San Francisco’s legendary drag queen Heklina, creator of the infamously transgressive drag show Trannyshack and one-time co-owner of the SOMA nightclub Oasis, was found dead in London on April 3, 2023.
A preliminary autopsy has ruled out foul play. A more complete autopsy will be needed to determine the exact cause of death.
She was found by Joshua Grannell, also known as Peaches Christ, in the London apartment they were sharing leading up to a revival of their show Mommie Queerest, a spoof of the 1981 film Mommie Dearest about the life of Joan Crawford. Heklina was to reprise her role “Hektina,” which was first performed in San Francisco in 2005. They had planned to perform it in London and then in Manchester later in April.
Peaches broke the news on her social media accounts:
“I am shocked and horrified to bring this news to you. I am living in a real-life nightmare so forgive me if I don’t have all the answers just now. This morning, in London, England I went to collect my dear friend Heklina, who is costarring with me in a Mommie Queerest show here, and found her dead. Heklina is not just my best friend, but a beloved icon of our community. I am a mess.”
Peaches Christ on her social media, April 3, 2023
Pre-Heklina Years
Heklina was born on June 17, 1967, as Steven (later Stefan) Thor Grygelko to Kristin Larusdotter, a native of Iceland, and Stanley Grygelko, a U.S. citizen who met Heklina’s mother in Iceland while serving in the U.S. military. After his parents divorced when he was six, Heklina went back and forth between Iceland and the U.S.
“When I was 16, my Mom had had enough of me in Iceland,” Heklina said in a 2015 interview with KQED. “I was kind of a difficult kid, and she sent me to live with my Dad in Minnesota. They couldn’t deal with me, either. I was kind of going through a lot when I was a teenager. So, I joined the Navy.”
But Heklina’s career with the Navy was short-lived. “I was just partying all the time,” he said. “They kicked me out because, yeah, they had a zero tolerance for drugs.”
Heklina returned to Iceland for his first drug treatment, which he credits with saving his life. From there, he moved to San Francisco with an Icelandic lesbian friend, getting a job at Tower Records. “This girlfriend of mine got back from San Francisco, she had gone here on vacation, and she said how great it was, that we should go there,” Heklina said in Sean Mullens’ documentary Filthy Gorgeous: The Trannyshack Story. “I had the American citizenship, and she wanted a Green Card, so I married this lesbian. We landed in San Francisco and the party didn’t stop.”
Heklina and Trannyshack at The Stud
The character Heklina, whose name was inspired by the Icelandic volcano Hekla, was born in 1992 for the Miss Uranus Pageant. Her then roommate Nikki Starr, who passed away in 2016, says she was the first to paint Heklina, calling her subject, “aesthetically challenged.”
But Nikki quickly added, “Heklina, you know, you may not be looked at as a universal beauty, but you brought so much beauty to the universe.”
D’Arcy Drollinger, who later co-owned Oasis with Heklina, was present for that debut. “I was there the very first time she ever did drag, it wasn’t a pretty sight,” D’Arcy wrote in an email to Oasis’ email list. “In my wildest dreams I wouldn’t have expected her to become such an icon. And yet she did.”
Heklina and Pippi Lovestocking cofounded Trannyshack in 1996, a spinoff of Klubstitute held on Tuesdays at midnight at The Stud. With only seven patrons on its opening night, the transgressive drag show soon grew, packing the SOMA club at midnight on a Tuesday work night every week.
What made Trannyshack revolutionary was that it wasn’t afraid to break old drag rules. Performers weren’t focused on gender illusion or female impersonation. They didn’t just don a sequined dress and move their lips to an old-timey standard. They took the ever-changing weekly theme and pulled together a lewk and a song to tell a story that matched the night’s theme, which included tribute nights (like “David Bowie” or “Bjork”), mash-ups nights (“Madonna v. Gaga”), or other themes (“Grunge Night” or “Addicted to Porn”). Often the performer’s story included a shocking twist or an unexpected take on the theme. Sometimes the storytelling was augmented with fake blood or other bodily fluids, or flames, or pierced flesh. Often shocking, never dull.
Heklina welcomed all forms of drag to her stage. Glamour drag, to be sure, but also swamp drag. Bearded gender-fuck drag. Drag kings. Trans women and cis women performed alongside cis men in dresses. Trannyshack’s embrace of a range of performing styles was revolutionary.
Ana Matronic performed frequently at Trannyshack’s early years before moving to New York City in 1999, where she joined the Scissor Sisters. Luminaries that dropped in or performed at Trannyshack included Charo, Lady Gaga (mere months before her career exploded), Gwen Stefani, Mary Wilson, RuPaul, and Michelle Visage, among others.
The annual Miss Trannyshack Pageant outgrew The Stud and had to be held at bigger venues like the Regency Ballroom. And every so often, Heklina would take San Francisco’s special brand of drag on the road with special events at cities like Honolulu, New Orleans, and Portland. On at least six occasions, Heklina had to take legal action against other venues that tried to misappropriate her event’s trademarked name.
After The Stud
The final Trannyshack at The Stud was held on August 12, 2008. After a break, Heklina revived it in 2010 as a monthly Saturday event at the DNA Lounge, renaming it “T*Shack” in recognition that the original name included a term that now a slur in the trans community.
