Carlotta has astonishing energy. For a start she’s no regular 74-year-old. She’s still touring the country performing live shows and guesting on the telly. Carlotta has a story to tell and she sure knows how to tell it.
‘I never think about age!’ laughs Carlotta from her swanky Gold Coast abode.
For a start this woman of the world started out as the boy from Balmain who later went on to have one of Australia’s first public sex changes.
‘We had to do it tough,’ says Carlotta. ‘I would love to have been born today because it would have been a lot easier. There is fabulous help now, fabulous doctors, but when I was growing up it was all experimental; it was like living in the dark ages.
Carlotta knew very early on that she was a woman. ‘I looked very feminine,’ says Carlotta. ‘I never grew hair on my face or my underarms. It was just who I was.’
Carlotta’s 90-minute show is a biography of music and story telling of this extraordinary life. With extraordinary humour!
Carlotta started out working in the Art department of David Jones. ‘They showed me there was another life. I left home at 16!’
Eventually Carlotta got her start at the infamous Les Girls nightclub in Sydney’s Kings Cross.
‘That era will never be repeated. Most of the kids who were in that show all went on to have sex changes. You don’t see impersonators like that any more. Although working was a battle! We had to fight for decent money. It’s always been like that. I call it life lessons. I’m not bitter. I still learn about things every day. I have worked in TV and I seen how the whole industry works. It’s a learning curve every day. You learn what real people are like and what false people are like. If you let things worry you or stress you then you don’t have a life. We are here for a short time, not a long time, so I am going to have fun!’
When Carlotta takes her story to the stage she makes sure she gives the audience a damn good show.
‘I bring it up. I turn everything up. I rip myself apart. You are out there entertaining! I don’t get too serious!’
Expect fabulous show tunes, a tribute to her good friend Peter Allen, some incredible costume changes, although she jokes, ‘I used to be a greyhound, now I am a Kelvinator fridge!’
Carlotta still has all her incredible costumes – something she hopes one day to donate for exhibition.
‘David Jones did a thing about two years ago for Mardi Gras – they dedicated the whole window to me. It was the greatest honour of my life! I started there at 16 and then there are my costumes in the window! They did a beautiful job!’
Carlotta’s show called simply Carlotta has won critical praise Australiawide. Come see her in full technicolour at the Bangalow A&I Hall on Friday. 7.30pm. Tickets on sale at beach-bum.eventbrite.com
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