Mario Dipietrantonio Collection

The group held performances at locations around the French Quarter, and as the HIV/AIDS epidemic began to grow their performances took on a charitable focus. The shows raised money for community-based organizations that supported people living with and dying from the disease. At the time, limited treatment options were available, and fear, combined with poor public-health information about the virus, created intense social stigma around the disease. Newspaper write-ups of the period describe the Demented Women as “promoting charitable causes through camp entertainment.”

Mario Dipietrantonio (1954–2017) was a leader of the Jefferson Parish Library system, and in the 1980s he performed with the Demented Women as Sil Vous Plais. Scott Andrews, Mario’s husband, notes that they “were amongst the first groups to come together with others to raise money for organizations that were addressing AIDS prevention and care issues in the city such as Project Lazarus, the NO/AIDS Task Force, and Belle Reve.”

The Mario Dipietrantonio Collection is small but significant in that it includes seven video recordings of Demented Women shows performed between 1983 and 1988. One notable recording (“The Drag Show”, 2023.0093.2) captures a March 1, 1986, show held at St. Mark’s Community Center for the benefit of Project Lazarus, which had been founded the previous year. It features a performance by Dipietrantonio as Sil Vous Plais alongside two others to the tune of Martha and the Vandellas’ “Dancing in the Street.”

Also included are programs and ephemera related to the group and various French Quarter gay and lesbian venues, including the Golden Lantern and Charlene’s, as well as newspaper clippings, a single photograph, and two issues of the New Orleans LGBT publication the Rooster. A 1988 issue of the Rooster shows the Demented Women featured prominently on the cover.

Kathleen Conlon, president of the LGBT+ Archives Project of Louisiana, was the lone female member of the Demented Women. She helped to facilitate the donation of this collection. The Collection has digitized the video recordings and will make them available to the public via HNOC’s online catalog, so that researchers and other interested parties can relive the joy and enthusiasm expressed through these performances.