Michelle Ross
Michelle Ross performing at Crews & Tangos in Toronto, Ontario, Canada on June 12, 2019.
Born
Earl Barrington Shaw

(1954-08-05)August 5, 1954
Jamaica
DiedMarch 27, 2021(2021-03-27) (aged 66)
North York, Ontario, Canada
NationalityCanadian
OccupationDrag queen
Years active1974 - 2021

Michelle Ross was the stage name of Earl Barrington Shaw (August 5, 1954 – March 27, 2021),[1] a Jamaican Canadian drag queen who was active from 1974 until her death in 2021.[2] She was considered one of the key icons of the LGBTQ community in Toronto, especially for Black Canadian members of the community.[3]

Career

She performed in drag for the first time at Toronto's Club Manatee in 1974, to Dionne Warwick's "Anyone Who Had a Heart".[4] In Toronto, she was a regular performer at bars in the Church and Wellesley gay village, and a frequent performer at Pride Toronto's Blockorama parties.[5] She also performed internationally, including a six-year stint as part of the cast of a touring production of La Cage aux Folles.[6] She had small acting roles in the 1977 film Outrageous!,[6] and the 2014 film Seek,[7] and appeared in the documentary films Divas: Love Me Forever[8] and Our Dance of Revolution.[9]

Throughout her career, she was known for performing to the music of disco and soul music divas such as Patti LaBelle, Gloria Gaynor and Gladys Knight, but was most famous for her performances of Diana Ross songs.[10] As of 2018, she had performed on stage at least 15,000 times.[4] Dancer and choreographer Hollywood Jade got his start choreographing numbers for Ross.[11]

She once expressed her drag philosophy about the difference between men and women as "Both sides are equally part of the glamour. I see them as stories that are ready for a makeover."[4] Her signature move was to remove her wig at the end of her set, to call attention to drag as a performance.[12]

Legacy

In 2019, she was named as one of 69 key Canadian LGBTQ icons in the Canadian Screen Award-winning Super Queeroes multimedia project.[13] Following the announcement of her death on March 28, 2021, statements of tribute were issued by a variety of influential figures including Toronto mayor John Tory, writer Rinaldo Walcott and drag queens Brooke Lynn Hytes and Priyanka, and organizations including Pride Toronto, The 519, Glad Day Bookshop and the Toronto chapter of Black Lives Matter.[2][6]

In the third season of the drag competition series Canada's Drag Race, competitor Jada Shada Hudson paid tribute to Ross as a trailblazer and inspiration, both in a mid-season workroom discussion about community icons and in her runway speech in the season finale.[14]

Filmography

Film

Year Title Role Notes Ref.
1977 Outrageous! Performer in Pink Credited as "Michel" [6]
2002 Divas: Love Me Forever Herself Documentary [8]
2014 Seek Michelle Ross [7]
2019 Our Dance of Revolution Herself Documentary [9]

References

  1. ↑ "Obituary: Earl Barrington Shaw". Dignity Memorial.
  2. 1 2 "A Toronto drag queen who 'wowed audiences' has died and people are paying tribute". CBC News Toronto, March 29, 2021.
  3. ↑ "Toronto mourns loss of Canadian drag icon Michelle Ross". CTV News Toronto, March 29, 2021.
  4. 1 2 3 Elio Iannacci, "Long live the queens: How drag culture went mainstream". The Globe and Mail, June 24, 2018.
  5. ↑ Jonathan Vallely, "Blockorama turns 15". Xtra!, June 28, 2013.
  6. 1 2 3 4 Kevin Ritchie, "Toronto mourns drag queen Michelle Ross". Now, March 29, 2021.
  7. 1 2 Jonathan Vallely, "Hide and seek: New gay film shines light on Toronto's gay village and its dwellers". Xtra!, January 27, 2014.
  8. 1 2 Brian Bradley, "Toronto drag queen Michelle Ross exuded the glamorous life onstage and off". Toronto Star, March 30, 2020.
  9. 1 2 Amanda Parris, "Our Dance of Revolution: This new film builds a timeline of Black queer activism in Toronto". CBC Arts, June 7, 2019.
  10. ↑ Mitchel Raphael, "Me, myself and Diana: Diana Ross kicks off her Canadian tour July 3.: Funny, we thought we saw her in a club a couple of weeks ago". National Post, July 1, 2000.
  11. ↑ Jason Vermes, "How Canada's Drag Race helped this Black, queer choreographer make his mark". Tapestry, October 10, 2021.
  12. ↑ Rinaldo Walcott, "Black Men in Frocks: Sexing Race in a Gay Ghetto (Toronto)" in Claiming Space: Racialization in Canadian Cities (Cheryl Teelucksing, ed.) Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2006. ISBN 978-0889204997.
  13. ↑ "Michelle Ross". CBC Arts.
  14. ↑ Kevin O'Keeffe, "‘Canada’s Drag Race’ Season 3, Episode 9 power ranking: Hey now, you’re all stars". Xtra!, September 9, 2022.
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