It seemed so unserious at first.

“Oh, dayyyyuuuummmm! Shit just got real here in #PuertaVallarta!” San Francisco drag queen Pollo Del Mar wrote on her Facebook page in the afternoon of January 21, 2015. “Blanche isn’t the only one with a big opening. #TheGoldenGirls hit STAGES II Theatre tomorrow night.”

Pollo was in Puerto Vallarta to perform in the long-running drag version of The Golden Girls, along with fellow original cast member Cookie Dough and new cast members Daft-nee Gasundheit, Turleen, and Kim Burly.

“Unfortunately, that crazy Cookie Dough went ahead & drank the water anyway,” Pollo continued in her post. “And now she’s sick as a dog. Get all the insane inside Deets in my new video update from Mexico!”

Pollo’s accompanying video diary mentioned that Cookie had been taken to a local hospital and that Kim Burly would be stepping into her role of Sophia Petrillo for that evening’s run-through. But by the next morning, things had taken a turn for the worse. Cookie had lapsed into a coma from which she would never recover.

BC: A San Francisco native’s story

BC (Before Cookie), there was Eddie.

Edward Robert Bell was the rarest of locals: a true San Francisco native born and raised in the City. He grew up in the Glen Park neighborhood and graduated from Balboa High School in 1981.

In the early 1990s, he was hired to work as a lighting technician at Josie’s Cabaret and Juice Joint (which was located at 3583 16th Street at what is now Starbelly), where he also dabbled in stand-up comedy. He also worked for many years as a nurse’s aide at the Mount Zion Crisis Clinic and then at San Francisco General Hospital before leaving to focus on his entertainment career.

Eddie first did drag in 1990 at a friend’s birthday party and always had the itch to do more. But it took sobriety to give him the courage to pursue his dreams.

Recovery and the rise of Dough

In March of 2000, Eddie entered into a recovery program. It was there, early in his recovery, where he met Michael Chu, known more publicly as DJ MC2. They were together for the rest of Eddie’s life.

Chu said that sobriety gave Eddie the courage to pursue his dream of being on stage. His drag character, Cookie Dough, first debuted later in 2000 at the “Fall Follies,” a clean-and-sober drag fundraiser.

By 2002, Eddie was doing drag more publicly, performing as Cookie Dough with a Marin drag troupe called the Galaxy Girls for a few years before the group disbanded. Cookie also frequently performed at other drag shows in the City, including Heklina’s Trannyshack at The Stud and Charlie Horse at the Cinch. She and MC2 lived in the same apartment building as Heklina.

Reviving drag in the Castro

Cookie Dough is credited by many for reviving drag shows in the Castro. In 2002, she and MC2 launched Cookie … After Dark, a cabaret show at Martuni’s where drag queens sang live with a piano accompaniment. She later encouraged Trauma Flintstone to start her own monthly show, Bijou, at Martuni’s, and later shared her monthly slot with Katya Smirnoff-Skyy, eventually relinquishing the spot for Katya permanently.

In 2004, she and MC2 started the Monster Show at Harvey’s, then as a bimonthly drag show every other Saturday. The Monster Show had a format similar to Trannyshack’s, where drag queens each chose a song (almost always lip-synched) and pulled together a look and a performance to match that evening’s theme. The themes, advertised many weeks in advance, sometimes related to music from a particular era (“I Heart the 80s”) or a particular artist (“Madonna Tribute Night”). Sometimes they related to a cinematic artist, like the “Lynch Mob” tribute to David Lynch and the “Female Trouble” tribute to John Waters. Sometimes the themes were broader, like “Fractured Fairy Tales” or “Ripped From the Headlines.” And often they were chosen because of her guest co-hostess, like the “From Russia With Love” James Bond-themed night with Katya Smirnoff-Skyy, the Russian opera diva.

And on rare occasions, she would produce a show that would proceed in one continuous arc without interruption, like her synopsized recreation of the “Rocky Horror Picture Show.”

Many local and new-to-the-city drag queens made their San Francisco debut at the Monster Show, as Cookie Dough was always willing to take a chance on a new girl and loved fostering rising talent. So many local drag queens saw Cookie as their drag mother, grandmother, or auntie.

The Monster Show was named Best Drag Show by the San Francisco Bay Guardian in 2006.

After many years, Harvey’s decided to change direction and keep their shows more dining-friendly. The Monster Show, which cleared out all of the tables and chairs for the evening, was suddenly homeless. It bounced around to other venues, including a brief run in 2008 at Underground SF in the Lower Haight. It eventually made its way to The Edge in the Castro, where – except for a brief interruption at the Midnight Sun – it remains today as the longest-running drag show in the Castro. The Monster Show is currently held every Thursday night at The Edge.

The Monster Show has also been a perennial favorite on the Main Stage of the Castro Street Fair, where Cookie and MC2 put on two different shows just hours apart every year.

Drag all over town

The Monster Show wasn’t the only thing keeping Cookie busy. She also produced a monthly drag show at Booty, a bootleg mash-up party at the DNA Lounge. Adrian Roberts has said that Cookie Dough and MC2 were the only two she could trust to not flake in producing a large, monthly drag show.

