I'll Cry Tomorrow... Born On This Day- June 30th... Edythe Marrenner

"When you`re dead, you`re dead. No one is going to remember me when I`m dead. Oh, maybe a few friends will remember me affectionately. Being remembered is not the most important thing anyhow. It`s what you do when you are here that`s important."


I was late in coming to appreciate Susan Hayward. When I was younger I was not attracted to the turgid, soapy films that seemed to be her specialty. He movies blended into one big melodrama about a pill popping alcoholic on death row who sings an overwrought song before she dies. After revisiting Valley Of The Dolls in my 40s, I came to appreciate her stunning beauty &, her style, & her portrayals of strong determined women.

She worked as a photographer’s model in NYC before traveling to Hollywood in 1937 to audition for David Selznick for the role of Scarlett O’Hara in Gone With the Wind. She was not even seriously considered, but Hayward managed to secure a contract & was given her new name by her 1st manager.

Hayward's first film appearance was as a ‘starlet at table’, in Hollywood Hotel. Hayward played many early minor roles, she later said that she “paid her dues” as a newcomer. The determined Hayward was finally had a more substantial role in Beau Geste (1939) opposite Gary Cooper.

She made a strong impression opposite John Wayne in Reap the Wild Wind (1942) & played opposite him again in The Fighting Seabees (1949). Hayward’s roles & films improved, & her popularity with the audiences increased.

Haywards performance in Smash-up: the Story of a Woman (1947) was an introduction to the type of strong willed woman she would play many times. Her portrayal of an alcoholic club singer earned Hayward an Academy Award nomination. Susan received another Oscar nomination for her work in My Foolish Heart (1950). In 1951, she starred opposite Gregory Peck in the lavish biblical epic David & Bathsheba. Her 3rd Academy Award nomination came for her role in With a Song in My Heart (1952), based upon the real life story of singer Jane Froman who persevered after being seriously injured in a plane crash. Hayward gave another outstanding performance in the bio-pic of Lillian Roth- I’ll Cry Tomorrow (1955). Miss Roth, was a singing star of the 1920s & 1930s, who survived to write about her life as an alcoholic. Nominated again for the Oscar, Susan did not win that year.

Susan Hayward finally won her Oscar, & the NY Film Critics Award, & the Golden Globe for I Want To Live!. the fictionalized story of Barbara Graham, an innocent woman sentenced to die. Oddly enough, I Want To Live, I'll Cry Tomorrow, & Smash-Up are titles of chapters in my own memoir- Jockstraps & Vicodin: The Early Years. Perhaps Miss Hayward was a big influence on my early life after all.


In 1972 she was diagnosed with inoperable brain cancer. Speculation continues to this day about the possible cause. In 1956 she worked on the film The Conquerors which was filmed in the Utah desert. The location was 137 miles from a nuclear testing site that was fully in use at that time. Crew & cast of that movie included John Wayne, Agnes Moorehead, Dick Powell, John Hoyt, & Pedro Armendáriz. Of the 144 people involved in making this film, 91 developed cancer & 46 had died of cancer by 1972.

Susan Hayward appeared in more than 60 films, & many TV programs. She died too young at age 57 in 1975. Intensely private, she was perceived as cold, icy, aloof, & not one for small talk or interviews, but she was known as an intelligent conversationalist among her friends. She did not like socializing with crowds. She disliked homosexuals & effeminate men. Hayward & I have that in common... just kidding. I love a super butch guy, but I am a sucker for a sissy. She turned down a role because George Cukor was the director. Susan was a John Wayne sort of girl. Ironic then, that she should become a camp icon for her emotional, hyper, overstrung work... especially as Helen Lawson in the gay fave- Valley Of The Dolls. Most directors enjoyed Susan’s professionalism & her high standards. She was considered easy to work with, but she was not chummy after the cameras stopped. I find her to be one of the most beautiful actresses of her time. Susan Hayward was greatly admired for her strong individualism. You have to admire that.

Born On This Day- June 30th... Gay Icon, Lena Mary Calhoun Horne

"It's not the load that breaks you down, it's the way you carry it."

She was my father's favorite movie star & he has a story of filling her automobile's gas tank at the gas station he worked at on La Cienega Boulevard in 1944. Lena Horne had a primary occupation of nightclub entertaining, a profession she pursued successfully around the world for more than 60 years, from the 1930s to the 1990s. Besides her club work, she also maintained a recording career that stretched from 1936 to 2000 & brought her 3 Grammys, including a Lifetime Achievement Award in 1989. She appeared in 16 feature films & several shorts between 1938 & 1978. She performed occasionally on Broadway, including in her own Tony winning show- Lena Horne: The Lady and Her Music in 1981/1982; & she sang & acted on radio & TV.

