Legend has it that DeLarverie threw the first punch at police officers during the Stonewall Rebellion of June 1969 (she and other witnesses have corroborated this). She was also featured in Michelle Parkerson’s 1987 short film, “Stormé: The Lady of the Jewel Box.” During that period, in 1961, DeLarverie sat for famous photographer, Diane Arbus, producing the image “Miss Stormé de Larverie, the Lady Who Appears to be a Gentleman, N.Y.C.” DeLarverie’s choice to don menswear as her regular attire inspired other lesbians to do the same.
The Jewel Box Revue played regularly at the Apollo Theater in Harlem, and entertained integrated audiences nationally, something that was unusual at that time in history. Audiences would be invited to guess who the “one girl” in the troupe was, later to be treated to a big reveal during a number called “A Surprise With a Song”. The JBR’s slogan was “25 Men and One Girl.” DeLarverie dressed in masculine drag (a drag king), while the other performers dressed in feminine drag (drag queens). At age 18, she realized she was a lesbian and moved to Chicago, Illinois, where she claimed to have worked as a bodyguard for mobsters.ĭeLarverie continued to perform and was, notably, the MC of the Jewel Box Revue, a racially integrated touring variety show, from 1955-1969. It was in her late teens that she shifted to dressing and performing as a man. She also sang in a jazz group, through which she performed in Europe. The relocation was a welcome change, as DeLarverie had been violently bullied.Īs a teenager DeLarverie rode horses side-saddle for the Ringling Brothers Circus, but stopped after suffering an injury. DeLarverie largely grew up in the South, but relocated to California when her parents married. Though those circumstances denied her clarity about her true birthdate, she celebrated it on December 24. Stormé DeLarverie was born in New Orleans, Louisiana in 1920 to a Black mother who worked as a servant in the house of her white father.
“It was a rebellion, it was an uprising, it was a civil rights disobedience – it wasn’t no damn riot.”
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