Sybil Bruncheon's BE MY GUEST from the Gay Cable Network... "Josephine Baker" (part I)

Sybil's panel of fascinating misfits competes to guess the identity of this week's famous mystery guest... "Josephine Baker", played by Joan Baker! (1989)

(This game show’s recording is from the carefully preserved Cincinnati archives of producer Mark Bailey to whom we are eternally grateful)

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Sybil Bruncheon's BE MY GUEST from the Gay Cable Network... "Josephine Baker" (part II)

Sybil's panel of fascinating misfits competes to guess the identity of this week's famous mystery guest... "Josephine Baker", played by Joan Baker! (1989)

(This game show’s recording is from the carefully preserved Cincinnati archives of producer Mark Bailey to whom we are eternally grateful)

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Sybil Bruncheon's "My Merry Memoirs"... the Palladium at Easter time...

April 19th, 1987:

It was Easter Sunday at The Palladium at 126 East 14th Street in Greenwich Village (just down from the original 19th century Luchow's Restaurant which was still standing!). "Jeffrey Sanker invites you to join the newly crowned Empress of New York, Sybil Bruncheon, for her first annual Easter Bonnet Parade. Wear your favorite bonnet and Win $500 First Prize." Look at that! ...a $500.00 first prize! Can you imagine? That was more than two month's rent for lots of folks back then. My panel of celebrity judges included John Lewis, Joan Baker, Michael Kenney, and Evelyn Blair. (...and our invitation photo was by Jack D. Pedota / AVANTOGRAPHY. Thanks to Susan Suka Taylor for styling too!!!)

There was a special guest performance, and Scott Blackwell was our DJ... and the whole thing started at 12:30 AM (which meant Steve Rubell would hold us till 1:00... or later!! Jeeeesh!) But we were paid in cash!... and whenever I did a show for Steve, he’d come up to me and say, "I loved it, kid!", and press an envelope into my hand with twice as much as he’d originally offered.. I pointed it out to him the first night of working for him, thinking he'd made a mistake, and he said, "What!?! Don't ya think ya deserve it, kid??"... and laughed! Back then, I worked for all the great party promoters, and Jeffrey Sanker was one of the best! Eventually he moved to Florida and built a huge career down there! Steve died in 1989…. And the Palladium, originally built in1927, is long gone now thanks to NY University which tore it all down in 1998 (as they're tearing down so much of Greenwich Village still). They replaced it with a giant dorm... which they named "The Palladium"… nice… that’s a great consolation. Whatever.

(Sybil photo by Jack D. Pedota. Styled by Susan Suka Taylor)

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