Russell Alldread, 1931 – 2026

Canadian drag performer Russell Alldread, whose onstage persona was “Michelle DuBarry,” died on July 1. He was 94. Alldread was a child singer, who gave up that career to work for General Motors. By the 1960s, he was performing in drag, co-founding the comedy trio The Great Impostors, with Tammy Autumn and Rusty Ryan. Eking out his living as a shoe salesman, he became one of Toronto’s leading drag performers, appearing at HIV/AIDS and Gilda's Club benefits, and in 2007 serving as grand marshal of Toronto's Pride parade. Alldread retired with the Covid pandemic, and moved to assisted-living in 2022. “I always loved the stage. My sisters and I sang for the ladies’ groups. We sang at hospitals,” he told The National Post in 2011. “In the ’50s, no one really knew anything about ‘gay.’ The King Edward’s front bar, the gay people went there in suit and ties and pretended to be straight and then the beer room was full of screaming queens.”