This is Fresh Air. I'm David B. Kooley, Professor of Television Studies at Rowan University in New Jersey, Infertary Gross.

Our guest today, Billy Porter, won an Emmy in 2019 for his starring role in the FX series Pose.

It was a drama series set in the gay and trans underground ballroom scene of the late 80s and early 90s.

The culture that inspired Madonna's hit 1990 record, Vogue.

Porter's character, known as Pre-Tel, was the ball MC and provided the commentary for ball competitions involving dancing, lip syncing and costumes.

The balls are celebratory, but as the series progressed and time elapsed, the AIDS epidemic kept getting worse and a growing number of people in the community were dying.

Billy Porter says he was adjacent to the ballroom scene and his memoir, Unprotected, now out in paperback, shows some of the parallels between his life and that of Pre-Tel.

The book also describes the obstacles he faced growing up poor in Pittsburgh, with a mother who had a degenerative neurological disorder, a stepfather who sexually abused him and schoolmates who brutally bullied him.

He found many creative ways to circumvent those obstacles and managed to get admitted to a performing arts high school, study theater at Carnegie Mellon University and get parts in Broadway shows.

In 2013, he won a Tony and a Grammy for his starring role in the musical Kinky Boots.

But roles were scarce because he was black or his voice was too high or he was too gay. He even was told he was too flamboyant to portray characters that were described as flamboyant.

Now he kind of embraces flamboyant and his famous for his red carpet appearances in clothes that are elegant and outrageous at the same time.

Terry Gross spoke to Billy Porter last year. Let's start with a scene from the first season of Pose. When Pre-Tel is an MC at Balls, he's colorful in his praise and his put downs.

Here he is commenting on a dance performance by Kandy, a trans woman of whom Pre-Tel has always been critical.

Pre-Tel seems to enjoy mocking her voguing and dancing. But as you'll hear, Kandy has some powerful comebacks. Kandy is played by Angelica Ross.

The category is called Loftain. It is a dance category for actual dancers who've been down this road before. You are not a dancer, you are not a vulgar and quite frankly.

I'm concerned about your health, break dancing, my birthset, silica. And you don't want to go back to that flat issue you used to have now, do you?

Why are you always reading me to riot at Pre-Tel? You go out of your way to put me down.

I don't have to put you down when you're always in the box.

You stood up there on your purse talking about, it's our time. Our time to be seen. To show the world what we got.

But in this room, you'd only want to refuse and see that I got something to contribute. I got heart. I got talent. I'm a star just like Madonna.

Okay, judges your scores. Five. Five. D.R..

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