Adding to the challenge of maintaining such a career was her position as an African-American facing discrimination personally & in her profession during a period of enormous social change in the U.S. Her first job in the 1930s was at the Cotton Club, where blacks could perform, but not be admitted as customers.

By 1969, when Horne acted in the film Death of a Gunfighter, her character's marriage to a white man went unremarked in the script. Horne herself was a pivotal figure in the changing attitudes about race in the 20th century; her middle-class upbringing & musical training lent he talent to the popular music of the day, rather than the blues & jazz more commonly associated with people of color. Lena's photogenic beauty was close enough to Caucasian that frequently she was encouraged to try to "pass" for white, something she consistently refused to do. But her position in the middle of a social struggle enabled her to become a leader in that struggle, speaking out in favor of racial integration & raising money for civil rights causes. By the end of the century, Horne could look back at a life that was never short on conflict, but that could be seen ultimately as a triumph.

Horne was closely associated with the songs of her friend-the openly gay Billy Strayhorn.

She left this world 10 years after the start of the new century, with a legacy of the music & images of her stunning beauty.

On This Day In Gay History- June 30th... Bowers VS Hardwick

"Bowers was not correct when it was decided, & it is not correct today. It ought not to remain binding precedent. Bowers v. Hardwick should be & now is overruled."
Justice Kennedy in Lawrence v. Texas

What a week with several important decisions handed down by SCOTUS. One of the most significant of of all legal decisions having to do with gay rights is the infamous Bowers v. Hardwick & it happened on this day, 26 years ago.

Michael Hardwick was a bartender in a gay bar in Atlanta, Georgia who was targeted by a police officer for harassment. In 1982, an unknowing house guest let the officer let into Hardwick’s home. The officer went to the bedroom where Hardwick was engaged in oral sex with his partner. The men were arrested on the charge of sodomy. Charges were later dropped, but Hardwick brought the case forward with the purpose of having the sodomy law declared unconstitutional.

Bowers VS Hardwick was a response to a particularly insulting police action & repeal advocates had hoped that the case would put an end to sodomy laws in the United States when it reached the Supreme Court. Unfortunately, the 5-4 decision found that nothing in the Constitution "would extend a fundamental right to homosexuals to engage in acts of consensual sodomy."

Justice Lewis Powell was the swing vote in the decision, switching from supporting invalidating all sodomy laws to denying homosexuals any right of privacy. In October of 1990, 3 years after his retirement, Powell told a group of New York University Law students, "I think I probably made a mistake in that one." He told the National Law Journal, "That case was not a major case, & one of the reasons I voted the way I did was the case was a frivolous case" brought "just to see what the court would do" on the subject. A more callous opinion is hard to imagine.

The case was overturned 17 years later by Lawrence & Garner v. State of Texas.

On This Day In Gay History- June 28th... The Stonewall Riots

"Before Stonewall, you took your life into your hands when you tried to be openly gay. Whenever we celebrate pride, a component of that pride should be that we are proud of our history & struggle & that we fought back against oppression & managed to have lives under that difficulty."

Martin Duberman, author of Stonewall

In the early morning hours of June 28, 1969, a group of Hispanics, hippies, drag queens, & queers got fed up with being harassed by the police because they were gay. It’s hard to imagine police handcuffing, harassing, & arresting gay people for simply gathering in public, but that’s what happened, routinely, before Stonewall’s spontaneous uprising of gay men & lesbians in New York’s Greenwich Village. What happened then galvanized the gay rights movement? For younger people, who have grown up in a world with increasing legal protections for the lesbian, gay, bisexual, & transgender community, it’s hard to imagine that just 4 decades ago, gay people’s jobs, families, & homes were threatened, & their lives restricted or ruined if they were out of closet.

While not the first rebellion, the Stonewall riots are the most famous instance of homosexuals fighting back against government persecution. From all accounts, the riots were not pretty or organize. Stonewall was 6 nights of street riots with some of the least empowered elements of society: the closeted, fearful, & disenfranchised, fighting the police batons & pepper spray with what they had, mostly fists, signs, garbage cans, bottles, & shoes. For gay Boomers, the uprising is a defining moment to celebrate as we look back at how far we have come in four short decades & look ahead to the future. In 1969, the patrons of the Stonewall Inn who refused to be intimidated by police oppression had no idea they were about to change history. They just wanted equality. In the 1950s, Rosa Parks had no idea she was about to change history when she refused to move to the back of the bus, either. As she famously recounted: "The reason that I did not move from my seat was that my feet were tired."  Those queers at the Stonewall Inn were tired too. From such humble origins, movements ignite.

