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Wave Country with Dawn Gee
Louisville Independent Business Alliance members have been keeping louisville weird since 2018. Once a month the folks from LIBA visit Dawn Gee to talk about their businesses and what they offer to the Louisville area. This episode, Louisville Telegrams was represented by Marilyn Monroe.
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Denise Mattingly Performing in Character
Written by Matthew Glowicki
Photos by Scott Utterback
As a singing telegram, Denise Mattingly has immersed herself in characters for years. She happily refers to herself as a jester — and considers it the greatest job in all the land. "I don’t really know anything else besides show business and I am fearless." she said. Since twirling baton as a child, her mother hauling her to seemingly every parade, Mattingly has always worked to entertain. With a background in beauty pageants, fashion shows, model/talent agencies, and the music business, she fell into the world of singing telegrams years ago. Through her business Louisville Telegrams, Mattingly travels near and far as several characters to create one-of-a-kind moments with the bygone art form. She's popped the question twice (both yeses), and performed at a wake in Cincinnati for a fellow singing telegram. There have been countless birthdays, from a 1-year-old to a 100-year-old, promposals and Lucky the Leprechaun wishes many retirees good luck.
Around this time of year, one of her more popular characters, Cupid, is called upon to serenade sweethearts or be silly. She adheres big lashes, paints rosy cheeks and dons white wings and frilly-bottomed bloomers. Beige flats give the illusion of Cupid’s signature barefoot look. Cupid is one of her favorites. Then again, so is each one in her menagerie of characters. “I love them all for their own reasons, and they all have their own personalities," she told the Courier Journal.
Crafting her telegram characters
Stepping into character starts long before Mattingly sits down at her vanity. It first starts with a person reaching out because they want to make a special moment all the more memorable for a loved one. Mattingly plays "detective" with the caller to gather all the details she'll need to personalize her act. She dives into the person’s history, their likes and dislikes, nicknames and memorable stories. For Kentucky gigs, she’s always sure to ask, "Cards or Cats?” She picks out song snippets to fit the occasion and starts weaving together jokes and moments when she'll hand out small, personalized gifts and trinkets.
For the five -to seven-minute telegram, Mattingly charts a beginning, middle, and end, building to a big last laugh that really hits or to a poignant moment for an emotional telegram. "When I pick those songs, make those gifts and put that show together, I'm totally dedicated to what I'm doing," she said. "I can just feel what I’m supposed to emote, what the message is." On the day of the gig, Mattingly takes to her vanity to start the physical transformation, a process that can take hours. She's thinking about the client as she layers on her costume, makeup, and wig. As she's driving to the booking, she's running lines over and over and doing vocal and mouth warmups.
"By the time I get to the gig, I'm already that person," she said.
Saying 'yes' to (Marilyn's) dress
"I was minding my own business," Mattingly said of her singing telegram origins.
She owned a modeling and talent agency at the time, and when a model canceled at the last minute, she decided she’d step into Marilyn Monroe's shoes. "I did it, and even though I sucked really bad, everyone else seemed to like it," she said, noting she's not a trained singer. " I thought, ' I can do this. I like this.' So I started doing Marilyn." From throwing on a budget wig and rented dress in a hurry all those years ago, Mattingly has refined the look, finding ways to add depth to her embodiment of the Hollywood icon. She now has 2 custom made white halter dresses and 1 custom fuchsia gown. She has 2 hand plucked lace front platinum wigs. She has a drawer dedicated to Marilyn. Tucked inside are the same brands of makeup the star used, specific eyelashes and even a particular perfume.
It's the small details that can have the biggest impact. While her performance lasts only moments, she knows her dedication will dazzle the recipient and leave a memory that lasts forever. "I am 100% committed," she said. "I’m all in. It does make a difference. Maybe they don’t know it, but they know it."
Denise Mattingly, bringing smiles to others
The Courier-Journal: Snapshots of People at Work
Photos/written by Kylene White
With more than 15 costumes, singing telegram jester Denise Mattingly appears at celebrations, corporate events and “everything in between,”
Talent: “I’ve always worked in some type of show business. I’ve been talent, bought talent, managed talent and have been a talent agent. I officially opened for business as a modeling agency and school. I had an actress that I booked as Marilyn Monroe, she flaked out on me and I had to do the gig myself. I never looked back!”
A messenger: “While I’m a LLC, I’m really just a chick in the basement. Most people book me directly but sometimes I’m booked through an agent or party planner. I have no shame and will do anything to get the laugh. I write the jokes, learn the songs, design the looks, I want that payoff. I’m not that great a singer but I’m a fantastic messenger!”
