Doris Fish’s Mythical Biography from Ego As Artform
For the Ego As Artform show, Doris wrote a very funny story about her origins as a drag queen in Australia. It’s a hilarious halucination with some dustings of truth.
EGO AS ARTFORM
BY DORIS FISH
If the truth be known, underneath the glittering persona and the mocking laughter resides a deeply shy and sensitive artist. Now, I wasn’t born this way it took years of practice to develop the poise and assurance of the woman you see laid out in these pages. But from a very early age I always knew I would be a glamorous movie star or actress, and I knew that I would be blonde and have bumps.
I was born in a little shack in the great Australian outback miles from anywhere. My father was a jackaroo-that’ s an Australian sheepshearer, kind of like a cowboy_ He’d be away for months at a time shearing those sheep because he really loved them. My mummy was a refined English woman. Mummy and I would spend the long, hot summer afternoons doing cultural things while Daddy was away. I was painting with the beautiful watercolors sent to me all the way from England by my grandmother Estelle while she would read to me Peter Pan, Alice Through the Looking Glass, Moby Dick-things like that_
Now, one thunder-ish afternoon as Mummy was napping after her usual three sherries with lunch, I wandered off on my own down by the bush tracks down along the billabong. I passed the sleeping koala bears, the hopping kangaroos and the shy platypuses. As I got close to the billabong’s edge I stared and I saw these dark, aboriginal children playing and laughing and staining themselves with a beautiful crimson berry juice. I had never seen children before-I was just a little thing. I don’t think they had ever seen a white girl before, either. They took my clothes off and began to stain my lily-white body with the crimson berries, sort of in a primitive smiley-face pattern_ I guess you could say this was my first “art happening.” I was enthralled. I ran to the water’s edge to gaze i!t my transformed image. I was transfixed. My lips were stained, my cheeks were smeared. I couldn’t stop looking at my own reflection. You know how good red looks on a blonde.
After the longest time I tore myself away. I gathered up my clothes and ran home to Mummy. Needless to say she was not pleased -in £act she was hysterical. “What have you done? Look at you. Who did this to you? Oh, I can’t stand it. I told your father not to bring me to this uncouth wilderness-this untamed land. ls this the way you pervert your God-given talent? We can’t stay here another day. We’re going back to civilization. Your father must choose between his family and those sheep.”
And so we went back to civilization. In Sydney I went to an arts college run by the Sisters of the Good Samaritan_ I was a quiet child -the trauma I had to endure thrust me into a dark closet. Mummy had destroyed my paintings, but I never forgot the intense revelation of that berry juice upon my lips. The reflection of the billabong burned on the back of my brain.
Despite my quiet nature I was popular. I had many friends. Connie and the two Debbies were my best friends. After school we would run to the corner gas station and change into our mini-skirts for the bus ride home. One day one of the Debbies and I spied a box that was left on one of the seats. Inside were all these cosmetics-Maybelline, Max Factor, Elizabeth Arden, La Femme, Starlet – it was a complete kit. We ran home to Debbie’s-her mother was still at work. She immediately put some on and she made me do it, too. Truly Fair foundation, Honey Beige powder, Cyclamen rouge-I had a natural facial contour -and some beautiful Forest Green eye shadow with just the barest suggestion of Very Black liquid eyeliner. Of course, it wasn’t a lot of makeup, but it did look great. The final touch was Billabong Berry lipstick. Oh, I stared transfixed into the mirror. The next thing I remember Debbie was shaking me. “Come on, Doris, stop staring at yourself. We got to clean up. Haven’t you ever worn make-up before? C’mon, Mom will be home any minute.” I couldn’t destroy the art I had created. I wore my new face out into the street. I felt the power of my womanness as men looked and cars swerved. One car stopped. It was a white car. I was in pink and blue. I hesitated for a minute but I got in. I turned to see who the kind gentleman was. ”Oh, it’s Uncle HansCrnmic’s father”. Now, Hans ran a nightclub downtown called Le Chat Noir, which is French for ‘Toe Black Cat”. He asked me, “Ever thought of going into show business?” “Sure,” I said. He pulled out a contract. Then we went to the club where he auditioned me. Needless to say, I got the job.
Now I was living in this club. I could never go home anymore. I moved into a cozy little room behind Hans’ office, and for the next few months I worked seven days and nights perfecting my craft and proving my art. The other girls were a great help and inspiration, too, especially J acqucline Hyde who left the. club and founded her own School of Romantic Cruelism. J was the youngest and the freshest and 1 got all the attention. Hans was there daily encouraging me and telling me I could do it. And I did. After six months I was the lip-synch star of Sydney. It was painstaking but thrilling work. I did only the best works of … Dusty … Bassey … Diana …
The audiences were enthralled but one night my concentration was destroyed by a man in the front row. His hands were on his beer, but his eyes were on me, piercing my costume, searing my flesh. I can’t tell you how it felt. The womanness surged within me-art was smothered by love. The next morning he asked me to many him. His name was Tom or Bill or something-I just called him Butch. He turned out to be a merchant marine and he was from Baltimore, and that was where we would go to live. So he packed me up into a big jet airliner and off I flew to San Francisco to await my seaman husband-only to hear that his ship was wrecked. Butch was drowned and I was left alone. I was bereft in a strange city, without money, without contacts.
One day while I was out looking for work I spied a poster advertising a talent hunt for a group of San Francisco artists known as The Tubes. Now, I think it’s common knowledge that I won, and that I worked for three weeks with the Tubes at Bimbo’s, and I was really, really very popular. I was hot! Movie offers and modeling assignments came my way. As a model I met many famous celebrities including the Brand X heiress, Miss X … did I hear any boos in the audience? … and the young lady after whom CyrilMagnin’s dog is named … actress arid model “Tippi”. We three formed a women’s artistic collective known as Sluts-A-Go-Go. Later this high art show was transformed into a stage show called Blonde Sin, my longest running hit.
It was around this time that my first husband was miraculously rescued from the sea. He wanted me back. I was tom. Would art smother love once again? I knew that art had to triumph over love or there’d be nothing left of me. And it did. Never has a man come between me and my art again. Except for a few minutes now and then …