 A change is gonna come. 
The mid-century tabloid obsession with transsexuals and gender reassignment continues with this issue of The National Insider published today, 1964. This time the subject is Abby Sinclair, who started life as Alvin Sinclair, but changed her sex and—like Coccinelle and Christine Jorgenson before her—became famous on the exotic dance circuit. Somehow  Insider got exclusive rights to Sinclair’s story, and ran it as a serial entitled “I Was Male.” The series was later published as a book. Sinclair, who sources agree had beautiful results with her reassignment, went on to a dual career as a stripper under the management of famed NYC promoter Bobby Colt, and as a manicurist named Alice at the Stage Barbershop in Manhattan. We found this out from a copy of (don’t laugh) The Beaver County Times from June 1965. Our guess is that the manicurist job was an excuse to get close to New York celebs, since her workplace was the preferred haircut stop for the likes of Mickey Mantle, Roger Maris, and Tom Poston. The Times shares an anecdote about a famous columnist who saw Sinclair at Lou Black's Bellydance Emporium one night and recognized her from the barbershop. He sent a note to her only to be informed by Bobby Colt: "That's not Alice, and it's not a girl. That's a guy named Alvin Sinclair from Brooklyn who had one of those operations." Though it sounds as if Colt was turning his own client into a punchline, he really wasn't—the sex change was Sinclair's calling card, and all of her regulars knew she had been a man. For Colt, the more people who knew the story the better. We found nothing more on Abby Sinclair—her moment in history passed quickly. But life goes on, and wherever she went we suspect hers was always eventful.
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The headlines that mattered yesteryear.
1939—Batman Debuts
In Detective Comics #27, DC Comics publishes its second major superhero, Batman, who becomes one of the most popular comic book characters of all time, and then a popular camp television series starring Adam West, and lastly a multi-million dollar movie franchise starring Michael Keaton, then George Clooney, and finally Christian Bale. 1953—Crick and Watson Publish DNA Results
British scientists James D Watson and Francis Crick publish an article detailing their discovery of the existence and structure of deoxyribonucleic acid, or DNA, in Nature magazine. Their findings answer one of the oldest and most fundamental questions of biology, that of how living things reproduce themselves. 1967—First Space Program Casualty Occurs
Soviet cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov dies in Soyuz 1 when, during re-entry into Earth's atmosphere after more than ten successful orbits, the capsule's main parachute fails to deploy properly, and the backup chute becomes entangled in the first. The capsule's descent is slowed, but it still hits the ground at about 90 mph, at which point it bursts into flames. Komarov is the first human to die during a space mission. 1986—Otto Preminger Dies
Austro–Hungarian film director Otto Preminger, who directed such eternal classics as Laura, Anatomy of a Murder, Carmen Jones, The Man with the Golden Arm, and Stalag 17, and for his efforts earned a star on Hollywood's Walk of Fame, dies in New York City, aged 80, from cancer and Alzheimer's disease. 1998—James Earl Ray Dies
The convicted assassin of American civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr., petty criminal James Earl Ray, dies in prison of hepatitis aged 70, protesting his innocence as he had for decades. Members of the King family who supported Ray's fight to clear his name believed the U.S. Government had been involved in Dr. King's killing, but with Ray's death such questions became moot.
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