Two strange bedfellows, cut down from various papers:
Rachel Kempson, Lady Redgrave, who died on Friday aged 92, began her career in the 1930s as one of the most beautiful and promising Shakespearean actresses on the British stage; after her marriage to Michael Redgrave, however, she became the matriarch of a great theatrical family. She never ceased to act for long, demonstrating her talent in supporting roles, and often making an impression on television, notably as Lady Manners in The Jewel in the Crown. Inevitably, though, much of her life was dedicated to bringing up three unusually talented children, Vanessa, Corin and Lynn Redgrave, all of whom became distinguished actors, while Vanessa and Corin also showed a zest for Left-wing politics.
The performer who used the stage name Pepper LaBeija as a glamorous queen of the Harlem drag balls immortalized in the 1991 documentary Paris Is Burning, died on May 14 at Roosevelt Hospital in Manhattan. She, as she preferred to be called, was 53. A woman who answered the telephone at her mother’s home but who would not identify herself said the cause of death was a heart attack. Pepper was the last of the four great queens of the modern Harlem balls; Angie Xtravaganza, Dorian Corey and Avis Pendavis all died in recent years. These four exuded a sort of wild expressionism that might make Las Vegas showgirls seem tame. “This is the end of the golden age,” said Brian Lantelme, a photographer who has covered the balls. The House of LaBeija was one of the first houses, founded in 1970. The female impersonator who first led it thought the name LaBeija seemed glamorous. Pepper took over in 1971 or 1972, Marcel said. Pepper LaBeija was called “mother”; the house’s younger members were the “children.” “A house is a family for those who don’t have a family,” Miss LaBeija said in the movie.