Category Archives: Gay Interest

11 Gay Movies That Actually Have Happily-Ever-After Endings

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Not In The Mood For Another Sad, Gay Movie?

There are a lot of important gay movies that don’t have the happiest endings for gay characters, especially when those movies try to tackle important topics like homophobia or the HIV/AIDS crisis. Still, it can feel a little depressing when you keep seeing the same Bury Your Gays trope played out over and over again. It’s also important to see happy reflections of gay life in media. If you’re just in the movie for a fun film with a happily ever after ending, check out these 11 movies!

1) Beautiful Thing

The 1996 British film Beautiful Thingfollows Jamie, a teenage boy who is infatuated with his classmate, Ste. While Jamie is bullied in school, Ste is dealing with an abuse at home. Jamie’s mother, Sandra, offers Ste an escape from his alcoholic father, which results in Jamie and Ste sharing a bed and a kiss. While Sandra is initially shocked by her son’s relationship, she comes to accept it. The final scene shows Ste and Jamie celebrating their relationship openly, with Sandra at their side.

2) Shelter

The 2007 movie Shelter follows Zach, an aspiring artist who puts his college dreams on hold to help out his family. He falls for his best friend’s brother, Shaun, but struggles with his feelings. While their families are initially uncomfortable, they accept the relationship by the end of the film. If you’re looking for an uplifting story about romantic love and families with a final scene that’s uplifting, check out Shelter.

3) The Way He Looks

The romantic coming-of-age drama The Way He Looks has a happy falling in love with your best friend and riding off into the sunset ending that so many straight high school romance movies have. The film follows Leonardo, a blind high school student, as he falls for new student Gabriel. It’s also available to stream on Netflix.

4) The Birdcage

The 1996 comedy The Birdcage (the American remake of La Cage aux Folles) follows Armand, the owner of a drag club in South Beach called The Birdcage and is partner Albert who’s drag persona Starina is the club’s star attraction. When Armand’s son Val announces he’s marrying a woman with ultraconservative parents, Armand and Albert try to pull off a ridiculous farce. The all-star cast (Robin Williams, Gene Hackman, Nathan Lane, and Dianne Wiest), over the top situations, and light tone make this the perfect movie for an evening where you just don’t feel like watching anything heavy.

5) Maurice

The 1987 British drama Maurice is based on the E.M. Forster novel of the same name. The film is set in early 20th century England and follows Maurice Hall from his childhood to early adulthood. Maurice struggles with his feelings, but eventually meets his life partner Alec Scudder. Though society condemns their relationship, they’re willing to give up anything to be together.

6) Boys (Jongens)

This Dutch coming-of-age film explores 15-year-old Sieger’s first love as he falls for Marc. While there are a few melancholy moments, the end makes it clear that Sieger is on a journey of self-acceptance, Marc will be a part of that journey. The film is streaming on Netflix.

7) Latter Days

Latter Days is full of ridiculous rom-com tropes, but this movie about a gay party boy and his closeted Mormon missionary neighbor falling in love is fun to watch. While there’s definitely some heartbreak, the movie ultimately has an uplifting ending.

8) Touch of Pink

Sometimes you just need some good romantic comedy fluff. Touch of Pinknever takes itself too seriously (see: Kyle MacLachlan playing the ghost of Cary Grant), which makes it a fun, endearing film. Alim movies to London to get away from his conservative family. When he comes out to his mother and faces problems with his boyfriend Giles the ghost of Cary Grant gives him advice that often seems to do more harm than good.

9) Jeffrey

Jeffrey is a 1995 romantic comedy that’s set in Manhattan during the height of the AIDS epidemic—but hear me out. Rather than going doom-and-gloom, the movie follows title character Jeffrey, who is afraid of falling in love with someone who might die. He swears off sex because of the AIDS crisis, and then meets and falls for Steve, an HIV positive man. He realizes he has to confront his fears to live and love fully. There are also some awesome cameos by Patrick Stewart, Sigourney Weaver, and Nathan Lane.

