Murray Hill’s Showbiz Dream

The almost famous drag king comedian Murray Hill struts through Melvyn’s Restaurant & Lounge, an old school steakhouse in Palm Springs, Calif.

Melvyn’s is Mr. Hill’s kind of place. It has steak Diane on the menu, black-and-white head shots of celebrities on the walls and the aroma of crêpes suzette flambéing in the air. And Palm Springs is Mr. Hill’s kind of town — faded midcentury Hollywood glamour, with a modern dash of queer culture.

Moving past diners wearing pastel polo shirts and golf shorts, Mr. Hill cuts a distinctive figure in his three-piece baby blue seersucker suit and white loafers. His pencil-thin mustache, tinted glasses and shiny rings complete a look that brings to mind a 1970s Las Vegas lounge singer crossed with a 1950s Borscht Belt comedian.

He is a somebody, clearly. But who?

He sits down, studies the menu. His glance falls on the section for steak toppings, which are listed under the heading “Enhancements.”

“‘Enhancements’?” he cries, loudly enough for almost everyone in the place to hear. “I already got them. They’re back at the house. They’re on the drying rack!”

Mr. Hill, 52, speaks with the hint of a Brooklyn wiseguy accent and punctuates anything remotely to do with the entertainment industry — the rungs of which he has been tirelessly climbing for some 30 years — with a cry of “Showbiz!”