Nine years ago, Cookie Dough and Heklina began to co-produce a drag production of The Golden Girls, in which drag queens reenacted entire episodes of the hit television show. At each run, two separate episodes would be performed, separated by an intermission. They usually chose gay-related episodes for their Pride season run in June and holiday episodes for their December run.

The drag show starred Matthew Martin as the over-sexed Blanche Devereaux (played by Rue McClanahan in the TV show), Pollo Del Mar as the ditzy Rose Nylund from St. Olaf, Minnesota (played by Betty White), Heklina as Dorothy Zbornak, a substitute teacher from Brooklyn (played by Bea Arthur), and Cookie Dough as Dorothy’s wise-cracking mother, Sophia Petrillo (played by Estelle Getty). It was originally produced in a private home in Hayes Valley, but as the show grew in popularity it was forced to move to bigger venues, including the 491-seat Victoria Theatre, San Francisco’s oldest operating theater that first opened in 1908.

Cookie Dough competed in the Miss Trannyshack Pageant twice, including in 2005 when she and the other contestants were featured in Blood, Sweat & Glitter, a documentary about the competition. She didn’t win.

Readers of the San Francisco Bay Guardian named Cookie Dough Best Drag Queen in 2009.

In 2010, she ran for Grand Duchess of San Francisco, a philanthropic title modeled after the Imperial Court system. When she won, she immediately apologized to her competitor, but added, “I never win anything!” During her reign, she helped the Ducal Court raise $35,000 for local LGBT charities.

Falling ill in Mexico

In January of 2015, Cookie Dough and Pollo Del Mar planned to take The Golden Girls for a two week run at Stages II, a theater in Puerto Vallerta, Mexico. Heklina, who was the co-owner of Oasis, a new SOMA club that had just opened, had to bow out. So did Matthew Martin. They were replaced by Turleen and Daft-Nee Gasundheit, along with Kim Burly.

Before the trip, Cookie Dough had complained of flu-like symptoms, including a fever. Once in Mexico, she continued to feel ill, attributing it to either food poisoning or drinking Mexican water with foreign pathogens. She felt dizzy and disoriented, and had to be taken by ambulance to the local hospital on January 21.

In retrospect, it’s clear that Pollo Del Mar’s initial Facebook post deliberately downplayed the seriousness of Cookie’s condition in order to protect her privacy and that of MC2, who was scrambling to fly down to Mexico. Pollo later reported that she and Daft-nee had spent hours at the hospital. The next morning, they were informed that Cookie Dough had experienced a brain edema, or swelling of the brain. She was in a coma, kept alive on life support.

Pollo and Daft-nee stayed with MC2 at the hospital for much of the day while Turleen arranged logistics with the local U.S. consulate and Kim Burly quickly learned Cookie’s role to step in as Sophia. That night, the weekly Monster Show at The Edge – which was being emceed by guest hosts during Cookie’s stay in Mexico – became an impromptu vigil and community prayer group, with over-capacity crowds spilling into the street.

On Friday, January 23rd, a GoFundMe page was set up with MC2’s blessing to help pay for Cookie Dough’s astronomically growing medical bills. The initial goal of $40,000 was quickly surpassed even as Cookie’s expenses continued to mount.

After The Golden Girls show that night, Pollo and Daft-nee took to the town to publicize the show. Posters for the show with Cookie’s face as part of the group were plastered over town, and everywhere they went, people were asking about her condition. Cookie had achieved her dream of becoming an “international drag star.”

Pollo’s post on the morning of Saturday, January 24th was short and ominous:

COOKIE DOUGH UPDATE:

I need an attorney specializing in medical malpractice to contact me IMMEDIATELY.

We are working simultaneously on speaking to an attorney about malpractice & separately on getting Cookie home to receive the medical attention she needs & deserves.

Share.

Pray.

That afternoon, Pollo “call[ed] off the hounds” but was unable to share more. It wasn’t until Sunday evening that she was able to provide more details.

With the threat of a lawsuit and the intervention of San Francisco Supervisor David Campos, U.S. Representative Nancy Pelosi, and the U.S. consulate, the hospital finally performed tests that showed a low level of brain activity. Before then, the hospital had insisted, without tests, that she was brain dead.
Her brain activity, though low, was enough to allow Cookie Dough to be released and medevacked to Kaiser Permanente in San Francisco … but only after the hospital’s bills were paid from the GoFundMe campaign.

Cookie and MC2 arrived back in San Francisco by 7:00 a.m. on Monday, January 26. The following evening, Pollo reported that Cookie was being treated for meningitis, which her doctors in Mexico hadn’t tested for or raised as a possibility.

On Thursday, January 29th, Pollo posted at 7:36 p.m.:

It is with great sadness that I announce the passing of one of my dearest friends, the person to whom I owe my drag career, Cookie Dough.

Thank you again for all you, as a community, have done to support us in this gravest of times. It is a testament to the lasting impact Cookie had that thousands & thousands rallied to her aid when she needed it most.

