Underdog Entertainment, the producers of the widely acclaimed documentary “Metamorphosis” (about the life of the outrageous drag queen Granny Lee) have fulfilled their promise to “Give Granny a Gravestone”.
Underdog is pleased to announce that as part of the 2001 South African Lesbian and Gay Pride celebrations, Granny Lee’s gravestone was unveiled at a ceremony on the 24th of September 2001 at Westpark Cemetery.
The stone was paid for with generous contributions from Underdog, Hawley Marble and members of the public.
The gravestone, crafted by Hawley Marble, was designed to offer a unique resting-place for Granny Lee (within the constraints of the cemetery’s restrictions) and features a portrait of Lee in all her glory. Members of the lesbian and gay community attended the unveiling.
“We felt it important to honour Lee for her courage to be the person she was in the face of the Apartheid regime. If she could be herself under those conditions she gives us all inspiration. She wasn’t politically correct and was full of contradictions, but that’s what made her so unique” says the documentary’s director Luiz DeBarros.
Granny Lee (formerly Leonard Du Plooy) was notably the first “non-white” to be buried at Westpark cemetery.
It is no coincidence that the unveiling is taking place on Heritage Day. “Pride recognise the gravesite of Granny Lee as part of lesbian and gay heritage in South Africa and in doing so acknowledge the contribution that people make to the struggle for equality simply by being visible and being true to themselves,” says Daniel Sommerville, manager of the 2001 South African Lesbian and Gay Pride Week.
