Charles A. McDonald
Flawless Sabrina (Jack Doroshow), who died on Nov. 18 at the age of 78, was abounding things: annoyance pioneer, anomalous activist, muse, and counter-cultural force, to name a few. But as the bodies who knew her—whether as Flawless, Mother, Sabrina, Grandma, or Jack—will acquaint you, the best iconic role she played, and the one that mattered best to her, was as a coach to adolescent people.
Jack was built-in in 1939, and generally anecdotal the adversity of growing up as a advanced gay boy of alloyed Jewish and Italian ancestor in a asperous and about abandoned Italian South Philadelphia neighborhood. Eager to acquaintance the apple above the adolescence home he generally referred to in autograph as “19th and Tasker,” Doroshow advised attitude at the University of Pennsylvania. It was during his time as a apprentice there in the backward 1950s that he began acclimation the Absence All-America Camp Adorableness Pageant, a cross-country ambit of annoyance contests that culminated anniversary year in the Nationals. Flawless Sabrina, the annoyance persona that Jack conceived at 19, was a ambitious Jewish grandmother who could emcee the shows afterwards authoritative the added contestants feel threatened. In one sense, Flawless was consistently the anomalous authority grise that it would booty Jack a few added decades to become.
Both Flawless Sabrina and the contestants of the Nationals were immortalized in the X-rated 1968 documentary, The Queen, which offers a attenuate glimpse of pre-Stonewall anomalous activity and gender diversity. As anomalous historian Hugh Ryan has chronicled, for a time, Flawless/Jack was conceivably the bigger employer of anomalous bodies in the U.S.; but he decamped from the celebration ambit not connected afterwards the absolution of the film, alive as a adviser on movies with gay agreeable in Hollywood, and afresh as a clandestine investigator and adjudicator in Paris, afore abiding in the backward 1980s to New York, area his partner, the artisan Curtis Carman, was based. There, Flawless connected to coact with untold numbers of artists, to host and appear abounding of New York’s best abominable cabarets and parties, and, best important, to apostle endlessly for artists, anomalous people, and children.
In contempo years, Flawless was the accountable of a 2011 accolade appearance at the Leslie-Lohman Museum of Gay and Lesbian Art and an accustomed bedfellow at the 2016 Gay Gotham display at the Museum of the Burghal of New York, which featured clips from The Queen. On both occasions, he was artlessly apprehensive and self-effacing, singing the praises of his friends-and-family-in-art, determined that he was advantaged aloof to be amid them. This was a able aerialist who didn’t absolutely affliction all that abundant about actuality in the spotlight.
As Jack frequently reminded us over the years, she pursued annoyance in ample allotment because he accepted it as a affectionate of camera. Recalcitrantly analytical and adherent to the art of la truc (the trick), Flawless insisted that by adventuresome to “inhabit the mask” of the star, she (and, by extension, any of us) would adore the best angle from which to axle anybody else. As artisan and admired auto granddaughter Zackary Drucker said of Flawless to Ryan, “She's absolutely a producer. And producers are not the arresting people, they're the bodies who accomplish things happen.” (Drucker and the announcer Diana Tourjee are attention Jack’s business in the Flawless Sabrina Archive.)
In the spirit of acquainted all that Flawless/Jack did—most generally abaft the scenes—to “make things happen” for his accompany and anomalous grandchildren, Outward has calm some commendations of how her mentorship afflicted their lives. They represent aloof a baby atom of the abstruse bequest The Queen leaves behind.
Charles A. McDonald
Submissions acquire been agilely edited for breadth and clarity.
I aboriginal met Flawless one black in the bounce of 2002 while I was an undergraduate at Hunter College on New York’s Upper East Side, back one of her actual angel grandchildren, the painter Matthew Namie, base me to her radically all-embracing accommodation a few blocks away. Ironically, few places in the burghal acquire acceptable incubated and nourished the apple of city art as abundant as that begrimed flush apartment, area Jack captivated cloister at his desk, amidst by close accretions of paintings, photographs, sculptures, and addendum scribbled in lipstick and sharpie. Depending on the decade, visitors were as acceptable to accommodate Andy Warhol, William Burroughs, or Truman Capote as Karen Finley, Susanne Bartsch, or Taylor Mac. And afresh there were her kids, as she alleged us, which could beggarly annihilation from a ten-year-old babe Flawless had anchored a atom for at an after-school affairs in the Bronx to a 20-something ambitious gay biographer or a middle-aged driver all-embracing their auto identity. We all came for altered reasons, but we backward for the aforementioned ones: Jack’s adamant optimism and playfulness; his astonishing adeptness to amalgamate arid clichés, brainy allusions, and the latest political account into beauteous feats of folk wisdom; and his abiding encouragement.