I will sit tonight to process through this news, which I have feared inevitable for a week. Please keep Cookie, and even more so now her husband Michael, in your prayers.

She was only 51 years old.

Memorial

It felt like the whole City was in mourning.

On Tuesday, February 3rd, David Campos adjourned the Board of Supervisors’ meeting in Cookie Dough’s memory. The side of the Bank of America building on the corner of 18th and Castro, which is often home for make-shift memorials for locals who have passed away, was covered in photos, flowers, candles, and other tokens in Cookie Dough’s memory.

The Edge, home to Cookie Dough and MC2’s Monster Show, placed a plaque by the stage renaming it The Cookie Dough Monster Stage with the caption, “San Francisco’s Nicest Drag Queen.”

In April, the Bay Area Reporter named the winners of their annual Besties Awards, and Cookie Dough won by large margins for everything she was nominated. The nominations had been made before she went to Mexico, but the voting was open after her illness and death. BAR readers named her both Best Drag Queen and Best Event Host/MC. The Monster Show won for both Best Drag Show and Best Weekly Nightlife Event. And even The Edge, the Monster Show’s current home, was named Best Castro Bar.

Her funeral was private, but Heklina organized a public memorial on March 1, 2015, which happened to be the fifteenth anniversary of Cookie’s sobriety. MC2 had purchased her 15-year pin while she was in Mexico.

An over-capacity crowd filled the Victoria Theatre, which donated its space for the tribute. Heklina hosted with a rotation of emcees that included Peaches Christ, Sister Roma, Fernando Ventura and Greg Sherrell, Pollo Del Mar, BeBe Sweetbriar, and more. Speakers included Roxy Cotton Candy, Marga Gomez, David Campos, Nancy French, and Otter Renck.

And because it was a tribute for Cookie Dough, there were also performances, with numbers from the Bay Area Flash Mob, Landa Lakes and the House of Glitter, Katya Smirnoff-Skyy, Erik Batz, Matthew Martin, Uphoria, Laundra Tyme, Sugah Betes, Sue Casa, Tom Shaw, Joe Wicht, Daftnee Gesuntheit, D’Arcy Drollinger, Glitterella, Adrian Roberts, Beatrix Carr, Manuel Caneri, Dina Isis, Becky Motorlodge, Putanesca, Ethel Merman, and more.

The show, which was more than three hours long, concluded with Trixxie Carr leading the audience in singing, “I’m Coming Home” from the Rocky Horror Picture Show.

Reflections

The caption on the plaque at The Edge for Cookie Dough says, “San Francisco’s Nicest Drag Queen.”

And she was.

Cookie Dough never fell into the trap of mistaking meanness for wit. She could be playfully self-deprecating and other-deprecating, but never unkind. She truly was San Francisco’s nicest drag queen.

She always gave me a shout-out from the stage, and because I took so many photos, she often put me on the guest list for free entry. She would joke on stage that she would never have any photos of herself if it weren’t for me.

At her memorial, her kindness was a common refrain from the speakers, along with her generosity in giving fledgling drag queens their first opportunity as well as providing support for those newly in recovery.

Heklina’s poignant words on Facebook must be shared:

Farewell my sweet Cookie Dough. You were the truest, best friend I ever had. I was so blessed to have you in my life, hearts like yours are one in a million. You made me a better person. I love you.

Heklina’s Facebook

April 2, 2015: This article was updated to reflect the results of the Bay Area Reporter’s 2015 Bestie Awards.

Sources

B., Marke, “Beloved drag queen Cookie Dough has passed away,” 48 Hills, January 29, 2015.

Barmann, Jay, “Local Drag Queen Cookie Dough In A Coma In Mexico,” SFist, January 22, 2015.

Barmann, Jay, “SF Drag Community Mourns Death Of Cookie Dough,” SFist, January 30, 2015.

Michael Chu Facebook page

Cookie Dough/Eddie Bell Celebration of Life [Program], March 1, 2015, San Francisco, CA.

“Cookie Dough (1963 – 2015),” SF Gay Life, January 30, 2015.

Cookie Dough Facebook page

“Cookie Dough Fundraising,” GoFundMe.com, accessed January 31, 2015. (Page now closed.)

Hemelgarn, Seth, “Friend, family rally around Cookie Dough,” Bay Area Reporter, January 23, 2015.

Laird, Cynthia, “Eddie Bell, known as Cookie Dough, dies,” Bay Area Reporter, February 5, 2015.

McKenzie, Roy, “Drag Star Cookie Dough Has Passed Away,” Hoodline, January 30, 2015.

Nahmod, David-Elijah, “Cookie Dough: The late drag icon’s a multi-Bestie winner,” Bay Area Reporter, April 2, 2015.

Pollo Del Mar Facebook posts, January 21 – 29, 2015.

Underhill, Steven, “Cookie Dough Celebration,” Bay Area Reporter, March 5, 2015.

Whiting, Sam, “Eddie Bell, a drag performer known as Cookie Dough, is dead at 52,” SF Gate, January 30, 2015.