Varla Jean Merman

Varla Jean Merman is the drag persona of Jeffery Roberson, an American actor, singer, and drag performer. The character's fictitious backstory claims Ernest Borgnine as her father and Ethel Merman as her mother. Roberson attended the School of Music at Louisiana State University, and has performed under the Varla Jean Merman name in cabaret and theatrical productions across the United States and internationally, including engagements in New York City, New Orleans, San Francisco, London, and at the Sydney Opera House in Australia and Carnegie Hall.

Merman's Broadway career spans 1996 to 2002, with credits including Funny Girl and Chicago. In the Broadway revival of Chicago, Roberson played Mary Sunshine and was credited as the gender-neutral "J. Roberson," consistent with the production's practice of concealing the performer's gender. In most other professional contexts, Roberson has been credited as either "Varla Merman" or "Varla Jean Merman" rather than under his birth name.

On screen, Merman co-starred in the 1997 film Franchesca Page and appeared in the HBO documentary Dragtime. Her most prominent film role came in the 2003 independent feature Girls Will Be Girls, alongside Miss Coco Peru and Evie Harris. For that performance, the three shared the Best Actor Grand Jury Award at Outfest 2003, and Merman received Best Actress honors at both the 2003 U.S. Comedy Arts Festival and the 2003 Aspen HBO Film Festival. She has also appeared in numerous short films. On television, Merman appeared on the August 20, 2008 episode of Project Runway titled "Good Queen Fun," for which the outfit designed for her was the winning entry. She also appeared on the soap opera All My Children in the recurring role of Rosemary Chicken. The network Logo commissioned Merman to write and star in an animated educational short film about the 1969 Stonewall riots.

In theater, Merman appeared alongside Leslie Jordan in the 2011 Off-Broadway musical Lucky Guy. The following year, her schedule included the role of Madam Flora in an Off-Broadway production of Gian Carlo Menotti's opera The Medium. In 2013, she played the title role in the Gold Dust Orphans production Mildred Fierce. A film titled Varla Jean and the Mushroomheads, based on a children's show concept developed by Roberson and Jacques Lamarre and previously performed in New Orleans, San Francisco, and Provincetown, Massachusetts, was slated for a fall 2011 release. Merman's shows have been a recurring feature of summer entertainment in Provincetown, Massachusetts.