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‘He was a perfect, beautiful woman’: the female impersonator who became a 1920s star

Julian Eltinge conquered stage and screen a century ago, when gender play was normalized. But his biographer says Eltinge was ‘not an easy ally’

There, Eltinge played male and female roles, including in 1920’s The Isle of Love, where he starred alongside two unknowns: Rudolph Valentino and Virginia Rappe, the model and bit-part actress who mysteriously died at a wild party hosted by Fatty Arbuckle a year later. Photograph: Northport Historical SocietyLike many stars of his era, who were prone to inventing exotic backstories, Eltinge was a bit of a fabulist – he told reporters he had studied architecture at Harvard, when in reality he was the son of a struggling mining engineer whose family moved west to Montana in search of better opportunities. His fitness regimen included staying awake as much as possible (he didn’t note how) as a form of exercise, and binge-dieting, eating only dry toast and fruit for breakfast, mutton or fish and vegetables in the evening, and “quarts of buttermilk” as a snack.

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