Mazer Programming Compilation, Dr. Marie Cartier, Cleve Jones, Lillian Faderman, June L. Mazer Lesbian Archives, 2011-2013.
[caption: A Home for Our Stories]
Cartier: So I said to Murno, “What was, what did that give you, to call those bars?” And she said, “Freedom. I knew that someday I would be free. And if I couldn’t go there, I wanted to hear that someone was there.” And I said, “You never said anything?” And she said, “Only one time in fourteen years” did she ever say anything. Towards the end of that time, she asked one of the bartenders who picked up the phone–I’ve told this story so many times, that it’s like, this part, different parts of her story because what she said to them is “Do you have an age limit?” Because she thought her whole ability to be gay had passed her by.
Sisneros: –started this in 1992, well, in 1991 we started an anti-Hollywood homophobia campaign. We used The Celluloid Closet, the book by Vito Russo, many of you know, as our bible. And there were issues with various movies. That year Fried Green Tomatoes–they took the lesbian content out of that book and made the movie.
Jones: I had joined Gay Liberation Arizona Desert, and our first act was to bring Del and Phyllis –they had just published Lesbian Woman [photo of book cover and authors]. So I got this school, Arizona State, where my father was the chairman of the psychology department. Yeah, he was not happy. So we got this theater reserved, and I reserved the parking area. And I didn’t really think anybody was going to show up, and I got down there about an hour before, and the parking lot was filled with cars. And I said to the parking attendant, “Hey, I reserved this space here”, and he said, “Yeah, they’re with you.” And I went in and there were, like, 500 women there. They’d driven–there were these dusty pickup trucks in the parking lot with Colorado license plates and California license plates and New Mexico license plates. Women from all over the Southwest had driven hundreds of miles–much as I did last night to be with you today [laughter]–to see Del and Phyllis.
And Del and Phyllis are up on stage, and I’m looking at them–I think I’m seventeen or eighteen at the time–and Phyllis to this day looks a lot like my mom. Really, she does! And she kind of speaks like my mom. So she’s up there talking about how they’re fire-breathing lesbian feminists, and they’re going to burn down the patriarchy, and just how threatening they were to the establishment and the rest of it. And I was such a snotty little punk kid, and during the question and answer period, I said to–I said [laughs], I was like the only guy in the audience too–I said, “Well, excuse me, Ms. Lyon. You know, but I just think it’s funny because you talk about how dangerous you are, but you really look just like my mom.” And she said, “Well, fuck you, kid! I ain’t your mother!” [laughter] Oh god. And we are still friends to this day.
Faderman: I told you that in 1956 I discovered this gay girls bar, the Open Door. I stopped going there in 1957 when I found a gay girls bar that I liked even better. And that too was here in Los Angeles; it was on Ventura Boulevard. And there was an incredible woman singer there by the name of Beverly Shaw, who dressed like Marlene Dietrich and had a voice and a style like Dietrich’s. [photo of album cover] And I confess that all of us young lesbians had a huge crush on Beverly Shaw.
[music plays]
Anyway, I hadn’t heard her voice in nearly forty years. But doing research at the Mazer about a dozen years ago, I found a vinyl record album with a big picture of Beverly Shaw on the cover, just as I remembered her, and her record inside singing all of my favorites from the 1950s. Now I can’t imagine that there are many copies left of that album anywhere else in the world, but there it was in the Mazer Collection.
[song by Beverly Shaw plays]
[album cover titled “Miss Beverly Shaw”]
[article with caption: “Beverly Shaw bought and ran Club Laurel in Studio City for 14 years during the 1940s & 50s.”]
[album cover: Miss Beverly Shaw, songs “tailored to your taste” with caption: “Beverly’s self-produced album. She autographed it with personal notes for adoring fans.”]
[photo with the caption “Mona’s Club, San Francisco, 1945”]
[glass ashtray from Mona’s, 440 Broadway, San Francisco with the caption: “Where girls will be boys!”]
[photo of Beverly & friends at Mona’s Club, San Francisco, 1940s]
[photo of Martina Navratilova and Billie Jean King]
[publicity poster for Unbound Feet Three]
[caption: Thank You to Our Sponsors! City of West Hollywood & Damron Publishing]
[caption: Media Sponsor: KleisTV.com, A Division of Groovation, Inc., a New Media Production Company]
[END OF VIDEO]
Interviewee: Marie Cartier
Interviewee: Jusy Sisneros
Interviewee: Cleve Jones
Interviewee: Lillian Faderman
Interviewer: None
Transcriber: Janice C.
Formatter: Serena R.
Recording Date:
Release Date: December 29, 2016
Location: Unknown
Interview Length: 00:05:19