Meet Michelle DuBarry, Canada's oldest performing drag queen

Russell Alldread was just nine years old when he first put on a dress. 

It was in 1940, on his uncle's farm, when three of his cousins suggested he try on a black strapless number. He still remembers the feeling of stepping into a gown for the very first time.

"I assumed the pose very naturally, so I suspect there was a bit of female in me," laughed Alldread. "I felt like I was real."

Little did 9-year-old Russell know, that day on the farm — posing naturally and staring straight down the barrel of the camera — was the start of a drag career that has stretched over seven decades. 

As a teenager, he and a friend attended a school dance dressed as women.

"We looked so damn good," he told Now or Never host Ify Chiwetelu.

In his twenties and thirties, Alldread moved to the city and began acting in Toronto's underground and community theatres.

From Russell to Michelle

But his big break came in the 1970s, when he toured for ten years as part of the Great Imposters, a travelling drag troupe. It was on the road with the Imposters when he adopted his long-time drag name: Michelle DuBarry. 

Last year, the 2015 Guinness Book of World Records named her the world's oldest performing drag queen (although the title has since gone to an American queen a few months older).

And DuBarry doesn't show any signs of slowing down: the octogenarian queen still has regular gigs each week and performs monthly at a local senior's residence. 

But at home, when Russell hangs up his Michelle DuBarry wig, some of the glamour falls away. 

"At home, I'm so damned alone." 

Today, Alldread lives on his own in a rent-geared-to-income apartment in downtown Toronto. 

"There's no bed in the bedroom. It's full of clothes I've made and shoes and everything. It's in this terrible state of affairs with cockroaches in the kitchen. I have too much stuff."

Whether he's dressed in drag or not, Alldread is a popular and well-respected member of the LGBT community in Toronto. But now, after three-quarters of a century in drag, he admits that loneliness is the biggest challenge he's facing.

"I've lost all my really best friends because they've died. At home I'm so damned alone, and yet when I go out on the street, I'm not alone because everybody knows me."

Alldread told Now or Never host Ify Chiwetelu that becoming Michelle DuBarry has given him a community he loves.

And when asked if Michelle will ever ever hang up her wig and heels, Alldread deadpans "no — then I'll just die!"