‘This was my break’ … Laura Linney in the 1993 series. She married a lord and now lives in a Cotswold manor house. I’m writing a Tales novel about Mona’s early life. I’m not done with the people of 28 Barbary Lane. I’m now having the last adventure of my life in London with my husband and labradoodle Zeke. I was the last GI out of Cambodia – but only because I was on the back of the last boat, having a shower, naked and covered in soap. When we auditioned for a Hispanic trans actor to play the young Mrs Madrigal, hundreds turned up. The world has evolved since the 1970s, when the books were originally set, so we made some changes. In it, Mary Ann returns to Barbary Lane after 23 years for Anna Madrigal’s 90th birthday. Instead, in 2019 Netflix made Armistead Maupin’s Tales of the City. Three books from the series have never been adapted: Babycakes, Significant Others and Sure of You. Channel 4 produced two further seasons, More Tales and Further Tales, and Showtime screened those in the US. Local stations did some weird things like pixellating a nipple if there was a breast in shot and, under pressure from the Christian right, US distributor PBS bailed after the first series. It had huge ratings and won a Peabody award, but the American Family Association hated it. These were really the first shots in the culture wars leading up to Trump. And there were demonstrations on the steps of Oklahoma’s State Capitol. There was a bomb threat in Chattanooga at TV channel WTCI, which pulled Tales of the City from schedules an hour before airtime. There were protests all over America from rightwing Christians. I thought: “We’re going to make history!” We did too.
I remember watching a scene being filmed on Russian Hill in San Francisco, when Marcus D’Amico, playing Michael “Mouse” Tolliver, kisses another man. But all the characters are really projections of me. I suggested Olympia Dukakis play Mrs Madrigal, who was the first sympathetic fictional trans character (and I’m not counting Myra Breckinridge). ‘I was the last GI out of Cambodia’ … Maupin in 1993.
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