Vanessa Show

Vanessa Show was born José Mussi in La Banda, a town in Santiago del Estero Province, into an affluent family of cattlemen and slaughterers of Arab origin. When she was twelve, her parents separated and her father disinherited her mother, leaving them penniless. Show moved to Buenos Aires at age fifteen and got low-paying jobs like washing glasses and peeling potatoes at bars. Show began working as a revista porteña backup male dancer for important vedettes such as Nelida Lobato, Nélida Roca, Susana Brunetti and Moria Casán. She eventually got a job at the El Nacional and Maipo theaters as a male dancer. For a while, she alternated this theatre work with appearances as a vedette in a Bahía Blanca cabaret, eventually choosing to dedicate herself entirely to cross-dressing performing. She told Página/12 in 2018: "I stopped being a male dancer in November 1970 and by December 1971 in the Maracaibo Music-Hall in Mar del Plata, with Jorge Perez Evelyn in the revue “Que Bonito es Mar del Plata”. I was already famous as Vanessa Show."