The San Francisco Marriott will be swarming with LGBT luminaries on Saturday night, May 10, for the 19th Annual GLAAD Media Awards. The Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation honors those who promote positive images of our community in the media, and this year the lineup of honorees and presenters is especially stellar. Sharon Stone, The L-Word creator Ilene Chaiken, Brokeback Mountain producer James Schamus and political activist David Mixner will be honored, along with SF's very own Theatre Rhinoceros.
Transgendered stunner Candis Cayne (of the hit ABC show Dirty Sexy Money) will host the event. Presenters and talent for the evening include actors Alan Cumming, Jennifer Beals, Judith Light, Chad Allen, Rex Lee and Jason Lewis (Samantha's hot Sex and the City beau). Sax man Dave Koz, model JP Calderone, newsman Hank Plante and Mayor Gavin Newsom will also be on hand to salute the honorees. DJ Tracy Young will spin tunes at the VIP afterparty.
Two years ago, Candis Cayne was a trophy girl at the New York GLAAD Awards. This year she's the San Francisco host. A lot has changed for the transgender actress and performer who's been a New York club scene favorite since the 1990s.
The first transgender actress to play a transgender character on television, Cayne was born Brendan McDaniel. Growing up in Maui, he knew early on that there were striking differences between him and his twin brother. Twenty years later, Brendan had become Candis, appearing in small films like Wigstock and Stonewall, and doing club dates with her husband (technically fianc�) of six years, DJ Marco.
Her transition from male to female began in the 90s. "I don't talk about the different physical stages of it because that doesn't help," she says. "Once a person begins the transition, that's who they are." She describes herself today as complete.
Chatting with me on the phone from her new LA home, Cayne exudes warmth and charm, pausing briefly to quell Marco, who's playing with the dogs in the background. "I feel like Mommie Dearest," she says. "You embarrassed me in front of a reporter!"
Playing Carmelita, the trans mistress of William Baldwin's politically ambitious character on Dirty Sexy Money, has brought Cayne instant fame. "I haven't gotten any negative feedback," she says. "I haven't read the blogs, because that's just asking for it, but I get a lot of positive emails from gay, straight and trans people, and the parents of trans people, saying how it's helped them to understand their kids."
"It's not just the role that's groundbreaking, it's the writing," she says. "I was expecting them to ask for my advice on how to write the character, but they're written her like she's a genetic woman, having the same emotions that any woman would have."
Of her co-stars, Cayne says, "Billy Baldwin has been great. He's just as excited about the story-line as I am." Acting opposite Donald Sutherland (as the tycoon who desperately wants Carmelita to go away) was initially daunting. "I was so nervous I thought I was going to throw up," she says. "But he's so good, he elevated me. He made me better."
When the writers strike cut short the first season, Carmelita had been kidnapped. But as season two begins next week, Cayne advises viewers to stay tuned: "The second season is even juicer." When the cameras aren't rolling, Cayne and Marco do club dates across the country, but why haven't they hit SF yet? "I'm waiting for someone to call!"
A lesbian first
Ilene Chaiken is no stranger to GLAAD. The writer/producer has served on the GLAAD board and worked closely with the organization ever since The L Word became a Showtime sensation. Before heading into an all-day writing session for the show's sixth and final season, Chaiken spoke with me about the challenges and joys of creating TV's first lesbian drama.
"I describe it as a melodrama about the lives and loves of lesbians in LA, but without that much alliteration," she says. "I'm in no way offended by the label 'soap opera' because we do go for high emotion. We do some political story-lines, but I also love telling stories about people throwing coffee in each other's faces."
Getting The L Word on the air was a long process. Chaiken's credits included The Fresh Prince of Bel Air and the film Barb Wire when she first pitched the idea to Showtime execs in 1999. "I knew at the time it wouldn't go, but I felt I had nothing to lose. They passed, and I let it go."
A year later, Showtime's Queer as Folk premiered and was an instant hit. Chaiken had written Dirty Pictures (about gay photographer Robert Mapplethorpe), which was up for a Golden Globe Award. "That got me a higher-level meeting, so I pitched the show again. At the Golden Globes, the president of Showtime told me, 'I think we're going to do your little lesbian show.'" The rest is queer TV history.
Creating the first lesbian-themed TV show put a lot of weight on Chaiken's shoulders. "People have put a lot on us. Their first reaction was, 'Where am I? That's not my life.' But now that we're in our sixth season, more people feel represented.
"It's not one show's responsibility to represent the entire lesbian community. My responsibility is to myself and to the show, to make good TV that's entertaining and engaging, with the same production values of any good show."
Like many L Word fans, I wondered which character is most like Chaiken. "I used to say Jenny represented my more youthful self and early experience, while Bette was my more mature self, being out in my working life. But now there's a lot of me in all of them."
19th GLAAD Media Awards, Sat., May 10, San Francisco Marriott, 55 4th St., SF. Tickets ($300, $400 VIP): go to www.glaad.org/mediaawards or call (877) 519-7904