Mini Bio's Angie Xtravaganza & Venus Xtravaganza

Angie Xtravaganza

(October 1, 1964 – March 31, 1993) was born Angel Segarra in Puerto Rico. Angie was a founding member and the Mother of the House of Xtravaganza. Consistent with the tradition of New York's gay ball scene, in 1982 Angie took the House name as her surname. A transgender performer, underground superstar and an active member of New York's gay ball culture, Angie was featured in Jennie Livingston's 1990 documentary film 'Paris is Burning'. By the time the documentary screened to rave reviews the House of Xtravaganza, the first primarily Latino house within New York's gay ball scene, was almost ten years old and had taken the Harlem ball scene by storm.
Arriving on the streets of New York City at the age of 13, Angie nurtured a family of "children" during her days on the lower westside Navy Pier and the streets of Times Square. Throughout the 1980s and until her death in 1993 Angie and her adopted house children would influence popular culture through the nightlife scene, the performing arts and through the fashion and the recording industries. In 1988 Pulitzer Prize winning author Michael Cunningham wrote "The Slap of Love" about Angie after interviewing her and her sons Danni and Hector Xtravaganza for his novel Flesh and Blood.
Angie died in New York at age 27 from an AIDS-related liver disease. Almost three weeks later The New York Times published an article on the ball scene on the front page of the Sunday "Styles" section, featuring a large photo of Angie Xtravaganza. Entitled "Paris Has Burned",the accounting of then current status of the underground ball scene and the untimely passing of many of its central personalities. In 1994, the year following her death, Junior Vasquez released a House music single simply titled "X", which bore a dedication to the memory of Angie Xtravaganza on the record label. The record remains a popular club Anthem today. Angie Xtravaganza's legacy endures through the House of Xtravaganza which remains an active part of New York City's gay ballroom, nightlife, and cultural scene.

(died 1988)Born Thomas Pellagatti, Venus adopted her name as a teenager after leaving home in search of a different life. She was a transgender American saving up money for sex reassignment surgery while earning a living as a prostitute in New York City. Venus Xtravaganza came to national attention appearing in Jennie Livingston's Paris is Burning, a 1990 documentary film about New York City ball culture. The story of her life as a transgender person living in New York City and subsequent murder form a story arc within the film. Venus was featured on the original 1990 theatrical release poster in for the film.
Born to an Italian American family, she took the female name Venus in her early teens. As is the tradition of the gay ball culture, she took the name Xtravaganza upon becoming a member of the House of Xtravaganza in 1983. The house, like similar houses, is named in the style of European fashion houses (e.g. House of Chanel) and is an affiliation of young drag queens, transgender and gay youth who have come together around the underground Harlem drag ball scene.
In Paris is Burning, she says she wanted to be "a spoiled, rich, white girl living in the suburbs." She shares a story of her time as a prostitute where one of her clients became enraged upon the discovery that Venus was not a cissexual woman. Venus fled through a window and, fearing for her life, claims to have left the prostitution business as a result, opting instead to work as an escort. On her life as a prostitute, she claims "If you're a married woman living in the suburbs, a regular woman, married to her husband...and she wants him to buy her a washer and dryer set, in order for him to buy that I'm sure she'd have to go to bed with him anyway - for him to get what he wants, for her to get what she wants. So in the long run, it all ends up the same way".
According to her transgender adopted House mother Angie Xtravaganza as told in the film, Venus Xtravaganza was found strangled and stuffed under a bed in a New York hotel room in 1988. Her body was discovered by a stranger four days after her death.