Over the years, we developed a accepted accustomed to so abounding of Jack’s accouchement and grandchildren: already a anniversary or so I’d alarm and ask if he was up to accepting aggregation and if he bare annihilation from the store. Afterwards benumbed the broken elevator up to the fourth floor and blame through Jack’s perpetually apart advanced door, I’d calefaction up whatever I’d brought in the bake and altercate with him until he ate at atomic bisected of it. And for anywhere from bisected an hour to bisected a day, we’d allocution about annihilation and everything.
It was accessible to be absorbed by Flawless Sabrina. She was quick-witted, outrageously attired, endlessly entertaining, and acceptable to a fault. But it was Jack who mentored me these accomplished 15 years. As I approved my duke at one following afterwards another— from balladry to photography to ethnography—Jack insisted that I charge not be bound by any one of them. As I acquainted my way from apprentice to teacher, Jack reminded me to not abandoned aggravate analytical thought, but to breed compassion. As my adulation and assignment conspired to booty me on the road, Jack reminded me to biking light. As opportunities presented themselves, Jack cautioned that if it didn’t accomplish me nervous, it apparently wasn’t account doing. And always, back I doubted myself, Jack repeated, “whatever you do is perfect,” even, and especially, back it wasn’t.
-- Charles A. (Cam) McDonald, writer/cultural anthropologist
Mother Flawless Sabrina was one of the aboriginal bodies I met in New York. My acquaintance Jade took me to her accommodation on the Upper East Side, and like so abounding others afore and afterwards me, I sat, listened, and learned. Though I was adolescent and naive, she advised me with account and love, and her aperture was consistently open. She didn't apperception that I was some impaired kid; she took it as her albatross to wisen me up. I wouldn't be who I am today afterwards accepting spent time with her and audition her booty on the world. I performed with her already for one of her Andy Warhol buzz skits, and formed some of the aforementioned parties she did, and every time I saw her she had a smile and a hug. Back I wrote my chief apriorism play, I based a appearance on Mother Flawless to pay accolade to what she meant to me and to gay men everywhere. I don't apperceive who amid us could acquire had the adventuresomeness to appearance up in a dress 50, 60 years ago. Afterwards the no-fucks-givenness of Mother Flawless, area would we be today? I adulation you Mother Flawless, and will consistently backpack your bequest aural me.
-- Thomas Flannery, biographer and arcane agent
Two summers ago, I visited Flawless in New York, and she apprehend my cards. This time spent with her, and the accord that followed, acquainted like a crusade into the holy-land of anomalous ancestors. We talked about how important afterimage is in the South, how I shouldn't be abashed of that visibility, but embrace it like a bull. She aggregate her own adventures with me of actuality pulled over by badge in the accompaniment of Texas. We talked about pineapples and costumes, and she offered me juice. I'm consistently beholden for the time I was advantageous abundant to absorb with her, and will assignment agilely to accomplish her proud. Rest in power, baby mother.
-- Liss LaFleur, queer-femme artisan from Texas
Charles A. McDonald
I met Flawless aloof afterwards the acclamation of Donald Trump, and we acquire spent the aftermost year accepting to apperceive anniversary added through the pain, fear, and intergalactic possibilities that this year has brought. Flawless heard me and saw me and was beholden of me. She gave me the backbone I bare to booty on my life, brought me to own my truth, and admired me. I spent abounding nights by her ancillary this year learning, rebuilding, recharging, and loving. She is an angel and will consistently be a centermost of my life, my work, and my adeptness to love. Afterwards Flawless, I would not be here. I will backpack her assured adorableness everyday.
-- Chase Strangio, advocate and Outward contributor
I spent abounding hours with Jack. In fact, he alike harbored me on his couch back I was amid apartments for a ages or two. Over the years of our friendship, there were endless chaplet of acumen he shared, lots of cheerleading and encouragement, as there was with anybody who encountered him. I generally wondered who was there for him back he bare to get things off his chest. Back I'd ask him how he was accomplishing he would consistently reply, "pretty acceptable for an old fart," and leave it at that.
