Heels on wheels: 20 surprising facts about iconic drag comedy ‘To Wong Foo’
original drag superstars Vida Boheme, Noxeema Jackson, and Chi-Chi Rodriguez!Played by Patrick Swayze, Wesley Snipes, and John Leguizamo (respectively) these are the legendary queens at the heart of To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything!
Julie Newmar, the 1995 road-trip comedy directed by Beeban Kidron and written by playwright Douglas Carter Beane. The film follows the trio of New York City queens on the road to a pageant in Hollywood who become stranded in small-town America after their Cadillac convertible breaks down.
While there, they pretend to be actual women, win over the skeptical locals, and wind up giving everyone a glamorous drag makeover (obviously!).Though it came hot on the heels of another drag queen road trip movie from Australia (more on that below), To Wong Foo was one of the first mainstream American features to center the art of drag—instead of just men who cross-dressed as a means to and end.
A respectable commercial success, it helped kick off a wave of queer wide releases in theaters, including movies like The Birdcage.While it remains a nostalgic favorite to this day, scroll down below for 20 surprising facts you might not know about the queer classic To Wong Foo.The film opened on September 8, 1995 with $9 million, remained in the top the following week (outgrossing new debuts like Spiek Lee’s Clockers & Angelina Jolie thriller Hackers), and eventually earned nearly $50 million in total.Out producer Mitch Koin gave Spielberg the screenplay to read early on, but the famed E.