Johnny Croskery and Frank Lund. From Johnny Croskery’s photograph album 1960 – 1980 | Collections Online

item details

NameJohnny Croskery and Frank Lund. From Johnny Croskery’s photograph album 1960 – 1980

ProductionUnknown; photographer; 1960 -1980; New Zealand

Classificationblack-and-white prints

Materialsink, paper

Materials SummaryBlack and white photograph

Techniquesblack-and-white photography

DimensionsImage: 81mm (width), 132mm (height)

Registration NumberO.044326

Overview

This extract originally appeared in New Zealand Photography Collected: 175 Years of Photography in Aotearoa (Te Papa Press, 2025) on page 60.

Johnny Croskery (1941–2012) began his working life in the late 1950s as a window-dresser for the DIC department store in Wellington. He was active as a drag artist for four decades. He performed at Carmen’s International Coffee Lounge on Vivian Street, Wellington, in the late 1960s, and then in the 1970s with Toni Rogét (Frank Lund) in the cabaret act ‘Frankie and Johnny’ at Carmen Rupe’s Balcony nightclub on Victoria Street. Both Croskery and Lund made many of their own costumes. Croskery became an icon in the Wellington Rainbow community, later performing at Devotion dance parties in the 1990s, and caring for those living with HIV or dying from AIDS-related illnesses.

Carmen recalled: 'Johnny and Toni Roget were like a couple of Barry Humphries. They were two sweet drag queens with a wonderful act. In real life they were window dressers for large departmental stores in the city. Those two were perfect in their acts and wore outrageous gowns in the brightest of colours and effected large headdresses' (from Carmen: Having a ball! by Paul Martin, Benton Ross Publishers Ltd, 1988, p. 170).