Interview with Alexandra Billings

Monika: Today it is my pleasure and honor to interview Alexandra Billings, a fascinating American actress, teacher, singer, and the first trans woman to have played a transgender character on television. She was born in Schaumburg, Illinois. Alexandra is also known for transgender characters in ER, Eli Stone, How to Get Away with Murder, Grey's Anatomy, and The Conners.I must say I am thrilled that I can interview such an iconic person. Hello Alexandra!

Alexandra: Well hi there, Monika. I’m glad we can chat like this. I love this cyber-age. You can do anything virtually. Well…almost anything.

No…wait. Literally anything.

Monika: You come from an artistic family. Is it the reason why you became an artist and your whole professional life focuses on beauty pageants, theaters, movies, and singing? 

Alexandra: Strangely I come from both an artistic and academic family. My Dad was the musical director at Civic Light Opera House in LA for many years, and my mother was a teacher, as was her mother and her mother before her. My Dad also taught as well as flew in the air force and retired as a Lt Colonel. So, I’m half bohemian, half professor. I think that’s why I’ve always had this strange sense of adventure mixed with a need to settle down and nest. I’m like a frustrated Carol Brady… on a dash of crack.

Interview with Marlo Bernier

Monika: Today I am going to introduce you to Marlo Bernier, an American actress, writer, producer, US Air Force veteran, and creator of Myrna, an original drama television series.

She was born in Nashua, New Hampshire. After her USAF service, she spent a couple of years in Germany, playing music in a few bands on the club circuit until the end of 1985. She settled down n Baltimore, spending the better part of a decade on the stage, delivering great stage work in AXIS Theatre's; Angels in America, Love! Valor! Compassion! and God's Country. Hello Marlo!

Marlo: Hi Monika!

Monika: What are you doing these days?

Marlo: Well right this minute I’m attempting to behave during this interview – we’ll see at the end what the verdict will be.

Interview with Aleshia Brevard: Part 1

Monika: Hello Aleshia! I am very happy that you accepted this interview to be included in my series of “Interviews with Transgender Icons”.
Aleshia: Thank you for asking that I participate, Monika. I blush a bit at being labeled an “Icon”, but hopefully by my age, one has learned to embrace any and all positive comments that come along – while summarily dismissing the negative.
Monika: What are you doing these days?
Alexia: I recently turned seventy-five, hooray-hooray, so thankfully as a rather long-in-tooth retiree my time is pretty much my own. Gone are those bothersome pressures of younger years. Much of my time is now spent writing, having just finished the first novel. It comes on the tail of my two published memoirs and several produced plays. Most importantly, however, I’ve found contentment which I never even dream might be possible when I began my transsexual odyssey in the late 1950s.