But his performances are more than clever displays of female impersonation.

Flippant female impersonation is obviously not what's called for here.

If it ever got out that I'd been doing a female impersonation, I'd never live it down.

Acts were primarily female impersonation, though some male impersonators also performed; the former sometimes included stripping.

By the 1930s, the female impersonations that he had built his career on had begun to lose popularity.

Venus Castina (1928) was a pioneering work on female impersonation.

But female impersonation is always an imitation, it's never a state of being.

I pioneered the idea that female impersonation could be serious acting, an approach to character.

When Nina goes up, she says she has dedicated herself to female impersonation for 15 years and wants to inspire others.