10) Big Eden

This 2000 romantic comedy follows Henry Hart, a New York City artist who returns to his rural hometown in Montana to take care of his grandfather. The townsfolk welcome Henry back and are accepting of his sexuality. Henry has to confront his unresolved feelings for his high school friend Dean Stewart, but he’s oblivious to the feelings of Pike Dexter, the Native American owner of the town’s general store. While films about rural gay life often focus on hardships, Big Eden is unique. The entire film is devoid of homophobia.

11) Love, Simon

The groundbreaking 2018 film (based off of Becky Albertalli’s young adult novel Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda) follows the story of typical, suburban high school senior Simon Spier as he tries to navigate life after being blackmailed and threatened with outing by one of his classmates while also trying to figure out the identity of his anonymous, romantic, online pen pal named Blue.

Although there are serious themes and instances of casual homophobia throughout the movie, like most teen rom-coms, the ending is really sweet and gives the audience a feeling of hope for the titular character and his life as a newly-out, gay man.

Reference

The Hidden Survivors

Article, Gay Interest, Health Information, HIV/AIDS, ,

Why people living and aging with HIV will lead the way

Tuesday, 9/18 is National HIV/AIDS and Aging Awareness Day. Long-term survivors of HIV face unique challenges; they are the “hidden” survivors of the epidemic. When I was diagnosed with HIV in 1989 I wasn’t sure I’d be here in 2018 to talk about it. At the time there was no effective treatment for people living with HIV, it

was basically a death sentence. For those of us who did have access to health care and treatment, we were given what we now know is suboptimal therapy that not only rendered us resistant to more effective medications that were being developed, but also had life-altering side effects that remain with some of us to this day. These side effects from those earlier, more toxic treatments have added to the stigma of aging with HIV and have disfigured us, made us frailer, and caused our hearts to literally skip a beat.

Don’t get me wrong, I am grateful to be here. As a white, gay, cis man living with HIV who turns 60 this year, I also recognize and acknowledge my privilege. I have access today to a one pill, once-a-day therapy that keeps my virus fully suppressed, so that I’m unable to pass on HIV to others, and I experience virtually no side effects to my current regimen. But I also know that when I walk into a room, I have “the look”—the sunken cheeks, the veiny arms and legs, the extended belly. “You should be grateful to be here,” we’ve been told, “thankful to be alive!” But to what end? Grateful to be here to suddenly be rolled off of disability after being out of work for 20–30 years, expected to join the ranks of the work force without any specialized training or support? Grateful to be here only to fall into addiction or isolation because our support networks, friends and former lovers no longer exist? Grateful to be here while there is scant culturally competent care for aging LGBTQ+ seniors who are living with HIV? We as a society in general do not value our elders—how does the LGBTQ+ community regard those of us aging, let alone aging with HIV?

There is much work to be done, but if anyone can lead the way, it’s people living with HIV and our allies. We were the ones who took care of each other back at the start of the epidemic, and we will come to the forefront of the battle once again. The lesbian community was there for many gay men back in the 1980s when we were dropping like flies and when no one else would touch us; thank heavens for these unsung heroes. Community-based organizations like TPANwere founded by people living with HIV so that we could survive and thrive. Informational resources like Positively Aware delivered the information we needed to live healthy, happy lives.

Earlier this year The Reunion Project convened a community-led, diverse coalition of survivor advocates to discuss the needs and priorities of survivors, and issued a report in June. Go to tpan.com/reunion-project for more info. As someone living with HIV for 29 years, I am excited to be part of a national network of survivors that is giving voice to those who don’t have one and who have in many respects been left behind.

Currently 50% of people living with HIV are over the age of 50, and by 2030 it will be 70 percent. But we knew this was coming. Where is the sense of urgency? Where is the crisis task force taking up our agenda? Do we matter?

I believe we do. As the saying goes, with age comes wisdom. Long-term survivors have an opportunity to come together and join forces, mentor those coming up behind us on how to age and live with HIV gracefully, and to advocate for those who have no voice. An entire generation was lost, so who now is going to step up and advocate for us?

Those of us who have survived.

