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Noel McKay

    

 

   

  Click for large album scans and listen to some of the songs
(to read the writing on the reverse)

This is another artist where the only info I've been able to find is just on his albums, though I believe is died around 2004.

Update: July 2008

No, that's not Noel in the pic below. Carmen Rupe, who knew him, wrote me about him:

   

I first met Mr Noel McKay when I was working as a gay Maori guy nursing up in Auckland NZ & he worked in Hugh Wrights elegant gentleman's menswear shop in Queen Street. He was an excellent salesman selling top fashion & designer clothes. On weekends he would appear in the Auckland nite clubs; two of them being Montmatre in Lorne Street & Peter Pan in Upper Queen Street as a full female impersonator. He dressed very elegantly in mens suits only during daytime. He had a class drag act & sang on the stage for an hour at a time. His female costumes were very classy & he loved fancy black underwear & high heels & feather boas. He was born in either Oamaru, North Otago or Waimate, South Canterbury, South Island, NZ. He was a loner & only mixed with elegant classy friends. He sang a mix variety of songs often sitting on a stool or at the piano which he played. One of his songs I do remember was "My body is More Important than My Mind".

In the 1970's we judged a drag fashion parade together held at Peter Pan Cabaret. The last time I can rememebr seeing him was in Kings Cross, Sydney, Australia at a friends 40th birthday still dressed very stylishly. I have not seen nor heard from him since then. In the 1950's he married to a Lady called Tess but I think she passed on. He was an eye opener, a dear friend of mine when I was appearing in Auckland in the 1950/60s when he was around in Auckland. He did appear in clubs & cabarets all over NZ & Australia. He would be in his 80's now. Noel did marry; maybe twice even to women. There have been newspaper clippings in NZ about him. He did have some gender reassignment surgery; that I do know. Back in those days all of us were considered GAY & grouped together. I am coming 72 & Noel would have been older than me I'm sure.

below, she got my name wrong, but of course I'm grateful she contacted me and sent this pic

Thanks so much to Carmen for sending me this 1975 pic of her with Noel McKay, at the Peter Pan Cabaret

**************
Sad footnote: 12/15/11, Carmen Rupe passed away in Sydney, Australia aged 75.
Born in Taumarunui NZ on 10th October 1936 as Trevor Rupe. In her country
she was considered a national treasure.

More McKay, from the internet