Garden fresh

Meet the real-life star of John Berendt's Savannah sensation

by Tim Nasson

The first time I talked with The Lady Chablis (yes, that's her legal name -- first, middle, and last) was a year ago. We chatted by phone just after the publication of Hiding My Candy (Pocket Books), Chablis's autobiographical spinoff of the New York Times nonfiction bestseller Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil.

In Midnight, John Berendt chronicles Chablis's life as a drag queen -- or `female impersonator,' as Chablis likes to be called -- in Savannah, Georgia, during the early '80s. Up until Midnight, Chablis (as even her 87-year-old grandmother calls her) was something of a big fish in a small pond. After its publication, however, she became a small fish in an ocean full of big fish trying to get close to her.

One of the biggest was Clint Eastwood, who signed on to direct and produce the screen version of Midnight. When Chablis suggested she might be interested in working on the film, he took her very seriously. I spoke with Chablis again last month about her well-received performance (she played herself) in the movie, which also stars John Cusack and Kevin Spacey.

"Listen, child, people think that I lobbied for the part in the movie," she says. "I couldn't have cared less if I was in the movie, to be honest with you.

"What I had said to Clint when I knew he was ready to begin casting the film was, `If you want the film to win an Academy Award, you best cast me as myself.' "

Chablis's own book is now on the way to being adapted for the big screen, but she has no burning desire to play herself in front of the camera once more. "I don't know if I have what it takes to do this again. I never set out to be an `actress,' " she says. "All I know for sure is that I am getting paid nicely for the book to be made into a movie." (Memo to the other reporters who'll be interviewing Chablis when that project takes off: she's a she, not a he, or worse, a he/she, as gossip columnist Liz Smith recently referred to Chablis. "I am a she. What if I called [Smith] she/he?" Chablis asks indignantly, no doubt alluding to Smith's lesbianism.)

Chablis (who says she's 40 and has been comfortably wearing woman's attire since age 14) is one of the most sought-after performers in the South, where she has lately attracted a large heterosexual audience. "I think I am proof that straight people now respect gays more," she says. "I don't mind that they laugh at me on-stage. That is what I am there to make them do. I think that's where the laughter stops, thankfully. I don't find or hear that many straight people laughing behind my back about me. For the ones that do, I just have this to say: `Two tears in a bucket. Motherfuck it.' " Or, for the comedy-challenged: "Get over it."

In light of her recent fame, Chablis has moved from Savannah to South Carolina. "Living in Savannah all year long, I had no privacy. It made it hard to do a show there if people saw me everywhere I went. I couldn't even go to Piggly Wiggly inconnegro -- that [means] `out of costume,' for the white people who wouldn't understand that," she says. "[But] I love performing in Savannah. In fact, the city takes in over $100 million a year in tourist revenue. The number-one reason people go there is to see Mercer House. The second reason is to see me, child."

The Lady Chablis makes a rare appearance north of the Mason-Dixon line on Sunday, December 21, at 7:30 p.m. at Avalon, 15 Lansdowne Street. Tickets are $10, $12 at the door. Call (617) 262-2424.

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Tim Nasson is a syndicated film writer at work on an autobiographical novel, The Truth. He can be reached at tnasson@aol.com.

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