Reference

Gay History: This Documentarian Is Fighting Back Against Gay Culture’s ‘No Fats, No Femmes’ Mantra

Article, Gay Interest, , ,

Being overweight carries with it a social stigma. So does being a man who embraces the feminine. But for those in the gay community who live at the intersection of such identities, life can be like the worst case of double jeopardy. To Jamal Lewis, however, who is also black and who identifies as “gender deviant,” being fat and effeminate is a source of power and a subject worthy of exploration in a documentary titled “No Fats, No Femmes.”

“For me, I’m just interested in the spaces that people are afraid to occupy,” said Lewis, who uses “he-she” as a gender pronoun. “I think there is something to be learned from what we are most afraid of, and so, if that’s what I was taught to be afraid of, well [forget] that. I am the Fat Femme.”

Jamal Lewis, director of “No Fats, No Femmes,” poses for a portrait on Third Street and Broadway in Los Angeles, Calif.
(Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times)

Originally from Atlanta, Lewis is a second-year graduate student in media studies at the New School by day and “cultural worker, performance artist and freedom fighter” by night. While an undergrad at the historically black, all-male Morehouse College, he-she used queer social networking and dating sites to meet people. Sprawled on many of the profiles were “no fats, no femmes” — along with things like “no blacks, no Asians, no ballroom kids.” Seeing the frequency of such language inspired Lewis years later to create a feature-length documentary to interrogate and explore race, desire and body image, and the ways in which they’re informed by media, pop culture and capitalism.

The documentary will feature interviews with five black people: a disabled person in South Africa; a queer New York rapper; a PhD student and blogger in Missouri; an agender writer of work on body positivity and a trans woman. Using archival research and performance art, Lewis’ goal is to discuss the many ways individual desires are rooted in problematic conceptions of varying identities.

Lewis has raised more than $17,000 from 550 backers for “No Fats, No Femmes,” which is still in pre-production. The attention he-she has received, which includes support from the gay dating app Jack’d and a mention from Tribeca Film, has taken him-her across the country to speak on body and femme positivity, including to Cal State Los Angeles.

The Times spoke with Lewis, who is known online as Fat Femme, following his-her recent West Coast visit about the documentary — which is slated for a 2017 completion date — about how (black) people “fail gender” and how gender deviant and trans people fit into the Black Lives Matter movement.

The problem is that many people are gender complacent. They are comfortable with how they understand and see gender because of what it affords them.

JAMAL LEWIS

What does “no fats, no femmes” mean?

The “no fats, no femmes” ideology is often used by gay men [on dating sites] situating their desires within a framework that excludes particular kinds of bodies, mostly those fat, feminine, disabled, HIV positive and the list goes on. Anything that reminds them of what the world thinks it means to be gay, they shun away from. Put simply, it’s prejudice masked as preference.

Where did you get the idea to explore the thought process behind this statement in a documentary?

I have always admired the work of Marlon Riggs. I thought for a very long time about what he’d be talking about today had he still been alive and making work as someone who in the 1980s dared to talk about his life at the intersection of being black and gay. He wasn’t interested in being seen in fragments and put out a very visual and explicit narrative [titled “Tongues Untied”] that was really inspiring to me. I wanted to talk about [what] I was experiencing [while trying to date] using that as a model.

In the film’s introduction you quote Mark Aghuar’s “A Litany for My Heavenly Brown Body” which rejects whiteness, beauty and privilege while at the same time blessing the “sissies, trans, high femmes.” What about that work made you want it as the start of the documentary?

If you’re taught to be afraid of and move away from the body that you occupy, you never see a possibility of living in that place. I thought that what Mark was exploring spoke beautifully to the message I wanted to convey with this film because it’s like I’m washing myself clean of all these things that I was told I needed to be to be accepted. It deeply resonated with me, so I wanted it as something to set the tone and let you know I’m not about to play with you.

You say that the documentary focuses on the “politics of desirability.” Explain what that is.

For so long, ideas around sex and sexuality have been relegated to the bedroom. That is so because people are afraid of what it means to engage the messiness of our desires and how it controls a lot of our lives outside of the bedroom. I’m thinking of desire as both a cognitive and emotional phenomenon that is informed by the environment around us and the media we consume. And we know from feminist scholarship that the personal is political. The things that happen in our private lives very much so influence and determine how we show up in public.