The appointment that conceivably charcoal with me the best is the aboriginal time I went to his apartment. We were abiding from a nightclub, it was the wee hours of the morning, and he access me over. His aperture was unlocked, he gave it a simple advance open. The adornment abandoned took me to addition dimension, one of a New York that no best was, and yet somehow, one that had yet to occur. We talked and talked, sometimes the chat would go annular and his departure would access at a abode area I'd acquire to say:" I don't follow, run that aftermost allotment by me again." He'd acknowledgment that he was accomplished by a coach that the best able anatomy of admonition was cogent yourself so what you were adage could be interpreted at atomic three altered ways. The sun assuredly came up, and he had assertive me that I should abdicate my job at the restaurant I formed at and allot myself to the following of my aesthetic career abounding time. I larboard his abode and did so.
-- Brandon Olson, actor, writer, transvestite, artist
I abandoned knew Flawless briefly, and yet so abounding of the things she told me acquire become mantras: “Everything you do is perfect”; “you're the bang-up applesauce”; “last connected abundant and you comedy all the genitalia in life.” She reminded anybody who came abreast her that activity was a allowance to be aggregate and enjoyed. She was one of the best acceptable (and hysterical) bodies I've anytime met.
-- Hugh Ryan, biographer and Outward contributor
One or two paragraphs is not enough. But I can say that Mother Flawless Sabrina's affection and joie de vivre rubbed off assimilate anyone who knew her. She could accomplish you axle and introspect at the aforementioned time. Her claimed appearance was consistently aboriginal and the adroitness fabricated me absolutely account her creativity. There was a accomplishment to her ability that fabricated her able in every situation. And her abutment and cheerleading for adolescent artists was unwavering. Spending time with her in the accommodation or out on the boondocks was consistently a attenuate amusement that I will never forget. She was fearless.
This is a asinine little story, but I charge acquaint it: At La MaMa, area I advised and date managed Chris Tanner and Brandon Olson's Ravaged by Romance which had a bulk of city luminaries, I aboriginal met Mother, who was allotment of the cast. Her role had her carrying a address from the baby ancillary balustrade of the theatre and the abandoned way to get to it was from the booth. Flawless would sit abutting to me and watch the appearance afore she went on. One achievement night I told her that I had to “pee like a chase horse.” She looked at me, opened her mouth, and acicular appear it. I swear, I was about rolling about on the attic dying from laughter. I will never apperceive if she was austere or aloof authoritative a joke, but it doesn't matter. To be abandoned was what fabricated Mother one of my heroes. Shamelessly QUEER, hilariously absurd, proudly abject, acutely original. I will absence her.
-- Philip Treviño, artisan in dance/artist
Charles A. McDonald
In this apple of adulatory adolescence and casting abroad those who lived best than 40, Flawless Sabrina showed us her connected affection for activity and work. Her assignment kept her affianced with a new generation, alarming us to be our accurate selves. For me, Jack caked my affiliation with the accomplished and the histories of annoyance and burlesque. She wove bewitched acceptance of the accomplished while alarming the best avant-garde of adolescent people. Flawless Sabrina inspires us to age riotously, not gracefully!
-- Dirty Martini, General of the Caricatural Army
In the simplest of words, I anticipate it was her acceptance in and abutment of every artisan about her that afflicted me the most. Back I confused to NYC and met Mother Flawless Sabrina, we seemed to be gazing at activity from two actual abroad perspectives and two actual altered times. In one baby step, on the Lower East Side, Flawless bridged the divide. She showed me that the ambit I acquainted was abandoned in my mind. I never saw her begrudgingly access at an event. She fabricated a accurate accomplishment to not aloof ‘show up’ at a affair but to absolutely be there. Some of the best admonition I've anytime accustomed on how to alive amid added animal beings was by artlessly watching her airing into a allowance and accomplish the rounds. To see the joy and admiration on every face that angry her way can be summed up in one word: Flawless. She gave a faculty of aplomb to anybody she met. Afore anytime seeing any of my work, she offered me her home for my aboriginal art show. I didn't acquire that affectionate of generosity, but she artlessly said “that's what it's actuality for.” And it's the acceptation abaft those words that I aspire to alive up to. Our lives are not our own. They should be lived with and accustomed advisedly not aloof to those who allotment our stride, but additionally to the others who watch from the side. She may acquire stepped out of the spotlight for the time being, but I brainstorm the aforementioned abiding duke that activated her eyeliner is now allegorical the axle and administering it area to shine.
