DAVID RAVEN AKA MAISIE TROLLETTE: A Tribute

A Personal Tribute to an Icon and a Friend

Main image Stella Asusual

Sad news today, drag royalty David Raven, probably better know as Maisie Trollette, has died at the age of 91. David had a varied career before finally taking to the stage as a female impersonator but it was there that he found his true vocation.

I first met David back in the early 1980s when I was asked to design posters and programmes for a gay panto, Cinderella. I also discovered that we were neighbours in Streatham. I lived above the Playboy bookmakers and as any Maisie fan will know, he loved a bet. On Saturdays he would pop in to place his bets and then ring my doorbell to see if I had the kettle on. It was a friendship that spanned many years and on his 90th birthday I was honoured to be asked to once again design posters and a programme for a major celebration of his life at Brighton Dome.

As a performer he was second to none, his razor sharp tongue could destroy a heckler, his wit was spontaneous, ribald and raunchy and he took no prisoners. But he could also tailor his act to suit all kinds of audiences, gay, straight and even straight laced, although I suspect for the latter his humour simply sailed over their heads. He was a regular performer in both traditional and alternative pantomimes, and he once confessed to me that his alter ego was in truth a classic pantomime dame.

David’s career really took off when he teamed up with Jimmy Court and soon the Trollettes, Maisie and Jimmy, were the toast of the drag scene. But at the time the drag scene was dominated by a new trend for acts that lip-synced. Not for Maisie, Maisie could always bang out a song and would never ever mime. The two of them on stage was an act that many of us would make a regular night out, whether at The Black Cap, The Royal Vauxhall Tavern or the Two Brewers.

David and his partner Don, eventually moved to Brighton where they bought a guest house in Kemp Town but sadly Don passed away young and David, who had never stopped performing, focused on a solo career.

And that career saw him on stage almost until the end, no longer able to do the high kicks, he could still nail a torch song and hold his own, and that acid tongue was as deadly as ever.

Alongside his hectic life on stage, David was a prolific fund raiser for many charities raising over his career many thousands of pounds, and not just for gay causes.

David became a mentor to so many younger performers on the LGBTQ+ scene, all will be mourning the loss of a true legend and a real friend.

I count myself amongst them, I knew the man and the act for over 45 years, he was great company of course, always funny, even when he was being a curmudgeon, and how the man could play the curmudgeon. The last time I spent time with David was the day Allan Cardew and I took him over to Woodingdean to have a new portrait taken by the brilliant photographer Stella. Knowing how in his later years David could be, shall we say a bit of a handful, we were both on tenterhooks. But we need not have worried, he was on fine form, gentle, polite and very funny. And the resulting images were stunning, truly capturing the man and that wicked twinkle in his eye. By the time we had finished David was clearly exhausted and his humour turned. But as a memory of that man, on that afternoon I saw every side of a man that I admired, loved… and occasionally feared

Rest in Peace David and light up the heavens Maisie.

AK