AIDS – The First 20 Years

On 5 June 1981, a medical journal reported a mysterious illness that had killed five young gay men in Los Angeles. A lot has happened since then.

The Observer, June 2001

Part one: The Memory

1 Dan versus Danny
Soon it will be time for Danny La Rue to sing. At the Pleasance theatre in north London at the beginning of May 2001, the 73-year-old entertainer stands onstage in a blue dress and high white hair and announces that he has been in show business for 51 years. He has some personal observations about Bill Clinton (‘He propositioned me in the Oval Office!’) and Zsa Zsa Gabor (‘She was wearing so many feathers you could have stuck them up her arse and she’d have flown home’), and then he launches into a suggestive song he used to sing on the Good Old Days. As he sings, the occasional glittery bead and sequin drops from his dress. This, bizarrely, is rather good entertainment, and is relished by an enthusiastic audience of sweet-smelling moneyed gay men, tonight being a fundraising night for the Aids charity Crusaid.

Tickets cost £30 per head, including a smoked-salmon titbit in the interval and a post-show video-signing session with Danny in the foyer. The night is divided into two parts. In the first, ‘Danny La Rue’ shimmies around doing his rude-marrow song and Marlene Dietrich routine, and in the second ‘Dan’ comes out in black shirt and gold medallion and slightly less make-up, and talks about his friendships with Barbara Windsor, Ronnie Corbett and his eventful and unique career as an actor, singer, club owner, window dresser and drag artist.

‘I have never taken a frock home – not once,’ he says at the very start, lest anyone suspect he actually wore this stuff around the kitchen. ‘When I did Through the Keyhole, some young TV girl asked me if I would come to the door wearing a frock and I said: “Fuck off!”‘
He talks about his religious upbringing in Ireland, his memories of 60s Soho, his loving relationship with his manager Jack. He is prompted by questions from the audience, written on pink cards during the interval and collected in a champagne bucket. ‘Ask him anything you want!’ the invitation said, so I asked him a question about Aids.

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