In the meantime, Heklina and fellow drag queen Cookie Dough created a drag version of the 1980s television show The Golden Girls, with Heklina in the role of Dorothy Zbornak, played by Bea Arthur in the original, and Cookie Dough as Dorothy’s mother, Sophia Petrillo, originally played by Estelle Getty. The original cast, which continues to evolve over the years, included Matthew Martin as Blanche Devereaux (Rue McClanahan’s bawdy character), and Pollo Del Mar as the naïve Rose Nylund (Betty White).
Cookie Dough passed away in 2015 of meningitis while trying to bring a production of The Golden Girls to Puerto Vallarta.
In 2014, Heklina and D’Arcy Drollinger, along with a few other investors, bought Oasis, a nightclub at 298 Eleventh Street in San Francisco’s SOMA neighborhood. The club opened on New Year’s Eve, just hours before 2015. “I have known Heklina for 34 years,” D’Arcy wrote. “Opening the Oasis was a crowning achievement we shared, after performing for so many years in other people’s venues, to create our own space was a dream neither of us believed we could do and yet we did it together.” T*Shack was brought to Oasis a few weeks later where it was renamed “Mother,” a tribute to how drag families nurture creative talent. This time it was given the prime timeslot of Saturday nights.
In addition to continuing to portray Dorothy in annual revivals of The Golden Girls, Heklina also performed in other hit drag parodies of television shows, including as Janet Wood (Joyce Dewitt) in Three’s Company, Carrie Bradshaw (Sarah Jessica Parker) in Sex and the City, Phoebe Buffay (Lisa Kudrow) in Friends, and Darlene Conner (Sara Gilbert) in Roseanne. Heklina also appeared in many of Peaches Christ’s “Midnight Mass” productions, which were once held at midnight at the Bridge Theater but were now held with afternoon matinees and early evening shows at the Castro Theatre.
Heklina also appeared in Billy Clift’s 2010 film Baby Jane?, a drag parody of the 1962 film Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? Clift’s parody starred Matthew Martin in Bette Davis’ role, Jane Hudson, and J. Conrad Frank, also known as Katya Smirnoff-Skyy, as Blanche Hudson, the role originated by Joan Crawford. Heklina appeared as the neighbor, Mrs. Bates, a role she reprised in Clift’s next film, Hush Up, Sweet Charlotte, a drag parody of the 1964 film, Hush…Hush, Sweet Charlotte.
She also appeared in the drag parody Trog! as Ann, the dimwitted daughter of Dr. Brockton, played by Joan Crawford in the original 1970 film and Matthew Martin in the drag parody.
With Tom Temprano, Heklina co-founded Daytime Realness in 2011, a mid-afternoon drag show held on Sundays at El Rio.
Mother continued to run every Saturday night until February of 2020, when Heklina sold her stake in Oasis to move more-or-less fulltime to Palm Springs – just barely getting out before San Francisco’s clubs were temporarily closed for COVID. During COVID, she participated in “Meals on Heels,” in which local drag queens would deliver take-out food from participating restaurants and then perform a socially distanced number on the sidewalk as part of the service.
Most recently, Heklina held her autobiographical one woman show But I Don’t Judge, co-written by Michael Phillis, at Oasis in January.
Rest in Power
Heklina’s passing brought tributes from all over the world, including celebrities like Julie Brown and Margaret Cho. Drag luminaries like Coco Peru, Varla Jean Merman, and Lady Bunny also paid their respects, along with numerous RuPaul’s Drag Race alums like Jinx Monsoon and BenDeLaCreme, who had performed with Heklina in Peaches Christ’s drag parody of Death Becomes Her. Her death was covered even by Variety and People magazine.
On April 11th, it was announced that Heklina would be inducted into the LGBTQ Wall of Honor at the Stonewall Inn in New York, alongside Darcelle XV, the drag name of Walter Cole, who passed away on March 23rd in Portland, Oregon. Darcelle XV, who was 92, had been recognized by the Guinness Book of World Records as the world’s oldest performing drag queen.
A memorial is planned for the Castro Theatre for Tuesday, May 23, 2023. Tickets were snapped up in under an hour, and organizers are discussing other options to meet community interest.
Per the San Francisco Chronicle, Heklina is survived by her parents, Kristin Larusdotter and Stanley Grygelko, sister Elizabeth “Lisa” Grygelko, aunt Cyndi Elliot, and beloved cats Dexter and Walter “Mittens” Mitty. “But a statement from Heklina’s estate – in signature Heklina deadpan style – identified her chosen family as ‘anyone who ever made her any money.’”
But Wait, There’s More…
Photos
Videos
Heklina in memoriam
(excerpts from the documentary “Filthy Gorgeous. The Trannyshack Story)
Heklina on KQED Truly California
Drag Queens of Comedy LA: Heklina and Peaches Christ
Read More
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B., Marke, “Vibrant anti-hate drag march on Saturday will honor ‘mother’ Heklina,” 48 Hills, April 4, 2023.
Barmann, Jay, “Drag Community Mourns the Loss of Legendary San Francisco Queen Heklina,” SFist, April 3, 2013.
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Barmann, Jay, “Report: SF Drag Icon Heklina Dies While On Tour In London,” SFist, April 3, 2023.
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