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Lou's Legacy: A Reporter's Life at the "Washington Blade"

A Documentary World Premiere

This new documentary tells the story of a legendary "Blade" news reporter as he works on an article about the return of a drag icon to the Capital PRIDE stage

Join the Library and the Mattachine Society of Washington, D.C. for a premiere screening of Lou's Legacy: A Reporter's Life at the Washington Blade, a new documentary film from Emmy-nominated DC filmmaker Patrick Sammon, about legendary Blade reporter Lou Chibbaro Jr. and DC drag icon Donnell Robinson – also known as Ella Fitzgerald. The documentary follows Lou as he works on a story about "Ella's" triumphant return to the Capital PRIDE stage after three years away because of Covid. Donnell and Lou reflect on their careers and discuss the ongoing backlash against the LGBTQ community, including laws targeting drag performers. Check out this sneak preview of the 30-minute film before its June broadcast on WETA and MPT. After the screening, there will be a panel discussion moderated by DC journalist Rebekah Robinson.

About the Speakers

Lynne Brown is the publisher and co-owner of the Washington Blade. Founded in 1969, it’s the nation’s oldest and most acclaimed LGBTQ news publication. Brown is a co-founder and owner of Brown Naff Pitts Omnimedia, which has published the Blade since 2009. The company also owns ancillary businesses, including the Los Angeles Blade. She also is a million-dollar sales executive with a long history in niche market publications. Brown sits on the executive committee of National LGBTQ Newspaper Association and represents the two Blades in the News Is Out Collaborative.    

Her current non-profit work is focused on the Washington Blade Foundation, which is dedicated to preserving the newspaper’s archive. In partnership with the DC Public Library, digitalization of the archives has been completed and is available to the public for free. 

Lou Chibbaro Jr. has reported on the LGBTQ community in the nation’s capital for nearly 50 years. Starting at the Washington Blade as a freelance writer in 1976, Chibbaro eventually became a staff reporter and now serves as senior news reporter at the paper. He has chronicled LGBTQ related developments on a wide range of social, religious, and governmental institutions, including the White House, Congress, the U.S. Supreme Court, the military, local and national law enforcement agencies, and the Catholic Church.

In 2011, Chibbaro became the first reporter from the LGBTQ press to be inducted into the Society of Professional Journalists DC Professional Chapter's Hall of Fame, which recognizes journalists of distinction who have worked in the news business for 25 years or longer. 

Donnell Robinson – better known as “Ella Fitzgerald” to his fans – is a legend in DC’s LGBTQ community who has been entertaining audiences for nearly 50 years. Known as a class clown in his native Warrenton, Virginia, Robinson won his first drag contest in a high school talent show by playing “Geraldine” - comedian Flip Wilson’s wildly popular television character. Soon after high school, Donnell moved to the DC area and never looked back. As emcee and host for forty years of the drag extravaganzas at Ziegfeld’s Show Bar, Ella Fitzgerald became the “doyenne of Washington drag queens,” proclaimed the Washington Post. Today, Donnell is mostly retired from performing drag while continuing to work as a hairdresser and makeup artist. 

Rebekah Robinson is a board member of the DC chapter of NLGJA: The National Association of LGBTQ+ Journalists and associate producer for TransLash Media's investigative podcast The Anti-Trans Hate Machine: A Plot Against Equality. She previously worked as a reporter and producer at Coda Story, a global non-profit newsroom. A trilingual, multimedia storyteller, Robinson has an undergraduate degree from the University of Toronto and a Master’s in journalism from Columbia University.  

Patrick Sammon is the director and producer of Lou’s Legacy. He is also the co-director and co-producer, with Bennett Singer, of an Emmy-nominated documentary about the remarkable and little-known story of the LGBTQ activists who successfully battled the American Psychiatric Association to remove homosexuality from its manual of mental illnesses in 1973. Described as “fascinating” by Hollywood Reporter and “one of the best documentaries of this or any year” by the British Film Institute, CURED broadcast nationally on PBS and has attracted more than two million viewers across the globe. Previously, Sammon was the Creator and Executive Producer of CODEBREAKER, an award-winning drama-documentary about the life and legacy of gay British codebreaker Alan Turing that attracted three million viewers worldwide.  

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The Washington Blade has been Washington DC's principal lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) newspaper since its first issue in October 1969. It began as a monthly news sheet and a replacement for the Mattachine Society of Washington's newsletter of the 1950s and early 1960s. The Blade quickly grew, adding images and additional pages, and expanding its run to twice a month, and then weekly. The Blade covered current events from an LGBT perspective as well as LGBT life in DC and the social and political progress of the gay rights movement. The People's Archive at DC Public Library is the home of The Washington Blade Collection, which contains digitized editions of the historic independent newspaper from 1969 to 1989 and is presented in partnership with the Washington Blade.

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