For 50 years, the Bitch read you in countless live performances in gay clubs across the South. Now, it’s your turn to read Atlanta drag legend Charlie Brown’s incredible trailblazing life story.
Limited Copies Left!
Non-Fiction
US Trade 6x9, Hardcover w/dust jacket, 246 pages, color photos.
October 1, 2024
**THANK YOU FOR YOUR SUPPORT!** From coming out to his commanding officer at the height of the Vietnam War, surviving the AIDS Crisis and MAGA Drag bans, “Mr. Charlie Brown: Bitch of the South” takes readers behind the scenes of the legendary drag performer’s 75-year unapologetic out-and-proud life. Readers have an all-access backstage pass as Charlie creates his iconic drag persona at Nashville’s Watch Your Hat & Coat Saloon, becomes a star in Atlanta at the Sweet Gum Head and an AIDS fundraising warrior. All of this prepares Charlie for his greatest role as the namesake emcee at Charlie Brown’s Cabaret, high atop Atlanta’s legendary three-story, 24-hour gay disco Backstreet.
This long-awaited hilarious and heartfelt memoir by Atlanta drag legend Mr. Charlie Brown takes readers on an unforgettable and unapologetic 75-year out-and-proud life journey.
From growing up as the grandson of a Missionary Baptist preacher in rural Tennessee and fleeing his small town to creating his inimitable drag persona in 1971 onstage at Nashville’s Watch Your Hat & Coat Saloon, readers have an all-access backstage pass.
Charlie takes you into the ladies room where he’s introduced to Fred Wise, the love of his life — by Fred’s wife. Onstage in Atlanta at the legendary drag club The Sweet Gum Head at the height of disco, Charlie Brown is transformed into a star. But in 1981, when the Gum Head suddenly shutters and an unnamed virus begins killing his friends, Charlie becomes an overnight AIDS fundraising warrior.
Along the way, he counsels a young drag performer named RuPaul, gets arrested (in drag) for indecent exposure, unwittingly becomes a cross-country drug mule, fights for the inclusion of drag queens in the Atlanta Pride parade and kicks the asses of multiple drunk homophobic rednecks.
These life experiences prepare Charlie for his greatest role — a 15-year residency as the namesake emcee at Charlie Brown’s Cabaret, high atop Atlanta’s infamous three-story, 24-hour gay disco Backstreet, where he entertains the likes of Elton John, Janet Jackson, Queen Latifah, and Madonna. The cabaret’s global notoriety leads to Charlie and Backstreet’s pivotal role in the HBO documentary “Dragtime.”
He is the recipient of the 2022 Phoenix Award, the city of Atlanta’s highest honor, presented to him by Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens during a ceremony at Atlanta City Hall.
We lived for the day each week when we could get into a drag bar called Illusions for two dollars to see their Monday Madness show. I can still remember the names of the girls who we’d go see. But the biggest star was Charlie Brown.
“From his early days at the Sweet Gum Head to receiving the Phoenix Award in 2022, Charlie’s legacy as a drag icon, entertainer and advocate has left his mark on Atlanta and beyond.”
A drag sensation and a wicked stand up, Charlie’s crowd work was legendary. A night at Charlie Brown’s cabaret at Backstreet was a rite of passage for queer folk of the South.
This raw, funny, delicious memoir reminds us that in every battle for queer equality, there was a brave, badass drag queen like Mr. Charlie Brown leading the charge. His story is our history.
The line of Pitmanites stretched down the sidewalk as the town’s brand-new Broadway Theatre opened its doors for public inspection on Tuesday, May 18, 1926. William Lacy’s creation extended all the way from 35 to 43 S. Broadway, the theatre’s new address. Overhead were four new apartments with decorative black wrought iron balconies. Locals, along with members of the press, eagerly stepped past the three as-yet-unfinished storefronts as the Broadway, the focal point of the block-long structure, made its public debut.
After nearly a year of ignoring construction of the town’s new signature theatre in its pages (perhaps in deference to the Hunt’s Park, a longtime advertiser), the Pitman Grove Review finally relented with an April 29, 1926, front-page story brimming with details: “The new Broadway Theatre is being rushed to completion by Contractor W.A. Lacy. The seating contractor has already installed all the balcony seats and the main floor chairs are being placed immediately. The beautiful crystal lighting fixtures will soon be installed; also the many changes of scenery which requires 10,000 feet of rope to operate. This scenery is now being completed in the Metropolitan Opera House, Philadelphia, by Fetters & Fisher Studios. The manager of the Broadway, Ralph D. Wilkins, 32, states that many high grade photoplays have already been contracted for. These pictures, playing Philadelphia’s best class of theatres, will have first showing in this section at the Broadway.”
Upon its completion, along with the Pitman National Bank and the town’s churches, the Broadway Theatre immediately became one of the most admired buildings in the borough. Its ornate stonework, imposing columns and large wrought iron and milk glass sconces hung above the gleaming glass movie poster cases brought a new gravitas to the town’s business district. The theatre’s large vertical BROADWAY marquee, outlined in large electric bulbs, could be seen from practically anywhere on Pitman’s main street. The new theatre, with its block of storefronts, along with the town’s busy train station, made a statement. It informed visitors that Pitman was on the move, far removed from its quiet church camp origins. Flags were hung outside businesses all along Broadway, thanks to a board of trade letter sent out to borough shopkeepers asking them to observe May 18 as a local holiday in honor of the new theatre.
