Don McLean was best known in the local entertainment scene under his drag name of Lori Shannon, long the star of Finocchio's. In "All in the Family," he played Beverly LaSalle, whose life was saved when an unsuspecting Bunker gave him mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. The episode marked the first time a television series had sympathetically portrayed a drag queen, as McLean proudly called himself. Beverly LaSalle made several more appearances on the show before the character was killed saving the life of Bunker's "Meathead" son-in-law. McLean, who stood 6-feet-5 in his heels and considered himself "a stand-up comic in a dress," relished startling tourists at Finocchio's with such one-liners as, "Welcome to Boys' Town - I'm Father Flanagan."
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