Why was it important for you to have an all-black cast?

It meant a lot for me to have an all-black cast because so many other [films] don’t, or they can’t commit to an all-black cast because they want the film palatable to a certain kind of audience. It means more to me that I’m doing it in a way that honors how I show up in the world and the people around and most dear to me. I also chose to rock with an all-black cast and crew because black lives really do matter to me, and when we center them in critical conversations, we all get free. I want the kids of tomorrow and future generations to know and be proud of my decision and the reflection they see when they watch the film. I want my people to see themselves and feel seen.

But some might say the politics of desirability also affect white people. Is there space for them?

I think they have a space as listener. I’m not excluding them from the conversation, but it’s really important for me [to have an all-black cast] because whiteness is often a standard in conversations around beauty. I didn’t want white talking heads talking about these ideas because they are deeply implicated.

You crowdfunded $17,384 as a first time filmmaker. What does that tell you about the subject of your work?

For a long time I was afraid to share ideas because not only are we taught not to see ourselves, we’re taught not to believe in ourselves because of how we show up on a gender spectrum. [The support] showed me that there is an audience for the work that I want to produce and I don’t have to compromise my ideas or myself to do it.

Art and activism together serves as a means to mobilize,” said Lewis.
(Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times)

How do the topics you’re raising in “No Fats, No Femmes” intersect with the Black Lives Matter movement and what seems like the exclusion of black trans and gender nonconforming people in that movement?

When you’re conditioned to only fight for a certain body, particularly black cisgender men, I think it’s hard to see anything outside of that as worth it because you only think black cis men are dying. No one thinks about the offset of that, the interpersonal violence that black women and gender deviant and effeminate people experience because of that. The problem is that so many people are what I have named gender complacent; they are comfortable with how they understand and see gender because of what it affords them and the convenience it provides them. People are afraid to wrestle with the fact that they too fail gender and are trans, in a way, and fail these normative notions of gender, particularly black people. People are afraid to show up for trans women in the streets because they are not really acknowledging how they are implicated in their murders and perpetuating transphobia.

What do you mean when you say people “fail gender”?

We see the conception of gender as this black, beastly, hyper masculine brute and this white, pristine, delicate trophy wife that’s meant to be protected from the black brute. If gender exists in those ways, so many people fail it because there is no space for nuance within that. Black women fail white womanhood. Black men fail the black brute stereotype. If we all understood how much we fail gender, we would approach conversations around trans-ness and gender nonconformity differently.

A number of recent videos of transgender and gender deviant people protesting police brutality and anti-LGBT laws using the voguing dance style have gone viral, including one of you. How can performance art be a tool for movement work? 

For so long, the house and ballroom community has been shunned, but a lot of celebrities now are using it in their music videos and shows. Many don’t know that it is very important to black queer history because we understand vogue as embodied resistance. When [the founders] were kicked out of their homes [usually for being gay], they found a beloved community and found joy in what was supposed to be a tragedy and built a culture around that. Vogue is a dance of creative and resilient folks. To show up at a protest and do that, knowing the context behind the dance, is so powerful.

Voguing is no longer a thing that has to be at a club or in a private space. Art and activism together serve as a means to mobilize, to take up and disrupt space in a creative way in spaces where they may not be able to typically do so because of how they show up in the world.

What do you want people to take away from the documentary? 

I want people to take away whatever they need from the film, most importantly healing, self reflexivity and honesty. May it be a mirror through which to engage their desires, internalized phobias and fears around who they are and what they have been told they are. And that’s my most honest response because sometimes I feel like I don’t know who exactly my work is speaking to and what people are taking from it. Most surprisingly, straight cis women and men are coming up to me after these talks at universities, community centers and movement spaces telling me how my work resonates with them, and they’ve helped me realize that this is bigger than [the] LGBT community and that it is bigger than all of our bedrooms. Desirability impacts so much around us, and I want healing for all.

Reference

Gay History: 9 Things To Know About ‘The Lavender Scare’

Article, Gay Interest, History, Political, ,
(Above, right, powerful and closeted gay lawyer Roy Cohn was instrumental in creating anti-Communist fervor.)

