Darcelle is finally having her Portland moment

Four nights a week, 88-year-old Walter Cole heads to the bar he bought 52 years ago in Old Town Portland. He arrives a few hours before the 8:30 p.m. show and starts to get ready for the night ahead.

His first step is the make-up, centered on trademark thick and sparkly eyebrows that take up a third of his face. He still applies it all himself, and as he does, Cole transforms from Walter into Darcelle -- a Portland icon and the Guinness Book of World Records recognized “Oldest Drag Queen” in the world.

Now, 51 years after Cole first started performing in drag, he and Darcelle are getting a musical, opening Sept. 19 at Lincoln Hall, and an exhibit at the Oregon Historical Society, on now through Nov. 3.

Before the Oregon Historical Society exhibition of Darcelle’s dresses opened in late August, Cole walked us through the exhibit and his unique Portland history.

While Darcelle may just now be getting her moment, she has been a Portland cornerstone for years.

The bar that Cole purchased in the ’60s, the Demas Tavern, is now the club Darcelle XV Showplace. In place of what was once a gritty, rundown bar is a club that attracts a wide range of visitors to six shows a week.

“I always say, 'Here’s what you do,” said Cole, looking at the dresses that span his career. “ ‘You come to Portland, you go to Powell’s bookstore. You go to Voodoo Doughnuts. And you come to Darcelle’s.’ ”

He laughed, adding, “and you’ve seen it all.”

While the club is now part of this tourist-friendly trifecta, when Cole purchased the Demas Tavern, it was a Skid Row dive.

“I didn't have a two-day plan,” he told The Oregonian/OregonLive in 2017. “I walked in here and opened up the door and wept. I thought, 'What have I done?' But that didn't last long.”

It was 1967 and Cole, who was born in Linnton in 1930, was married to Jeannette Rosini with two children. He was also in a relationship with a man named Roxy LeRoy Neuhardt.

Cole never divorced Rosini, though his marriage fell apart in 1969. His son, Walter Cole Jr., has worked at the club for more than 30 years.

The tavern was in a rough-and-tumble neighborhood. Cole attempted to quell the aggression that sometimes broke out by putting on a cabaret show. The show finally took off when he put on a flamenco dress and high black wig.

It was Neuhardt, a former dancer and performer, who came up with the name Darcelle and encouraged Cole to make the drag show the center of the business.

Now, drag is everywhere.

“In Portland, you can’t throw a cat down the street without hitting a drag queen now,” Cole said.

“A lot of straight bars are doing their brunches with drag emcees,” Cole said.

Whenever business is low, a little drag fabulousness can turn things around: “They’ll pick it right up!”

But in the late ‘60s, things were different.

“Then,” Cole said, “we were almost closeted in our clubs.”

They weren’t a secret, he said, but, “we never walked out of our club in drag. We just stayed there.”

“Now,” Cole said, “we go everywhere. We’re invited. That’s what we built over the years: knowledge that we were okay.”

In the 1980s, Cole’s community came up against a terrifying new disaster: AIDS.

"We went through hell with the AIDS crisis of the ‘80s and no government help at all,” he said. “They wouldn’t even say the word because it was a ‘queer disease.’”

Cole saw so many friends die, he said, he had to start turning down memorial services.

"Even my dearest friends I’d just turn down,” he said, “because I couldn’t do them anymore.”

"At that point,” Cole said, “no one knew how it was transmitted. It was like Russian Roulette. Every week there would be somebody gone. Way before their time.”

The personal losses and the terror were compounded by hate and ignorance outside the gay community.

“I remember going into a store,” he said, “and Roxy and I walked in and I heard a guy, obviously on purpose within hearing distance, he said, ‘Let’s get out of here -- we’ll catch AIDS,’ because we were standing there.”

Through it all, Cole sewed dresses. A small fraction of what he estimates to be the 1,500 dresses he owns are on display at the Oregon Historical Society. They span Darcelle’s career and offer a glimpse into the world Cole created with Neuhardt, who died in 2017 at the age of 82.

“See that?” he said, pointing to a beaded dress from the 1980s. “One at a time.”

The dress is covered in what must be hundreds of beaded filaments. The whole thing took him about three months to sew and adorn, he said.

Another dress on display is a Christmas tree number, covered in working Christmas lights, powered by an orange extension cord.

“In my monologue,” Cole said, “I say, ‘You know I know you’re not going to believe a word I am saying. Anybody who walks around with an orange extension cord out their ass…’”

He trailed off, chuckling.

Cole never had any official dressmaking instruction, but that didn’t stop him.

“Who else is going to do it?” he said. “We didn’t have any money.”

“See here? The zipper in the front?” he said, standing in front of a third dress. “Well, this is the only time I ever used a pattern. So, I finished it just like the pattern says, and it was ugly in front so I turned it around.”

Creating the costumes that make Darcelle Darcelle also gives Cole control over her appearance.

“I feel more comfortable with more skin showing,” he said. “I think you look smaller if they see skin.”

But all covered up, he said, “you can look like a football player.”

The extravagant dresses point to an important element of Darcelle’s show -- through it all, the years of exclusion and fear and now a wider acceptance of drag brought about by a culture shift that included television, movies and Darcelle herself -- Cole has always made sure that Darcelle looks good.

“There’s nothing more exciting than to know you’re looking great,” Cole said.

At almost 89, with no signs of stopping, she still looks great.

And so four nights a week, through six shows, each with five costume changes, Darcelle goes all the way: full makeup, ornate often heavy gowns and big jewelry. Darcelle wears clip-on earrings, duct-taped to her ears so they won’t fall off.

“I love it,” Cole said. “That’s what keeps me going, keeps me young.”

Women, he said, always want to know if the earrings are heavy, a question that makes him laugh.

“It’s not a comfortable business,” Cole said, “and if you’re comfortable, you’re not doing it right.”

IF YOU GO

“Many Shades of Being Darcelle: 52 Years of Fashion,” Oregon Historical Society, Aug. 30-Nov. 3, 1200 S.W. Park Ave., $8-$10 or free to Multnomah County residents, ohs.org.

“Darcelle: That’s No Lady,” Lincoln Hall, 1620 S.W. Park Ave., Sept. 19-Oct. 5. $35, darcelle-themusical.com.

Darcelle XV Showplace, 208 N.W. Third Ave., Wednesday-Thursday, $20, darcellexv.com.