Birthday Boy: Go West!

Let's pause for a moment to celebrate the birth of Randy Jones, eternal Village Person; he's 57 today, still wearing the cowboy hat and going strong.

Joining him are a raft of the great and good: single-profiled superstar Claudette Colbert, terrifying soapstress Eileen Fulton, Velvet Fog Mel Tormé, Designing Woman Jean Smart, etiquetteuse Judith Martin, and Mr. Patricia Neal Roald Dahl among them. There's clearly a major diva-streak running through the day - could they all have been conceived on New Year's Eve?

Pop Quiz: Score Card

Well, it didn't take long for the secret identity of our recent Pop Quiz subject to be revealed.

Dear Rick knew at a glance that this was no gender-bending Phyllis McGuire impersonator, but instead television soap-opera stalwart Eileen Fulton.

Still - I wonder... isn't there some sense that in answering the question "Drag or actress?", the most appropriate answer came from Miss Janey: "Both"? Think about it.

Even Rick admits that he knew the answer because he "saw her perform once on Fire Island." It's hard to conceive of a less ringing endorsement of genetic femininity, no?

And then there's the look: for better or worse, Miss Fulton has clearly staked out a fashion territory that puts her somewhere between Lypsinka and a TJ Maxx-reliant suburban Joan Collins acolyte.

Her choice of company hardly instils confidence - anyone caught frugging with Phyllis Diller in an outfit like that is, by definition, a drag queen, no matter what the chromosomes say.

Even the leg-art stills aren't reassuring - this is one big-handed soap-opera diva.

So, I think we'll close out the current query by saying that it was, in a sense, a trick question: Eileen Fulton is an actress who's made a career - and, apparently, a long and happy one - out of her very own, very special form of drag. And whyever not?