Filmmaker Josh Howard discusses his forthcoming documentary on dark days in American history.

Tomorrow’s a lamentable anniversary for the United States: it was 60 years ago, on April 27, 1953, that President Eisenhower put his John Hancock an executive order demanding all gay and lesbian government employees be fired. Not really something you want to celebrate, right? But it is something you should know about, which is why director Josh Howard began production on The Lavender Scare, a documentary based on Dr. David Johnson’s book of the same name. It’s also the first cinematic account of how our government tracked down gays and lesbians in the mid-20th Century.

This project began in 2009, when Howard, a former Emmy-winning producer for CBS’ 60 Minutes and later CNBC, stumbled across Johnson’s book. He hadn’t intended on turning it into anything, and certainly didn’t intend on leaving his job to direct a documentary, but as he read on, and researched on his own, the subject gripped him.

Unable to shake the feeling that there was more story to tell, Howard approached Johnson, now a professor at the University of South Florida, about optioning the book. Johnson agreed, and for the past two years Howard has tracked down as many sources as possible to fill in the gaps, including Frank Kameny, a government astronomer fired who was fired for being gay in 1957 and went on to lead the first public protests against the anti-American policy.

Howard also managed to find a few of the government agents tasked with spearheading the anti-gay witch hunt. One remains particularly unrepentant. “The people that I got rid of, they were faggots,” he says, under the cloak of darkness, inthe film’s trailer, included below. “I didn’t give a hoot; get rid of the son of a bitch. Put him in the bread line.”

As far away as this may all seem, keep in mind that lawmakers and activists are still fighting for Employment Non-Discrimination, policies that would finally create federal laws making illegal to fire LGBT people. (As you know, it’s legal in 29 states to fire gay and lesbian employees and legally acceptable in 34 to do the same for transgender people as well.) And this isn’t simply about homophobia or jobs. It’s about the nagging, tenacious ability of Americans to participate in or turn a blind eye to injustice, a trait foreign observer EM Forster saw right away. Whether it’s scapegoating gays during then Lavender Scare or Muslims after 9/11 or Japanese-Americans during World War II, this a completely unattractive and persistent quality, and it’s one that Howard hopes this film can help eradicate.

To get to that point, though, Howard and his team need to finish editing and licensing the bundle of archival materials they hope to include, and that requires money. Supporters can give them a little greenback love at Kickstarter. They’re shooting for $50,000 and donations end on May 21, which would have been Kameny’s 88th birthday.

Here, Howard offers us the basics on The Lavender Scare, the policies it spawned, what happened to those policies and why this son of a bitch story still matters.

(Left: Frank Kameny can be seen toward the left in this picture from a 1965 White House picket he helped organized. Right: an older Kameny poses with one of those signs.)

1. WHAT IS THE LAVENDER SCARE? It’s the first feature-length film documentary to tell the story of the U.S. government’s decades-long campaign to fire every federal employee found to be gay or lesbian. In what became the most successful witch hunt in American history, thousands and thousands of federal workers lost their jobs. More than a few, with their careers in ruins and unable to find work, committed suicide.

2. WHEN DID THIS HAPPEN, AND WHY? In the 1950s, Senator Joseph McCarthy ignited the Red Scare with his allegations that Communists had infiltrated the U.S. government. He then added the claim that gay men and lesbians were even more dangerous than Reds, because they were susceptible to blackmail by foreign enemy agents and would give up government secrets in order to keep their sexual orientation from being exposed. The fear of this supposed homosexual menace became known as the Lavender Scare.

3. HOW MANY HOMOSEXUALS ACTUALLY GAVE UP SECRETS IN ORDER TO AVOID BEING EXPOSED? After several investigations over many years, not a single case was ever found.

4. WERE LGBT PEOPLE ALWAYS FEARED IN WASHINGTON? No! In fact, in the 1930s and 40s, there was a vibrant and very open gay community in Washington. A large number of new government jobs were created after the Great Depression, and many of the people who came to Washington to fill those jobs were gay men and lesbians. They were eager to make a new life in the growing city, and the government was eager to hire them. Same sex couples could be seen holding hands on the trolley or even kissing on the grounds of the Washington Monument. They enjoyed a comfortable work environment and a lively social life. No one could have anticipated the devastating events that were to come.

