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GAY WISDOM for Daily Living...
from White Crane a magazine exploring
Gay wisdom & culture http://www.Gaywisdom.org
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THIS DAY IN GAY HISTORY
JANUARY 23
1893 - The professional "sissy" actor FRANKLIN PANGBORN was born in Newark, New Jersey. If you don't know the name you've seen his work in old late late show movies. The character actor appeared in dozens of comedies always playing prissy, fluttery clerks, bank tellers, assistant hotel managers, and department store floorwalkers. He appeared in many Preston Sturges movies as well as the W.C. Fields films "International House," "The Bank Dick," and "Never Give a Sucker an Even Break." Pangborn was an effective foil for many major comedians, including Fields, Harold Lloyd, Olsen and Johnson, and The Ritz Brothers. He appeared regularly in comedies and musicals of the 1940s. When movie roles became scarce, he worked in television. For a time Pangborn was the announcer on Jack Paar's Tonight Show.
In his book "Screened Out: Playing Gay in Hollywood from Edison to Stonewall", the film scholar Richard Barrios wrote that some people "will praise the artistry of Pangborn as they bemoan its misuse, while others will prefer to revel in both the subversiveness of it all and the actor's skill. Still others will just shut the whole matter out and deny that there were any Gay characters in film prior to the late 1960s."
In his essay, "Laughing Hysterically: Sex, Repression, and American Film Comedy," the scholar Ed Sikov argues that Pangborn probably appeared "in more screwball comedies than any other actor -- "My Man Godfrey", "Easy Living", "Bluebeard's Eighth Wife", "A Girl, a Guy and a Gob", "The Palm Beach Story", "Vivacious Lady", "Mr. Deeds Goes to Town", "Design for Living", "Joy of Living", "Topper Takes a Trip", and "Fifth Avenue Girl" -- probably because his character (the fussy, flustered, silly, and temperamental proto-gay male) fits perfectly into screwball's world of urban extremism. A deft comedian, Pangborn elevated effeminacy into an art form. He makes himself an object of mockery in film after film, but he never gives up his dignity."
Pangborn died on July 20, 1958 after undergoing surgery. For his contributions to motion pictures, Pangborn has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 1500 Vine Street.
1898 -Tthe Russian filmmaker, director, screenwriter, editor and theoretician SERGEI EISENSTEIN was born on this date (d. 1948). Eisenstein's personal life was chaotic. He married twice in response to political pressure, but his marriages were never consummated. His unexpurgated diaries, published as Immortal Memories, are filled with accounts of his infatuations with many young men, including his assistant, Grigori Alexandrov.
Often his infatuations (as in the case of Alexandrov) were with young heterosexual men, whom he would educate and assist in their careers. His drawings, exhibited during the centenary of his birth, include many illustrations of homosexual activity.
All through his career, he betrayed his orientation. Consider the semi-nude sailors below decks in the opening scenes of The Battleship Potemkin; the high-cheeked, cute blonds in the Novgorod sequences of Alexandr Nevsky and the good looking, shirtless Mexicans in the "Maguey" sequences in Que Viva Mexico!, and it becomes obvious that he had a yen for youthful males,not to mention the outrageously gay Oprichniki banquet toward the end of Ivan the Terrible, Part II.
Here, Ivan is seen cavorting with his Stalineque iron guard. The dance of Fyodor Basmanov is key: in the scene, Fyodor he does a dance in which he frequently hides his face with a woman's mask. A bit later in the scene, the Tsar dresses his nephew, Vladimir, an effeminate young man (again, a beautiful blond), in the ruler's robes. Ivan coaxes him into entering the chapel -- and certain death from an assassin's blade. When the Oprichniki ask Ivan what they should do with the culprit, Ivan says no harm should come to him, "for he has killed the Tsar's worst enemy" (i.e. Ivan/Eisenstein's homosexuality).
Despite his difficulties with censorship and other problems, Eisenstein created a remarkable legacy. His films reveal his continued commitment to experimentation in form. Nevsky, his first sound film, contains spectacular scenes, most notably the Battle on the Ice, as well as the incomparably thrilling film score of Sergei Prokofiev.
1898 - On this date the American motion picture actor RANDOLPH SCOTT was born. Known for his roles in films as diverse as "Follow the Fleet", "The Last of the Mohicans," "High, Wide, and Handsome" and "Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm"
Although Scott achieved fame as a motion picture actor, he managed to keep a fairly low profile with his private life. Off screen he became good friends with Fred Astaire and Cary Grant. He met Grant on the set of Hot Saturday and shortly afterwards they began rooming together in a beach house in Malibu that became known as "Bachelor Hall." They would live together, on and off, for about ten years, presumably because they liked each other's company and wanted to save on living expenses (they were both considered notorious tightwads). As Scott shared "Bachelor Hall" with Cary Grant for twelve years, it was rumored that the two actors were romantically involved, and that the name "Bachelor Hall" and the reported parade of women there were invented by the studio who wanted to keep their valuable actors away from any public scandal.
