He met and briefly roomed with actor Gene Barry, when they performed in Rosalinda and The Merry Widow. He soon found steady work performing in operettas and dance productions along the Eastern seaboard. At a little over five feet tall and reed-thin, Trafton resembled a sprite with wavy blond hair and large blues eyes. The Boston police, to whom he made payments, raided him regularly, but perfunctorily.Ĭharles Edward Trafton was born in New Hampshire around 1913 and moved to New York City in the 1930s to become a dancer and chorus member. Alone, he ran the illegal operation from his kitchen seven nights a week from the mid-1940s to the early 1990s.
For sheer stamina, Trafton was without peer. Through the years, it attracted sailors and stars, including Judy Garland, Liberace, Anthony Perkins, and a slew of bartenders and theater people who just did not want to go home. Botolph Street, one of the most colorful and storied after-hours places in Boston. The bar was Charles Trafton’s place on St. Here’s one: Judy Garland, Anthony Perkins and Liberace walk into a bar… Originally published in Boston Spirit Magazine, May/June 2013, and on Mark Krone's blog Boston Queer History.
