By Carla Harper
“I love being someone else, because I can say things and present myself in ways that I otherwise would not,” says Kay Rule when asked about the historical bad girls she’s impersonated over the last twenty years. Channeled is a better term if you ask her audience members.
Kay sits across from me in a local coffee shop just days before her 70th birthday in a pink and green Lilly shift. Eyes dazzling, her straight shoulder length blonde hair moves naturally as she describes the 45th wedding anniversary trip she’s about to take to Italy, without a tour guide. She looks fabulous.
A Berkshire Hathaway agent by day with Yost & Little Realty, Kay Rule is Greensboro’s most notable and longest standing character impersonator. The women she depicts, real and fictional, capture her audiences because as she says, “The most interesting women are usually selfish, sexual, dishonest, greedy,” she says.
“We recognize elements of ourselves that we wouldn’t act on. But, they do because they’ve somehow gotten themselves into a position of power and can get away with it.”
Compliments of Kay, some of the world’s most intriguing characters have dropped in on the Triad. It all began in 1989 with Emma Bovary, followed by Queen Victoria and Elizabeth I. Coco Channel appeared in 2000. In recent years, Dorothy Parker and Ava Gardner hit the scene.
When pressed on how she picks the characters that take her months of study in preparation for “becoming” them, she laughs, saying, “First of all, they have to be smart with enough meat on the bone to make them worth talking about.”
She elaborates. “I look for women who’ve led interesting lives and made an impact with that life . . . good or bad. I have found that women who fly in the face of convention and do what they want to do are most fascinating.”
Kay Rule’s inspiration for bringing infamous and interesting women to life began with The Book Mark book club. Founded in 1976 by well-traveled and educated housewives, Book Mark is one of Greensboro’s oldest continuous running ladies book clubs. Rule is a charter member. In the early days, she took her second daughter in an infant carrier to the meetings. She’s served two terms as chair of Book Mark as well as two terms as president of the Historical Book Club of North Carolina.
Book Mark members take turns conducting the program. Determinted to do something different, Rule says, “I chose one of my favorite books from school — Gustav Flaubert’s Madame Bovary and decided that only Emma Bovary could really tell the story.”
She studied French for six years, so the accent came natural. The program was a hit. Invitations ensued.
Like many serious young women, Kay saw her performances in elementary and high school plays as merely fun. In college at Wake Forest University, she hid behind the books, telling herself that the productions were too advanced or demanding.
Without formal training, Kay Rule possesses an authentic magnetism and presence in front of an audience that is inborn, not learned. Through extensive research, she teases out the most interesting aspects of her characters’ lives and weaves them into a story, which she memorizes. “It’s more fun to be the person, showing not telling, which is why I do the accent and never use notes.”
Rule delivers. Just ask someone who has been to a program.
“It had been previously arranged that someone would play God Save the Queen on the piano to announce Kay’s arrival as Queen Victoria. We all just stood up spontaneously. In came Kay with the jewelry, tiara and big sash. It felt like Queen Victoria had just entered the room,” said Kitty Robison, a regular at Kay’s performances and member of the Book Mark club.
Kay invites me to her home for an intimate look at some of her pseudo-costumes. She claims costumes are not her thing but loves to “dress for the occasion.” I follow her up a wide staircase into what I can only call her boudoir. It’s appointed definitive French County, from the gorgeous miniature oil paintings to an exquisite Matelasse’ coverlet. I sit on the neatly made guest bed and wait as she disappears into a closet. I can hear the scrape of coat hangers. She emerges wearing a regal sash. “I really love the extra “oomph” this sash makes for Queen Victoria, especially when I pin on a glittery rhinestone pin that catches the eye. It looks quite royal, don’t you think,” she says.
She disappears again. This time she’s sporting a wide brimmed hat with a large plume, just like Coco Chanel would have worn. “It’s always fun to do the wardrobe for Coco Chanel,” she says. “So many options, you know!”
I ask her about impersonating Coco Chanel, perhaps the most infamous of Kay’s real-life portrayals.
“Oh, Coco is my favorite. Coco Chanel lived an unbelievably exciting and tragic life. Very spirited and bright, not particularly nice,” she says, growing serious. “She was one of the first from that 1920s era to cut her hair, get a suntan, smoke and sleep around.” She tells me that her friendship with Winston Churchill saved her from a prison sentence: “She had an affair with a Nazi officer in the middle of World War II in occupied France,” she says. “There were people who wanted her to be punished for that.”
It’s more than the public persona of these female characters that attracts Kay and her audiences. Anyone with the right platform and audacity can gather a following with outlandish dress and lifestyle. Part of what makes Kay Rule’s characters so compelling is her understanding of the women and the historical times in which they lived. Like a great writer, she gives us a glimpse in to the human condition and ourselves.
Back at the coffee shop, Kay skips through her characters, talking about them like old friends.
“Emma Bovary marries the wrong man, then goes off and has a wild fling with Leon, her true love. It destroys her life.”
Madame Pompadour — Mistress to Louis XIII — was the real power behind the throne,” she says.
“Ava Gardner loved Frank Sinatra. The movie studio controlled their lives, in part because they couldn’t keep themselves straight.” Still, she says, “When at home in Smithfield there was no movie star about her.” She continues, “The tragedy is many of these strong, accomplished women never got to enjoy true love. Coco Channel said that love is the greatest thing a woman can have, and wished she’d had it in her own life.”
Then she leans in, narrows her eyes in seriousness, and sums up the answer to my question about why go on doing this, after all these years. “My constant goal is to make history and the story of the individual lives interesting enough that others will do their own research. Who would read about Madame Pompadour without being intrigued by her secrets first? Plus, I absolutely love doing it.”
Kay’s characters usually came from nothing, possessed a fabulous personality and brains, didn’t care what others thought of them, and were beautiful. Laura Clark, her oldest daughter, says, “Mother has always been unconventional herself; not entirely unlike these amazing women she brings to life.”
When pressed for an exclusive tip about who’s coming in 2015, Kay smirks and puts to rest any rumor that she’ll do Jackie O. “Too much of a personal icon,” she says.
She’s toying with the idea of Marilyn Monroe speaking from the grave. And there’s her post-Italy adventure thoughts of the Medicis and the Borgias. It might be time for Lucrezia Borgia, infamous daughter of Pope Alexander VI, to set the record straight after 500 years.
“And then again, there’s always another British monarch or movie star to think about. They do love Ava,” she says with an impish grin on her face.