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Perfect poise
TV's Brini Maxwell serves up decorating advice with
decorum
By JIM FARBER
Brini Maxwell doesn't walk. She glides. And when she speaks, she
purrs.
With her gazelle-like gait, Valium-smooth voice and ingratiating demeanor,
Brini exudes the eerie poise of a Pan Am stewardesses in the industry's
full-service peak of the '60s.
She also dresses the part.
Entering a Chelsea restaurant the other day, Brini sported a smartly
pressed, egg-yolk yellow pleated skirt complementing a pertly turned-up
blond 'do.
If this isn't a look, or attitude, you'd find in any modern woman,
that makes sense, because Brini isn't an actual woman but a drag queen.
And every aspect of her art and style stands in chic contrast to the
current world.
"I'm looking back to another era," Brini says with a breathiness
so soothing it could make Jackie Onassis seem like a truck driver.
"I want to create an entire little universe."
She does so on "The Brini Maxwell Show," a surreal half-hour
homemaking program that has become a cult hit since it began running
earlier this year on E!'s Style Network (Friday nights at 10).
The show presents the in-drag Brini as the ultimate decorating guru
of midcentury cool. Imagine Martha Stewart as tempered by Donna Reed's
warmth, Leticia Baldrige's etiquette and Tippi Hedren's wardrobe.
On the show, and even during a two-hour interview with the Daily News,
Brini never breaks character. Unlike the grand majority of drag queens
who prize garishness and over-the-top parody, Brini plays her role
so straight she could very nearly pass as the real thing.
"Let's just say some of our viewers 'get it' and some don't,"
laughs the show's executive producer, Heather Moran. "I could
never be as feminine as Brini."
When I ask Brini about her relationship to Ben Sander (Brini's male
self), she says, "We live in the same apartment but, strangely,
we rarely see each other. We keep different hours.
"Of course, when I come home he's left the place a mess and I
have to clean up. But we all have to clean up after our men, don't
we?"
Brini follows her last line with an amused cock of the head, and some
fierce batting of the eyes, two gestures that have become trademarks
of the show.
The program works on several levels. As a lifestyle improvement program,
it's as usable and informed as any on TV today. But it also works
as laugh-out-loud comedy. One recent episode had Brini decorating
public places - including a pay toilet - to make them more personal.
In another segment, she suggested viewers always have soy milk on
hand for their guests, because "lactose intolerance has become
the new vegetarianism."
Brini's parents have always supported her aspirations. They financed
the first public-access version of the program in 1995. Her mother,
a former actress, even directed some episodes.
The sub-budget version of the show lasted nearly five years, until
one day an independent producer happened upon it and helped Brini
put together a formal pilot. The Style Network snapped it up and began
running it Jan. 23.
Brini is currently pursuing advice books and product lines. "I
think we stand a good chance of making a little cottage industry,"
she beams.
One wonders if a drag queen could actually end up as America's next
domestic goddess.
It's not a question you can politely ask Brini, because it's against
her religion to betray her true self. But she isn't averse to some
winks in the direction of truth.
"I do have a big secret," Brini allows. "I am not a
real blond."
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