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By Times staff and wire reports
© St. Petersburg Times, published May 17, 2000
The Lady Chablis, a drag queen whose outrageous antics lit up the pages of John Berendt's bestseller, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, and who played herself in the Clint Eastwood movie, has moved to southeast St. Petersburg. Berendt's book drew attention and flocks of tourists to Savannah, Ga., where the Lady Chablis (born Frank Knox), still performs at Club One. Her autobiography, Hiding My Candy, was published in 1996. Why the Tampa Bay area? "She just wanted to get out of the South-type stigma," her manager, Tim Abrahamsen, said Tuesday. "She doesn't like living in big cities like New York and L.A.," she has friends in the area, and Tampa International Airport makes other cities accessible.
The artist formerly known as Prince announced Tuesday that he will be, now and forever, known again as Prince. The return to the Prince name ends a seven-year battle between the performer and Warner Bros. Records, which had Prince under contract through the end of last year. Prince, charging that Warner Bros. exercised too much control over his music, switched his name to a symbol in 1993. "I will now go back to using my name instead of the symbol I adopted to free myself from all undesirable relationships," he said during a news conference.