In his book, "Cary Grant: Grant's Secret Sixth Marriage," Marc Eliot claims Grant had a sexual relationship with Scott after they met on the set of "Hot Saturday" (1932). In his book, "Hollywood Gays", Boze Hadleigh, author of numerous books purporting to reveal the sexual orientation of celebrities, makes various claims for Scott's homosexuality. He cites Gay director George Cukor who said about the homosexual relationship between the two: "Oh, Cary won't talk about it. At most, he'll say they did some wonderful pictures together. But Randolph will admit it – to a friend." According to William J. Mann's book, "Behind the Screen: How Gays and Lesbians Shaped Hollywood, 1910-1969," photographer Jerome Zerbe spent "three Gay months" in the movie colony taking many photographs of Grant and Scott, "attesting to their involvement in the Gay scene." In 1995, Richard Blackwell published his autobiography "From Rags to Bitches," where he declared he was lovers to both Cary Grant and Scott.
1910 - On this date the American composer SAMUEL BARBER was born. A prolific composer of music ranging from orchestral, to opera, choral, and piano music, Barber is probably best known for his "Adagio for Strings" which was an immediate success after being performed by the NBC Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Arturo Toscanini in 1938. Toscanini had very rarely performed music by American composers before. At the end of the first rehearsal of the piece, Toscanini remarked: "Semplice e bella" ("simple and beautiful"). Barber was 28 years old at the time. The composition would became an important piece of the 20th century classical repetoire. It has been heard in films such as Platoon, The Elephant Man, El Norte, Amélie, Lorenzo's Oil and Reconstruction. In 1945, it was played at the funeral of Franklin D. Roosevelt.
Many of his compositions were commissioned or first performed by such famous artists as Vladimir Horowitz, Eleanor Steber, Raya Garbousova, John Browning, Leontyne Price, Pierre Bernac, Francis Poulenc, and Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau.
The great love of Barber's life was probably the composer Gian Carlo Menotti. The two met when Barber was 18 years old and Menotti arrived at the Curtis Institute, where Barber was a student. Menotti and Barber instantly found a connection, one which started as a shared passion for similar music styles and drifted slowly into a passionate sexual relationship. Around the campus, their "close relationship" was well known. But this was an artistic institute and few of the other students cared for prejudice. With all minds, eyes and ears focused on music, the boys were able to conduct a blossoming relationship undisturbed.
After leaving the Curtis Institute, Barber and Menotti travelled around Europe after Barber won a Pulitzer Travel Grant and the award was immediately followed by another; the American Prix de Rome, allowing him to study at the American Academy, itself based in Rome. It was there that Barber was to produce one of the greatest pieces of music ever written, the Adagio for Strings.
With the Adagio's near immediate success there came recording contracts and several commissions. When war broke out, the couple both managed to avoid active service, Menotti through his Italian nationality, Barber by joining the band of the American Air Corps. After the war was over, the couple bought a large house in New York with the intention of living and writing there together for the rest of their lives. Barber continued to work on choral pieces as well as his symphonies. Barber would win two Pulitzers, for a piano concerto and for an opera based on a libretto by Menotti.
Although his work was on a high, Barber found it hard to live up to the early success of the Adagio and he eventually slipped into a deep depression. He split with his long term partner Menotti and moved to Switzerland, living in almost total seclusion. Menotti moved to other successes and eventually married.
Barber died of cancer in 1981 in New York City at the age of 70. In fact he died on his birthday. Menotti was at his side when Barber died.
1943 - Today's the birthday of American Jazz musician and composer GARY BURTON. He was born in Anderson, Indiana and made his recording debut at the age of 17. The vibraphonist has worked with famous musicians as George Shearing, Stan Getz, Chick Corea and Astor Piazzola.
1974 - On this date the first lobbying effort on part of an alliance of Quebec Gay groups, to include sexual orientation in a proposed provincial human rights charter, culminates in appearance before Justice Committee of Quebec's National Assembly. It becomes the first appearance of Canadian Gay movement before legislative body.
1989 - The surrealist painter SALVADOR DALI died in his native Spain at the age 84. Although famous for his masterworks, "The Persistance of Memory" and "The Last Supper", the Catalan artist's repertoire also included film, sculpture, and photography. He collaborated with Walt Disney on the Academy Award-nominated short cartoon Destino, which was released posthumously in 2003. He also collaborated with Alfred Hitchcock on Hitchcock's film "Spellbound."
