One of the joys of my other day job working with Provincetown Community Television is that I get to talk to some amazing people who have chosen to spend part of their summer on this very perfect wee Town right on the tip of Cape Cod. Many of them claim to be ‘stars’ (it is a gay resort after all) but very few are real ones like the wonderful Jazz legend Marilyn Maye, who is every inch one of the brightest stars in the firmament. One should normally never ever discuss a lady’s age, but Marilyn is proud of the fact that she is now 87 years old and is performing nightly at the Provincetown Art House for a good 90 minutes without a break and with the stamina of a singer half her age. Or maybe even younger.
She not only still sings like an angel, but she really is one too as I very quickly discovered sitting in the back of ‘Miss Maye’ a convertible Rolls Royce driving around town. She has an infectious energy for enjoying life to the very fullest and revels in the fact that she is back in P Town for her 5th year running where she seems to love everybody and everything.
Miss Maye is very old-school in the respect that she is not only glamorous as hell (with help from her friend Bob Mackie) but she is so disarmingly charming that she has all eating out of her hands. Take a look as we chat about how she started singing on her own Radio Show in the midwest when she was just 9 years old and went on to enjoy a career that includes being a guest on Johnny Carson’s TV Show for a record 76 times.
