Portland icon Walter W. Cole Sr., better known as drag queen Darcelle XV, died Thursday at 92.
But a short documentary produced by two University of Oregon graduate students might offer some comfort to the many that loved him and are grieving his loss: Cole said he was not afraid of death and wouldn’t change one thing in his life.
In the roughly 13-minute video, Cole’s family, colleagues and friends discuss the eventuality of his death, losing many members of the drag community when the HIV/AIDS epidemic hit in the 1980s and the death of Darcelle’s longtime partner, Roxy LeRoy Neuhardt. Neuhardt was a onetime Las Vegas dancer and nightclub performer whom Cole described as the love of his life.
“Me?” Cole said, seated in his ornate Queen-Anne-style home in Northeast Portland. “I’m not scared about dying. The people I’ve loved over the years have died. If they can do it, I can do it.”
The documentary was produced in spring 2021 by Christena Dowsett and Sarah Shively as part of the University of Oregon’s master’s in multimedia journalism program at the School of Journalism and Communications in Portland.
– Teresa Mahoney
