TAKING THE STAGE AS A WOMAN, THIS MAN DELIVERS DIVA’S SONGS

By Louise Kennedy (taken from The Boston Globe)

     Jim Bailey performs as Barbra Streisand in Symphony Hall tomorrow night at 8, in a benefit concert for New Hampshire’s AIDS Response-Seacoast.  Bailey spoke this week by phone from his California home about his act.

 

      Q.       You’ve portrayed Streisand, Judy Garland, and Peggy Lee – singing like them, talking like them, recreating them onstage.  How do you do it?

      A.      I don’t know how I do it.  It’s a gift, and I don’t question it.  Because I don’t quite understand it.

 

Q.       You had classical music training.  How did you move from that to Garland, then the others?

A.      I was in my car one day with the radio on, and “Zing Went The Strings Of  My Heart” came on.  I just started singing along with it, and I thought, “Oh, my God.”  It’s a little scary.  When I got home, I took out some albums and sang along with them.  As I did it, I felt my body change.  I felt my stance change, the way I was holding my head.  It was like I was becoming Judy Garland.

Q.       And you’ve done Madonna –

A.      I still haven’t healed fro the bruises on that one.  We did it in Australia.  Everybody said, “Oh, you must do Madonna, you must.”  There really isn’t anybody current that I care that much about to do – sings, you know, singers.  And this music, it doesn’t stay around – it’s not going to be standards in 10 years.  So I got convinced to do Madonna.  It was very difficult.  It was aerobics.  So I thought, you know, I was dealt this hand of being able to do these wonderful women who are legends, and look at their music, oh my God.

Q.       You do all your own makeup.

A.      Ben Lane, who for many years was the head makeup man at Warner Studios, taught me the little tricks of the trade.  Shadowing, not having to do tricks or prostheses.  Lighting and makeup ha so much to do with what I do.

Q.   And acting -

A.   That’s the part of what I do that I can’t explain.  People ask me, “How       can someone learn to do that?”  I say, “You know something?  God gave  me a gift, it’s not something you can go and learn some place.”  He game me this special talent.  I have an ear; I hear voices and I can change it and become them vocally.  You can make anybody up to look like anybody, if you want to.  But to put them onstage for two hours to do a concert is totally different.  I go for the soul.  I really become part of that person for the two hours that I’m on the stage.  I cannot explain how that happens; it really is very magical.

Q.   You’ve said you don’t think of it as impersonation.

A.   It is an illusion.  It’s not female impersonation.  It’s not camp or a takeoff.  It becomes something totally different.  Way back when, in Greek times, the men played female roles.  In England in Shakespearean days, the men played female roles very convincingly.  And then we have Kabuki.  They are acting.  And that’s what I do.  I’m an actor.  Because I don’t have any contemporaries, it limits me; “Oh, he’s a female impersonator.”  You have to go a little deeper than that. That’s not what it’s all about.  I do what Hal Holbrook did; I do what Bobby Morse did with “Tru.”  But you don’t call them male impersonators.  They are character actors.  I do the same thing, only I happen to do it as a woman.  And not only do I act in that vein, I also sing.  Some people still to this day think that I come out and lip-sync.  With an orchestra on the stage!  They think that I’m using gimmicks, and I’m not.

Q.   So why do you think people insist on calling you a female impersonator?

A.   I have no problems in England or Europe, because they’re so far ahead of us. The only way that Americans can comfortably accept men who wear women’s clothes is to laugh.  It’s okay to laugh.  But when you do it seriously, it’s a whole other road.