5. WAIT, WHY IS THE DATE APRIL 27, 1953 IMPORTANT? That is the day President Eisenhower signed Executive Order 10450, which made it official government policy that gay and lesbian employees were to be hunted down and fired. More than a thousand federal agents – a couple of whom are interviewed in our film -were assigned to the task of determining who was a homosexual. People were subjected to grueling interrogation: “Who do you live with? Who are your friends? What bars do you frequent? Would you like us to call your family back home and ask these questions?” People were ordered to give up the names of their gay and lesbian friends. Most chose to resign immediately, rather than face continued pressure or further scrutiny.

6. DID ANY GOOD COME OF THIS? Yes! In 1957, Dr. Franklin Kameny, a Harvard PhD who had been working for the U.S. Army Map Service, was fired from his job when the government found out he was gay. But unlike the thousands who had been fired before him, he fought back! The purges created a sense of anger and militancy in the gay community that sowed the seeds of the gay rights movement. In 1965, years before Stonewall, Kameny and a small band of brave men and women staged a picket in front of the White House, in what is believed to be the first gay rights demonstration in the country. Kameny went on to devote his entire life to the fight for LGBT rights, and just before his death saw his achievements honored by President Obama.

7. HOW LONG DID THE BAN ON GAY AND LESBIAN WORKERS REMAIN IN EFFECT? People continued to lose their jobs simply through the 1950s, ‘60s, 70s, and 80s. In 1995, President Clinton officially rescinded the policy that had been put in place by President Eisenhower in 1953, and for the first time in four decades, LGBT people could freely work for the civilian agencies of the federal government. Of course, the ban on service in the military continued for many years beyond that.

8. DOES THIS STORY HAVE ANY PRESENT DAY RELEVANCE? Oh, definitely. There are still 29 states in the country in which it is perfectly legal to fire people simply because they are LGBT – a direct result of our government’s homophobic policies that were put in place in the 1950s. We think the story of The Lavender Scare will help educate people about the need for laws on both the state and national level to protect LGBT people from employment discrimination. The federal Employment Non-Discrimination Act, which would extend job protection to LGBT people nationwide, has just been re-introduced in Congress – ironically enough. just as we’re marking the 60th anniversary of the start of the government’s anti-gay witch hunts.

9. WHY DO SO FEW PEOPLE KNOW ABOUT THIS? This is a classic example of the way in which the struggles and contributions of gay men and lesbians are ignored in the telling of American history. It is shocking that with all the books and films about the Cold War and the Red Scare, the story of the Lavender Scare is almost completely ignored. The Lavender Scare will be the first film to shine a light on this important subject – if we can raise the funds to finish production. As philanthropist and activist Jim Hormel has said, “If LGBT people don’t take the lead in preserving our history, who will?”

Reference

Gay History: Watch the Scary 1961 Anti-Gay PSA – “Boys Beware” – Video

Article, Gay Interest, History, Political,

Boys Beware was a short PSA film produced by Sid Davis productions in 1959 on the suggestion of the Inglewood Police Department in Southern California. It was ostensibly was made to warn young boys of the danger of predatory men on purpose.

What Jimmy didn’t know was the Ralph was sick. A sickness not visible like smallpox, but no less dangerous and contagious- a sickness of the mind. You see Ralph was a homosexual, a person who demands an intimate relationship with members of their own sex.”

At one point in time Boys Beware was required viewing for males in many school districts across the country.

Reference

Gay History: Julian Eltinge The World’s Greatest Forgotten Female Impersonator – RARE 1929 Video

Article, Gay Interest,

May 14, 1883 – On this day of America’s foremost female impersonator is born in Newtonville, Massachusetts. Julian Eltinge was a stage and silent film star who few actually realized was a man. So popular was he that during the Korean War a troop ship was named in his, or rather, her honor.

