, John Nathan Turner, who gave the Trollettes their break on the pantomime circuit, where David went on to perform with Jimmy Court and then with Chris Hayward.
We learn from captions placed at the end of the film that Billie Jean King, Diana Dors and Rudolph Nureyev were among the Trollette fans who regularly caught Maisie’s performances. While David lives alone, we see photos of his handsome partner, Don, about whom we know nothing more than that he died of AIDS. David misses him, and has, over the years raised money for charity, including The Sussex Beacon that helps care for and support people diagnosed with HIV.
In a period where being gay was illegal, the drag acts were a means of expression and entertainment to those otherwise excluded. Now the pendulum has swung around, and feminist groups are critical of the image of women as vulgar old hags portrayed by men, but that’s for another film.
As part of the big birthday celebration, a meeting has been organised in a Brighton restaurant, with the Drag Queen Pageant legend Walter Cole (AKA Darcelle XV) from Portland, Oregon. Cole’s entry in the Guinness Book of Records as the world’s oldest drag queen prompts a frequently uncomfortable competition between the two, although David reminds us that he is not a drag queen.
Walter Cole is also a shrewd businessman, who owns and operates his cabaret, putting him in a different league. At the restaurant, the overweight 89-year-old rejects the champagne that David has ordered with high tea and presents David with a huge pair of showy rhinestone earrings as a birthday gift. He also shares a tip on how to keep them on since they are not for pierced ears. The solution is duct tape.
Darcelle XV’s gowns are more like professional costumes and when he and Maisie appear on stage together (primarily for photos), Darcelle XV has three quick changes of costume to Maisie’s one. That said, Cole’s daughter accompanies her father and patiently serves as his dresser.
Darcelle XV’s Rhinestone Cowboy outfit is a knockout and the song a hit, but whereas Darcelle XV’s “singing” is karaoke, Maisie is the real deal, as she demonstrates at the birthday gala finale. All the make-up and false eyelashes in the world can’t disguise an octogenarian man in a wig, but Maisie makes, If I never sang another song by Don Black and Udo Jürgens’ her own:
In my heyday, young men wrote to me.
Everybody seemed to have time to devote to me.
I’ve had every accolade bestowed on me….
If I never sang another song
It wouldn’t bother me.
I’ve had my share of fame; you know my name….
If I never sang another song,
Or take another bow
I’d get by
Although I’m not sure how.
It’s a moving and fitting finale not only to the birthday gala, but to the documentary, offering us a glimpse of why Maisie Trollette is still a draw. You only wish Lee Cooper were a bit more curious and probing, particularly about Maisie’s early life and that David included a few anecdotes from his hey-day.
What does come across, both in the final song and when asked about plans to retire, is David’s need to keep working, an option not available to most over sixties. ‘I don’t put this as work,’ David says. ‘It’s keeping me going. God knows what I’d do if I didn’t do anything, and I wasn’t being involved. Thankfully, I’m able.’
