(Photos courtesy Joey Brooks)
The Good Page features positive LGBTQ+ news in Central Florida and Tampa Bay, uplifting and inspiring stories about locals in our community. Here, we highlight Joey Brooks before her retirement.
Brooks has been a performer since the age of 17. For 48 years, she has been a mentor, a trailblazer, a historian, a comedian, a show director and a living bridge between generations of LGBTQ+ life in Tampa. Now, the woman affectionately known as Tampa’s Mother of Drag and the First Lady of Ybor is stepping away from the spotlight.
On Oct. 17, Bradley’s on 7th will host a retirement celebration honoring someone who helped build Tampa’s drag scene from the ground up. The evening will feature performances by Amy DeMilo, Esme Russell, Felicity Lane, Melissa Mason and Jocelyn Summers, with Brooks taking the stage one last time in the city she helped shape.
The event is billed as a “Farewell to a Legend,” something few would dispute. The night will celebrate a living piece of LGBTQ+ history.
Brooks is ending her career exactly where her heart has always been, decked out in a spectacular pink dress performing Dolly Parton.
“Of course I am doing a ballad on my night leaving,” she explains. “‘I Will Always Love You.’ You can count on that one.”
It’s fitting. Brooks has been one of Florida’s most celebrated Dolly Parton impersonators over the decades.
Her drag mother, Brenda Dee, handed her an old Dolly costume and encouraged her to give it a try. “When I put that costume on and she did my hair, I was like, ‘Oh yeah, I’m going to be doing Dolly a lot.’”
A lot turned into a lifetime.
Brooks has performed state and nationwide, appearing in some of the most famous female impersonation venues in America. She’s appeared in Las Vegas-style productions, worked with renowned makeup artists, learned the secrets of celebrity illusion and spent time at Finocchio’s in San Francisco, a dream destination for entertainers like her.
Long before Ybor became a nightlife destination, Brooks was helping define its LGBTQ+ culture. In the late 1970s, she performed at El Goya, when the inclusive district visitors know today did not yet exist. She and all the girls would stand out front of the venue and tell everybody, “Hey, we’re a gay bar, come in. We have a drag show. Come see us,” she recalls. “Ybor City at that point had a very, very, very bad reputation. You didn’t want to go to Ybor City.”
Drag was big hair, feathers, rhinestones, glittering gowns and carefully crafted illusions. Brooks remembers watching burlesque performers at the Ritz across the street and borrowing ideas for her own stage work.
Most importantly, she remembers learning how to connect with an audience.
One lesson from Brenda Dee never left her: “Don’t forget Joey, if you make them laugh you can make them cry too.” That lesson became the foundation of a career built on humor and heart.
Brooks’ quick wit eventually made her one of Florida’s most sought-after emcees. Audiences know her today for her signature stage banter.
“I happen to be lucky that when I started to really get into the emcee position… I just happened to have that gift of gab and to be funny,” she says.
Brooks also became a mentor and drag mother, offering guidance, opportunities and encouragement at a time when many performers had few role models. Her advice for them remains simple: “You have to go for it. Don’t let anybody tell you not to do what you want to do.”
Brooks points proudly to performers she helped launch — including Bradley’s Entertainment Director DeMilo — and others who started by simply watching and learning. “The torch has been passed,” she says.
Reflecting on her career, Brooks remembers when performers brought records instead of digital mixes. She remembers when entering a club in drag could be risky. She remembers Guavaween, the Ybor Stumble, packed showrooms, pageants, Pleasure Dome, Trax, El Goya and helping shape Bradley’s into the Ybor staple it has become. She remembers when drag was largely underground and when it became mainstream.
Through every era, she stayed true to one guiding principle: “People are there to have a good time.”
As her retirement and a 65th birthday approaches, Brooks isn’t disappearing from the community she helped build. She still plans to attend pageants, make appearances and occasionally put on makeup simply because she enjoys it. People recognize her more as Joey than her alternate persona.
What retirement means is stepping away from professional performance after these 48 remarkable years.
When she takes the Bradley’s stage for the final time on Oct. 17, she knows exactly what she wants audiences to remember.
“That Joey Brooks was a true female impersonator, not drag queen, but female impersonator who lived two lives separately as a boy and a girl and had a great career and enjoyed every minute of being on stage… Every minute.”
Interested in being featured in The Good Page? Email Editor-in-Chief Ryan Williams-Jent at Ryan@WatermarkOutNews.com in Tampa Bay or Central Florida Bureau Chief Bellanee Plaza at Bellanee@WatermarkOutNews.com in Central Florida.
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