Inside, Pitmanites, accustomed to the small, simple Hunt’s Park Theatre, gasped at the beautiful French Revival movie palace around them. The ornate plasterwork, crystal chandeliers, Parisian wallpaper, carpeting, red velvet stage curtains and eight luxurious boxes was unlike anything else in South Jersey. A reporter from the Gloucester County Democrat estimated that more than 2,000 people jammed the aisles, the stage, the richly carpeted mezzanine and the balcony. All of the theatre’s 1,200 seats, including the 50 box seats, were filled. While the balcony had simple wooden seats emblazoned with a B at the end of each row, patrons in the orchestra section enjoyed cushier, spring-enhanced upholstered seats.
Congratulatory floral arrangements from local businesses filled the stage. Many of the same businesses took out ads in the Pitman Grove Review to welcome the Broadway Theatre. Manager Ralph D. Wilkins told the Democrat, “The public has responded to the invitation more than my highest expectations. It is the intention of the management to respond to this display of confidence by giving the people high-grade performances.”
Much attention was paid to the theatre’s elaborate $15,000 organ from the W.W. Kimball Company, with its 10-foot pipe chambers installed on each side of the stage. Locals attending the public inspection got to hear the magnificent instrument for the first time. The organ’s double touch system included marimbaphones, glockenspiel, chimes, orchestra bells, harp, drums and numerous other instruments. The Pitman Grove Review reported, “In size, this organ compares favorably with those found in America’s biggest cinema palaces. Organists of prominence will be heard daily in programs of high class music. The Broadway Orchestra, composed of 10 musicians, will be under the direction of O.E. Wardwell.”
“The Kimball was certainly a powerful instrument,” reflected John Wilkins, grandson of Ralph Wilkins, in 2006. “It could overwhelm the theatre with its volume. Many folks came to the theatre just to hear the organ.” Adds the Broadway’s current organist, Nathan Figlio: “Ralph Wilkins went around to all of the New York showrooms and chose the Kimball because it was the most tonally refined. It was also the most expensive but the best-built. The proof of that is we do very little to it even now and it works day in and day out.”
Many of the same locals returned the following evening, May 19, for shows at 6:30 and 9 p.m., featuring high-class vaudeville acts, the Broadway Orchestra and a feature film, the just-released Paramount Pictures silent comedy “The New Klondike.” Orchestra seats were 50 cents, while a balcony seat could be obtained for 35 cents.
Theatre manager Ralph Wilkins had hired an all-female usher team of high school students, instantly identifiable by their rose-colored linen dresses with white collars, to hand out programs, take tickets and guide patrons to their seats. The inaugural Broadway Theatre usher team included 15-year-old Pitmanite Sally Titus. “Mr. Wilkins told me, ‘If anyone asks, you’re 16,’” recalled Sally Titus-Cline to Gloucester County Times columnist Bob Shryock 62 years later with a laugh. “The jobs weren’t easy to come by. Many girls applied and as soon as somebody left there would be others waiting to replace them. It was a wonderful way to make $4 a week.”
After working the mobbed opening night, Titus expected to be off the following evening, but Wilkins called her into work because the theatre was once again at capacity. Of Ralph Wilkins, she recalled, “He was a quiet man and a nice boss who treated us lovely. We averaged 75 cents a night, which in those days came in handy. We were so busy we’d see the same movie three or four times in the two nights it played and never really had a chance to look at it.”
Up on West Jersey Avenue at the Hunt’s Park Theatre, manager and projectionist Monte Mathis saw the lines snaking down Broadway outside “Gloucester County’s Largest Playhouse” (as Ralph Wilkins was billing it in the theatre’s half-page Pitman Grove Review ad) and knew the fight for his survival was on.
“Pitman’s Broadway Theatre at 100” will be released by Ardmore Avenue Publishing on September 23, 2025. Discounted online pre-orders via AAP will begin on June 7.
Author Richard L. Eldredge is an Atlanta-based arts reporter and fourth-generation Pitmanite who saw his first film, “Walt Disney’s The Jungle Book,” at the Broadway. He has been in love with storytelling and his hometown theatre ever since.
Above photo courtesy of Ralph J. Richards, Jr.
Scene: Charlie Brown’s Cabaret, Backstreet Atlanta, Midtown Atlanta, October 26, 2003, 12:05 am
I was touching up my blush in the backstage dressing room when management called from downstairs with an urgent message — Janet Jackson, her Atlanta record producer-rapper boyfriend Jermaine Dupri, a caravan of black SUVs and a Bentley were on their way to Backstreet. Management also had one small request for the head bitch of Charlie Brown’s Cabaret, namely me — clear out all of the tables up front for the pop music icon and her friends.
I only had one problem — it was just after midnight on a Saturday and Midtown Atlanta’s 24 hour gay disco, the Studio 54 of the South, was packed to the rafters. But my drag persona Charlie Brown didn’t earn the title “The Bitch of the South” for nothing. So I strolled out on stage and pointed. “Listen up, bitches, I need this table, this table, and this table to move. “Why?” the audience asked. I put a hand on my hip and replied, “’Cause Janet Jackson’s ass is gonna be sittin’ there in about five minutes!”
Turns out, when the name in lights over the stage is yours, people tend to listen.
A few minutes later, Janet, Jermaine, their security detail and their friends were discreetly escorted upstairs. They sat down, management brought over some comped drinks and I welcomed them to our show. I shot “Ms. Jackson if you’re nasty” my most demure smile and somehow managed the bravado to look her straight in the eye and say, “You have a front row seat for one of the best drag shows you will ever see. Enjoy.”
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