COCCINELLE FESTIVAL

I know why the caged Ladybug sings.

This golden issue of Confidential from August 1961 contains an article about the one and only Coccinelle, who was a French transsexual performer, almost forgotten outside her home country, but who set the world on fire fifty years ago. Born as Jacques Charles Dufresnoy, he adopted the stage name Coccinelle—Ladybug—in 1953 when he debuted at the nightclub Chez Madame Arthur. At the outset of his career, Coccinelle was a male cross-dresser, but in 1958 he underwent sex change surgery in Morocco with spectacular results, and her re-emergence onto the stage as a woman made her world famous. Adopting the persona of blonde bombshells like Mansfield and Monroe, she was able to parlay her status into film roles, and was also featured in a few shockumentaries, but it was on the stage that she shone, performing at some of France’s most exclusive clubs, including Le Carrousel and Paris Olympia.

Her fame was a controversial subject of course, if not a public obsession, and her marriages caused epic scandals, but also prompted the French government to legalize unions between transgendered participants. By 1989 Coccinelle had moved to Marseilles, where she headlined at the Cabaret Spitz. She was still performing there in April 2006 when she had a stroke. She died after three months of hospitalization, but over forty years she had carved out a successful career, made a difference politically and, at the forefront of her own small sexual revolution, helped scores of people in her exact circumstances. We’ll look for more information on the fascinating Coccinelle at our usual French sources and perhaps report back on her later. 

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HISTORY REWIND

The headlines that mattered yesteryear.

1924—Dion O'Banion Gunned Down

Dion O’Banion, leader of Chicago’s North Side Gang is assassinated in his flower shop by members of rival Johnny Torrio’s gang, sparking the bloody five-year war between the North Side Gang and the Chicago Outfit that culminates in the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre.

1940—Walt Disney Becomes Informer

Walt Disney begins serving as an informer for the Los Angeles office of the FBI, with instructions to report on Hollywood subversives. He eventually testifies before HUAC, where he fingers several people as Communist agitators. He also accuses the Screen Actors Guild of being a Communist front.

1921—Einstein Wins Nobel

German theoretical physicist Albert Einstein is awarded the Nobel Prize for his work with the photoelectric effect, a phenomenon in which electrons are emitted from matter as a consequence of their absorption of energy from electromagnetic radiation. In practical terms, the phenomenon makes possible such devices as electroscopes, solar cells, and night vision goggles.

1938—Kristallnacht Begins

Nazi Germany’s first large scale act of anti-Jewish violence begins after the assassination of German diplomat Ernst vom Rath by Herschel Grynszpan. The event becomes known as Kristallnacht, and in total the violent rampage destroys more than 250 synagogues, causes the deaths of nearly a hundred Jews, and results in 25,000 to 30,000 more being arrested and sent to concentration camps.

1923—Hitler Stages Revolt

In Munich, Germany, Adolf Hitler leads the Nazis in the Beer Hall Putsch, an unsuccessful attempt to overthrow the German government. Also known as the Hitlerputsch or the Hitler-Ludendorff-Putsch, the attempted coup was inspired by Benito Mussolini’s successful takeover of the Italian government.

1932—Roosevelt Unveils CWA

U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt unveils the Civil Works Administration, an organization designed to create temporary winter jobs for more than 4 million of the unemployed.

A collection of red paperback covers from Dutch publisher De Vrije Pers.
Uncredited art for Hans Lugar's Line-Up! for Scion American publishing.
Uncredited cover art for Lesbian Gym by Peggy Swenson, who was in reality Richard Geis.

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