Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, September 8, 1995 TAG: 9509080027
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: COLLEEN BARRY ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: NEW YORK LENGTH: Medium
So why's Swayze wearing taffeta - not to mention the rhinestone earrings, glossy lipstick and crimson wig swept into an elegant bouffant?
His latest role may not exactly have called for a leading man, but Swayze still had plenty of Hollywood references on which to style his performance: Joan Crawford, Lana Turner, Rosalind Russell.
These actress don't exactly get their due in ``To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything, Julie Newmar,'' which opens today in Roanoke, but Swayze says they helped give elegance and poise to Miss Vida Boheme, a drag queen.
Vida Boheme defies drag queen typing. She may be too broad through the shoulders to shop off the rack, but she's too wrapped up in others to be larger than life. Despite her classical models, she's best understood as a den mother.
It is Vida who persuades Miss Noxeema Jackson (Wesley Snipes), her co-winner of a New York City drag queen beauty contest, to cash in their round-trip airplane tickets to Hollywood and certain stardom so they can help a drag queen-in-waiting, Chi Chi Rodriguez (John Leguizamo).
So begins the abbreviated cross-country journey of two career girls and a drag princess, convertible top down and an autographed photo of actress Julie Newmar plucked from a restaurant wall and tucked in a bag for good luck.
To capture Vida, Swayze said he had to defy the drag queen motto: "More is more."
``I thought I was going to get to set myself free, and be out there and be big outrageous. [But] I found I had to find Vida's reserve in order to get the elegance. ... I had to go to less is more for Vida,'' Swayze said in an interview.
``I found I could not approach the character as a man in a dress, so `drag queen' ceased to mean anything to me. I had to do what was in my power to become a woman, or I'd blow this role and I'd blow this movie.''
How, exactly, does a Hollywood hunk become one of the girls? High heels - just a minor adjustment for this dancer who was the romantic lead in ``Dirty Dancing'' and later ``Ghost.''
``I know how to teach a woman how to do that little turnout in the end so as not to go heel-toe, heel-toe and look like a Minotaur on stilts ... until you have to do it yourself, then it's another story,'' he said.
She's got to know where to shop, and it isn't in petites. Accessorizing may not be innate, but it can be taught. Gloves de-emphasize musculature; double-thick hose if it's a mini, and waxing is out of the question.
Above all, a drag queen is nothing if she doesn't have attitude.
So complete was his transformation, that when his screen test was sent to Steven Spielberg, whose Amblin pictures produced ``To Wong Foo,'' Spielberg didn't recognize the actor, Swayze said.
But his heartthrob image almost kept him out of contention for the role.
``I couldn't get seen on it, because everyone viewed me as terminally heterosexually masculine-macho,'' he said.
But there was a diva within, and Swayze gave naysayers a first glimpse of her in a half-hour monologue loosely based on his own experiences growing up in ``redneck Texas.'' The son of a choreographer, Swayze was drawn to dance and theater and studied at the Joffrey Ballet School. He appeared on Broadway in 1972's ``Grease,'' and made his film debut in 1979 with ``Skatetown, U.S.A.''
When he perfected his drag role for screen, Swayze, unlike his co-stars, had to play down the camp. ``Vida was the only lady,'' he said.
Lady or no, Vida Boheme does get in one good kick - where it counts - and saves the day. You go, girl!
by CNB