Читать книгу The Secret History of Entertainment - David Hepworth, David Hepworth - Страница 22

Changing one’s gender is difficult enough in civilian life. In show business it rarely escapes comment entirely. In her biography, the composer and synthesiser pioneer Wendy Carlos makes no mention of the fact that her first records, Switched On Bach and the music from the soundtrack of A Clockwork Orange, originally came out in the late 1960s under the name of Walter Carlos. She recently successfully took action against the avant-garde group Momus for including a song speculating about the prospect of a marriage between her male and female selves. The Walter Carlos records have since been ‘re-badged’ as Wendy Carlos albums.

Wally Stott was one of the most distinguished arrangers of the 1960s, responsible for the sound of hits for Frankie Vaughan and Shirley Bassey, the soundtrack of The Looking Glass War and, probably most famously, the distinctive tuba tune which is forever linked in the memory with Hancock’s Half Hour. Since the late 1960s his work, including the Academy Award-nominated arrangements for The Little Prince and The Slipper and the Rose, has been appearing under the name Angela Morley. She now lives and works in Arizona.

Transsexuals working in the punk rock field didn’t match the discretion of the two above. Wayne County (born Wayne Smith in 1947) was a member of the Warhol circle and was already performing in drag when he was signed by David Bowie’s management in 1973. In the late 1970s he underwent surgery and re-emerged as Jayne County, under which name she continues to perform. Her life and times are chronicled in the book Man Enough to be a Woman.