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Actor

1971-11-25 · United States · Male

3 series in the catalog

Murray Hill (born 25 November 1971) is a New York City based American comedian, drag king, actor, television host, and entertainer. He is the entertainer persona of Busby Murray Gallagher, although this persona is maintained even in private settings. Murray Hill is the self-proclaimed "hardest-working middle-aged man in show business."

Early life, family and education

Hill was born in Massachusetts and was raised by religious, conservative parents

in Connecticut, New England. He is half-Italian and half-Irish. He grew up being a "full-blown tomboy" and was socially ostracized for presenting as butch. "I always looked like a boy, and I always thought I was a boy," he recalled, "There weren't any problems in my head, it was everybody else that had a problem." His immediate family made it clear that he was "not a girl the way [he] needed to be a girl." They encouraged him to wear a dress and do his hair a certain way to appear more feminine; for Hill, "getting a lot of heat at home" and out in the world was challenging to navigate. "My personality and the way I interacted with people was my saving grace. I made people laugh. I was funny. And that was my way of connecting with people. And it was also my way of disarming people," he said.

While in pre-kindergarten, Hill was cast in a school play with other girls as a cornstalk. He wanted to be Bingo, the farmer, but was told that he couldn't because it was "a boy's role." Nevertheless, he persisted, and was finally given the part.

During his first couple of years at school, Hill felt "more comfortable" hanging out with boys at lunch and on the playground. However, once he reached second grade, he was encouraged to sit with the girls which "did not make sense" to him. "I wasn't even out yet as a kid. I didn't come out until college. But I was still ostracized and made fun of. I was pretty ignorant to it, but I knew that it was bad from the religious part of my upbringing," he said. Most people assumed that he was "a boy in many ways," but the teachers and administrators were confused about how he presented in class and "what was listed on the attendance sheet." He was eventually enrolled in a "special program" to make his voice sound "more feminine."

Hill's "first conscious awareness of drag" took place in seventh grade after he watched Paris is Burning (1990) and The Queen (1968) in a media studies class. "I can't even describe the experience," he said, "I'd never seen anything like it! There was such joy and happiness and chosen family." The films introduced him to the concept of chosen family. "I could see [...] that these outcasts and misfits were the star of their own show. They were their own parents, they were their own sisters, they were their own brothers, they were their own daddies," he added.

High school marked Hill's first tryst with drag, after he started dressing up as masculine subjects for his book reports. For the opposite sex day, he showed up as Schneider from One Day at a Time (1975–84) sporting a mustache and tool belt. Hill also gravitated to the arts, specifically photography, and left his "rigid and constricting household" after graduation to study photography at Boston University.

Career

1990–95: Exposure to Boston's cabaret scene and conception of the drag king persona

While studying photography at Boston University in the early-1990s, Hill, still closeted, started frequenting drag clubs. He impersonated as a Boston Phoenix employee, carrying his documentary camera, and serving as a behind-the-scenes photographer for city's nightlife and cabaret scene. "I was just absorbing this whole culture," Hill told Today in an interview, "I loved the community aspect of it. Life sucked on the outside but in these gay clubs, it was fun. It was joyous. It was campy, and I loved camp. People took care of each other. So over time, I realized that I was enjoying and loving this entire environment. But still, I didn't see anyone represented like myself." During this time, he photographed New York drag big-wigs including Lypsinka, Girlina and Lady Bunny.

After moving to New York City to pursue a graduate degree in photography and media at the School of Visual Arts, Hill attended the Wigstock festival. While watching Lady Bunny perform, he noticed that "everybody was taking pictures of drag queens" and "everyone was dressed in drag" but there were very few trans people and lesbians in attendance. Surrounded predominantly by gay men and drag queens, he began to wonder about "the other side of the spectrum." He later discovered a meatpacking district "hot spot" called the Hershey Bar that hosted a lesbian night with a drag king pageant. He snuck in, pretending to be a photographer from The Village Voice weekly newspaper, and was first exposed to drag kings but found them to be too "serious and heavy, steeped in masculinity." He felt that the "goal for masculine drag was to try to pass as a man; nobody smiled or laughed." Hill longed for "the same camp and humour" that he had seen drag queens use in their performances, coupled with the "toughness of kings."

1996–98: NYC mayoral candidacy and success as a drag performer

Hill started making appearances at drag clubs in 1996, while still enrolled in his Master of Fine Arts (MFA) program and working a day job as a visual artist. His graduate thesis in 1997 featured monochrome portraits of himself dressed as a candidate running for the New York City mayor against Rudy Giuliani on the "drag king ticket." The project later transformed into an actual mayoral write-in candidacy for which Hill adopted a "Let the kids dance!" platform in response to Giuliani's anti-cabaret stance and the broader "quality of life" campaign. He canvassed on the Midwest streets while performing at underground clubs and received 334 votes.

In his early career as a drag king, Hill hosted gigs as a "cigarette guy" and then as a "fat Elvis impersonator" at Club Casanova in East Village. He hadn't settled on a name yet, but he lived in Manhattan's Murray Hill neighbourhood at the time, and saw the phrase "everywhere around him." Eventually, he went with Busby Murray Gallagher and began to further develop his drag persona as the "comedian, entertainer, and shtick slinger." Busby was a callback to Buzz, Hill's gender-ambiguous nickname in college.

Inspired by the Catskills-Borscht Belt comedians from the 1950s, 60s, and 70s, such as Don Rickles, Shecky Greene, and Shelley Berman, Hill's drag alter-ego sported "pinky rings and plaid jackets, slicked back hair with loads of campy bravado and lounge-y flair." He embodied the "old-fashioned showman spirit" of Joey Adams, Benny Hill, Sammy Davis Jr. and Henny Youngman. Initially, he disliked being called a drag king because he presented as Murray Hill both in and out of drag. He was "resolutely dedicated to his persona" and would refuse to share his dead name with the reporters believing that it would be "bad for him personally and professionally."

By 1998, Hill was co-hosting a Flamingo East party called 99999's with performer Penny Tuesdae. He also stepped in as the "offstage booster, mediator and father confessor" for various "avant-garde performers" like the acrobatic comedy-burlesque act Wau Wau Sisters. He was the opening act for the American rock band Le Tigre and The Gossip. He frequently served as a cameo performer in music videos, including the Scissor Sisters's Filthy/Gorgeous (2005), and Hedwig and the Angry Inch directed by John Cameron Mitchell. Celebrity sightings–Alan Cumming, John Waters, Fran Drescher, and Boy George–at his shows were common. He was invited to perform at parties thrown by Joan Rivers, Liza Minnelli and Ivana Trump.

1999–2006: The Murray Hill Show and success as a performer

Between 1999 and 2006, he independently hosted The Murray Hill Show at the now-defunct Fez at Lafayette Street, Mo' Pitkins House of Satisfaction, and The Zipper Factory. For his annual Christmas show in 2004, a…