How do you want to be remembered?
Neil Cargile (1928 – 1995) pilot, entrepreneur - Palm
Beach Legend.
In the spring of 1994, the same year his best-selling novel
Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil was published, writer John Berendt
visited Nashville and heard about Neil Cargile Jr. The following August,
Berendt called Neil and asked to meet him to learn more about his motivation
for dressing in drag. Cargile was open to the idea, and they agreed to meet in
New York City when Cargile would be up there with his girlfriend.
Here are a few paragraphs for a very fascinating article:
It is common knowledge in Nashville, especially among the
social set of Belle Meade, the lush residential preserve of old Nashville, that
Neil Cargile -- twice married, the father of three, and decidedly heterosexual
-- likes to "dress up." The first time he ever wore women's clothes
in public was at a Halloween party at the Palm Bay Club, in Miami, in the
mid-nineteen-seventies; four women had talked him into going to the party as
Dolly Parton. They'd dressed him in a blond wig, a red dress, and a pair of
Charles Jourdan shoes with four-inch chrome heels. Cargile won first prize that
night, and a photograph of him in all his glory was posted on the club's
bulletin board, where George and Em Crook, of Nashville, happened to see it
some months later. "My God, that's Neil Cargile!" Mrs. Crook
exclaimed.
The Crooks assumed that the episode was nothing more than a
party prank, and they held to this view for the next couple of years, even when
rumors of other cross-dressing episodes began to circulate in Nashville. The
other occasions were costume parties, too, and they were always out of town.
But then Cargile began to dress up in Nashville. At first,
he did it at private parties and with a degree of subtlety. He'd wear a blazer,
a shirt and tie -- and a kilt. Instead of the traditional knee-length woolen
socks, however, he'd put on black stockings and high heels; or he'd wear the
kilt and the heels with a formal dinner jacket. Eventually, he held what he
called a Vice-Versa party at his home: guests were required to come dressed as
a member of the opposite sex. Cargile was between marriages at the time, and
his date that night came as Sir Lancelot; she rode into the house on a pony.
The Vice-Versa party and other sightings of Neil Cargile in
drag caused a great deal of talk around town, but it was not until the 1979
Cumberland Caper that Nashville got a good look at Neil Cargile as a
cross-dresser. The Caper is an annual costume party that benefits the
Cumberland Science Museum. It has a different theme every year, and in 1979
Nashville's moneyed elite were asked to come as their favorite character in
history. They arrived that evening in an assortment of decorous disguises -- as
George and Martha Washington, for example, and Marie Antoinette and Louis XVI.
Neil Cargile showed up in a blue dress and a long blond wig. Given the theme of
the evening, his choice was strangely inappropriate.
"And what historic character have you come as?"
someone asked. "As Neil Cargile in a dress," he replied.”
I asked him what his father would have done if he had seen
him in a dress.
"He'd have killed me," he said.
"And your mother?"
"She heard about it and she confronted me. She said,
You're the best-looking man in Nashville, Neil. Why on earth would you want to
dress up in women's clothes?' "
And what did you say?"
"I told her, 'It's fun, Mom.'"
_______________________________________________________________
The whole wonderful and positive article is a 13 page look into a fascinating
person like us. Some of the article can be found at http://georpin.chez.com/neil.html
and the complete article is at The New Yorker
site.
So, how do you want to be remembered?
Thank you so much for posting this wonderful story about SheNeil Cargile. What a very interesting person and a person whose approach to life, politics, fun, and living on the edge is not all that far from my own personality. I too like to dress because it is fun. I was surprised that I had not known of Neil Cargile before reading the attached story. I think it is almost required reading for CDs. He was such an interesting person with such an interesting life that I think someone should make a move of his life.
ReplyDeleteI really like that the author uses the 3-4% of men being crossdressers. With a population of over 300M that would put the number of CDs in the 7-10M range rather than the new common figure of 700K TG people.
Pat