My Life, a Four Letter Word: Confessions of a Counter Culture Diva

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My Life, a Four Letter Word: Confessions of a Counter Culture Diva

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Dolores DeLuce, a five-foot Diva in six-inch heels, takes us on a bumpy ride from her gray days in New Jersey through her escape to the tumultuous post-Stonewall days of ‘70’s Los Angeles and gay San Francisco. When her Italian American family rejects her after the birth of her mixed-race daughter, she creates a new family with the most unlikely people under the most unusual circumstances. Her new family includes Divine, assorted bad boys on Venice Beach, and her loving gay “husbands.” Along the way she meets John Waters, Edie Massey, Rip Taylor and Joan Rivers, is crowned “Miss Alternative L.A.” and wins The $1.98 Beauty Show. Through tears and glitter, Dolores survives her bitter family estrangements only to face the pain of the AIDS crisis first-hand.

Dolores De Luce had been a performer since 1970. She was mentored by the legendary Divine and the infamous genderbending Cockettes. She has performed and written for many musical comedies and was nominated for ‘Best Performer’ by Bay Area Credits Association for Broken Dishes, a musical she cowrote with Amber Waves. Dolores’ autobiographical screenplay, Grace Happens, based on this memoir was semi finalist at the Austin Screenwriting Competition. The Shirt, a story from Gay Widow, a collection of AIDS survivor stories was published in Witness, an A.P.L.A. magazine. Currently Dolores lives in Venice Beach and acts in TV commercials and film, while promoting her daughter Viva's singing career. She can be seen about town reading her stories with Queer Wise, an LGBTI senior writer’s collective, and story-telling at The Moth, Tasty Words, Everybody Loves a Good Story, and other spoken word venues around Los Angeles