Miss Coco Peru

Miss Coco Peru
Coco Peru backstage at The Public Theater in New York City.
Born	Clinton Leupp
Residence	Los Angeles, California
Nationality	United States
Occupation	Drag performer, actor
Years active	1991–present
Partner(s)	Rafael (c. 1995–present)
Website	http://www.misscocoperu.com

Miss Coco Peru is the drag persona of American actor, comedian and drag performer Clinton Leupp, known for her role in the 1999 independent film Trick and for her series of live theater performances. Recognizable by her "trademark copper-toned flip hairdo," Peru also starred in Richard Day's Girls Will Be Girls (2003) and was one of six performers featured in the Logo original stand-up comedy series Wisecrack (2005). She has also appeared in a number of other supporting and guest-starring roles in film and television.

For 20 years Peru has starred in various "one-woman shows" across the US and other countries, and hosted LGBT events. Since 2005 Peru has appeared in the "Conversations with Coco" series in which she "interviews and celebrates the lives and careers of the LGBT community's favorite icons." Peru's guests have included Bea Arthur, Lesley Ann Warren, Karen Black, Lily Tomlin and Jane Fonda.

Leupp is a native of City Island, New York. He is a 1983 graduate of Cardinal Spellman High School and studied theatre at Adelphi University. Calling himself "a gay guy who was never going to be passing for straight," he said that he had just started college when homophobic slurs were directed at him. “Here we go again, I thought; I was so used to it, in high school. But by the end of those four years, I had become very popular, by just being myself, and being relatable."

Leupp calls Robin Williams, Whoopi Goldberg and Bette Midler some of his early idols. In a 2012 interview he said, "When I was younger, I looked up to people who were like Bette Midler and Lily Tomlin, people who created characters and got discovered that way. I always knew early on that I was gay and I wanted to be an openly gay performer. Back when I started, that was pretty rare. I was trained in the theater and I went to college for theater, and I decided to do drag as a way to express myself both in theater and as an activist. I always find that people who are able to do all of that an inspiration. I feel like Lily Tomlin and Bette Midler, early on, did that. ... [Midler] started in the bathhouses and gay men wrote her material. Of course she had the performance style to pull it off, but she also had gay men writing for her. That’s why her voice had that gay sensibility." He decided "it was probably best for me to be openly gay on stage, and create my own character. I did a one-person show early on as myself ... All my friends came, and loved it; I was always considered funny. But I knew it wasn’t going to be enough. With friends who were sick, and dying of HIV/AIDS, I wanted to be an activist as well as an entertainer.” Leupp recalled thinking, "how do I change people’s minds, those who might not have a clear picture of who gay people were?" He said, "Coco came about at a time in my life when I didn’t have much direction ... I realized I had to do something that made me unique ... I read a book about Native Americans 'two spirits,' which were men who dressed as women or partially as women who were often seen as the shaman or the storytellers in their communities." "Wouldn’t it be great if I did something in drag, I decided, where people perceive you as a drag queen in a way, but as I tell the story — my story — they would forget I’m a drag queen and just relate to the story. This is what I had in mind when I started writing my first drag show.”