Wayland Flowers

Wayland Parrott Flowers Jr. was born November 26, 1939, in Dawson, Georgia, the second of three children. Wayland's father, in the Army, was soon deployed in World War II and was killed in action, leaving Flowers to be raised in a devoutly religious all-female household, save for his younger brother. There was a neighborhood girl with whom he liked to play with dolls; however, this was socially unacceptable for a boy in 1940s Georgia, so he would wrap up the dolls in paper bags, bring them to her house, and they would play with them in her garage. As he reached adulthood, his mother encouraged him to go to college, and began living the life of a struggling artist. ==Career==

Origins of Madame In a 1982 interview with Armistead Maupin, Flowers remarked that he had never worked with puppets until he landed a job as a puppeteer for Bil Baird's Marionettes show at the 1964 New York World's Fair. noticed Flowers' affection for the toys and gave him a puppet that had been created as The Wicked Witch of the West for a production of The Wizard of Oz.) Bedecked in fabulous evening wear and "summer diamonds" ("Some are diamonds; some are not"), Madame's look was patterned after movie stars such as Gloria Swanson and Tallulah Bankhead. When he was between jobs, Flowers began performing street theater for tips, and that's where Madame began her career. so Wayland quickly concocted an act. He developed double entendres, witty comebacks, and recycled old vaudevillian jokes, which became Madame's schtick. He garnered success in the gay clubs of New York, and eventually debuted Madame Off-Broadway at the Village Gate in 1971's Kumquats, billed as "the world's first erotic puppet show," which also included the "notorious ejaculating Punchinello." The show played 53 performances between November 1971 and January 1972. His success in New York led him to get booked into The Pilgrim House in Provincetown, Massachusetts, in 1972, where he continued to perform nearly every season until his death. He was initially booked as a 15-minute opening lounge act, but within a week, he had attracted massive crowds. Several of Madame's character traits were also found in another popular puppet character of the time, The Muppets' Miss Piggy. Flowers felt that Jim Henson and his team had lifted material that he had created for Madame. When asked about the similarities, Flowers as Madame, responded; "Well. (Makes a face.) I think that every pig must have her own day. She's certainly had hers. Took all my ideas and just went to market with 'em, while this little piggy stayed home." Flowers created an elaborate backstory for Madame, which he committed to the page with Gary Simmons in the 1983 book Madame: My Misbegotten Memoirs. In addition to Madame, Flowers featured other puppets in his act that included Crazy Mary (an escapee from Bellevue mental hospital), Jiffy (a Harlem harlot with a heart of brass), Mr. Macklehoney (a crotchety, retired vaudeville comedian), and Michael Honey (a horny old gay man). Television Soon after The World's Fair ended, Flowers began dabbling in puppetry on New York television, creating and performing characters on the Aniforms segment of the 1965 series The Surprise Show and Captain Kangaroo. Paul Lynde caught one of his performances in Provincetown and invited Flowers to come to Hollywood, where his career exploded. His first major national TV gig was designing and puppeteering the Baby Smedley puppets (voiced by Mel Brooks and Marlo Thomas) for the all-star 1974 TV special Free to Be... You and Me, a tie-in with the successful children's album of the same name. According to various sources, he earned a special Emmy Award for his puppets. In 1975, he and Madame appeared in the sketch comedy show ''Keep on Truckin'''. Debuting as a summer series was enough to prove that the network had little faith in it, but the show was dealt a crippling blow when host Rod Serling died two weeks before the premiere. Serling's segments were removed, and the show lasted a scant four weeks on the air. The duo soon rebounded as regulars on the 1976 series Andy, a syndicated revival of The Andy Williams Show. Feeling he could take his act further, he began developing the TV sitcom ''Madame's Place'', which debuted in 1982 and costarred Susan Tolsky, Johnny Haymer, Judy Landers, Corey Feldman and Ty Henderson. Production began in August 1982, with the cast and crew working at a breakneck pace to churn out 75 half-hour shows in 26 weeks. and that he was often so blitzed that he had to be carried on and off the set of Solid Gold. During an interview on the set of ''Madame's Place'', Armistead Maupin remarked that he'd lost a significant amount of weight. Despite its wide exposure, ''Madame's Place'' was initially considered unsuccessful and canceled after one season. However, the show went on to have a long life in daytime reruns on the USA Network. After the failure of ''Madame's Place, Flowers kept his Solid Gold gig temporarily, then stepped away from the Hollywood spotlight, focusing more on live venues—but Madame did eventually briefly return to Solid Gold and a revival of The Hollywood Squares''. ==Personal life==

