By John Hayden

A little glitz and a lot of laughs prove Mondays can be fun. The ladies of Stilettos have been starting your week off right with a mix of regular entertainers and special guests on Pub On the Drive’s stage. 

Every week, Leila Cox, Verandah Lanai, Mercury Rising-Cox, Sharde L Ross, and Candy Cox delight the audience. Each brings their own personality and style to the stage. The Queen of these queens is Miss Candy Cox. “I’m the last of the originals,” she told OutClique backstage before a show. Stilettos began seven years ago as a country show and bounced around a couple of bars before finding its permanent home at Pub On the Drive. “We were called Country Queens, and that put us in a box again. We had to do country icons. Girls around town and guest entertainers don’t do a lot of country.”

Since then, Candy has been the driving force behind the show’s evolution. These days the five permanent hosts also welcome guest queens. “Every week we take turns hosting. [The host] is in charge of the lineup and special guests.” The drag community is large and South Florida is a magnet for new and established queens. Candy says the Stilettos show is a way for fans to see new talent. “The drag queens that are in town are changing. There are some that leave town and queens that are just starting. There are fantastic new queens that you see perform, maybe their second or third show ever. You bring them in and they liven up your stage. People fall in love with them. It’s camaraderie back and forth.”

That keeps the show fresh and Candy is fine with letting others do what she wouldn’t even think of attempting. “You’ve got classic drag queens that have been around forever. You’ve got the young girls that do the death drops. If I did that I’d break my hip and the show would be over.”

A Late Bloomer

Candy came to drag late in life. She was 53 when she started her glam career on a dare. She can be a little shy and retiring, but knows what it takes to come out of her shell. “I’m usually kind of quiet and shy until you get a couple drinks in me. I like to stand back and observe. But with drag you can’t do that. It pushed me.”

She quickly became a familiar face on South Florida stages, and says it’s the people that make it worth the effort. “I just enjoy it. I’ve met so many people through drag.”

And she says management knows how to treat a queen. “I love entertaining. I love the girls I work with. We love this bar. They treat us like royalty.”

Stilettos starts at 8pm every Monday at Pub On the Drive.