GREASEPAINT PURITAN
Boston to 42nd Street in the Queer Backstage Novels of Bradford Ropes
by Maya Cantu
Univ. of Michigan Press
329 pages, $29.95
IN AN EARLY SCENE in Warner Brothers’ hit musical 42nd Street (1933), Peggy Sawyer, a naïve aspiring actress, accidentally walks into the dressing room of Billy Lawler, a young, good-looking actor who’s getting ready for a Broadway show rehearsal. Billy (played by Dick Powell), caught wearing only his underwear, jumps up in surprise and yells at Peggy (Ruby Keeler), who had mistaken him for the show’s stage manager. “Weren’t you expecting me?” asks the startled and confused Peggy. “Well, not exactly,” answers Billy. “But I’m afraid you’ll do.”
Joseph M. Ortiz, professor of English at the University of Texas at El Paso, is the author of Gordon Merrick and the Great Gay American Novel.
