Carol Spencer AM (b. 1943), known as Carlotta, is a cabaret performer, television personality and LGBTIQ+ advocate. Known as the 'Queen of the Cross', she is famous for her performances in Les Girls, a cabaret show in Sydney's Kings Cross. After a difficult childhood, at fifteen Carlotta began working for David Jones, putting makeup on mannequins. She joined Les Girls in 1962 and soon became the star, performing with the popular show for almost three decades. In 1973, Carlotta was the first transgender person in the world to play a transgender character on television in the Australian series Number 96. One of the inspirations for the 1994 film Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, she began as a regular panellist on Beauty and the Beast in 1997 and later appeared on Studio 10. She translated her 2003 book I'm Not That Kind of Girl into a stage show, Carlotta's KingsX, which was staged at Luna Park in 2005. Immortalised in the 2014 film, Carlotta, she has toured extensively with her one-woman shows, Carlotta: Live and Intimate and Carlotta: Queen of the Cross.
This glamorous image of Carlotta, taken by photographer Rennie Ellis in the dressing room of Les Girls, is part of a series capturing the 'surface glitter and underground guts' of Kings Cross. Ellis documented the inner-city suburb over a six-month period from 1970 to 1971.
Purchased 2006
© Rennie Ellis Photographic Archive
www.RennieEllis.com.au
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