Mel "Angie Stardust" Michaels (1939 – 21 October 2007) was a singer, actress, and drag artist of the 1950s and 1960s and the first black star of New York's

Club 82 Club 82, also known as the 82 Club, was a nightclub in Manhattan, New York City that employed female impersonators as entertainers. The nightclub had a second life as a music venue, but was eventually closed. History Predecessors The 181 Club ...

. She was also the manager of

Hamburg, Germany (male), (female) en, Hamburger(s), Hamburgian(s) , timezone1 = Central (CET) , utc_offset1 = +1 , timezone1_DST = Central (CEST) , utc_offset1_DST = +2 , postal ...

's first all-male strip club, Crazy Boys, and was the founder and proprietor of Angie's Nightclub in Schmidts Tivoli Theatre.

Early life

Stardust was born in

Norfolk, Virginia Norfolk ( ) is an independent city in the Commonwealth of Virginia in the United States. Incorporated in 1705, it had a population of 238,005 at the 2020 census, making it the third-most populous city in Virginia after neighboring Virginia Be ...

and raised in

Harlem, New York Harlem is a neighborhood in Upper Manhattan, New York City. It is bounded roughly by the Hudson River on the west; the Harlem River and 155th Street (Manhattan), 155th Street on the north; Fifth Avenue on the east; and 110th Street (Manhattan), ...

. She began performing at age 14 and was a

transgender woman A trans woman or a transgender woman is a woman who was assigned male at birth. Trans women have a female gender identity, may experience gender dysphoria, and may transition; this process commonly includes hormone replacement therapy and som ...

Career

Stardust performed at the Jewel Box Revue and Club 82, both in New York City. She was one of the first drag stars to take female hormones, an act she was scorned for at the time, and either quit over or was fired for. In 1974, Stardust moved to

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...

, settling in

Hamburg, Germany (male), (female) en, Hamburger(s), Hamburgian(s) , timezone1 = Central (CET) , utc_offset1 = +1 , timezone1_DST = Central (CEST) , utc_offset1_DST = +2 , postal ...

. There, she became manager of the city's first all-male strip club, Crazy Boys. In 1983, Stardust performed in the

Rosa von Praunheim Holger Bernhard Bruno Mischwitzky (born Holger Radtke; 25 November 1942), known professionally as Rosa von Praunheim, is a German film director, author, painter and one of the most famous gay rights activists in the German-speaking world. In ov ...

's ''City of Lost Souls'', a film that helped influence '' Hedwig and the Angry Itch'', in which she played the proprietor of a restaurant called the Hamburger Queen and a boarding house called Pension Stardust. Two of her co-stars were

Jayne County Wayne Rogers (born July 13, 1947), better known by her stage name Jayne County is an American singer, songwriter, actress and record producer whose career has spanned six decades. Under the name Wayne County (inspired by Wayne County, Michigan), ...

and Tara O'Hara. The film was first screened as part of a punk rock roadshow. Shortly after the film was finished, Stardust completed her gender affirmation with surgery to complement the hormones she had been taking for years. Stardust founded her own club, Angie's Nightclub, in Schmidts Tivoli Theatre in

Hamburg, Germany (male), (female) en, Hamburger(s), Hamburgian(s) , timezone1 = Central (CET) , utc_offset1 = +1 , timezone1_DST = Central (CEST) , utc_offset1_DST = +2 , postal ...

in 1990. By 1994, the venue was regarded as "one of the best places to hear free-form jazz." Stardust performed nightly until 1999 and came to be known as the Big Mama of Soul, as she was known for singing soul, jazz, pop, and musical theater standards. Annually since 2008, Angie's Nightclub has been one of the participating venues for Hamburg's Reeperbahn Festival. Acts have included

Skinny Lister Skinny Lister are a British folk band formed in London in 2009. They were a five-piece band until October 2013 when a drummer was added. In August 2022 they returned to being a five piece after Sam Brace left and the decision was made not to r ...

Mo Kenney Mo Kenney (born 1990) is a Canadian singer/songwriter based in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia. Catching the ear of noted Canadian rocker Joel Plaskett while still in school, Kenney released their first album in 2012, which Plaskett produced. Kenney is kn ...

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, Kristoffer Ragnstam,

Andreas Moe Andreas Moe (born 2 October 1988) is a Swedish singer, songwriter, record producer and multi-instrumentalist. Biography Moe was born and raised in Stockholm and aspired to be a singer and songwriter from an early age. He grew up listening to th ...

, Leyya, Louis Berry, George Cosby, Vita Bergen,

Joel Culpepper Joel Culpepper (born 25 May 1984) is an English R&B singer-songwriter from London, England. Originally from Peckham, then grew up in Catford. He is known for his distinctive vocal style and well received stage performances. Career 2009–2015 ...

, Conner Youngblood,

Inna Modja Inna Bocoum, also known as Inna Modja (born May 19, 1984), is a Malian-French female singer and model. "Modja" means "bad, not good" in Fulfulde.The actual word in the Fula language (Fulfulde) is ''moƴƴa'', being a negative form from the root '' ...

, Bess Atwell, and others. In 2017, Angie's Nightclub was still "one of the most popular clubs of Sankt Pauli’s night scene," according to the travel blog ''At 30,000 Feet''. As of 2020, Stardust's club is still extant and operates under the same name.

Discography

Filmography

References

{{Authority control LGBT people from Virginia American drag queens African-American drag queens African-American musicians American transgender musicians American LGBT singers LGBT African Americans Transgender women musicians Transgender drag performers Transgender singers