Chelsea Portraits - This Ain't no Holiday Inn: Down and Out at the Chelsea Hotel 1980-1995 - page 194

Helluva Stormé
Stormé (pronounced”Stormy”) DeLarverié attained celebrity in certain circles in the 1940s
and '50s as the cross dressing emcee for the Jewel Box Revue drag act: a woman in top hat
andtails emceeing foratroupeofmeningowns.Butwhatmade herreally famous—at least
in the gay community—was a punch she threw at a cop, the punch that launched a thousand
queens.
TIM SULLIVAN
Stormé DeLarverié is eighty-six. She is the person that punched the policeman at
Stonewall in 1969. 110 She was a male impersonator. She dressed like a man, and
thepoliceweregoingtoarrestherforwearingmen'spants.She'slivedinthehotel
for a long time. Stormé's a real character and a real icon in the gay community
in New York City. She worked as a bodyguard. She was the door person at The
Duchess, a famous lesbian bar where they wouldn't let men in.
She hung with everybody, including Charlie Parker.