NY TIMES, June 29th, 1969

It was just 50 years ago, homosexuals were classified as subversives by the US Department of State; we were officially recognized as security risks to the country. The FBI kept lists of known homosexuals, as did the US Postal Service. The names of people arrested for public indecency & lewd behavior (men holding hands, women wearing suits) were published regularly in newspapers. Being queer was officially recognized as a psychopathic condition, & was a valid reason to be fired from your job. Gay men & women forced out of the government positions by the 1000s each year. If gay people regularly congregated together, the police department’s “Public Morals Squad” would be called in to intervene. Police brutality was commonplace. Hope for the future was pretty bleak; there were no substantial gay rights organizations. The only real community gay people had was in underground establishments, often maintained with help from the Mafia, or by bribing the police.

I wonder what we’ll imagine next for the older LGBT community? I wonder if those on the front lines of gay "out" aging will keep walking that line between activism & diplomacy. If the first 40+ years of our civil rights movement are any indication, will the next 40 take us into a future of greater equality, with more allies? Will the Stonewall legacy of fighting for being out & for equality motivate us to pave new trails for gays & lesbians at age 50+? Will DOMA be struck down? I think we owe that not only to ourselves & to the generations, but also to those who stood up for us at Stonewall.

For over a decade I needed to explain Stonewall to a group of 6 young people that I supervised, many of the group were gay, but even the straight kids went drinking & dancing at Portland's gay clubs. None of them had heard of Stonewall. I had to explain it to them, & they got quite an earful. I continue to reflect on all the things many "baby queers" just don't know about or care about:

Harvey Milk?

Judy Garland?

Camp?

Musical Theatre?

People could be arrested for dancing with someone of the same sex ?

Gay bars were once hidden & "coded"?

George Cukor?

Cole Porter?

Leonard Bernstein?

Tennessee Williams?

Truman Capote?

Montgomery Clift?

James Dean?

Dag Hammerskjold?

Rudolf Nureyev

Ralph Waldo Emerson?

Walt Whitman?

Rock Hudson?

Tales Of The City?

Frida Kahlo?

Priscilla, Queen Of The Desert?

Billie Jean King?

Elton John?

George Michael?

Martina Navratilova?

Billie Jean King?

Greg Louganis?

Neil Patrick Harris?

A world with no Internet Hook-up sites?

A world with no GRNDR?

A world before HIV?

Post Apocalyptic Bohemia remembers our history & as long as this blog continues, I will attempt to get down that history & those individuals that played a part, in hopes that somebody cares.

My Nora Ephron Connection

On a Seattle summer day in 1992, I lived through my 4th callback for the role of Jay in the film- Sleepless In Seattle. I began to have that feeling, the feeling that I always fought against myself in my acting days; I wanted the part. I really wanted the part, I could taste it. After the 3rd callback I was dizzy with the possibility. Jay was a small, but showy role & very funny. I had been able to keep Writer/Director Nora Ephron, the casting director & assorted producer s laughing with each read & Ephron had been encouraging & kind.

Leaving that callback, I found myself passing Rob Reiner in a hallway & after I tossed an “I love your work” to Reiner, I thought to myself: “I really admire Rob Reiner. I wonder what his connection is with Sleepless? Hmmm… he would be so cool to chat with. Maybe he will notice me as Jay & use me in something!”

My agent- Carol, called me later that day with the news that Rob Reiner was going to be playing Jay in the film.

I didn’t much like Sleepless In Seattle years later, viewed on VHS, on a boat floating on Lake Union not far from the films' location. Not being charmed by the film had little to do with my not being cast (how was I supposed to compete against Rob Reiner?), but I found it treacly & I felt that the filmmakers got Seattle all wrong. Maybe I need to watch it again.

Things I Will Miss: Nora Ephron

My opinion has proved unpopular during many conversations through the decades, but Nora Ephron is responsible for what are for me a few of the most very twee & disagreeable films of the end of the 20^th century: When Harry Met Sally, Sleepless In Seattle, & You’ve Got Mail. This may make me seem as if I am not a fan when, in fact, I am a big fan. Even those films that irk me so much are smart films in an age of dumb films.

