Digital Transgender Archive

Alan Haynes and Terry Gardener performing in drag in their revue 'Why go to Paris". Photograph, 1950.

The actors, in drag, wear matching costumes with huge bonnets; posing mid-dance whilst illuminated by a spotlight. A small snapshot of Alan Haynes and Terry Gardener, two of the original stars of 'We were in the Forces', one of the first touring drag revues which toured the UK so successfully from 1944 into the early 1950s. The catalogued item has been autographed recto and verso by both of them, and shows them costumed for their revue 'Why go to Paris', 1950. Soon after this photograph was taken, Haynes teamed up with the then unknown Danny Carroll, before he changed his name to Danny LaRue and became perhaps the best known British drag star of the second half of the twentieth century. Haynes (1918-2008) and Gardener both continued to perform into old age (James Gardiner)

Part of James Gardiner Collection: photograph album labelled ‘Drag’.