Tom Hank starred opposite Peter Scolari in the TV series
Bosom Buddies in 1980, as two men who opt to dress in drag and pose as women to secure an apartment. Dustin Hoffman made movie history as a man in heels when he starred in Tootsie in 1982, as a man who dresses as a woman to get a better job and ends up taking it a bit too far. That year also saw the incomparable John Lithgow as the ex-football trans######ual in
The World According to Garp opposite the legendary Robin Williams.
Anyone doing research in the hope of creating a successful email marketing campaign will come across advice on how to get past the filterbots and will discover in advance that certain words and phrases must be avoided. These dangerous words include "money back", "100% satisfied"
manolo blahnik wedding, "money-back guarantee" and "order today". So whilst the author of an email marketing campaign will have this advance warning, such matters will not have come to the attention of your Granny. Granny will wonder why you didn't reply to her email asking for your advice on her proposed stair lift purchase even though she told you in her email that the company offers a guarantee and she wanted to send off her order today. If Granny is deaf, she won't be able to sort this out with you by phone, and the filterbots will have created a terrible rift in your relationship.
Matthew Broderick and country singer Garth Brooks among others have done skits for late night comedy shows such as Saturday Night Live, and there are numerous other actors who have proven they can strut in women's shoes as well as the women themselves. Woody Harrelson played a transvestite lady of the night in
Anger Management - with clogs as footwear and a startling Dutch accent.
The celebrity circuit is teeming with male stars who have taken that long walk across the screen in gender bending footwear. Patrick Swayze
manolo blahnik bridal Tips for Buying Running Shoes_5646, Wesley Snipes and John Leguizamo perhaps made the most convincing and memorable men in heels as three drag queens stranded in small town America, but they were by no means the first.
Williams took his own turn in drag as
Mrs Doubtfire in 1993 sporting ghastly women's shoes. This was followed in turn by the famous
To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything, Julie Newmar in 1995. 1998 saw undeniably masculine and utterly convincing Anthony Tyler Quinn (
Boy Meets World, Melrose Place) sporting killer heels and silk stockings in the TV version of
Tootsie, a series called
Ask Harriet.
Do girls really have more fun? Catch a few of these men in heels, and decide for yourself!
Other countries have their share of cross-dressing stars as well. Britain's Monty Python and their Canadian counterparts Kids in the Hall have performed many skits in drag. Eddie Izzard, the well known British comedian and actor has been a hit on the comedy circuit for over a decade. His trademark black leather thigh-high boots with stiletto heels have become legendary as well as his ability to manage them as he dashes back and forth across the stage.
The really infuriating thing about the bots is that they seem to be unable to distinguish the difference between a junk email marketing campaign and email from a contact in your personal address book. How dare these bots decide on your behalf that you will not receive email from your excitable friend who uses double and triple exclamation marks in correspondence! Ok, multiple exclamation marks are vulgar but being eaten by robots seems rather a harsh punishment for a mere lapse of taste. The filterbots, although not particularly intelligent, are cunning: they leave no evidence, they devour every scrap of the mail they steal, so you can't prove they have committed the theft. You can't fight the bots so you need to weave a cloak of invisibility for your email marketing campaigns.
There were a few earlier instances, but the real jumping off point was
Some Like it Hot in 1959, which starred a flamboyant Jack Lemmon next to a more reluctant Tony Curtis in drag, high-heels and all. Lemmon stole the show from Marilyn Monroe with his natural attitude and flair as a musician in women's shoes and clothing on the run from gangsters.
Many of these actors have gone on to become A-list celebrities, and a common thread is how very masculine many of these men are. Hanks was anything but effeminate in
Castaway, and Snipes played the baddest boy on the block in
Blade. Swayze was rarely cast as anything other than a beefcake, but handled the various types of ladies' footwear in
To Wong Foo with grace and aplomb - no doubt thanks to his dance career.