Ephron also was responsible for screenplays for favorite films- Silkwood, Heartburn & Julie & Julia (which she also directed), but I remain an avid admirer of her essays, often published first in the New Yorker, Esquire, New York, & NY Times magazines & gathered in her collections: Crazy Salad, Wallflower at the Orgy, Scribble Scrabble, I Remember Nothing: & Other Reflections, & I Feel Bad About My Neck: & Other Thoughts On Being A Woman.

She was my generation’s Dorothy Parker & as I consider her writing today, & look for quotes, I note that that her words are musical, like tap dancing prose.

I always enjoyed Ephron’s appearances on TV talk shows & interviews in magazines. I find it hard to resist a really smart, very funny woman.

Thinking about her today, upon learning of her passing & because I am zany for lists, I was drawn to these 2 lists from her last book:

What I Won't Miss:

Dry skin

Bad dinners like the one we went to last night

E-mail

Technology in general

My closet

Washing my hair

Bras

Funerals

Illness everywhere

Polls that show that 42 percent of the American people believe in creationism

Polls

Fox TV

The collapse of the dollar

Bar mitzvahs

Mammograms

Dead flowers

The sound of the vacuum cleaner

Bills

E-mail. I know I already said it, but I want to emphasize it.

Small print

Panels on Women in Film

Taking off makeup every night

WHAT I WILL MISS:

My kids

Nick

Spring

Fall

Waffles

The concept of waffles

Bacon

A walk in the park

The idea of a walk in the park

The park

Shakespeare in the Park

The bed

Reading in bed

Fireworks

Laughs

The view out the window

Twinkle lights

Butter

Dinner at home just the two of us

Dinner with friends

Dinner with friends in cities where none of us lives

Paris

Next year in Istanbul

Pride & Prejudice

The Christmas tree

Thanksgiving dinner

One for the table

The dogwood

Taking a bath

Coming over the bridge to Manhattan

Pie

On This Day In Gay History- June 26th... Lawrence VS Texas

One of the most important & pivotal moments in gay history, in 1998, John Lawrence & Tyron Garner were arrested in Lawrence’s Houston home & jailed overnight after officers responding to a false report found the men having sex. The 2 men were convicted of violating Texas’s “Homosexual Conduct” law, which made it a crime for 2 people of the same sex to have oral or anal sex, even though those sex acts were legal in Texas for people to engage in with persons of a different sex. Lambda Legal quickly responded to represent Lawrence & Garner. Battling for years in the Texas courts, they sought to overturn the criminal convictions (which made the 2 men registrable “sex offenders” in several states) & to have Texas’s law declared unconstitutional. When the highest court in Texas eventually refused to even hear the arguments, the U.S. Supreme Court to took the case On this day in 2003, in a stunning victory, the highest court in the land found the “Homosexual Conduct” law unconstitutional & established, for the 1st time ever, that lesbians & gay men share the same fundamental liberty right to private sexual intimacy with another adult that heterosexuals have.


The mere existence of sodomy laws often had been used to justify wholesale discrimination against Gay people. In striking down those laws, this historic ruling removed a major roadblock in the battle for Gay Rights. No longer can gay people be considered “criminals” because they love others of the same sex. Moreover, laws that deny gay people liberty or equal protection no longer can be justified on moral grounds alone. This distinction can not be overstated when arguing with the haters.


The breadth of this landmark case is extraordinary. The Supreme Court declared all sodomy laws unconstitutional, putting an end to the sodomy laws that remained on the books in 13 states at the time of the ruling, including laws that criminalized only same-sexual conduct & laws that criminalized oral & anal sex irrespective of the sex of the participants. The Court also reversed Bowers v. Hardwick, its 1986 decision that upheld Georgia’s sodomy law that had been extraordinarily harmful to gay people’s struggles both for liberty & equality. The decision’s sweeping language about gay people’s equal rights to liberty marked a new era of legal respect for the LGBT community. Lawrence v. Texas is considered the most significant gay rights breakthrough of our time.


I think I may have to celebrate this historic anniversary with some hot & very legal man sex.

On This Day In Gay History... Rest In Peace, Gad Beck

Gad Beck was a pioneering gay activist & educator in a severely anti-homosexual, repressive post-WW2 German society.

The diminutive Beck was famous for his witty, lively style of speaking. On a German talk show, he said, “The Americans in NYC called me a great hero. I said no... I’m really a little hero.”