-- Matthew Charles Crosland, flaneur
Flawless, or “Grandma Jack” as I and abounding of his “grandkids” affectionately referred to him, was a acceptable babyhood of around-the-clock wisdom, style, and grace. I apperceive that Witchy Bitch will be alive overtime in the afterlife like an active butterfly, authoritative abiding that we all abide to “OWN IT!” “TAP THE THRUST IN ADVERSITY!” and consistently convenance “DIPLOMACY DARLING!”
-- Niko Solorio, video artist/musician
Zackary Drucker, Excerpts from "5 East 73rd street" 2005 - 2007. Courtesy of the artisan and Luis De Jesus Los Angeles.
Ever back I met Jack, all of my assignment has been about her. She is consistently there, abysmal central aggregate I do. We aboriginal met in 2007 back I asked her to comedy Dorian Gray in my activity Dorian, A Cinematic Perfume. I accustomed at her accommodation and there I was, sitting in a allowance with Flawless and Holly Woodlawn! I anticipation I had died and gone to heaven. We talked about art, talked about life, and afresh Holly angry to me and said, “Forget about Andy, this babe accomplished me aggregate I know!”
He, she, they ... Jack was above labels. S/he knew that the actuality and now was what was important, and it didn’t amount what you alleged it. What mattered was that you were present, engaged, and never accepting anyone else’s agreement for active your own life. He accomplished me to alive absolutely and to acquire in the adeptness of my art to change the world. In fact, he believed in my assignment added than I did! In moments of self-doubt, back I anticipation my assignment was absolute crap, Jack would breeze me out of it with words of wisdom, giving me the backbone and afflatus to move on. Jack’s arduous attendance accomplished me the adorableness of adaptation and the absolute adeptness of self-transformation. She was a mentor, a friend, a spirit guide, and abiding afflatus abounding of achievement and political fierceness. Back we aboriginal met, I asked Jack if he adopted to be alleged Jack or Flawless Sabrina, and he said, ‘I don’t affliction what you alarm me… aloof alarm me!’ Oh, how I ambition I could alarm him one added time.
-- Michelle Handelman, anomalous feminist artisan filmmaker
I’m canonizing all the times she would appearance up at Cheez Whiz, or any of the added functions hosted by Sweetie, who we additionally absent beforehand this year. Sometimes she was appointed to perform. Added times she was summoned to the date or would aloof be in the affection to booty the mic and say a few things, whether she was in annoyance or not. She would allocution and allocution and we sat on the floor, aloof assimilation in all the adulation and adorableness and history that abounding the room. Mother Flawless had apparent and helped to appearance decades of LGBT and annoyance history, and she fabricated bright that what was accident on any accustomed night was allotment of that connected trajectory, and that we were all a allotment of it. And that we had to adulation ourselves and anniversary added more, and accumulate on fighting.
-- Noel Alicea
Key remembrances: Walking into a achievement with Angelo, and Flawless continuing up and attractive over our active like she was account auras, “Oh I like this, whatever this is,” she said, bouncing her easily over our head. “This is actual good.” Or activity with Rosie to her accommodation for one of her approval of elements sales. “Mother, is that accomplish up besom carve on the bank over there article you would like to move on?” I asked. “Tell me dear, what would you do with that?” she replied. “I would put accomplish up on new faeries with it.” “Fabulous!” she said. “Now, Andy gave this to me for my altogether years ago. I anticipate he had addition at the Factory put it together. He may acquire fabricated it.”
I adulation you Mother Flawless Sabrina. You affected me. You admired widely. Actuality so angrily you, you afflicted the world.f
-- Blue Bayer, adornment designer/maker
Flawless was a baby coach to me like he was to so abounding added people. Jack brought me into my own as a annoyance historian alive with the affective angel almanac (“you are the brilliant of your own movie!”) and abundantly offered me a beat angle and abstruse apprenticeship on the art, culture, and business of changeable clothing in American culture. Jack was absolutely absorbed in your work, consistently there to actively listen, define and ask the best astute questions and accord Zen-like advice: “it goes area you booty it,” “go native.”
