Beautiful

Abstract Beautiful: The Story of Julian Eltinge, America’s Greatest Female Impersonator is the first in-depth, book-length biography of the vaudeville, musical comedy, and silent film performer Julian Eltinge (1881–1941). Eltinge, born William Dalton in Massachusetts, was widely considered the most popular and highest-paid cisgender male portrayer of women and was among the highest-paid, most widely followed actors of any kind at his peak. He portrayed Gibson Girl and Salome characters in vaudeville and starred in musical comedies like The Fascinating Widow (1911) and silent comedies such as The Countess Charming (1917). In 1912, his producer and mentor A. H. Woods named a new Broadway theatre for Eltinge on West 42nd Street. The years that marked Julian Eltinge’s greatest success, about 1900–1925, were a time when it was common for men to play women’s parts and wear female costuming in theatrical settings both professional and amateur. Men in mainstream culture faced little censure for crossdressing onstage or being enthusiastic fans of the art form. Julian Eltinge thus rode atop and co-created a wave of cultural fascination with men skillfully playing women’s parts. His story reveals much about attitudes toward gender, racialized masculinity, womanhood, and sexuality as they emerged and changed in the early twentieth century, setting the stage for ongoing cultural and political ferment. Julian Eltinge’s ability both to present seemingly “perfect” women onstage while posing himself as a rugged, conventionally masculine, “regular” man offstage—a consummate professional and expert technician rather than a fetishist or freakshow-type oddity—contributed as much to his success as did his impersonations.