Beck's wartime effort to rescue his boyfriend is film worthy. Beck donned a Hitler Youth uniform & entered a deportation center to free his Jewish teenage lover- Manfred Lewin. 17 year old Beck succeeded in freeing Lewin, from the holding camp in Berlin. But Lewin decided he couldn't abandon his family, & voluntarily went back. The Nazis would later deport the entire Lewin family to Auschwitz, where they were murdered.

As a “half-breed” by Nazi-standards Gad Beck was interned at Rosenstrabe-camp in Berlin in 1943, but set free again after unique street-protests by non-Jewish relatives & friends. Soon after, he joined the “Chug Chaluzi”, an underground Zionist youth group. When he learned of the mass exterminations at Auschwitz-Birkenau, he began helping many people hide &/or escape to Switzerland. He became responsible for vast sums of money necessary for bribes & payola. His life sounds like a spy film with many incidents of cat & mouse & undercover dealings in order to save those under threat of death by the Nazis. He was constantly on the move, continuing his sex life where & when he could. As the leader of this illegal group, Gad Beck helped to organize the survival of many Jews in Berlin during the last two years of WW 2. He was 18 years old at the time.

Beck was born to a Jewish father & a Protestant mother who converted. With his twin sister- Margot, Beck spent his formative years with his family in Berlin. His childhood was one of tolerance & love. With his own brand of honesty & openness he told his parents that he was homosexual & they unsurprised & quite accepting of it. As a young teenager he had his first experience of anti-Semitism when his schoolmates made cruel comments to him.

After the war, Beck would move to Israel, but return to Germany in 1979, where he became active in gay & Jewish life. His fascinating story was immortalized in the film The Story of Gad Beck & the HBO documentary Paragraph 175.

Beck passed away today in a German assisted living home, just 6 days from his 89^th birthday. He is considered to be the last gay survivor of the Holocaust. He leaves behind- Julius Laufer, his partner of 35 years.

Speaking about his life as a gay Jew, Beck stated: “God doesn’t punish for a life of love.”

Strange... Don't You Think I'm Looking Older?

I should have known

It seemed too easy

You were there

& I was breathing blue

Strange

Don't you think I'm looking older?

But something good has happened to me

Change is a stranger

You have yet to know

Well you're out of time

I'm letting go

You'll be fine

Well that much I know

You're out of time

I'm letting go

I'm not the man you want

I should have known

It seemed so easy

You were there

I thought I needed you

Strange

Don't you think I'm looking older?

But something good has happened to me

Change is a stranger

Who never seems to show

Well you're out of time

I'm letting go

You'll be fine

(or maybe you won't)

You're out of time

I'm letting go

I'm not the man that you want

I never should have looked back in your direction

I know that

Just the same old fights again, baby

These are wasted days without affection

I'm not that foolish anymore

George Michael

1996

Born On This Day- June 25th... Georgios Kyriacos Panayiotou

Oh, those crazy 1980s! He won me over big with Wham! & Careless Whisper in 1984 (my favorite year of my life, so far), & I never let him go. The hits kept coming & I was right there for the next 25+ years. I am just a sucker for a hot ass in a tight pair of jeans, a leather jacket, & some stubble. Add in those phenomenal pipes & the killer hooks & it is a love affair for Stephen. The love has never wavered.

George Michael was the 1st white male to top the Black Music charts & the 1st white male to duet with Aretha Franklin with the infectious single- I Knew You Were Waiting. His breakout solo album Faith (1987) had 5 #1 hit singles & spent 51 weeks in the Billboard Top 10, including 12 weeks at #1.

Faith left Michael struggling to deal with his secret homosexuality. The feelings of loneliness, disaffection were themes in his next album- Listen Without Prejudice Vol.1. (1990) The album had a more soulful & stripped-down sound, producing 5 U.S. Top 40 hits: Waiting For That Day, Cowboys & Angels, Heal the Pain, Praying for Time & the personal confessional song Freedom! 90. It sold 7 million copies & spent 42 weeks in the Billboard Top 100 charts.

George Michael's album- Older is my personal favorite, an album that speaks to me in a deep personal way. Older was the soundtrack of my life in the late 1990s & I was moved by the title track & the mournful Like Jesus To A Child in a way the was profound & very moving. Like Jesus To A Child is a salutation to Michael’s secret partner- Brazilian fashion designer Anselmo Feleppa. Feleppa had died 3 years earlier of an AIDS-related brain hemorrhage, leaving Michael feeling alone & despondent. Michael was not openly gay & no one knew who the song was about. Older went on to sell more than 12 million copies worldwide & spent more than 96 weeks on the charts.

