Tinker Bell was born Carl Roger Mansfield on April 29th, 1941 in Watersmeat, Michigan. One of eight children, he had a poor and disrupted childhood. In 1948, he spent a couple of years in an orphanage, while his parents were in jail, and then moved into foster homes as a ward of the state. Despite hardships in his life, he managed to maintain a sunny disposition. "I was always very poor, but I am very happy because I look for beauty in life, and I look for love. I like people, and I like to enjoy myself," Tinker Bell told an interviewer in the late-Sixties. During his teen years, he was reunited with his mother, but then later moved to Texas. There, Carl was given the name "Tinker Bell" in a gay bar in Houston where he worked as a waitress. His official drag name was "Shelltae von Seal Chamberland."
Tinker Bell, A.K.A. Shelltae von Seal Chamberland
Tinker Bell arrived in New Orleans on September 24, 1966. In just two years, he became a French Quarter celebrity, being interviewed for local publications, and appearing on The Red Kagan Show on WGNO TV. Known for being a flamboyant homosexual, Tinker Bell held court from behind his Lucky Dog cart. Never afraid to be "out" or speak his mind, he garnered respect by his overall jovial manner and ability to amuse just about everyone who came in contact with him. "I know a lot of policemen, and a lot of higher-ups. I am a friend of Al Hirt, Pete Fountain, Frog Man Henry, Lilly Christine, The Cat Girl, Rita Alexander, The Champagne Girl, Dixiene, Candy Bar, the Texas Tornado, and some of the other strippers on the street; and I know all the barkers. I have thousands of friends here, and I meet new friends every day."
"I don't love boys only. I am a homosexual, but I love all people. I look for good things in life. I like to live and be free, and I like to see other people live and be free. I think it would be wonderful if everyone in this world could be just like me."
Tinker Bell had a positive self-image, and loved to talk about himself. His sudden local fame had him believing he was a star. Word had spread, and gay men around the South were told to seek out Tinker Bell if they ever journeyed to New Orleans. Tinker Bell volunteered a list of his "favorites" for interviewer Richard Bennett, "My favorite food is ham and sweet potatoes. My favorite fruits are pears and a boy named Bob. My favorite color combination is turquoise and gray. And I always get wonderful compliments on my clothes, too. I pick brightly colored clothes. And I watch so as to get the right colors for my complexion and my color of hair."
Unfortunately, gaining status as a local celebrity does not necessarily include wealth. You don't get rich being a Lucky Dog vendor, as any of them could tell you. Tinker Bell was always short of money, asking for cash and other items from his friends and admirers. He had no professional skills, but did learn to cook at an early age. Knowing he couldn't get by on looks alone, he used his cooking skills to be a successful "houseboy" for both men and women. "I can go to the store and buy food and cook my own things. I've lived with families with babies and cooked for them. I've lived with boys, bachelor boys, and I've been keeping house for men while they worked, so there it came in very handy." Tinker Bell also lived with bikers in New Orleans, cooking and cleaning for them. "...the Outcasts, some of the Renegades, some of the Angels. Satan of the Angels is very much fun. And Little Jesus of the Angels is a really groovy person."
Tinker Bell was proud of his feminine ways. He boasted of his 22" waist
and 36" hips, and how all the boys would comment on his soft skin. He
considered himself a true 'queen,' "This one girl told me it took her eight
months in a modeling school to learn what I do naturally." He felt his
homosexuality was something he was born with. "I have an over-balance of
female hormones in my body. So many people ask me when I turned gay, and I tell
them that there is no such thing as turning gay. It's nature, and you're
born with it. I like my men big and strong with warm eyes. I like a man that's
warm, gentle and kind, and likes to have fun. Most of my boyfriends are manly in
every way, but they are very warm and gentle. A lot of people say that to be a
man you have to be rough and tough and so on and that's not so. That's being
beastly and brutish."
Although Tinker Bell was well-known and outspoken, he was hardly someone you'd want as a spokesperson for the gay community. "I go mostly to straight bars. I don't go to gay bars because a lot of those faggy queens go there, and so do hustlers who sell their bodies. I don't believe in that," Tinker Bell was quoted. But he did admit to seducing more than a few sailors on shore-leave, "The body needs to have its release. When they hit shore, a lot of sailors go looking for a queen instead of a woman. And we help them. We do what we can to help our boys."
Tinker Bell considered himself a very moral person, but was quite a living paradox. "Yes, I am a Baptist. I have been, for about sixteen years now. I am a firm believer in God. I believe everything in the Bible. I believe in enjoying this world. God gave us this world to enjoy. When people speak against beer and things, why look how God has made the hops and the rye, all the grains that go in your whisky and your beer! It's all made from berries and things that God has made. And God gave man the sense to take these things and make something useful out of them."
Scandinavian Sailor
And as flamboyant and decadent a life Tinker Bell lived in the French
Quarter, he had a burning desire to live the life of a
normal heterosexual man with a wife and children, and planned on being
married by the age of 35. "I love kids and I love a
home and being in a home. Yes, I want to get married to a girl that will
accept me and love me for what I am and not for
what I have. Of course I know they will, because you will be surprised
at the women who have asked me to marry them.
You'd be surprised at the women who love me because I believe in what I am."
" I am just as natural as any heterosexual man. Girls turn me on. I love a feminine body. And I turn girls on, too. I've had women actually ask me to have the sex act with them. That aroused me, but I told them right out, that I don't believe in having sex with a woman before marriage."
"When I get married, I want to go back and settle in Michigan. I want a piece of land to farm. I want to spend my honeymoon in Hawaii."
No one is quite sure whatever happened to Tinker Bell, but it is rumored that he ran off with a Norwegian sailor and never returned.
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Photos by Mickey Demoruelle
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