After appearing in the Boston Cadets Revue at the age of ten in feminine garb, Eltinge garnered notice from other producers and made his first appearance on Broadway in 1904. As his star began to rise, he appeared in vaudeville and toured Europe and the United States, even giving a command performance before King Edward VII. Eltinge appeared in a series of musical comedies written specifically for his talents starting in 1910 with The Fascinating Widow, returning to vaudeville in 1918. His popularity soon earned him the title of “Mr. Lillian Russell” for the equally popular beauty and musical comedy star.

Hollywood beckoned Eltinge and in 1917 he appeared in his first feature film, The Countess Charming. This would lead to other films including 1918s The Isle of Love with Rudolph Valentino and Virginia Rappe. By the time Eltinge arrived in Hollywood, he was considered one of the highest paid actors on the American stage,

Eltinge was an intimate of the top Hollywood stars and a wealthy man, worth over $250,000. He built Villa Capistrano, one of the most lavish villa’s in the Hollywood area, where he lived with his mother and entertained lavishly. He also built a ‘dude ranch’ for men in Alpine, CA near San Diego But times were changing. The outrageous performances of female impersonators Francis Renault and Bert Savoy, and the drag balls and gay speakeasies of the 20’s “pansy craze” in New York made Eltinge’s style appear old-fashioned. He began to drink heavily and in 1923 was caught smuggling liquor from Canada. Despite a sensational trial and bad press, he managed to get an acquittal. 

It was the beginning of his decline and with the arrival of the Great Depression and the death of vaudeville, Eltinge’s star began to fade..  Eltinge resorted to performing in nightclubs. Crackdowns on cross-dressing in public, a misguided attempt to curb homosexual activity, prevented Eltinge from performing in costume. At one appearance in a Los Angeles club, Eltinge stood next to displays of his gowns while describing his old characters.

On May 7, 1941, Eltinge fell ill while performing at Billy Rose’s Diamond Horseshoe nightclub. He was taken home and died in his apartment ten days later. His death certificate lists the cause of death as a cerebral hemorrhage.

Julian Eltinge leaves a legacy as one of the greatest and most forgotten female impersonators of the 20th.century.

Raise a glass and remember Julian/Vestta!

“My heart is simply melting at the thought of Julian Eltinge;
His alter ego, Vesta Tilley, too.
Since our language is so dexterous, let us call them ambi-sexterous –
Why hasn’t this occurred before to you?”

Dorothy Parker, “A Musical Comedy Thought” – Vanity Fair, June 1916

Reference

Gay History: John F. Kennedy Had A Gay Best Friend Who Even Had His Own Room At The White House

Article, biography, Gay Interest, General Interest, History, Political, , ,

The book “Jack and Lem: John F. Kennedy and Lem Billings: The Untold Story of an Extraordinary Friendship,” details the extraordinary relationship between two unlikely friends.

JFK, or ‘Jack’ as he was known by his close friends and family, had a gay best friend named Lem Billings, who he met in prep school when Kennedy was 15 and Lem was 16.

The pair became the best of friends who wrote letters to each other when they were apart, traveled to Europe together and were so close that Joseph Kennedy Sr. thought of Billings as another son, according to GregInHollywood.

The book details JFK’s angry reaction to Lem after he made a sexual advance towards him, saying: “I’m not that kind of boy.” But this misunderstanding did not end the duo’s relationship.

Writes GregInHollywood:

From the time he and Kirk LeMoyne “Lem” Billings met at Choate, until the President’s assassination thirty years later, they remained best friends.

Lem was a virtual fixture in the Kennedy family who even had his own room at the White House.

The book about their friendship draws on hundreds of letters and telegrams between the two, Billings’s oral history and interviews with family and friends like Ben Bradlee, Gore Vidal, and Ted Sorensen.

It was a friendship that endured despite an era of rampant homophobia.

Billings was a graduate of Princeton University and Harvard Business School and was an advertising executive at the Manhattan advertising firm Lennen & Newell. He put his business career on hold to work on Kennedy’s campaign for president.

Bradlee says in the book: “I suppose it’s known that Lem was gay….It impressed me that Jack had gay friends.”