After grappling with the death of Feleppa, he met his future husband, American Kenny Goss. In 2005, Goss opened the Goss Gallery in Dallas, which shows contemporary art, including those collected by the couple. They had homes in London & Dallas. While the joy of his new relationship started to ease his pain, he soon lost his mother to skin cancer, a loss that tormented George for several years. He did not write or record during that period, except Songs From The Last Century, an album of standards & covers in 2000. On the opening night of his world tour in 2011, Michael announced that he & Goss had split 2 years earlier.

In 1998, Michael was arrested in Beverly Hills on a charge of lewd conduct in a park bathroom. Who of us has not? The arrest made worldwide headlines & led him to come out of the closet. He poked fun at the arrest in the hit single- Outside.

In 2004 Michael released Patience, which sold more than 200,000 copies in the first week. It spun several Top 10 hits including Freeek!, Amazing & Flawless (Go to the City), all dedicated to Kenny Goss. In 2006, George Michael announced his 1st tour in 15 years. The 25 Live Tour was a massive & worldwide, & spanned 3 individual tours over the course of 3 years.

I was in a panic when he almost died. Michael was admitted to hospital in Vienna, in November 2011, after complaining of chest pains at a hotel while on tour. Michael later confirmed that he had suffered from pneumonia & was in an intensive-care unit for more than a month. Michael's current partner, celebrity hairstylist Fadi Fawaz, was at his side. Michael made a public speech in London about how the staff at the Vienna General Hospital had saved his life & how he was so grateful that he was going to perform a concert for the staff. While making the speech, he became emotional & became breathless & he mentioned he had undergone a tracheotomy.

With Fawaz this spring

I am rathered pleased that he lived. 30 years after the first Wham! Single- Wham Rap, written with Andrew Ridgeley entered the British charts, Michael released his most recent song- White Light to celebrate & commemorate those 30 years on the exact anniversary of that chart date.

Born On This Day- June 25th... John Benjamin Hickey

Love him! John Benjamin Hickey has starred in some of the most beloved plays of the last decade & a half, beginning with a play I am crazy for, Terrence McNally's Love! Valour! Compassion!  & Broadway revivals of Cabaret, The Crucible, & The Normal Heart, where his performance as Felix Turner earned him the 2011 Tony Award for Best Featured Actor in a Play.  In accepting his Tony Award, after listing a large number of people in his life, & after glancing at his notes, Hickey stated: “thank you to my wise, my wonderful, my exceedingly patient Jeffrey Richmond, my partner.”  Richmond is a writer on Modern Family.

Currently, Hickey plays Sean, the homeless brother of the main character, on the Showtime series, The Big C, which I am going to watch starting with episode #1 this summer. Why have I passed on this show when I just love Laura Linney & Hickey.

On film, he repeated his Broadway role in Love! Valour! Compassion! , a film I love. Hickey played gay American novelist & playwright Jack Dunphy in the 2006 Truman Capote biopic- Infamous, along with supporting roles in other films, including Post Apocalyptic favorites-The Ref & The Ice Storm, The Taking Of Pelham 123, Transformers 2, Flags Of Our Fathers & The Anniversary Party.  On TV Hickey played Philip Stoddard on ABC's short-lived gay-themed sitcom It's All Relative. Other TV appearances:  Alias, Law & Order, Brothers & Sisters, Stacked, Undercover History, Heartland, In Plain Sight, Law & Order: LA. He was terrific in Life with Judy Garland: Me & My Shadows.

I appreciate creative, interesting, engaging character actors that continue to work in all media.

Hickey lives with Richmond in NYC & LA. He turns 49 years old today.

On This Day In Gay History- June 25th... The Rainbow Flag Flies For The First Time

In Victorian England the color green was associated with homosexuality, as was lavender in the USA. The pink triangle was first used by Hitler’s Nazi Party to identify gay males & black triangle was similarly used to identify lesbians & others deemed “asocial”. The pink & black triangle symbols were reclaimed by the Gay communities in the early 1980s to signify our strength of spirit & willingness to survive oppression. As we slowly started gaining our rights, the symbols of oppression are gradually being replaced by the symbols of celebration. The most colorful of Gay symbols is the Rainbow flag, and its rainbow of colors - red, orange, yellow, green, blue, & purple, which represent the diversity of our communities.

The first rainbow flag was designed in 1978 by Gilbert Baker, a San Francisco artist, in response to calls by activists for a symbol for the community. Baker designed a flag with 8 stripes: pink, red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet. These colors were intended to represent respectively: sexuality, life, healing, sun, nature, art, harmony, & spirit. Baker dyed & sewed the material for the first flag himself, in a nod Betsy Ross.