The work: “Some events are planned weeks in advance, other people call just a few days before they want a singing telegram. A telegram may only last five minutes but hours go into making it happen. I’m provided with facts (quirks, inside jokes, nicknames) on the lucky person, then take that info and put together a personalized show. Song snippets, gifts and jokes all come from info provided to me. Getting to the right person can be a challenge: finding the location, the lucky person, whom I have never met before, and bust out a show. My roles: “Once I dressed up as an escaped criminal. The telegram was for a police detective. His fellow officers put me in handcuffs and had me in an interrogation room! I really worked on that telegram; the detective thought I was real! Also, I once performed at an amical divorce meeting dressed up as a fat lady and sang, because, well, it was over. As odd as that may seem, they loved it! I have done birthdays, retirements , promotions, promposals proposals, weddings, etc. I once did a wake in Cincinnati. The woman had been a fellow singing telegram performer. It was quite an honor. I can take you from birth until death. You name it, I can do it! With in reason of course”
Easter: “Soon I will be the Easter Bunny. I’ve played this role for several years at country clubs. It’s so awesome because I’m watching the children grow up. I feel like I know them. I love those children; I rarely have criers. I guess they feel my safe vibe”
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Louisville-Magazine-Denise-Mattingly-1.pdf
Written by Dylan Jones
Photos by Aaron Kingsbury
Today Denise Mattingly is someone easy to be, or at least easy to look like, so she gets up only a few hours early, at 4:30 a.m. She draws her shiny brown hair into pigtails on either side of her head. She applies rosy circles to her cheeks, cartoonish and silly. A black skirt with pink trim, pink hair extensions, a “university” shirt, a class ring on a necklace like a pendant. Today Denise is a cheerleader. So much easier than when she’s a Vegas showgirl, all sequins and feathers. Nowhere near the prep time it takes to pull off Marilyn Monroe.
Mattingly, the one-woman cast of characters who operates Louisville Telegrams full-time, drives down the Watterson Expressway beneath a peaches-and-cream sky, warming up by singing Madonna at the top of her lungs. “I love Madonna,” she says between perfectly tuned verses. “I even have the sex book.”
When Mattingly ran a modeling agency way back when, an actor she’d scheduled to play Monroe flaked, leaving nobody but Mattingly to don the white gown. She’s been doing telegrams ever since.
For today’s clients, she has a bag of personalized goodies — stickers, road-trip games like Mad Libs, a two-liter of Dr. Pepper she knows they’ll like. Both sets of the young couple’s parents have conspired to wake up their kids via singing telegram and get them ready to visit. Mattingly knows the boy’s a gamer, girl’s a superhero fan, and she’s been up late the past couple of nights writing, fine-tuning and practicing a routine. “I pretend I’m a writer for SNL,” she says.
She swings through Panera to grab hot coffee for the unaware couple. Back on the road, she starts the next part of her warm-up ritual: rapping “White America” by Eminem, glittery lip gloss sparkling as she spits:
“And now they’re saying I’m in trouble with the government — I’m lovin’ it!”
Mattingly sticks a tablet in her cheek to keep her mouth moist, balances the coffee and goodies and a black pompom and the Dr. Pepper — “No! You can’t help me, honey; that wouldn’t be true life” — and climbs a set of wooden stairs into an apartment building.
At the top floor, she knocks on the door. No answer. Knocks. Crickets sing, car engines grumble. Minutes pass, and she calls the mom to see what’s up. Maybe they’re in the shower. She clasps her hands behind her back, picks at a manicured nail. She can’t just leave. She’s already been paid $200. Still, it wouldn’t be the worst gig gone awry. Not as bad as that construction worker who was so embarrassed to see Marilyn Monroe in front of his work buddies that he jumped in his truck and drove away. Not so mortifying as arriving at a place of business to find out that it wasn’t the client’s wife who ordered him a telegram, but his mistress.
After a trip back to the car to make another call to Mom, Mattingly knocks again, louder, but still dainty. “I hate that knock, it’s so aggressive,” she says. A young man in PJs and a T-shirt opens the door, bleary-eyed. “I’m your surprise!” Mattingly tells him.
“May I come in?” “Oh my gosh,” the young woman says, still sleepy in her Superman shirt.
“Good morning to you, good morning to you,” Mattingly sings to the tune of “Happy Birthday.” She gives them a card from Mom. The woman shrieks over the set of stickers Mattingly hands her. The cheerleader makes them promise they’ll only play the road games when they’re not driving. “Go Springfield!” she yells, waving her pompom.
Back outside, she punches the air in a silent cheer and cackles down the stairs. She smiles over her shoulder, bright enough to stop ships, and says, “That was great.”
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