To Wong Foo Thanks for Everything, Julie Newmar (1995) on Netflix
Noxeema Jackson and Vida Boheme tie for the win at a New York City drag contest. They set out for a Hollywood pageant with Chi-Chi Rodriguez, an inexperienced newcomer.
- Netflix3.5/5
- IMDb6.9/1042,686 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes41%
Trailer
Plot summary
Noxeema Jackson and Vida Boheme share the top prize at a New York City drag contest, which sends them to a national pageant in Hollywood. Vida talks a reluctant Noxeema into bringing Chi-Chi Rodriguez, an inexperienced fellow contestant, as their protégé. They trade their plane tickets for a used yellow 1967 Cadillac DeVille convertible and drive toward California. Bobby Ray, a young man from the nearby town of Snydersville, brings them to a bed and breakfast run by Carol Ann and her car repairman husband, Virgil. They wait in town for a replacement part.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about To Wong Foo Thanks for Everything, Julie Newmar (1995)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Patrick Swayze was one of the last actors to audition for Vida; he had his own makeup team turn him into a woman and insisted on walking the city with director Beeban Kidron to prove he could pass, which convinced her to cast him.
- Director Beeban Kidron was pregnant when she took the job; as her due date approached, Steven Spielberg offered to step in and direct in her place, but she completed principal photography herself and gave birth right after filming wrapped.
- Golfer Juan Antonio 'Chi-Chi' Rodriguez, a World Golf Hall of Fame member, sued Universal Pictures for defamation over the film's use of his name for John Leguizamo's character and eventually settled on undisclosed terms.
- A planned scene of the drag trio eating at McDonald's was cut after the chain told producers it did not want to be associated with drag queen culture, while Coca-Cola agreed to product placement instead, landing a billboard in a prominent scene.
- Writer Douglas Carter Beane was inspired to write the film after seeing an anti-gay propaganda movie called The Gay Agenda, in which a narrator warns viewers that drag queens passing through town will 'take over,' which struck Beane as something that 'would be fun.'
- Wesley Snipes and John Leguizamo, whose role of Chi-Chi Rodriguez was written specifically for him, both said yes right away, while more than a dozen actors including Robert Downey Jr., Mel Gibson, Johnny Depp and Tom Cruise were considered for the part of Vida before Swayze won it.
- To Wong Foo is considered a landmark as the first mainstream Hollywood production to portray drag queens in a positive, non-cartoonish light.
