Coco Peru (interviewed by David Shankbone) talks about how to make a rough life funny.
Miss Coco Peru (born August 27, 1965) is the drag persona of American actor, comedian and drag performer Clinton Leupp, known for her role in the 1999 independent film Trick and for her series of live theater performances.[1][2][3] Recognizable by her "trademark copper-toned flip hairdo", Peru also starred in Richard Day's Girls Will Be Girls (2003) and was one of six performers featured in the Logo original stand-up comedy series Wisecrack (2005).[2][4] She has also appeared in a number of other supporting and guest-starring roles in film and television.[2]
For 30 years, Peru has starred in various "one-woman shows" across the US and other countries, and hosted LGBT events. Since 2005, Peru has appeared in the "Conversations with Coco" series in which she "interviews and celebrates the lives and careers of the LGBT community's favorite icons."[5] Peru's guests have included Bea Arthur, Liza Minnelli, Lesley Ann Warren, Karen Black, Lily Tomlin and Jane Fonda.[1][5]
Leupp is a native of City Island, New York.[6] He is a 1983 graduate of Cardinal Spellman High School and studied theatre at Adelphi University.[7][8][9][10] Calling himself "a gay guy who was never going to be passing for straight", he said that he had just started college when homophobic slurs were directed at him.[6] "Here we go again, I thought; I was so used to it, in high school. But by the end of those four years, I had become very popular, by just being myself, and being relatable."[6]
Leupp calls Robin Williams, Whoopi Goldberg and Bette Midler some of his early idols.[6] In a 2012 interview he said, "When I was younger, I looked up to people who were like Bette Midler and Lily Tomlin, people who created characters and got discovered that way. I always knew early on that I was gay and I wanted to be an openly gay performer. Back when I started, that was pretty rare. I was trained in the theater and I went to college for theater, and I decided to do drag as a way to express myself both in theater and as an activist. I always find that people who are able to do all of that an inspiration. I feel like Lily Tomlin and Bette Midler, early on, did that. ... [Midler] started in the bathhouses and gay men wrote her material. Of course she had the performance style to pull it off, but she also had gay men writing for her. That's why her voice had that gay sensibility."[1] He decided "it was probably best for me to be openly gay on stage, and create my own character. I did a one-person show early on as myself ... All my friends came, and loved it; I was always considered funny. But I knew it wasn't going to be enough."[6] Leupp recalled thinking, "How do I change people's minds, those who might not have a clear picture of who gay people were?"[6] He said, "Coco came about at a time in my life when I didn't have much direction ... I realized I had to do something that made me unique ... I read a book about Native Americans 'two spirits,' which were men who dressed as women or partially as women who were often seen as the shaman or the storytellers in their communities."[2] "Wouldn't it be great if I did something in drag, I decided, where people perceive you as a drag queen in a way, but as I tell the story — my story — they would forget I'm a drag queen and just relate to the story. This is what I had in mind when I started writing my first drag show."[6]
"So I put all those things together: I'm a drag queen/two spirit/gay activist/entertainer. And everything fell into place. It was really a magical time in my life," Leupp said.[2] To find Coco's signature hairdo, he tried blonde and black wigs but thought they looked terrible; when he tried red, Leupp said "that's the color."[2] "My first hairdo was very Tina Louise/Gilligan's Island — very big. It evolved into the straight with flip going under, then I tried it with the flip going out — and I said, 'That's Coco.' Other drag queens have chided me for not changing my hairdo, but I just feel it is so much part of the persona and so recognizable, I don't want to change it."[2] Leupp said his parents were very supportive, "But when I did do drag for the first time I had already done a one-person show about being gay. When I did that they were terrified — they thought I was going to have things thrown at me. But when I got applause, they realized there's a big world out there that they didn't know about. So when I decided to do drag, they were nervous, but hid it. And I think they were happy that I was received with such love when they expected me to be greeted with tomatoes."[2]
Leupp later "realized the potential of drag as full-blown theater" through the work of playwright and drag performer Charles Busch.[6]
Career
Miss Coco Peru at RuPaul's Dragcon 2017
Leupp's first one-person show was Miss Coco Peru in My Goddamn Cabaret in 1992.[2] Several more Coco Peru shows followed, as well as a 1994 guest role on New York Undercover and appearances in both Wigstock: The Movie and To Wong Foo Thanks for Everything, Julie Newmar in 1995.[11] Peru next had a role in the 1997 romantic comedy Nick and Jane. Her follow-up was the 1999 independent film Trick.[1][3] According to Peru, Trick director Jim Fall was a friend and fan, and five years before the film was shot she helped him audition actors by reading the role which ultimately went to Tori Spelling.[2] Peru's role in the film was added specifically for her: "They wrote me a part, which I rewrote using my own experiences. I wrote that line 'It burns.' Most of the part was written by me, which is why I played it so well."[2]
