Wayland Flowers and Madame
by Jonathan Morrill
Original - Sold
Price
$500
Dimensions
16.000 x 20.000 x 0.500 inches
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Title
Wayland Flowers and Madame
Artist
Jonathan Morrill
Medium
Painting - Acrylic On Canvas
Description
An acrylic tribute portrait to one of the all time great stage puppeteers,
whose career was boosted by his popularity in Provincetown.
Wayland Parrott Flowers Jr. (November 26, 1939 – October 11, 1988)
was an American actor, comedian and puppeteer.
Flowers was best known for the comedy act he created with his puppet Madame.
His performances as "Wayland Flowers and Madame" were a major national success
on stage and on screen in the 1970s and 1980s.
Wayland Flowers performed and built puppets for Suzari Marionettes, Nicolas Coppola,
Bil Baird, and Aniforms after he moved to New York from Georgia in 1963.
Wayland Flower’s 1971 Off-Broadway show 'Kumquats',
billed as “the world’s first erotic puppet show”,
marked Madame’s first professional appearance.
Madame was a bawdy rod puppet, a grande dame with a sharp wit:
the alter ego of Wayland Flowers.
In 1972, Madame appeared as a lounge act in Provincetown, Massachusetts,
and attracted enormous crowds, and soon Wayland Flowers was appearing in
New York nightclubs.
In club performances Flowers was visible, and not particularly concerned with being considered a ventriloquist.
In 1974, Wayland Flowers and Madame appeared in the film, 'Norman, Is That You?', directed by George Schlatter.
For the next ten years Flowers and Madame were star attractions at American clubs
and casinos, especially in Las Vegas and Atlantic City (New Jersey).
Wayland Flowers and Madame occupied the center square on the television show 'Hollywood Squares', replacing Paul Lynde, and their clever wit and adult humor pushed the limits of acceptable content for television.
Flowers and Madame had their own television talk show, 'Madame’s Place' (1982), broadcasting 150 episodes.
Flowers was one of the first mainstream entertainers who was openly gay.
Sometime during his four-year stint on 'Solid Gold', Flowers was diagnosed with HIV.
He did not publicly announce his diagnosis and continued to perform.
Flowers eventually developed Kaposi's sarcoma, an AIDS-related cancer.
On September 2, 1988, he collapsed onstage while performing at Harrah's in Lake Tahoe. After a brief hospitalization, he returned to his hometown of Dawson, Georgia,
where he visited family.
Upon returning to Los Angeles, he moved into the hospice Hughes House
to continue treatment.
On October 11, 1988, Flowers died at Hughes House of complications from
AIDS-related Kaposi's sarcoma at the age of 48.
His remains were cremated at Grand View Memorial Park & Crematory in Glendale, California, and shipped back to his hometown of Dawson, Georgia, where they were interred at Cedar Hills Cemetery.
Flowers bequeathed his estate to his manager, Marlena Shell.
Ten years after Flowers's death, Madame returned to the stage with entertainer Rick Skye. After appearances on several television shows, performances of "It's Madame with an E" began November 15, 2008, at Resorts Atlantic City.
During 2010, the show also toured the US.
Flowers inspired the first name of Waylon Smithers,
a fictional character on the animated TV series The Simpsons.
Madame is now in the collection of the Center for Puppetry Arts, Atlanta, Georgia.
Uploaded
July 17th, 2019
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