Jackie Starr and Bill Scott wedding party, Seattle, ca. 1950

Called "the most beautiful man in America" by gossip columnist Walter Winchel, and "the male Gypsy Rose Lee", Jack Starr (stage name, Jackie Starr) was one of the most successful female impersonators at the Garden of Allah. Born in 1915, Starr was a classically trained singer, a ballet dancer, an actor, and an excellent striptease artist. By 1929, he was performing in drag in Chicago and during the 1930s, he performed in New York. He joined the Jewel Box Revue in the late 1930s and moved to the west coast by 1940. He headlined at the Garden of Allah for the next ten years. Around 1950, Starr married a man named Bill Scott. The two remained together until Scott's death sometime in the late 1960s. Starr died in the late 1980s. The Garden of Allah was opened in 1946 by Fred Coleman and Frank Reid. It was Seattle's first gay-owned and operated gay bar. It was located in the basement of the Arlington Hotel, on 1st Avenue between University Street and Seneca Street. It was a known for...