julian eltinge, female impersonator. ♪♪♪ lillian: julian eltinge was a male to female impersonator.tremely popular. craig: julian eltinge was one of the most famous men in america at the turn of the century. it was seen as not necessarily something sexual. it was like a magic trick. i think that was how a lot of audiences viewed him. lillian: what's fascinating about that phenomenon is that you couldn't go out on the streets dressed in clothes of the opposite sex, but people flocked the vaudeville theaters and movie theaters to see instances of male impersonators and female impersonators. ♪♪♪ john duran: we are the aberration. we are the non-conforming sexual status, so we have to find one another and we're not painted with a lavender stripe down our face, right? so it's not apparent who is gay or who's homosexual. so there has to be some contact, some sort of dance or interplay that happens before there's a sexual bargain that's made. speaker: sometimes you would look into a person's eyes, he would look into your eyes, and all of a sudden you'd know through the eyes. after you had