Flowers was shy and lived vicariously through Madame, who became his constant companion everywhere he went. Although he has been posthumously cited as one of the first mainstream entertainers who was openly gay, this is untrue. He was well-known for performing on the gay circuit, but feared that publicly saying the words "I am gay" would "cost him a million dollars a year." temperamental behavior, and a snowballing drug habit that led him to alienate friends and associates, but he lived his life outside of the spotlight, which was generally shining on his alter ego. ==Death==

In September 1987, Flowers was diagnosed with HIV, and continued to perform. He 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 Hughes House hospice for palliative care. 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 are interred at Cedar Hills Cemetery. He went on to be memorialized on The AIDS Quilt, although his name was misspelled as Waylon Flowers. Following Flowers' death, the Star tabloid reported that Madame was buried with him, a falsehood that has frequently been repeated. Flowers bequeathed the puppets and his estate to his friend, manager, and ultimately, his caregiver, Marlena Shell. ==Madame's Revivals==

Debbie Reynolds, a friend of Flowers' who did an impersonation of Madame in her nightclub act, urged Marlena Shell (Wayland Flowers' last manager and the administrator of his estate) to let another puppeteer take over soon after Flowers' death, but Shell was too devastated to consider it. Shell had been so close to Wayland that she became overprotective of the character who appeared with Madame on a 2003 revival of The Hollywood Squares and at the 25th anniversary of the Center for Puppetry Arts (where one of the Madame puppets has been permanently on display before he had a falling out with Shell, Paquette countered with a $10 million trademark infringement suit against Shell and later toured the US in 2010. In 2013, Madame found herself on the arm of Gary Holland for a "White Carpet Commentary" in Palm Springs, and the live show "''Madame's Back''." Shell made two attempts at crowdfunding, both of which were dismally unsuccessful. In 2012, she proposed the semimonthly "Madame Show" (AKA "Madame for President"), a YouTube series that was to have featured Madame on the streets of New York, in a studio and on tour. The Kickstarter campaign had a $56K goal but only attained a paltry $345 in pledges. The following year, an IndieGoGo campaign was set up to fund a national tour of "Madame's Back," which fared slightly better but still fell very short, with a $50K goal and $4,855 in pledges. Audience members complained that they preferred Kovacs' interpretation of the character. was staged in July 2022, followed by ''Madame's Face-for-Radio Holiday Hootenanny'' in December. ==Legacy==

Flowers spent the end of his life in L.A.'s first AIDS hospice, Hughes House, and left money in his will for another to be opened, called the Wayland Flowers House. The funds went directly to Hughes House, which was renamed and closed a few months later because its county contract was not renewed, although it was briefly reopened in the early '90s. Wayland carried numerous Madame puppets on tour with him in case there was a problem or so he could do a quick costume change. In 2015, a puppet that had been in the care of Flowers' former stage manager sold at Julien's Auctions for $12,500. and sold to an anonymous buyer for $11,000. In 1991, this same puppet went on permanent display at The Museum of Modern Art which featured Madame in an open steamer trunk surrounded by dead flowers. Flowers inspired the first name of Waylon Smithers, a fictional character on the animated TV series The Simpsons, who later came out as gay. American drag queen Raja Gemini performed as Madame on RuPaul's Drag Race All Stars (season 7) on the show's Snatch Game, a game inspired by the TV game show Match Game. In 2022, Julian Hooper's original screenplay Madame – based on the life of Wayland Flowers – was named a Finalist in the Nicholl Fellowship, the annual screenwriting competition of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Selected from 5,526 scripts submitted across 85 countries, Madame advanced through multiple rounds of judging by industry professionals and Academy members before being named a finalist by the Academy Nicholl Fellowships Committee. ==Filmography==