We formed calm on several projects, from abundant screenings of The Queen with Q&As to a documentary abbreviate apprehension some of The Queen's outtakes. I will consistently absence his spritely balmy spirit. There was no one like Jack/Flawless, and his acutely abiding appulse on association will never be absolutely appreciated. The Queen is Dead. Connected Alive the Queen!
-- Joe E. Jeffreys, annoyance historian
Flawless lived so blithely and lived so aboveboard as a anomalous actuality that I feel stronger and added able to be my aberrant aberrant cocky accepting met her, abnormally afterwards audition “you're the boss, applesauce” so abounding times! I will bethink her consistently and anticipate of her as an archetype of backbone whenever I feel small.
-- Buzz Slutzky, artist, writer, educator
Zackary Drucker, Excerpts from "5 East 73rd street" 2005 - 2007. Courtesy of the artisan and Luis De Jesus Los Angeles.
Jack (Mother Flawless) and I begin one addition in 2002, afterwards one of his announced chat performances at NYC’s Slipper Room. I took his photograph, and he access me into his life. In retrospect, it was our aggregate history of accepting lived somewhat fabulously abandoned to retire beneath the wings of men in our lives, that affirmed us for a time—two queens advancing out of our shells already again.
To me, no one was as aces to be about as Jack. Maybe we’d airing and allocution by the Alice in Wonderland bronze in Central Park abreast his home, or I’d accompany him Chinese aliment while he captivated cloister in aftermost night’s architecture from abaft his ample desk. It was an account to be one in a adherent assembly of beastly adolescent artists whom he mentored afterwards expectation. I admired him. He encouraged me. He was hardcore. I’d never met anyone who acclimated a bilker as lip liner before, for example. He was fearless, and he was grace—always so disarmingly beholden that adolescent bodies would acquisition him absorbing and absurd abundant to adhere around. I’ll never balloon him, his stories, or how aces I acquainted in my bark back I was in his aerial beams. It’s my advantage to acquire accepted and been accepted by him. He’s the queen I’ll consistently appetite to be.
-- Jade Barbee , EFT Practitioner/Musician
Mother Flawless Sabrina. The Queen. A awe-inspiring force has larboard the planet. Admired her so much. One night abounding years ago, in the basement of what was afresh a bar alleged Niagra on Avenue A, I was circumlocutory about the approaching and offers to booty my assignment out of the East Village to bigger, straighter, added boilerplate venues. We were talking, and I asked her admonition because she seemed to acquire apparent it all and done it all. I’ll never balloon what she said: “You owe it to yourself and the aptitude you’ve been accustomed to go out there and acquisition out absolutely how big your admirers is!” I took her words to affection and acquire consistently been so grateful. She helped me to appropriate and own my adeptness as a gender-non-conforming actuality and an artist. I’m aloof one of the bags of bodies whose lives she afflicted for the better. I anticipate I could cautiously say best of them are not alike acquainted of what she’s done for them. Pioneer, icon, admirable animal being, artistic spirit, and a accurate FORCE OF NATURE, Mother Flawless Sabrina will alive consistently in the cine The Queen and in the hearts of those of us she gave activity to.
-- Justin Vivian Bond, auto brand artist
Jack became a allotment of my activity back I was in school. I had my aboriginal arcade appearance in her active allowance amidst my abutting peers. I disordered my prints on her floor, and she watched and we spoke. I was consistently amorous by her voice, what she had to say or was cerebration about, how intricately, and innately, she composed her thoughts. She was a branch advanced of me in best conversations. At first, I struggled to accumulate up. Later, I anticipate I aloof capital to flavor her words. In a funny way, as abundant as I apperceive that Jack is no best with us in the bitter sense, I still feel that she is with me. And with all of the accouchement that she mentored and calm into her family. There is no truer attestation to her appulse than the relationships amid abounding of us that were built-in beneath her Upper East Ancillary roof and through time and change abide a constant, active evidence of an figure who dared, relentlessly, and wouldn't acquire annihilation beneath from us all.
-- Phillip Gutman, photographer
