Characters:
Passenger and Crew Manifest

 
1. Lilly Linda Le Strange
   As the star of the Glamour Galore Trilogy, Lilly is a goddess of glamour! She is known variously as; Lilly, Lilly Linda, Madame Le Strange, La Diva, or simply put, the Le Strange dame. She is a consummate actor, ready and willing to take on any part from the glamorous star of the universe to a grungy plumber, as long as she gets the lead role—usually involving a lot of feathers and rhinestones. Lilly’s professional career was launched in the brothels of Gomorrah where competition amongst the artists was, if anything, more ruthless than on the front line of Viet Nam where as a young combat nurse Albert Mellenoffsky, AKA Lilly Linda, patched up the boys as they were blown off the battle field.
2. Betty the Bounder
   La Diva’s dresser and sometimes perfume sales girl at the authentic Filene’s Basement—now sadly defunct. Betty has endured lots of Le Strange abuse over the years but she gives it back as hard as she gets it. Betty’s chief mode of survival in the histrionic world of temperamental thespians is a combined dosage of peach schnapps and Maui Wowie. She liberally lubricates her creaky joints with this self medicating concoction except when Butch drags her off to an AA meeting.
    
3. Paddy O’Punk and the Ninja Fringers
   Paddy is a zealous reformer pushing his own brand of PC Gay politics down the unwilling throats of complacent society, much like a dentist prying open the jaws of a lion. Having seen far too many Kung Fu movies, his troupe of a dozen radical gay activists, The Fringers, do more than act up, they bounce beyond all boundaries. Paddy and his cohorts wear green plastic carapaces strapped to their front and back which they ware over lurid green spandex body stockings. The most charming of the bunch is a boy known as Gary Gardenia.
    
4. Rosalind Wortheley
   Rosalind is the only daughter of Mrs. Adams Cabot Lowell Untermeyer, the Doyenne of capitalist greed ironically nicknamed Mrs. A.C.L.U. by a socialist wag. Banking on his wife’s impressive pedigree, George Wortheley, the current husband, wares the gorgeous Rosalind on his arm like a combat decoration won in that ruthless engagement called high society. Ross, fully accepting her position of reflected glory has the same magical allure as a full harvest moon. But the radiant purity of her lunar orb is about to be eclipsed when the awesome fury of the Naughty Astronautess comes between Ross and her brilliant Apollo, George, casting a dark shadow that will put beauty into a deep sleep.
    
5. George Wortheley
   Wortheley is the CEO of the Essential Insurance Company the largest of its kind in Boston. His 210 pounds of steroidal musculature is more of a threat than a delight, but nonetheless impressive. George’s personal trainer has pumped him up to high threat while exacerbating his irascible aggression to constant snarl, an attitude that makes many in the business world tremble. His prematurely steel- gray hair brushes the collar of his custom made shirt growing thick enough to make Sampson jealous. He sports the facial features of a thirties movie star, sculpted, square, and straightforward, with a smile of supernaturally bright porcelain that actually winks with gleaming sparkle. But, is George really as straightforward, as he seems?
    
6. Gyles Chilton
   Gyles is a studious antique dealer concentrating on eighteenth century American and Georgian English furniture. His antique gallery on fashionable Newbury Street in the Back Bay neighborhood is a collaborative business which he shares with his sister Cornelia, an interior designer. Gyles’ attention is apt to be narrowly concentrated on his antiquarian interests except when his lover Val shakes him up a bit. Then he realizes all the vitality and passion of a young man in his early thirties. Gyles’ lean and defined physique is mostly disguised in three piece business suits or tweedy sports jackets of his prep school days. But Val can always see beyond this disguise into the heart of the man.
    
7. Val
   Val or Valisha as Lilly calls her “daughter” is a young man with a past, but being only in his early twenties he can afford this complication with good grace. He is the manager for Lucy Ann Chilton at her Bed and Breakfast in the historic Chilton house on Commonwealth Avenue. Val is also a dancer in the chorus line of Lilly’s shows and definitely qualifies as a Glamourite. Val is as hot as a steam iron turned on to full blast and unapologetically sexy. His typical stance is to lean on one hip in a casual slouch. His blonde bangs fall thickly over his right eye which is slightly crossed adding unguarded charm to his gaze. He is a good listener genuinely interested in all kinds of people and eager to help where he can. His deep love for Gyles tends towards hero worship but this intense idealization is tempered by a penetrating knowledge of the true man beneath the image.
    
