Barbette
June is #PrideMonth. All month long we're celebrating Pride with our friends. This page is not just an ally, we are an accomplice. For Pride Month this year we're focusing less on "love who you want" and more on "queer and trans people are in danger". In the spirit of that vibe, we're choosing to highlight activists and events where the struggle for basic human and civil rights wasn't all rainbows (see what we did there) and sunshine.
Barbette (1899-1973) was born Vander Clyde Broadway in Trickham, Texas, the eldest of six children. A visit to the circus in Austin inspired him to be a performer. He was known to stage shows in his backyard for the neighborhood by wire-walking on his mother’s clothesline. At the age of 14, he left Round Rock, Texas to become a high wire performer in a double-act with a woman called the Alfaretta Sisters. He stated that was the first time he actually dressed as a woman. He debuted as a solo act in 1919 at the Harlem Opera House, performing in drag and revealing himself as male only at the end of his act.
He was later represented by William Morris who sent him abroad in 1923. He became a featured attraction with the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus and toured London, Brussels and Berlin. It was during an engagement at the London Palladium that Barbette was found engaged in sexual activity with another man. His contract was cancelled and he was never able to obtain a work permit for England again. He returned to America in 1924 to appear in The Passing Show of 1924, a highly publicized musical revue, which ran for four months and 106 performances.
After two falls, one in 1929 at the Moulin Rouge, another in 1931, he eventually had to retire from performing. Barbette became a highly sought-after trainer, choreographer, and consultant for circus arts, theater, and Hollywood films. He prepped Clark Gable for Idiots Delight (1939) and James Stewart for The Greatest Show on Earth. Most famously, he trained Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon to move like women for Some Like it Hot (1959). He was the aerial director for Disney’s The Big Circus that same year. He also consulted for Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus and the Polack Bros. Circus, becoming famous for creating an act featuring girls performing inside a massive suspended birdcage structure.
He always returned to Texas, where he died in 1973, unfortunately having suffered with chronic pain for many years. He was profiled by the New Yorker in 1969. Read that article and the Texas Monthly article for some fascinating profiles. View the pictures in the gallery, also in the links. Legend.
Barbette has not been forgotten. A French restaurant in Minneapolis is named Barbette On 5 June 2026, the Texas Historical Commission installed a marker at Round Rock Cemetery, where he is buried next to his mother and sister, to honor Barbette’s life and legacy. The plaque is one of only a handful of state markers recognizing LGBTQ+ history.
https://www.texasmonthly.com/being-texan/barbette-vaudeville-icon/
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1969/09/27/an-angel-a-flower-a-bird
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/7093146/barbette
https://www.statesman.com/picture-gallery/news/local/2017/08/12/photos-barbette-round-rock-s-cross-dressing/953682007/