"Magnus Hirschfeld wrote in his study The Transvestites (1910/12): "The young transvestite Willi Pape, whose predisposition became known through a suicide attempt in women's clothes. His parents were informed by the author of his peculiar condition, and then allowed him to go to the vaudeville, where he has since performed with great success as a snake dancer."
Willy Pape (1891–1940) was the dance phenomenon of the vaudeville stages of the 1920s in Berlin, Zurich, Paris and Vienna under his stage name Voo Doo. Man or woman? That was always the question. Classic female actor or early example of trans*, queer or non-binary? Voo Doo has always been more of a stage than a tabloid, more of a top performer than a starlet, more of a diligent worker than a salon hero. Eventually, he opened a club whose guests included Klaus Mann. Escaping the Nazis with a black eye, Pape disappeared into oblivion, but was never completely forgotten. Jens Dobler tells the story of the incredible life of Willy Pape alias Voo Doo, and at the same time takes a foray into the great era of European variety culture."
