Willi Pape

Willi Pape (Willy Pape, Voo-Doo, Selma Brügge; 7 October 1891–21 February 1940) was a celebrated German dancer, variety show performer and later a bar owner in Weimar Berlin who was contemporarily referred to as a "transvestite."

Life As a child, Willi Pape preferred female clothing and wanted to work in a circus or on stage. After Pape's suicide attempt, the name "Selma Brügge" was not used again. When summoned for military service in 1914, Pape presented in female clothing. Initially Voo-Doo was not billed as a female impersonator, only later utilizing the "sex reveal" at the end of the dance routines. In 1927, the German lesbian magazine Die Freundin published photographs of Pape captioned: "The Transvestite Voo-Doo, One of the Most Prominent International Dance-stars." Pape performed in Berlin, Zürich, Paris, Vienna, and other major European cities between 1917 and 1928. In the llustrated Guide to 'Depraved' Berlin (1931), Curt Moreck (a pseudonym of German author ) described "Voo-Doo" as a good nightlife spot for "befriended couples" looking for an "exotic night." Klaus Mann and Christopher Isherwood visited Pape's local.

Willi Pape died on 21 February 1940 from malaria.

Legacy Like most variety stars, Voo-Doo's legacy has been quickly forgotten once the variety show lost its popularity to the cinema. The figure was rediscovered by a modern gay community, with Siegessäule magazine including Voo-Doo's photo in a 1987 issue dedicated to "750 warm Berliners" and Rosa Vinkel Verlag republishing Hirschfeld's "Berlins Drittes Geschlecht" in 1991.

German scholar Jens Dobler, who has uncovered much of Pape's biography, writes of "Willi Pape, alias Voo-Doo," as a homosexual "drag artist" (in German: Travestiekünstler) who was referred to by others as "he" and "she;" he also discusses how Pape's life challenged gender norms and that even the terms he has applied are fraught. No known documents survive that describe Pape's gender or sexual identification in Pape's own words.