When Baker approached a company to mass-produce the flags, he found out that “hot pink” was not commercially available. The flag was then reduced to 7 stripes.

Wanting to demonstrate the gay community’s strength & solidarity after the assassination of Harvey Milk & George Moscone, the Pride Committee decided to use Baker’s flag. The indigo stripe was eliminated so that the colors could be divided evenly along the parade route, 3 colors on one side & 3 on the other. Soon the 6 colors were incorporated into a 6-striped version that we use today.

In 1994 Baker moved to NYC & continued his creative work & activism. That year he created the world's largest flag in celebration of the 25th anniversary of the Stonewall Riots.

In 2003, to commemorate the Rainbow Flag’s 25th anniversary, Baker created a Rainbow Flag that stretched from the Gulf of Mexico to the Atlantic Ocean in Key West. After the commemoration, he sent sections of this flag to more than 100 cities around the world.

Family Therapy

This weekend, after a number of problems raised their little heads in an attempt to destroy our family, at my insistence (being the only rational one), we had a long session of Family Therapy with the renowned Dr. Shlomo Sectshual.

After indulging the good doctor in some role playing & trust exercises, we each were able to open up. The very essence of each family member can be distilled in the following:

Stephen: "I believe that it is a cosmic mistake that I do not have my own TV show, magazine, bestselling book, plus the #1 dance single in the country..."

The Husband: "I am not looking for power or money or success. I am looking for aesthetic balance."

Lulu: "I have abandonment issues..."

Junior: "I never got enough love in my childhood."

Henry: “I finally became tired of being a passed around pussy.”

Born On This Day- June 23rd... Alan Turing

I have to be honest.  Because his contribution lies outside of the arts & literature, I would not have known of his life but for the play & film in the late 1990s- Breaking The Code starring openly gay Derek Jacobi.

He saved the world from the Nazis & the importance to the modern world of the mathematical, philosophical, & cryptographic work of Alan Mathison Turing cannot be overestimated.

A gifted mathematician, Turing is remembered today as one of the founders of computer science. The Turing Machine is an abstract device that "consists" of an infinite paper tape & a reader that can move forwards & backwards altering what is on the tape. However, despite its' simplicity, it remains a model for all aspects of computing today. It may prove to be a model for all actions that can be performed by a computer, but that problem is as yet unsolved. It is amazing that he invented it before computers as we know them really existed.

However, his most significant accomplishment was the person responsible for breaking the "unbreakable" German codes during WW2. Given the limited resources the British had, the precise knowledge of German intentions allowed the British to concentrate those resources so that they could achieve superiority in battle. Turing's contribution to victory in that war ranks as high as that of anyone else other than Winston Churchill.

Despite the fact that he may have been the most brilliant scientist of his generation, someone whose work in deciphering the German codes during World War II played a major role in achieving Allied victory, Turing was discarded & deemed a security risk because of his homosexuality.

Turing is remembered not only for his work on computers & the cracking of the Enigma machine codes during WW II, but also because of his needless, horrific death. He committed suicide at the age of 41, 2 years after his arrest, conviction, & forced chemical castration for his homosexuality.

In about 1948 when he decided to have a more positive gay life it was just the point when there was a change from silence to active persecution of homos in Britain. After pioneering work in computers, software design, & artificial intelligence, Turing was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society at an unusually young age; in 1948 Turing's life took a turn for the worse.

Turing had moved to Manchester after accepting a position as Deputy Director of the Royal Society Computing Laboratory at the University of Manchester, where he soon became involved with a young working class man- Murray Arnold, who would later break into his home.

After reporting the burglary, Turing was arrested & prosecuted for what was then known under British law as Gross Indecency, under which Oscar Wilde had also been charged in 1895. Even through this ordeal, he remained open & unapologetic about his sexuality. Turing was offered a stark choice: go to prison or submit to the administration of the hormone oestrogen. Intended to suppress his libido, it was a kind of chemical castration.

This treatment left Turing impotent. He also developed breasts. He found his security clearances revoked & he was unable to continue his pioneering work. 2 years after his arrest, & 1 year after the barbaric 'therapy', Turing killed himself.

He left no note, & the circumstances of his death were inadequately investigated and perhaps left deliberately murky. It is believed that he committed suicide by eating an apple laced with cyanide. Turing probably drank the cyanide but left an apple by his bed. It was a grim joke against his reputation for impracticality kindly allowing those who wanted to believe that he had ingested the poison by mistake. Turing knew the apple was an icon of death in the Snow White story.