Billings obviously never came out but did once say: “Jack made a big difference in my life. Because of him, I was never lonely. He may have been the reason I never got married.”

Kenneth Hill of WoolfAndWilde, conducted a fascinating interview with David Pitts, the author of ‘Jack and Lem’, to uncover some more details about the extraordinary relationship between the two unlikely friends:
Kenneth Hill: How would you characterize the friendship between JFK and Lem Billings?

David Pitts: The way I would characterize it is that is was a very close, deep, friendship across sexual orientation lines.

KH: You said that this was the story of a friendship that crossed sexual orientation lines, which I think is really an interesting element of it, but talk a little bit about the depth of this friendship. The fact that it started when they were very young and, from what I read in the book, they were basically inseparable for the rest of their lives except when circumstances had them in distant cities.

DP: Yes, indeed. I think there were a number of elements to it. First of all, there were a series of bonding events early on. One was the fact that they both hated that school [Choate] in which they met. And were engaged in all kinds of pranks which almost got them expelled twice. That was obviously a bonding phenomenon. Secondly, they roomed together for part of the time at the school.

Thirdly, and I think this is really important, John Kennedy was so sick most of his life, far earlier than when most people think, including when he was at Choate, and Lem was the person at boarding school — his mother and father did not come to the school when he was ill; Lem was there. Lem was the person who was always there for him and took care of him. And then fourthly, there was the two month trip to Europe that they took, just before WWII in 1937, just the two Americans at that pivotal time, I think that was obviously a very strong bonding event.

And then over and above these issues, I would say this — and this is kind of a complicated thought because we really don’t have language to express these kinds of relationships — and that is, I’m firmly convinced after working on this book that John Kennedy’s sexual interests were in women. We don’t need much evidence of that, the evidence is all over the place. But his strongest emotional attachments were to men — and principally, to Lem. We don’t have a word for that, right? Somebody who prefers the opposite gender for sexuality, and the same gender for deep, emotional attachments.

KH: We don’t really have a word for that. I guess “man’s man” used to sort of mean that, but JFK took it so much further in a way because he loved being around men, he knew some men were attracted to him and even seemed to enjoy it. He liked the stimulation of those relationships, there was nothing sexual about it, but there was something about that male-male dynamic that fed him.

DP: I think that’s exactly right. There was one reviewer who wrote, “What’s the big deal here? This guy’s writing that JFK was comfortable with gay men, so big deal, we all knew that.” But of course it’s not the fact that he had a friend named Lem Billings who was gay. This was the closest person in all the world to him outside of his family for 30 years. He wasn’t just “a gay friend” on the side.

KH: One of the very surprising facts that comes out in this book is that Lem had his own room at the White House?

DP: Yes, that’s one of the revelations in the book that’s really surprising. And actually some of the people who were working in the White House very close to JFK didn’t know it. For example, Ted Sorensen whom I interviewed for the book, perhaps the closest aide to JFK, saw Lem around the White House all the time, but he told me he didn’t know that he’d had his own room there and was staying there so much of the time. But yeah, that’s another indication of the depth of the attachment.

One thing I was intent on doing when I wrote this book, because I thought it would be open to various forms of attack, is that I never went beyond what the documents said. The book is a lot of quotes from documents, or that interviewees said. This friendship might have contained a lot of things that I wasn’t able to find out because I didn’t want to enter the area of speculation.

KH: It seems without a doubt that Lem was in love with JFK. But it’s never stated explicitly because you don’t have any record of his ever saying that.

DP: No, I think the closest … I mean, these were more sedate times, especially where homosexuality is concerned. Even in the various documents, Lem is never overt in his statements. But there was one statement from one of the documents, and I have it in front of me here, that I think is just expresses his feelings. Here’s the quote: “Jack made a big difference in my life. Because of him, I was never lonely. He may have been the reason I never got married.”

This is somewhat of a difficult thought as well, but I think gay people had a way back then of telegraphing to future generations what their feelings were that they could not express candidly at the time. And anybody who reads some of these words today would have no doubt what Lem’s feelings were, but in the context of that time it was not obviously understood.

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