I go through the old birthday list every morning to see if anyone in history should be blowing out their proverbial candles today.
The very first one on the list was Agrippina the Younger, the Roman Empress. Born in the year 15. Yes. Agrippina. Grippy, for short. She was the sister of Caligula, the wife of Claudius, and the mother of Nero. And I am not going to write about her life, because I made a solemn pledge never to write about Romans again. Already, she is confusing things with all her intertwining kinship. Nonetheless, she was born on November 6.
There were a lot of names on the list. Each morning, it goes that way. Hundreds of people, sharing the same birthday, and notable people at that.
But today, this one jumped out at me.
1924 — Jeanette Schmid, Austrian transsexual professional whistler, born in Volary, Sudetenland (d. 2005)
Well, a LOT of questions popped into my head immediately. It’s probably true for you too, unless you are highly familiar with Jeanette.
The first thing is her name, Jeanette. It is my paternal grandmother’s name, beautiful Jeanette. But, I wondered if this is her birth name, or her “changed” name.
Which brings me to the second question. Since she is transgender, I wonder, again, if Jeanette was born Jeanette, or Jerry. I would assume she, or he, did not have an operation since transsexuality is not mentioned.
The third thing. I don’t know where Sudetenland might be. I can’t really even say it correctly, I’m sure.
But most of all, the thing that kicked me the most? I didn’t know this world had professional whistlers. It can’t be like plumbers, where they go to someone’s house and plumb. No. We can’t just stroll through the Yellow Pages and find a whistler to come into our homes.
Today, I must satisfy my own curiosity — one question at a time.
Jeanette was her chosen name, it seems. She was born Rudolf Schmid, in “a German family.” I don’t know any more about her childhood, how many siblings, parents’ occupations, and on. All I can find is “German family.”
I mentioned Sudetenland as her birthplace. I didn’t know of this for good reason. The Sudetenland is the historical German name for the northern, southern, and western areas of former Czechoslovakia. So, everything but the east part of Czech.
The word “Sudetenland” did not come into being until the early 1900s. Also, it was not a prominent name until almost two decades into that century, after the First World War. That is the time when Austria-Hungary was dismembered, and the Sudeten Germans found themselves living in the newly named region. So basically, Sudetenland is most of Czech. And birthplace of little Rudolf, in 1924.
Not long after his birth, Rudolf began to dress in feminine clothing. And while he was all dressed up, he loved to sing and dance. Needless to say, Rudolf Schmid did not fit in with the Nazi ideal of the Aryan male. But for whatever reason — most likely he was forced — he enlisted in the Wehrmacht in 1941. He was stationed in Udine, Italy, until he was sent home due to typhoid fever.
Once WWII ended, Rudolf fled to Munich. And that is where she became Jeanette, beginning a career as a female impersonator. Jeanette must have been good, as she rapidly gained fame for her talent and her “bawdy material, and slinky outfits.”
So, that covers most of my questions, except the whistling part. Well, Iran had a lot to do with it. At some point in her early career, the Shah of Iran (Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, and his wife Queen Soraya) saw Jeanette perform in Hamburg. They liked her act and invited her to Tehran. But you know how Iran is. Jeanette’s onstage material and dress were considered inappropriate by many in the Iranian culture. As such, she was forced to devise a new routine. So she opted to whistle a Strauss polka for the Shah and his court.
Following her Iran performance, Jeanette toured the world as a cross-dressing whistler, performing on stage with acts like Frank Sinatra, Édith Piaf, and Marlene Dietrich.
And my early assumptions were incorrect. In 1964, Schmid underwent sex reassignment surgery in Cairo and officially changed her name to Jeanette. A girl whistler, the year I was born.
Schmid continued to tour the world under the stage name “Baroness Lips von Lipstrill,” including a successful stint on Broadway. She worked her whole life until she was 80. That is when she caught influenza in 2005. It was her demise.
A new meaning to whistle while you work.
And I had to know.
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“When you play, never mind who listens to you.”
― Robert Schumann
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“The secret of happiness is freedom, the secret of freedom is courage.”
— Carrie Jones
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“And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche
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The boy who was a girl, who loved to whistle.
