Mickey Ray...

Skip Arnold on right
at left is Mickey Ray, doing his character Corrie Miller
at the Jewel Box

Mickey Ray wrote me:

In the later years of the JB, I got to work with Skip Arnold, Tommy Temple and others, around '78. I first started in a very tacky polyester jacket and tight pants with ruffled shirt and became the emcee, introducing the acts. (I had previously played the Emcee in "Cabaret" at the Limelight Dinner Theatre in the River Key, in Kansas City.)

When a few of the acts left, Skip asked me if I were willing to come up with a drag skit to help fill the bill. I created the character, Corrie Miller (see picture with Skip) an elderly English lady. The skit started out in the audience. (Background: Her 'boys' would take her out of the 'home' for a night on the town), and Skip would announce that we had a special guest in the house, and would have me brought up on stage. He'd order me pink champagne (soda water and Grenadine, to make it pink) and as I sipped it, I'd get "tiddly". He'd ask me to sing and the only song Corrie knew was, "Born Free", which I sang in a God awful soprano! It always went over very well, especially at the end when Skip would look through my purse and always find some sex toy or other, planted earlier, which would make poor Corrie blush with embarrassment as she was helped off the stage by people in the audience.

I later added other characters, like Meg Brown, a street walker with a black eye, also pictured, who sang as "As Long As He Needs Me", from Oliver. (I was already a working actor and singer outside of the Jewel Box, performing in plays and musicals at local dinner theatres.)

Click to visit his site