Me and Aunt Trudie

Hey Kids,

In my last shows I spoke for the first time about my Aunt Trudie. It was not easy because I did love my Aunt Trudie. She was really the one who shaped me, she actually gave me my stage name of MargOH!

Aunt Trudie was my father's sister. I didn't meet her until I was 12 in 1961 because she couldn't stand my mother Sully. My father did tell me about her and that she was a very eccentric woman who had been to prison a Morals charge. It all seemed so exciting to me and as fate would have it I would meet and live with Aunt Trudie.

After my father died our lives took a turn and this is what happened

Sully was a mess, and my sister and I had to run the fish shop 24/7 while she drank at the local pub called “scuppers”. Every day there would be another fisherman, well until she got the clap and went blind in one eye. After that she just kept her carousing to behind the fish counter while sipping on the sherry that went into her lobster bisque.

We never had anything. However, there was this one time though when Sully came into some money during the great Tuna harvest of 61. She gathered up enough cash to bring my sister and I to New York City to see her favorite performer Judy, Judy Garland that is.

I couldn’t believe that I the daughter of a Fish monger was going to see Judy Live and in person at Carnegie Hall. Well, what Sully forgot to mention is that she only had enough money for one ticket so she loaned my sister and I out to schuck oysters down at the fulton fish market for a week to get the other 2.

My hands were bleeding and so was my nose when we got to our seats. It didn’t matter though cause once the overture started and Judy walked onto the stage though she looked like a flea, a glamorously dressed flea but a flea nonetheless her voice boomed to the rafters.

It was almost like she leaped into my body that night. It was then I knew I wanted to be a star. I also knew I couldn’t go back to Bangor so when we left the hall I broke free from my mothers hand. I said "see ya later Sully" and then looked at the hall and said "Thank you Judy".

I started running down 7Th avenue as fast as I could, I ran and ran and ran. Then I thought where in the hell am I gonna go. I had 2 dollars and a bottle of jack I was holding for Sully.

Then as if I were gently kissed on the cheek by an angel. I heard my daddy Salty say, Arrgh! don’t forget you have an Aunt Trudie that loves on Delancey Street. That’s right I screamed my daddy told me about his sister Trudie who lives on Delancey street. He said her and sully hated each other and she never came to visit. Daddy said she was an eccentric woman and had been to jail on a morals charge….

I took a swig of that jack and searched high and low for Delancey Street. I finally found it and started asking everyone if they knew Trudie.

Finally some old lady says.. Yeah, she owns the bar down the way….It’s the pub with a back room for Peppermint Patties, if you know what I mean kid. I didn’t know what she meant but I loved snoopy so it sounded fun.

I made it to the pub and walked in and yelled out Aunt Trudie

At that moment a very large and hairy woman yelled out

“Yeah, I'm Trudie, Who the hell are you? Wait, you gotta be my brothers kid…Unfortunately, You got your mothers eyes but a nice set of tits for a girl your age”
Welcome to MargOH!’s she said, thus my stage name….

I’ve never revealed my true name. My mother named us after what she called “The pearls of the ocean". My sister Rita’s name is Stingray and I Haddock, Haddie for short. Trudie said that my mother was cruel to name us after stinky fish…so from that day on she called me MargOH!

You’re just in time kid… I’m about to do a number. She took me to the back which had the faint smell of stale beer and pickled herring…just like home. She sat me down, gave me a gin and tonic and yelled out. “Listen up all you dikes, butch and fem alike this is my niece MargOH! and she’s gonna be stayin with me”. “Touch her and I’ll smack ya around”. Then she busted into a sexy version of "Big Spender". Well as sexy as she could be..

I spent the next 6 years working at MargOH!’s… I wanted to go to school but Aunt Trudie said I needed to go to the school of hard knocks. I learned everything I know from her. Like tying a cherry stem with your tongue or drinking 10 boilermakers in 10 minutes, Bi-sexuality and of course how to make money with my enormous jugs.

That’s how I was plucked from Obscurity…It was my large breasts.

I was tending bar when a guy walked in and ordered a Pina Colada…I thought he must be a fruitcake but he started staring at my boobs so I set them on the bar and asked his name. He told me it was Russ Meyer. He told me he made films and had a part for me.

I got very excited and told him to wait. I wrote a note for Aunt Trudie telling her I was going to LA to make a movie and I’d be back soon. I grabbed my mini and make-up case and headed out the door.

The next thing I new I was in Hollywood shooting a film called “Common Law cabin”. Russ gave me the name Alaina Capri. It was very exciting and I thought
I’d made it…. I've never really shown any of my pictures from my early films but the one above is one of the few I have. I was gorgeous wasn't I....


I never much thought things out. 6 months after I moved to LA I got a telegram telling me that Aunt Trudie drowned skinny dipping in the east river, she had a night of it with the gals from the pub and had one too many and jumped in. They never recovered the body and to makes matters even worse Russ moved on to a new set of knockers and I was left in Hollywood alone, well with the wardrobe mistress Berna Breckenridge Russ hired for me. I tried to get work but all the offers I got were for porn. I said MargOH! Channing will never do porn. Then again I said I’d never sing but look at me now…

It was Berna who suggested that I do what no one else had ever done. She suggested that I become a legendary extra. I thought ya know you’re right no one has ever done that so I set out to become the best extra I could be and damn it I did it.

I've been very misty for Aunt Trudie lately. I really miss her!

Kisses, MargOH!