MCC TAMPA: A Walk With The Stars
A benefit for MCC Tampa is coming this Saturday night with “A Walk With The Stars.” Doors open at the 408 East Cayuga MCC event, Dinner & Show Dinner doors open at 5:30. The show only performance, doors open at 7:30. This is the 5th Annual benefit for the church and is always a great turnout. Appearing is crazy Hamburger Mary’s manager Melanie Minyon, Tiffany McCray, Felicity Lane, pageant performer and promoter Bob Taylor, Twila Starr, Champagne Bordeaux, Macavadi and hosting this special night, Tampa Diva Tiffani Middlesex.
Tickets are VIP $40 & Preferred $25 for both Dinner & Show. For the Show only $ 15.00.
Former Miss Florida & Local Tampa Diva, Tiffani Middlesex
” Luck is on my side!” stated Tiffani Middlesex in a phone conversation with us. Tiffani from toledo, Ohio has been out to herself and others since she was 7. ” I knew and everyone else did too.” Tiffani went on to talk about growing up gay in Ohio. ” My parents thought I was crazy liking boys and dressing up in my moms clothes. For 3 months… they put me in a crazy ward at a state hospital. I am not crazy and I wont be gay if you let me out!” So they did. “That place was really scary and I hated it.”
Asked about her family she said that she has a brother and a sister whom she really loves. Her big break came when she was asked to do a drag number. She started performing drag at 15 years old at a bar called Phil Coss. Then went to work at Rocko’s Twilight Zone.” Those were really crazy times in my life!.” Tif recalled. I loved Diana Ross and Patti Labelle. They were so exciting. At 18 she ventured to Detroit and stayed for 3 years working clubs. Then onto Houston Texas and back and forth to Cleveland, Ohio. 1978 she was then offered a job in Ybor City at RJ’s Rendezvous (where new Centro Ybor is today). That was for 6 months.
“Then this little guy came in and wanted to know if I wanted a job. That was Rene Rodriguez who owned a couple of gay bars in Tampa. He wanted me to work at Rene’s Cabaret on Kennedy Blvd. Then I became the show director. That lasted 13 years. I loved that guy as did all the girls. He is still highly admired and remembered.” Tiffani worked and performed at both Rene’s Cabaret and Howard Ave. Bar together for 9 years. She remembers how then creative show director Tiffany Arieagus helped her land the Rene’s show director spot. She was leaving to go on tour.
“I became Miss Florida in 1980 and I was Miss Parliament House the same time.” She had already been Miss Ohio and Miss Detroit.
Asked about her view of todays female illusionists. ” I feel that drag has evolved. I am not saying that in a bad way just that I feel the art form of drag has been lost. It was a man dressing as a woman then returning to a man! That (pause) was the true art of drag.”
Tiffani takes stage again at MCC Tampa Saturday night for a church benefit. A friend told me to go with him to church. I put it off and said ‘oh yeah’. Then he said that they had a Sunday night dinner. I said ” I love food girl! And I enjoyed it. The people the singing and the new friends. So I got more involved and I was doing a Saturday night show at the Parliament House and I would come home Sunday morning. I’d go to church and head back for the Sunday night show I had to put on. That is my story.”
Well you go girl, back at you…. Tampa’s Diva Miss Tiffani Middlesex.
