Ma Vie En Rose

Whether he's
playing Karen Walker’s acid-tongued frenemy Beverley
Leslie on Will & Grace
or cross-dressing Brother Boy in the cult
film Sordid Lives, actor Leslie Jordan has made
a career out of playing screamingly homosexual
Southerners. In his one-man show My Trip Down the
Pink Carpet, Jordan recounts his path to Hollywood
success, doling out dishy celebrity stories
and tales of the drug-fueled gay scene of the
1970s and detailing the dreams of a starstruck childhood
sissy in Chattanooga, Tenn. The one-night-only
performance kicked off for Gay Fest 2008, a theater
festival that raises money for New York City’s Harvey
Milk High School.

Describing
himself as "the gayest man on Earth," Jordan claims
that he "fell out of the womb and into my mama’s high
heels." Growing up gay in the Bible Belt in the '60s
and '70s, Jordan was closeted, but obviously a
poofter. "I open my mouth, and 50 yards of purple
chiffon comes out!" He was a huge fan of Tammy Wynette, whom
he calls, "the queen of the codependent anthem." The
audience howled with laughter as the diminutive,
foul-mouthed ball of energy shared memories of his
early encounters with phone sex, unrequited crushes,
and at the age of 17 his first visit to a gay bar, the Cross
Keys Lounge. He describes entering that bar (with two
big-wigged Southern-fried drag queens to guide him) as
the defining moment of his life -- everything is
either before or after that pivotal encounter.