Thursday, October 9

Dolores DeLuce, "a five-foot diva in six-inch heels," takes us on the bumpy ride from a bleak New Jersey childhood through her escape to the refuge of the tumultuous post-Stonewall days in 1970s Los Angeles and gay San Francisco. After giving birth to a mixed-race daughter and being rejected by her Italian-American family, DeLuce created a new family with the most unlikely people and under the most unusual circumstances.

Her exploits include living with film legend Divine and selling barbiturates to gay pill-poppers. In this memoir, she recounts how actress Edie Massey proclaimed her to be Divine's illegitimate daughter, and the time Rip Taylor declared her the winner of the $1.98 Beauty Show.

Organizing Institution: Calandra Italian American Institute