"I'm not impersonating a woman. It's just an extension of me. I'm telling autobiographical stories, and Coco gives me the freedom to be a little more outrageous and say things I wouldn't say in everyday life ... Drag allows me to embrace a lot of the things I hated about myself growing up ... Having been called a girl-boy and all that, drag is a way of saying, I'm going to embrace everything that anybody said about me, and put it out there on stage. People have said I shouldn't call myself a drag queen, that I do a disservice to myself. My reaction is I'm proud to be what I am. When I see video footage of Stonewall, I am proud to be a part of that history. I'm not saying that I am historical, but just being out there doing the drag, on television, in movies ... I have young nephews ... who know Coco, and who think it's great that I dress up as a girl. In this way, I am changing the world."[6]
Personal life
Leupp knew he was gay at an early age.[1] He met his husband Rafael Arias, a college professor originally from Spain, around 1995.[13] In 2006, they married in Spain, where same-sex marriage was legal at a time before it was in the United States.[6][11]
Leupp stated in an October 2012 interview that as a young gay man he "decided to do drag as a way to express myself both in theater and as an activist."[1] "With friends who were sick, and dying of HIV/AIDS," he said in 2008, "I wanted to be an activist as well as an entertainer."[6]
In a 2008 interview, Leupp said that when Showtime passed on the Girls Will Be Girls concept as a situation comedy, it was instead produced as a film "hoping that the new gay networks would be interested."[2] They were not, about which Leupp commented, "I think that drag is scary, even in our own community. They would rather play it safe. People want to be really politically correct, which I think is very dangerous. I've heard from various people in the business that these stations are appealing to Middle America, and I find that very disturbing because I always felt that we as gay people were the leaders — we decided what was funny, what was hot in fashion. Now we are trying to figure out what Middle America accepts. I'm not interested in that. I'm not trying to appeal to Middle America, and that gay people are doing so only makes me angry."[2]
When asked what he was most proud of among Peru's many awards and recognitions, Leupp as Peru said in 2010, "I love when I get feedback from young gay people who tell me that my show or appearances on Logo helped them in a positive way to deal with their own identity. Recently, a young guy came up to me in Provincetown after my show and said, 'I love your anger. We're not angry enough and you inspired me.' I was in heaven!"[11]
In November 2013, Leupp made headlines when he publicly protested the booking of a retired priest involved in reparative therapy to speak at Leupp's former high school, Cardinal Spellman Catholic in the Bronx.[8][9] According to the school, Father Donald Timone would speak to parents about Catholic groups intended to convince children "struggling with same-sex attraction" to live "chaste lives through participation in support groups."[8][9] Leupp said of the programs, "It makes it look like it's a support group, but once you really see what they are doing it's disturbing ... They are trying to shame these kids!"[8][9] After further controversy over the issue among the school, alumni, gay activists and anti-gay activists, Timone's appearance was postponed until further notice but not officially cancelled.[8][9]
Live performances
Peru's live shows have been performed throughout the United States and abroad, and she has earned numerous nominations and awards.[11]
1992 Miss Coco Peru in My Goddamn Cabaret[2][11] (1992 MAC Award nomination)[14]
2010 Miss Coco Peru Is Still Alive! (Laurie Beechman Theatre, NYC)[24][25][26]
2011 Miss Coco Peru: There Comes a Time (Laurie Beechman Theatre, NYC)[27]
2012–present Miss Coco Peru: She's Got Balls (Laurie Beechman Theatre, NYC;[1] Renberg Theater, Los Angeles; Castro Theatre, San Francisco; etc.)
"Conversations with Coco"
Since 2005 Peru has appeared in the "Conversations with Coco" series of live celebrity interviews, most of which have taken place at the Renberg Theater at the Los Angeles LGBT Center.[5][28] The events feature multimedia presentations of the guests' career highlights combined with a conversational interview by Peru.[29] In 2012 Peru said that she started doing "Conversations" after being interviewed herself; with the host departing, the Center asked if she would like to continue the series.[1] She agreed, inviting her friend Bea Arthur as her first guest.[1] Peru's 2014 interview with Liza Minnelli raised $45,000 for the LA Gay & Lesbian Center.[29]
Edge Boston called Coco Peru "one of the most recognizable figures of the New York drag scene and beyond."[2] In a review of Miss Coco Peru is Undaunted! the Los Angeles Times wrote that the show "details how often Miss Coco has straddled the divide between saint and sinner, ladylike sweetness and stevedore crassness ... Miss Coco sings, sasses, and tells stories, usually about her own past. Wry and uncensored, the show is a hilarious exorcism, with music, no less."[2]
