Chilli Pepper (-2024)
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Chilli Pepper, world-famous female impersonator, passed away on September 11, 2024 at her Gold Coast studio apartment following a years-long battle with cancer. According to her, she was “39, every year 39”, and her friends describe her as ageless. Performing for decades at The Baton Show Lounge, she also was a frequent guest on such shows a “Donahue” and “Oprah,” where she spoke with dignity and clarity, helping to educate millions of viewers about the art form, the gay community and AIDS.
Chilli was inducted into the Chicago LGBT Hall of Fame in 2007. She was Miss Gay Chicago in 1974, and the winner of the first Miss Continental Pageant at The Baton Show Lounge in 1981, which has since become a contest that draws talent from around the world. In March of 2024, she took a train from Chicago to Los Angeles, where she presented Oprah Winfrey with an award for promoting acceptance of LGBTQ+ people and issues from GLAAD, one of the nation’s leading LGBTQ+ advocacy groups. Chilli likened her stage persona to Joan Collins on Dynasty: “It took me a long time to create this cartoon. It’s a cartoon that works for me…How much of Chilli is me and how much is creation depends on who is watching and what they bring out in me. If you are interested in knowing me, you get me. If you only want the cartoon you see onstage, that is what you get. Any description of Chilli must come from the audience, from you. Chilli is a response. Chilli is a mirror. This is my art, this is what I use to perform.” Her act was pantomime, but her stage work was closer to improv and performance art. Chilli Pepper’s fame extended far beyond the gay community. At the request of Donna Karan, Chilli modeled as a mannequin in the main display window at the launch party of Barneys New York’s Chicago store. The event benefited the Design Industries Foundation Fighting AIDS (DIFFA). In 1979, when Michael Butler premiered the movie “Hair” in Chicago, Chilli was the ‘Premiere Entertainment’ and introduced drag to an audience who, according to her, may have thought “‘drag’ applied only to car racing or having a bad day.” Chilli moved to Chicago from Detroit in 1971. She got her start in female impersonation in Detroit, where she chose the name she would use for the rest of her life, Chilli Pepper, an homage to her Chilean roots and “because she was red hot and fiery,” said her close friend Cole Stolman. Friends said she was very private and rarely shared details about her life growing up in Detroit. “She will never be replicated. What she did for our community was truly selfless. You can’t underestimate the power of entertainment to change the world” — Tracy Baim, Founder - The Windy City Times |