Finocchio’s Club was a well known San Francisco female impersonator club, with a longevity of over 60 years. The first iteration of the club was as a speakeasy at 406 Stockton Street, and it was the improvised performance of a costumer impersonating singer Sophie Tucker as well as the excitement from the public which gave Joseph Finocchio the idea to incorporate female impersonator acts into the club.

In 1936 the club a police raid led to the arrest of five female impersonators along with Joseph Finocchio and his wife Marjorie. After the raid the club relocated to 506 Broadway Street where it remained until 1999 when it finally closed its doors. The move included not only bigger venue but also a larger troupe with acts that became so well known that the Hollywood celebrities these performers impersonated would visit the club.

Clubs like Finocchio’s were not necessarily established as gay bars seeking a gay clientele, instead they became popular by amping the production and glamour of the performances, which played into a voyeuristic source of amusement for tourists. At the same time, the inclusion of Asian and Latino performers, however racialized and exoticized, opened the door for a mix-raced audience.

The longevity of the club did not translate into a continuous golden era of female impersonation performances. Economic change and the fast pace of popular culture were among the contributors to the closing of the club.

A note on the term ‘female impersonators,’ a historical term used to describe male-identified people who took on a female persona, usually for entertainment purposes. The term precedes the term ‘drag’ but it can be seen as a contemporary analogous.