His story is tragic, but the twist to his story is part of the comedy of life which, despite everything, he did his best to enjoy.

The city of Manchester has done something to celebrate Turing's life & achievements & make amends for the cruel treatment he received.  There is now a major road called Alan Turing Way, & a statue of Turing in a park in Manchester's Gay Village.

In September 2009, following an Internet campaign, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown made an official public apology on behalf of the British government for the way in which Turing was treated after the war.

There is also a statue at the University of Surrey, close to Turing's childhood home. In June 2007 a new statue of Turing was unveiled at Bletchley Park Research Center, where he carried out his work during the war.

As I rechecked dated & facts for this post, today’s Google Doodle is a tribute to Turing on his 100^th birthday. I doubt that is a coincidence that Steve Jobs named his company- Apple.

How Can You Explain It?

In 1988, I was flown to from Seattle to Portland to appear in a little film- Drugstore Cowboy, directed by Gus Van Sant. My 2 scenes were filmed at a motel near Hayden Meadows Racetrack in the Delta Park area of Portland.

I didn't know my way around Portland in 1998 & didn't really pay attention to the trip in the van that drove Matt Dillon & me to the location from the hotel.

Because life can be just so zany... in 2001, I settled down in Post Apocalyptic Bohemia, my little blue-collar Portland bungalow, in walking distance of the film shoot location- the Union Ave Motel, now torn down. If Matt Dillon had been portentous in Portland in autumn of 1998, he might have turned to me & stated: "Dude... in the next century you are gonna live your last days around here!"

A Pair Of Gay Birthdays On June 22nd

"Style is primarily a matter of instinct.”

William Ralph Blass was a very handsome man, who happened to be gay. He produced clothes for many renowned women including Jacqueline Kennedy, Nancy Reagan, Barbara Bush, Pat Buckley, Brooke Astor, Nancy Kissinger, Happy Rockefeller, Gloria Vanderbilt, Jessye Norman, Barbra Streisand, & Barbara Walters.

Bill Blass's life epitomised the Gatsby-esque American dream. Along with Oscar de la Renta, Blass was the American designer who most successfully brought together the roles of couturier & social butterfly.

At one point in my life I thought that escorting society dames to parties, lunches & events might just be the ticket for me. I had my eye on Diana Vreeland in the mid-1970s. Blass was one of the most successful 'walkers' ever. He was an indefatigable partygoer, showing up with some of the richest women in Manhattan at every party, gallery opening & hip restaurant. He not only loved the world of glamour, big money, high profile & style, but understood how to dress it, which is why his company was so successful for more than 30 years.

He was one of the founder members of the Council of Fashion Designers of America (CFDA). He was the first to receive the CFDA Perignon Award for Humanitarian leadership beyond fashion. He donated the $25,000 prize to the AIDS care centre of New York Hospital. He was also a major donor to Gay Men's Health Crisis at a time when well known people were silent about AIDS. Bill Blass died of cancer aged 79.

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Pears on the left & Britten on the right.

For 40 years, Peter Pears was the lover/partner of composer Benjamin Britten, who wrote the leading roles in many of his operas & song for Pears.Their partnership is important for the vast body of music & recordings it produced, & because many homosexual subjects figured in their work. Because Opera is just not gay enough.

Pears became a leading lyric tenor of the Sadler's Wells Opera, where he developed an extensive repertoire, but Pears's greatest triumph in this company, was his creation of the title role of the tortured & homosexual outcast in Britten's Peter Grimes (1945).

For the next 30+ years, Pears created many operatic roles that Britten wrote for him, including the title role in Albert Herring (1947), Captain Vere in Billy Budd (1951), Essex in Gloriana (1953), Peter Quint in The Turn of the Screw (1954), Flute in A Midsummer Night's Dream (1960), the Madwoman in Curlew River (1964), Nebuchadnezzar in The Burning Fiery Furnace (1966), the Tempter in The Prodigal Son (1968), Sir Philip Wingrave in Owen Wingrave (1971), & Aschenbach in Death in Venice (1973).

In 1974, Pears made, at last, his debut at the Metropolitan Opera Company in NYC, in the first American performance of Death in Venice. I wonder if my friend Will, the esteemed theatre & opera designer was in the house?

Even after Britten's death in 1976, Pears continued his singing career until nearly the age of 70. He spent the remainder of his life teaching & administering the Britten-Pears School. Pears was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in 1977, & died on April 3, 1986. He is buried next to Britten.