8. Cornelia Chilton
   Cornelia is a chic lipstick dike with an omnivorous social appetite that runs the gambit between the Boston Brahmin clan that she was born to and the glitterati demimonde of drag thespians –both kings and queens, with occasional forays into the realm of esoteric Buddhism. In her professional career, she is a successful high end interior designer with corporate and residential clients around the country. Cornelia is struggling with a recent divorce from her long time lover Rita. In an attempt to forget her troubles she accepts a vacation to Aruba inviting Gyles to accompany her.
    
9. Alison Barnet
   Alison is actually a real person and skilled historian who has graciously lent her persona to the proceedings, an act of bravery Iory is profusely grateful for. Her book Extravaganza King is a riveting recount of the phenomenon in Boston theatre history at the turn of the twentieth century called Extravaganzas. Alison’s great grandfather produced a series of “fancy dress” musical comedy reviews as fund raisers for the First Corps of Cadets. The smashing success of these productions enabled that high toned militia to build an impressive armory now called the castle in Park Square. Allison’s book is available by emailing her at, abarnet@alum.bu.edu, please include the title, Extravaganza King as the subject.
    
10. Stanley Potsdam
    Stan is the Eye in the Sky traffic reporter for TV’s channel 5. He had been a combat helicopter pilot in Viet Nam where he was blown out of the sky, crash landing in a frontline hospital tent where he was nursed back to health by Albert Mellenoffsky, AKA Lilly Linda Le Strange.
     
11. Urna Flamanté
    In the Family Jewels, first book of the Glamour Galore Trilogy, we are led to believe that Urna had died from an incendiary tap dancing performance at the Follies Derrière, so when she reappears with a rumba quartet in Aruba doing a hoochi-coochi routine, Lilly is incensed. After this surprise reunion they stick together like unwanted gum on the sole of a shoe for the rest of the “Naughty” story.
     
12. Claude Voit
    Voit is ostensibly the minister of tourism and transportation for Aruba, but it transpires that he has murky connections to the CIA and US military intelligence—there are two oxymorons for you.
     
13. Scarface Malone
    Malone is a dreaded gangster, rumored to have eaten La Freda Thrombosis for lunch, for no particular reason. On a personal level, Scar is a sex addict with a proclivity for drag queen’s with big endowments. He suffers from an abiding infatuation for Urna Flamanté and he expends inordinate amounts of time and energy attempting to catch his slippery quarry.
     
14. Fathead Fabio
    The much talked about partner in crime of Scarface, one time Cuban gambling casino mobster and big time dope pusher.
     
15. Wally St. John
    Pronounced in the British manner “Sin- Gin”, Wally is the costumer to the stars, especially Lilly Linda. Wally is semi-incarcerated at the Holey Fryers monastery in Somerville where he is under the watchful eye of Abbott Acidophilus. There in the monastic confines, he churns out his zany designs that incorporate all the detritus of civilization including a pair of coffee percolator platform shoes for Urna Flamanté’s rumba rendition of “Scuba in Aruba”
     
16. Captain Nemo
    Captain Nemo plies the waters of Aruba in a glass-sided sight-seeing submarine called, The Naughty-Lass. He also operates a fleet of tourist paragliding attractions in the sparkling waters of the same island resort. Nemo is another one of Stanley and Al’s “Nam” buddies.
     
17. Monique Lafarge
    This statuesque showgirl of dazzling beauty frequently appears in the Glamour Galore Productions. She owns a fabulous Packard Limousine, vintage 1938, driven by Butch. They glide about the city making dramatic appearances and timely entrances.
     
18. Butch
    Butch is Monique’s hunky boy friend who revels in role playing as the showgirl’s sexy chauffeur. He is also Betty the Bounder’s stalwart AA sponsor. Butch always appears in some kind of uniform from classic chauffeur to Boston motorcycle cop usually incorporating knee high boots and jodhpurs.
     
19. Connie Treadway
    Connie is a youngish society matron and chairwomen of the Junior League at Chestnut Hill. She is a relentless social climber who having achieved the position of top dog by an accident of birth nonetheless proceeds on a campaign of social exclusion to consume her considerable but misspent energies. Her estate abuts the Wortheley’s in that enclave of undeserved privilege.
     
20. Mavis Galicurchi
    Maestro Galicurchi is the artistic director of the Gay Men’s Chorus and a volatile musician who gets a lot out his talented group of warblers.
     
21. Dillbert the bartender
    AKA Dildo, head bartender at the Follies Derrière and clandestine collector of drag from the dressing rooms at his infamous cabaret.
     
22. Scena Finale
    Choreographer for Glamour Galore Productions who dresses in nun drag fitted with western swing skirts that are held high by a plethora of stiff petticoats reminiscent of a classical ballerina’s tutu.
     
23. Herbert Bunge
    Mr. Bunge is a William Morris talent scout and Lilly’s guardian angel.

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