Carmen

The Queen of Crown Street is the grandson of an Atarungi (Maori witchdoctor), steeped in the dark arts but radiating light. As a boy named Trevor Rupe, she collected cobwebs, leaves and roots for voodoo chemistry and urinated on the wounds of those who mistrusted white doctors while dreaming of being a nun. As Sydney's second most famous drag act, she moved money for the mafia, seduced socialites with snake shimmies and sold herself to the Sydney night a thousand times over.

Today, with tresses piled high over pouting lips and her apocalyptic breasts encased in trademark technicolour muumuus, Carmen is an icon beyond Sydney's gay and lesbian royalty... albeit no longer a snake charmer. "Darling," she'll purr today. "One python's quite enough for me."

Fourth of 13 children bearing the Maniapoto tribal mark, Carmen lost her father to suicide at seven but carried on her milking, hay baling and creamery chores in the midst of a loving nest presided over by an English-Maori mother and clairvoyant Nana, both of whom declined to bat an eyelid when Trevor began echoing the femininities of his two older sisters. As she grew up and into Carmen she began moving in gay circles and tales came to her of a glittering city across the water.

But in 1955, having worked as telegram boy, waiter and nurse to book her passage, Carmen was conscripted and found herself in the ANZAC artillery and medical divisions. "I was only just coming out and very scared, but I proved not too much of a pansy and the army made us swim in the nude which for me meant a smorgasbord!"

In the first of a long line of discharges, Carmen came out for real, the first Kiwi to do so. Then she set sail for the promised land, where "coming through Sydney Heads, I immediately fell in love."

Wandering through Kings Cross without a brass razoo to her name, an Aboriginal boy complimented her looks and beckoned Carmen to the Wall on Darlinghurst Road. There she watched limousines cruise by like neon-stained sharks until they paused before a long line of comely lads. When one stopped in front of her and the door opened, Carmen weighed a rumbling belly against a tremulous heart then jumped in.

It was the start of Carmen's dangerous life as a male prostitute in Sin City, a gig that afforded her nice clothes but also the attentions of NSW police whose fistic exorcisms more than once found her in the Darlinghurst cells or the longest yard in town: Long Bay gaol. There, Carmen admits, "It got a bit heavy." Luckily, providence intervened and Kings Cross sparked as the most detonative vice district in the south.

Legendary American impresario Lee Gordon had opened the Jewel Box with drag queen Carlotta as star, until wooed to Les Girls shortly afterward. Clubs were sprouting in Sydney like magic mushrooms - the Pink Pussycat, Staccato Club, Foxhole, Whiskey au Go-Go, Pink Panther. Their denizens? "Strippers, gangsters, bearded ladies, flower people, bohemians, rockers, hippies, bikers, whores, pimps, hoons, cops, cons, film stars, voodoo ladies, go-go gals - this was my audience," recalls Carmen.

With an arsenal of hula, flamenco, castanet, belly and snake dancing routines and a rabid following among  all aficionados of cocks in frocks, Carmen became Sydney's most exotic flower. "I had a lot of love affairs in showbiz and most never knew I was a drag queen I looked so good!" Carmen flitted the light fantastic with Frank Sinatra, Elizabeth Taylor, Ella Fitzgerald and the shysters, hucksters, thugs and Mafioso who ran Sydney's sub terrain. "I was paid well," winks Carmen at the memory, "... well under the table."

In 1969, Carmen went home to open clubs and bordellos offering "coffee downstairs, sweets upstairs." Newly equipped with a spectacular $220 boob job, she ran for Mayor of Wellington in 1977, on a bill legalising brothels and gay marriage, campaigning under the manifesto, 'Get in Behind'. Despite running a close second, Carmen was back whoring on her beloved William Street a few months later. "I was fascinated at why gorgeous men wanted me and not their wives and I was always honoured to be chosen."

Carmen only ever did "French" with her johns but after a blowjob at bullet point and a sobering survey of the empty corners where her friends once stood, she retired.

Today, she still dabbles in cabaret while presiding as matriarch of a Surry Hills community centre. And when she's not zipping around the Hills on a motorised chariot given in gratitude to her by the Luncheon Club on her 70th birthday last year, Carmen's court is a housing commission unit heaving with photos, feather boas, hall of fame certifications, beefcake shots ("Prince William can claim me anytime he wants"), Maori headpieces, Barbie dolls and news clippings of all the lost children she prays for. 

Lifeline

1936 Born "Trevor" in Taumaranui (pop: 2000)
1955 Conscripted into New Zealand army
1957 Begins work as male prostitute
1959 Moves to Sydney, works The Wall
1963 Joins Les Girls as exotic dancer
1969 Returns to New Zealand to run clubs
1973 Has boob job, first Kiwi man to do so
1977 Runs for Mayor of Wellington
1979 Back to Sydney, resumes cabaret work
2003 Inducted into Variety Hall of Fame
2007 Gifted scooter from Sydney residents

More Sydney celebrities and identities? Sign up to our weekly newsletter