At twenty-two, he made his songwriting debut with “I’m a Yiddish Cowboy” (the subject of our last post). Eighteen years later, Edgar Leslie wrote a novelty song on an equally surprising topic, this time with the aid of a rollicking score by James V. Monaco. It was so successful that over half a dozen versions were released in 1926 and 1927. Listen here to one of them:
I first encountered this ditty a half-century later on the Dr. Demento radio program. That was an era with its own gender controversies — the heyday of David Bowie and Alice Cooper. It was not too far removed from a time when even shoulder-length hair on men was viewed as a threat to the natural order. But Leslie’s song suggested that our grandparents’ generation had itself been ridiculed for being androgynous. That came as a revelation to me.
The Roaring Twenties were a period of social experimentation and rebellion. Women took up smoking, bobbed their hair, and adopted “mannish” styles. Cross-dressing was gist for humorous silent films and publicity photos. And in what became known as the Pansy Craze, female impersonators were popular on the New York nightclub scene. The 1930’s saw a retrenchment: ironically, while Prohibition ended and politics swung left, Hollywood was constrained by a puritanical motion pictures code and most of the the “pansies” were driven from the stage. Leslie probably intended his song as little more than light entertainment. Yet he captured something of the spirit of the age before the fall.
Among his more intriguing lyrics are the following:
Since the Prince of Wales in ladies’ dresses was seen,
What does he intend to be, the King or the Queen?
The Prince of Wales refers to the man who was then heir to the British throne — the future King Edward VIII. Was he really seen wearing dresses? In some online versions of the lyrics, the word “kilts” appears next to dresses in brackets. It is true that the Prince was photographed in a kilt, perhaps in an effort to appeal to his future Scottish subjects, but that’s probably not what Leslie had in mind. In October 1925, the Prince had entertained sailors aboard the H.M.S. Repulse by appearing in drag as a “red-haired vamp” in a farce entitled “The Bathroom Door.” The incident was covered in both the American and British press and reportedly embarrassed the royal family. The Prince may also have been a target, not only as a fashion-conscious celebrity who had recently visited the United States, but because of rumors about his private life. Those rumors persisted to the time of his coronation in 1936, when a song was released entitled, “The King is a Queen at Heart.” You may be surprised by
After ten months, the new king announced that he was abdicating in order to marry “the woman I love,” an American divorcee named Wallis Simpson. For some, it was the height of romantic chivalry. (I remember my mother once playfully asking my father, “Would you have given up the throne for me?”). But recent years have not been kind to the image of the king or the Duke of Windsor as he was known in retirement. Allegations have surfaced that he was a mentally unbalanced Nazi sympathizer who patronized male prostitutes. There has even been (questionable) speculation that Wallis was not genetically a woman, but rather an intersex person with both male and female characteristics.
Be that as it may, let’s return to Leslie. What became of him? A Tin Pan Alley stalwart, he twice served as director of the ASCAP (American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers), an organization of which he had been a founding member in 1914. He also continued writing lyrics for popular songs for decades, including at least one that may still be familiar to the general public. Here’s a rendition by Judy Garland, who sounds far ahead of her time:
Leslie died at the age of ninety in 1976, not long before I was first exposed to the”Masculine Women” song. In his book After the Ball. Pop Music from Rag to Rock, Ian Whitcomb provides a glimpse of Leslie in his final years:
Back then, there were still plenty of pop’s pioneers, most of them to be found toying with soft food in Jack Dempsey’s bar on Broadway…. There was, for example, the legendary Edgar Leslie, sipping his bouillon…. He seemed at first a sour old puss: his favorite expression was, “What the hell!”; every time I praised him for one of his lyrics, he growled out the phrase…. Edgar loved reading obituaries and, apparently, was eager to be the first with the news that such-and-such a songwriter had just hanged himself, shot himself, or (even better) defenestrated himself…. But Edgar’s abrasiveness was only a crust. Underneath he was a kindly soul.
Author: Lame Dog
2 thoughts on “Edgar Leslie and the Jazz Age Gender Benders”
Paul
Fascinating about the gender-bending in the 1920s, which was certainly emphasized in Cabaret.
I thought the Judy Garland song is called “The Bells are Ringing,” from the musical of the same name, with lyrics by Comden and Green: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bells_Are_Ringing_(musical)
“For Me and My Gal” was written by Edgar Leslie and E. Ray Goetz, with music by George W. Meyer, back in 1917. It was featured in a 1942 film of the same name starring Judy Garland. The opening line begins, “The bells are ringing …” but it’s not the same and the musical “Bells are Ringing” with lyrics by Beatty Comden and Adolph Green. That show opened on Broadway in 1956 and was made into a film in 1960, both of which starred Judy Holliday, not Judy Garland.
Fascinating about the gender-bending in the 1920s, which was certainly emphasized in Cabaret.
I thought the Judy Garland song is called “The Bells are Ringing,” from the musical of the same name, with lyrics by Comden and Green:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bells_Are_Ringing_(musical)
“For Me and My Gal” was written by Edgar Leslie and E. Ray Goetz, with music by George W. Meyer, back in 1917. It was featured in a 1942 film of the same name starring Judy Garland. The opening line begins, “The bells are ringing …” but it’s not the same and the musical “Bells are Ringing” with lyrics by Beatty Comden and Adolph Green. That show opened on Broadway in 1956 and was made into a film in 1960, both of which starred Judy Holliday, not Judy Garland.