A film about a legendary Black transgender Toronto artist, Jackie Shane, has been named the winner of a prestigious award for documentaries.
The soul singer was an icon who defied the odds, becoming an immensely popular artist despite being a Black transgender woman in the 1960s. The 2024 film Any Other Way: The Jackie Shane Story explores her legacy, including what happened after she vanished from the spotlight in 1971.
Toronto filmmaker Michael Mabbott told Queer & Now that the journey to creating the film began 12 years ago, when he was given a copy of Shane’s album Jackie Shane Live.
“[I felt] this love of the music and connection with the music, and I think with some pride that this music was being made by a Black trans woman in my hometown,” he explained.
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Mabbott sought out more information about the artist behind the music, soon discovering that Shane had completely disappeared from public view in 1971, and no one really knew what had happened to her since.
The filmmaker then spent years trying to connect with Shane, with no luck. It wasn’t until the reissue of her catalogue of music in 2016 that the general public became aware that Shane was still alive. It then took Mabbott another year to reach Shane through her team.
WHO WAS JACKIE SHANE?
Born in Nashville, Tennessee, in 1940, Shane is often called a transgender pioneer and was a prominent figure in Toronto’s R&B scene during the 1960s.
According to the Canadian Encyclopedia, Shane’s cover of William Bell’s “Any Other Way” peaked at number two on the CHUM singles chart in 1963, while her 1967 live album, Jackie Shane Live, was shortlisted for a Polaris Music Prize Heritage Award following its reissue.
The album Any Other Way was released in 2017 before being nominated for a 2019 Grammy Award for Best Historical Album.
Through phone calls from her home in Nashville, Shane shared her life’s story with Mabbott, including what happened after 1971. Mabbott explained that Shane’s reasons for leaving the stage are nuanced, and include discrimination she faced as a transwoman.
“She was wearing very feminine makeup and feminine cut suits on stage, but she was also having to use he/him pronouns [and] present as a male who was dressed in this feminine way,” Mabbott explained.
He said that the pain this caused Shane was extraordinarily difficult for her to bear, and he believes it to be one of the reasons she eventually left Toronto.
The singer had returned to the U.S., where she was born and raised, after a decade of success in Canada, and cared for her adoptive and biological mothers, as well as her abusive stepfather. Eventually, she went on to live as a recluse in Nashville, leaving her house rarely, often only for necessities like visiting the bank or purchasing groceries.
Learning more about Shane’s life through a series of hours-long phone calls that spanned a year, Mabbott was enthralled by her story and pitched a film about her life. The singer agreed, but sadly passed away just two months later.
“I didn’t know if I could make this film without her, I was just crushed and she was my partner in this,” he explained, “But it was clear that somebody was going to make a film about her, and she’d wanted me to do this.”
He then sought out fellow Toronto filmmaker Lucah Rosenberg-Lee, who told Queer & Now that his interest was piqued by the opportunity to tell the story of a historic Black transgender person.
“Because obviously a lot of Black trans people are kind of erased from history, so I wanted to kind of get that story out there and then,” Rosenberg-Lee said, adding that it felt like a continuation of his short documentary Passing, which follows the story of three transgender men of colour.
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“[Following themes like] what does gender look like? What does it mean to people who are people of colour, what does it mean to marginalized people, and how do they express themselves?” he explained.
“I also think it’s really important to depict trans people as having been here for a long time. The fact that she was born in 1940 was quite fascinating to me, and at a time when they didn’t even have the language for it.”
SANDRA CALDWELL AS JACKIE SHANE
The documentary sees two different actresses take on the role of Shane. Makayla Walker, AKA Makayla Couture, plays Shane in her younger years, while legendary actress Sandra Caldwell was cast to play Shane later in life.
Caldwell told Queer & Now that as a Black trans woman she can relate to Shane’s story, even decades after she dominated Toronto stages with her soulful performances.
“I understood the fear behind her actions, and it wasn’t foreign to me,” she explained. “It’s something I could relate to because of living that life, and people like Jackie gave me the strength to move forward and to accept myself.”
“It took me a long time to [come out], I was in the shadows for a while myself, for a couple of decades. So, I understand the importance of this story, and the strength that it took for this piece to happen,” Caldwell said.
She explained that for 50 years, she was what is referred to as “stealth,” living her truth as a woman, without anyone ever questioning her gender identity. This includes through her lengthy acting career, which has seen her in 32 theatre productions, 39 films, and countless episodic roles.
“I never got questioned about me,” she explained. “Not [about] me being a trans woman, or me being a woman.”
She explained that it wasn’t until ten years ago that she decided it was time to live openly as a transwoman, inspired by the freedoms being experienced by other trans people.
“I knew that I was living stealth… It was always a worry in me or a fear in me that someone was going to say something, or I was going to lose a job because someone would say something, or who knows, or I would be threatened because someone knew,” she explained, adding that part of the reason she concealed this part of her identity was to protect her safety.
“I saw all these new freedoms, and I have to say, well, look at these kids! The kids are making some cash, they’re working, open in public, you know? That was shocking to me,” she explained.
At the time, she was working on a play about a trans woman who was an etiquette teacher in Chicago, teaching classes to trans women and single mothers and underprivileged neighbourhoods. She had already been considering coming out, but says the play fast-tracked the process.
“I just decided I wanted to be a part of it. I wanted to see what it was like just to live openly.”
“I think Jackie was braver than me, because I was able to live stealth,” she explained. “She had her visual, she wasn’t afraid of her visual. The only thing that pushed Jackie back was [in] the era I came from, you just didn’t jump out. You lived in the shadows.”
“It was hard back then, you just wanted to live. You didn’t want to be in the movement, so to speak,” she said.
“You didn’t want to be open about it,” she explained. “You did it because truly your feminine side was there, and that’s how you wanted to live.”
The film, which is set to receive the Peabody Award for Documentary on June 1, has previously received 22 awards and honours, and has been selected for 47 festivals.
Audiences in Canada can watch Any Other Way on Crave.
