Tish Gervais with Michael Musto, as seen in Karen Bernstein and Nevie Owens documentary “I’m
Gonna Make You Love Me.”
➤ BRIAN BELOVITCH, from p.33
terly wild and surprising life and
times of Brian Belovitch, a gay boy
from Providence who transformed
himself into downtown sexpot club
diva Tish (aka Natalia) Gervaise,
had a short-lived marriage to a US
soldier while he was stationed in
Germany, and, eventually bored
with that, moved back to New York
and decided to begin her transition
back to being a man. It is, above
all, a story of survival at a time
when trans folk were not nearly as
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accepted as they are now. Through
the process, Belovitch made the
all-important life discovery that
you sure better love yourself, because
sometimes even family fails
to come through in that department.
At the intimate celebratory dinner
for the fi lm at Le Zie, hosted
by Belovitch and his class act of
a husband, Jim Russell, I was
thrilled to meet Rose McGowan,
looking exquisitely the spitting image
of Jean Seberg in “Breathless”
with short-cropped platinum hair.
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Brian Belovitch today.
She was just lovely — warm, down
to earth, and fun, dishing the dirt
about funny encounters with Jack
Nicholson and Peter Weller, as
well as about running away from
her Oregon home at 14 to come to
New York. After her 2018 memoir
“Brave,” she’s planning a second
book, which will cover her earlier
wild years.
A companion piece to the Belovitch
fi lm in the fest was “Pier
Kids,” Elegance Bratton’s terrifi -
cally real and gritty portrait of the
homeless queer and trans youth
who hang out at the place most of
them consider a kind of home: the
Christopher Street Pier in Greenwich
Village. Bratton was kicked
out of the house at 16 for being gay,
and was homeless for a decade before
joining the Marines in Hawaii
where he learned fi lmmaking, later
getting degrees from Columbia
and NYU.
“Pier Kids,” doesn’t have the
fl amboyant, strutting ballroom
footage found in Jennie Livingston’s
seminal “Paris is Burning”
(1990), but even with the pier’s
beautiful facelift compared to its
decrepit and dangerous state of
30 years ago, not much has really
changed for the kids who are
drawn there. This new generation
still has to hustle hard, often doing
sex work to put food in their bellies
and living and surviving day to day
in the face of deep prejudice, police
oppression, and sometimes lethal
violence. A young male interviewed
in the fi lm talked seriously about
whether getting infected with HIV
— and thereby collecting benefi ts
— might be the best option for
fi nding stability in his life. These
are kids we continue to fail.
THE YORK THEATRE COMPANY
NOVEMBER 26-DECEMBER 29
THE MUSICAL WORLD OF
MUSIC AND LYRICS BY
MAURY YESTON
CONCEIVED AND DIRECTED BY
GERARD ALESSANDRINI
THE YORK THEATRE COMPANY | AT SAINT PETER’S
ENTRANCE ON 54TH STREET JUST EAST OF LEXINGTON AVENUE, NEW YORK
YORKTHEATRE.ORG | (212) 935-5820 | #ANYTHINGCANHAPPEN
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