Karyl Norman

Karyl Norman, born George Francis Peduzzi on June 13, 1897, in Baltimore, Maryland, was an American female impersonator who built a following in vaudeville, nightclubs, and on Broadway during the 1920s. His parents were Mary and Norman Augusta Peduzzi. He adopted the stage name Karyl because of its gender-neutral quality and took Norman from his father's name.

At sixteen, Peduzzi left home and joined Neil O'Brien's Minstrels, beginning his vaudeville career along the US West Coast. In 1917 he traveled to Australia as a theatrical performer, an early indication of the international scope his career would eventually take. He made his New York City debut as a female impersonator in May 1919 and was received as an immediate success. Billed as "The Creole Fashion Plate," Norman became known for his elaborate gowns, the majority of which were made by his mother, who accompanied him on tour. He specialized in Southern songs and developed a reputation for rapid changes of both costume and vocal register, moving between a convincing feminine presentation and a full masculine voice within a single performance. He also composed a number of his own songs, among them "Nobody Lied (When They Said That I Cried Over You)," "Beside a Babbling Brook," and "I'm Through (Shedding Tears Over You)."

Norman's New York stage appearances included the Palace Theatre on Broadway in 1923 and a starring role in the Greenwich Village Follies of 1924. In 1927 he appeared in the Broadway musical Lady Do. He returned to the Palace Theatre in 1930 to headline an act billed as "Glorifying the American Boy-Girl." That same year, alongside Gene Malin, Ray Bourbon, and others, he was a central figure in what became known as the "Pansy Craze," a wave of drag performance that gained significant visibility in New York. Beyond New York, Norman toured extensively in Britain, Europe, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa, as well as performing in numerous stage plays and musical comedies throughout his career.

In 1922, Norman was involved in a widely publicized dispute with vaudeville performer Ruth Budd Carpenter. Newspaper accounts reported that the two had agreed to marry but that Norman ended the engagement, reportedly objecting to Carpenter's refusal to allow his mother to join them on their honeymoon, particularly given that Carpenter herself intended to bring her own mother. Carpenter subsequently sued Norman for breach of contract.

During the 1930s Norman's popularity declined, though he continued to perform. A former FBI agent reportedly claimed that Norman was arrested in Detroit on a morals charge during that decade and that the intervention of Eleanor Roosevelt prevented his deportation, purportedly because he had performed at a benefit connected to one of her charitable interests. Norman was said to have worked at Detroit's Club Frontenac in 1940. When his mother died in 1938, he stated his intention to retire but did not follow through. In 1942 he produced an All American Male Revue starring Niles Marsh at the Castle Farms Night Club in Lima, Ohio, and in 1946 he toured Australia. Shortly before his death he accepted an engagement at the Ha Ha Club in Hollywood, Florida. Norman died in Hollywood, Florida, on August 25, 1947, at the age of fifty.