Drag in film has followed a long history of female impersonation on English stage, and made its appearance in the early days of the silent films. Charlie Chaplin and Stan Laurel brought the tradition from the English music halls when they came to America with Fred Karno's comedy troupe in 1910. Both Chaplin and Laurel occasionally dressed as women in their films. Even the beefy American actor Wallace Beery appeared in a series of silent films as a Swedish woman. The Three Stooges, especially Curly (Jerry Howard), sometimes appeared in drag in their short films. The tradition has continued for many years, usually played for laughs. Only in recent decades have there been dramatic films which included cross-dressing, possibly because of strict censorship of American films until the mid-1960s. One early exception was Alfred Hitchcock's thriller Murder!, where the murderer is a transvestite who wears particularly frilly dresses and petticoats. Cross-gender acting, on the other hand, refers to actors or actresses portraying a character of the opposite gender.
Film and video
In Some Like It Hot (1959), two struggling musicians have to dress as women to escape the ire of gangsters. The film is a remake of a 1935 French movie, Fanfare of Love, from the story by Robert Thoeren and Michael Logan, which was itself remade in 1951 by German director Kurt Hoffmann as Fanfares of Love.
In Blake Edwards's 1982 musical comedy film Victor Victoria, Victoria Grant, a struggling soprano, is unable to find work but she finds success when she becomes "Count Victor Grazinski", a female impersonator. The film is a remake of , a German film of 1933.
David Henry Hwang's 1988 play M. Butterfly focuses on a love affair between a French diplomat and a male Beijing opera singer who plays dan, or female, roles.
Dr. Frank 'n' Furter in The Rocky Horror Picture Show wore nothing but women's clothing the entire film/play.
In The Drew Carey Show, Drew's brother, Steve Carey, is a cross-dresser.
Robin Williams played a divorced father who dressed as a nanny to be with his children in the 1993 comedy Mrs. Doubtfire.
Dame Edna was an elderly drag queen with "wisteria-colored hair" who did international chat shows in the 1990s.