Home Again
Celia Putty talks about her decade long ordeal as she prepares to return to the stage
By Bruce Christian

It was 2000. The country had survived the Y2K scare. President Clinton prepared to leave office. The nation enjoyed a strong economy and a budget surplus.

“Then everything went black,” Celia Putty remembered in her first interview since returning the Valley. Putty, a favorite female impersonator throughout the ’90s was thought to have died. But she claimed she was kidnapped and forced to work in the sex trade industry in Phuket, Thailand.

Putty’s big “homecoming” is set for Sept. 18 at Forbidden Nightclub in Scottsdale, but the memories of her lost decade are still fresh.

“I was taken against my will and whisked away overseas,” Putty recalled. “All I could hear was that damn techno music blaring. It’s a blur, but I can remember plenty of groping and even leather restraints. And there were paddles. Oh yes, there were plenty of paddles,” she said as she broke into tears.

After regaining her composure, Putty asked why everyone assumed she was dead.

“I’ve heard about that ‘funeral,’” she said. “They were pretty quick to have one, don’t cha think?” She then pointed out that the body used during the canal bank funeral behind the Royal Villa, near 12th Street and Turney, never was identified.

“Did they even bother to check the serial numbers on the breast implants of the skinny little queen they did bury?” Putty asked. She remembered that at around the time “a few other queens went missing … Christina Blake, Veronica Lake, Miss Ellie, to name a few.”

Because her long-time colleague Barbra Seville was so involved in the funeral, Putty turned to her Magic 8 Ball to determine whether Seville was involved in the performer’s disappearance. After all, once Putty was out of the way, no one could challenge Seville as the Dame of Phoenix Drag.

The 8 Ball’s answer was: “It is certain.”

Contacted for comment, Seville said she didn’t have much memory of the incident. “I know I was out of town (code for jail) and have an air-tight alibi,” Seville said.

Still, Seville performed the eulogy at Putty’s service. “Yes, I was at the memorial service, it was packed,” Seville said. “Just proves: give the public what they want, and they’ll come out for it.”

Putty’s re-emergence didn’t amaze Seville. “I’m not surprised she’s coming back, she’s always had to resort to gimmicks and desperate pleas for attention,” she said.

Life in Thailand

In Phuket, Putty said she was held captive in a musty basement in a teeny tiny laundromat underneath Thai Mama’s Spicy Wigs.

“It was supposed to read ‘Wings,’ but the neon light never lit up completely” Putty said. “Kinda like that one drag performer you mentioned earlier (Seville). The light never turned on.”

While imprisoned, Putty said she tried to contact her friends in Phoenix sending plenty of messages to let people know she was still alive. “Evidently people stopped carrying beepers and pagers around the time I went missing,” Putty said. “How was I to know that technology would change so rapidly?”

Her time wasn’t spent always in the basement, but life was miserable, because she was a victim in the country’s sex trafficking.

“It wasn’t my cup of tea, oolong or otherwise, but I coped with it,” Putty said. She described the experience as an ”endless buffet of noodles and eggrolls, all shapes and sizes. My favorite was combination No. 23, ‘Sum Hung Gai,’ but I was no slave to No. 23, I would mix it up.

“They tell you that substitutions are not allowed, but that’s a myth,” Putty said, as she seemed to lose her concentration and asked for the question to be repeated.

Not everything was bad, however.

“There was a cute little guy; we called him William Hung. He came around quite a lot with his little self. But I lost track of him. Something about a singing career, Paula Abdul, his big break, I dunno.”

Putty declined to discuss what kind of money she made in the sex trade.

“There are some things you just don’t ask a lady, like rates!” Putty said with a tone of indignation, as she turned the question on her interviewer. “How much do YOU get every time YOU are used in a sexual encounter?”

Coming home

After 10 years, however, Putty apparently lost her charm and was dismissed.

“It was so embarrassing,” Putty admitted. “There was a lot of red tape, but that was a welcome change after so many years of duct tape — oh yes, there was plenty of duct tape.”

She still recalls how she found out she was being released. She said her “owners” approached her one day during the spring and said: “You go home now.”

“When I learned I was going to be released, I felt alive again,” Putty said. “Would I miss the cafeteria food fights? You bet. Who would stare at my breasts once I started showering alone again? Don’t know. But I was ready to come home! I also was eager to get home because I remembered I left my Top Ramen boiling on the stove, and I was pretty sure it had been three minutes.”

During her lost decade, Putty said the one thing she missed most was pink, cream-filled Hostess Snowballs.

Things have changed

After an uneventful flight home, as she touched down in the United States and began to assimilate to freedom again, Putty said she was surprised to hear that the Clinton budget surplus had disappeared.

“I could have bought a new blue dress with the dough he saved,” she said.

Another surprise is the number of African-Americans in the White House. “Times have finally changed,” she said. But one thing didn’t. “The most surprising thing to me was that Barbra Seville was still here in Phoenix hitting the pavement with her act. I guess I always knew she was destined for a lifetime of hosting talent contests. Some things never change.”

Her decade-long ordeal caused some post-traumatic stress that Putty said she fights through. “It’s the same kind of feeling you have after a five-hour drag pageant: exhausted, violated, hungry.”

Despite the anguish and stress, Putty said she is eager to perform again. And since returning earlier this summer, she has been making “rogue” appearances at other performers’ gigs.

“These have been strictly warm-up performances, so I can be ready,” Putty explained. “So far, so good, although I did fall off the stage at Apollo’s, but I recovered. It’s just like riding a bicycle, except I’m in heels and wearing a wig. Isn’t that how everyone rides their bike?”

The anticipation to get on stage has been crippled only by SB1070, Putty continued. “I’m having trouble proving my citizenship, and I can’t find my papers,” she explained. “Sheriff Joe is on my heels and I can’t seem to shake him.”

“I’m afraid I’ll be a target,” she said. “It’s so high profile. I hope there’s not going to be an immigration sweep or anything! The cocktail waiters there better have their birth certificates with them!”

Beyond that fear, Putty said she is happy to be home and is eager for her fans to know that she is “better, stronger, faster and bustier.”

Putty added, “It might seem that most of my eggs are in one basket, the big ‘Homecoming’ show, but there will be more shows and more performances. I plan to shake things up, especially my Magic 8 Ball. It reads: ‘You may rely on it.’”

“I’m available for bookings,” Putty said. “Just don’t ask this lady about her rates."