Pollo Del Mar (drag queen)

Pollo Del Mar or Pollo DelMar (aka Paul E. Pratt) is a San Francisco-based American drag queen performer, personality, emcee and journalist. As columnist, blogger and celebrity interviewer, Del Mar contributes to a wide-array of print and online media outlets, both gay and straight. Del Mar is the reigning Miss Trannyshack.

With her celebrity interviews frequently featured on the cover of Northern California’s preeminent LGBT entertainment and lifestyles publication GLOSS Magazine, her weekly column “The Glamazon Diaries” in The San Francisco Bay Times newspaper and ongoing “Promosexual” blog on the alternative weekly San Francisco Bay Guardian website, Del Mar is arguably the Bay Area’s most widely-read drag personality. Her work also appears consistently on Gay.com and, less frequently, in California-based publications such as JustUsBoys and the Spanish-language Adelante.

Del Mar made her first drag appearance April 27 2006 at a fundraiser in San Francisco’s Castro District. That same night she received her first paid booking at The Monster Show with Cookie Dough.

Del Mar placed first runner-up to winner Mercedez Munro in the August 2006 Miss Gay San Francisco Pageant.

Del Mar first gained attention as “Miss October” in the award-winning 2007 Desperate Divas calendar and a subsequent series of post cards, both featuring pictures by acclaimed San Francisco photographer Kingmond Young. The projects helped raise more than $25,000 for AIDS Housing Alliance/San Francisco.

On Sept. 27, 2008, Del Mar received a permanent title in San Francisco's Ducal Council. She was named "Baroness of Rubies & Diamonds" to the San Francisco's 35K Diamond Duchess, Grand Duchess XXXV Big D.

Del Mar is slated to appear in two upcoming independent, feature-length films. As of October 2008, The Rise & Fall of Jeremy Starr and Devious, Inc. are both filming. Though translated from Spanish her name means “Chicken of the Sea,” Del Mar is not of Latin or Hispanic descent.

Del Mar openly discusses her status as a recovering alcoholic and crystal meth addict.

Miss Trannyshack 2007

On November 17, 2007, at the San Francisco Gift Center, Del Mar was crowned “Miss Trannyshack 2007” in front of the largest audience in the pageant’s 12-year history. Del Mar is in fact the only ever Miss Trannyshack to simultaneously hold the Missy Trannyshack and Miss Trannyshack Star Search titles. Selecting her from the eight contestants was a panel of celebrity judges including comedian Sandra Bernhardt, New York City club kid-turned-author James St. James, drag personality and Midnight Mass producer Peaches Christ, KNRG “Energy 92.7 FM” morning show hosts Fernando & Greg, the men of Hothouse Videos and “Miss Trannyshack 2004” Anna Conda.

In a February 2008 release published by Gay.com, Del Mar recalls how her April 27, 2006, drag debut prompted an avid fan of the Miss Trannyshack Pageant to suggest she “could be Miss Trannyshack someday.” Though she did not expect to win, from that day on, Del Mar was determined to compete for the title.

Entering the pageant as the reigning “Miss Trannyshack Star Search 2007,” determined annually since 1998 in contests between Trannyshack newcomers, Del Mar became the only performer to ever hold both of the legendary nightclub’s drag titles.

GLOSS Magazine, for which she has worked as a celebrity columnist since November 2006, honored her victory by placing Del Mar on the cover of the March 7, 2008 issue. New York City celebrity photographer Bradford Noble and San Francisco-based photojournalist Steven Underhill provided images for the feature.

The Golden Girls: The Play

To date, Del Mar has starred in all four engagements of The Golden Girls: The Play, an all-drag staging of two back-to-back episodes of the popular television sitcom. Capitalizing on the show’s strong following and exaggerating existing LGBT overtones and themes in the series, the production gained a cult following and proved a darling of Bay Area media.Nearly 12 full weeks of shows between May 2007 and June 2008 sold out.

Del Mar portrayed Rose Nylund, the St. Olaf native played by Betty White, opposite Heklina as substitute teacher Dorothy Zbornak (Bea Arthur) and Cookie Dough’s Sicilian septuagenarian Sophia Petrillo (Estelle Getty). Local actor Matthew Martin, who played promiscuous southern belle Blanche Devereaux (Rue McClanahan) for three runs, was replaced by Arturo Galster for a one-week June 2007 engagement.

Running throughout 2007 at The Finn Gallery, an underground theatre space inside a privately-own, historic Victorian in San Francisco’s Western Addition, the play moved to experimental performance art studio Mama Calizo’s Voice Factory in 2008. A fifth run, expected during December 2008, is scheduled at that venue.

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