As a young artist Dali became close friends with, among others the filmmaker Luis Buñuel, and the poet and dramatist Federico García Lorca. Lorca fell deeply in love with Dali; photographs of the two show them being suggestively physical with each other. Although some biographers believe Lorca and Dali sexually consummated their relationship, it is not known for certain.
The relationship between the two has been one of the most guarded, censored and argued-about relationship in Spanish scholarship. In his "Lorca & Censorship" the Hispanist scholar Daniel Eisenberg, who has written and lectured extensively on Lorca and the attempt to censor the historical record of his sexuality and relationships, arguest that the truth may eventually come out when the price is paid or the more sexually repressive parties die off. "When someone comes up with enough cash (I don't know how much cash), Lorca's letters to Salvador Dalí will be published. (For someone interested in Lorca and art, they might well be important.) They are in the hands of Dalí's executor, and presumably, since they are for sale, they are where no harm will befall them. I assume that the materials...will reach safe harbor after his death. Only then will we learn what he has withheld and why. Martínez Nadal, of course, is the one who has given us the most data about Lorca's homosexuality: it is he who ... has written at the greatest length about the place of homosexuality in the circles they moved in in Madrid in the late 1920's and early 1930's(38). So what is he suppressing, and why?
In October of 2007 press reports announced a forthcoming UK/Spanish film production exploring the sexual relationship between Dali and Garcia Lorca, whose close friendship has long been a subject of speculation, thanks in part to Dali's repeated claims that Lorca had tried to seduce him. The film, "Little Ashes," stars Robert Pattinson (best known as Cedric Diggory in the fourth Harry Potter film) as the legendary surrealist painter, and the Spanish actor Javier Beltran as poet Lorca. The screenwriter Philippa Goslett noted that based on her research "it's clear something happened, no question ... It began as a friendship, became more intimate and moved to a physical level but Dali found it difficult and couldn't carry on. He said they tried to have sex but it hurt, so they couldn't consummate the relationship. Considering Dali's massive hang-ups, it's not surprising."
1990 - One of the most infamous hateful racist homophobes and general misanthropes Charley Eugene Johns died on this date and was rendered incapable of harming others (b. 1905). Johns was an American politician and the thirty-second governor of Florida from 1953 to 1955. Why cover Johns in a daily list of Gay Wisdom? Because most of us don't know this history and it's important to know what happened so it doesn't happen again. (We won't honor their birth date but we'll mark their date of departure.)
Johns is most remembered for his support and chairmanship of the infamous Florida Legislative Investigation Committee, nicknamed the "Johns Committee" because of Johns' chairmanship. This committee participated in the Red Scare and Lavender scare by investigating communists, homosexuals, and civil rights advocates among the students and faculty of Florida's university system. They were responsible for revoking teachers' certificates and firing university professors. By 1963, the committee had forced the dismissal or resignation of over 100 professors and deans at the University of Florida, Florida State University and the University of South Florida. One professor attempted suicide after being investigated by the committee. The state legislature ended funding for the committee in 1964 after it released a report called Homosexuality and Citizenship in Florida, which infamously became known as the "Purple Pamphlet". Its many photographs depicting homosexual acts outraged legislators and reportedly copies of the report were being sold as pornography in New York City. The Johns Committee lost its funding from the legislature following the publication of the Purple Pamphlet.
In 2005, UF Today, an alumni publication of the University of Florida, included Johns in a list of 81 "outstanding" UF alumni. Johns attended UF only for a few months and did not graduate. The editor apologized for the error, and the alumni association said that including him was a mistake.
1998 - On this date the Italian writer ALFREDO ORMANDO died (b. 1958). How did he die? Eleven days before this date he set himself on fire in the Vatican to protest the church's treatment of Gay, Lesbian and Bisexual people.
2003 - The American singer and television, stage and film actress NELL CARTER died.
If the aforementioned Johns Committee made you think "well that was way back then" consider this item..
2009 - on this date The Washington Post reported that the Maryland state police considered the LGBT activism group Equality Maryland to be terrorists. "Equality Maryland, the state's largest Gay rights group, was among the peaceful protest groups to be classified as terrorists in a Maryland State Police database. The group was designated a "security threat" by the Homeland Security and Intelligence Division, which also kept dossiers on dozens of activists and at least a dozen groups. Police kept files on Equality Maryland's plans to hold rallies outside the State House in Annapolis to press for legislation reversing the state's ban on same-sex marriage. Police planned to purge the files. The files were revealed at a news conference, where a dozen Democratic lawmakers announced plans to introduce legislation to prevent future surveillance of nonviolent groups. Police would need "reasonable articulated suspicion of actual criminal activity" before they could conduct surveillance, the legislation's sponsors said. Gov. Martin O'Malley (D) also planned to call for a similar bill. The measure also would prevent police from keeping files on citizens, unless the information is part of a legitimate criminal investigation."
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