William Moorehead walks into University Club wearing board shorts and a Gators polo, a Louis Vuitton bag over his shoulder.
He’s the type of guy who antiques on Sundays. He’s the type of guy who watches “The Young and the Restless” every weekday.
But at University Club, Gainesville’s only gay bar, no one knows William Moorehead.
They know Lady Pearl, the sharp-tongued, hip-swaying, 6-foot-4-inch female impersonator who leads the semiweekly drag show at the club.
For nearly 20 years, Lady Pearl has entertained, picked on and partied with generations of college students and local club-goers. For the last year and a half, her weekly performances at the club have required a 16-hour round-trip car ride from her home in North Carolina.
Tonight is Lady Pearl’s final performance at University Club, and as she prepares to say goodbye to her weekly Gainesville gig, this drive is the part she’ll miss the least.
Coating her face with a layer of light bronze powder, Lady Pearl, 50, has her eyes — which are carefully lined and fitted with glitzy false lashes — set on bigger and better gigs. She wants to take her talent to television, and she said her agent is pitching a show idea to HBO.
But before she takes the next step, she has to take her final bow at the club where she landed her first headline show. She has to say goodbye to her following — fans who slip tips in her bra week after week.
Nearly an hour before show time, she is in limbo — half Moorehead, half Pearl. She lights the tip of her eyeliner on fire before tracing it around her eyelids — the heat intensifies the color.
“Words have too much power,” she said. “But words don’t have power unless you give it to them.”
It’s just past 11:30 p.m., and she welcomes the crowd with a hearty holler (pronounced hel-lur).
The dance floor, her stage, is speckled with puddles of spilled drinks — it’s all the fuel she needs.
“Y’all have got to stop peeing on my floor,” she told the crowd, eying the stain. “It looks like drunk straight girl pee — it’s bubbling and shit.”
It’s jokes like this that make “Lady Pearl’s Pussy Cabaret” more than a show where beautiful female impersonators shimmy to pop songs and country ballads.
At the cue of the spotlight, Lady Pearl lip-synchs Whitney Houston’s “A Song for You.”
“I’ve been so many places in my life and time,” she mouths. “I’ve sung a lot of songs. I’ve made some bad rhyme.”
William Moorehead is nowhere to be found. He’s somewhere behind folds of green velvet fabric. Somewhere behind La Femme eye shadow. Somewhere behind red lips that sparkle under the disco ball hanging from the ceiling.
The show is at 11:30 p.m. at University Club, 18 E University Ave.
Alligator staff writer Carolyn Tillo contributed to this article.
