Born this day
Joan of Arc (c 1412 - 1431)
Although St Joan's exact date of birth is not known, January 6th is the date on which it is celebrated in France, where she is honoured as a heroine for her struggle against foreign domination. For the queer community, she deserves to be honoured for her role in standing up to religious oppression. Part of the ecclesiastical hostility was directed against her insistence on adopting a male role and dress, for which she was accused of "heresy", convicted and burned at the stake. Over the next four centuries, thousands more people were suffered judicial murder, either directly by Church authorities, or at their instigation.
But the Catholic authorities later recanted, and eventually recognized not only that she was no heretic, but in fact deserved recognition as a saint of the Church. She thus is a powerful symbol of the hope that in time, the church will likewise repent of the harm it has done by its disordered teaching on homoerotic relationships.
Marie Dorval (1798 – 1849) French
Actress, who was believed to be a lover of George Sand. After Dorval's death in 1849, Sand assumed the financial support for Dorval's surviving grandchildren.
HA de Rochemont (1901 – 1942) Dutch
Journalist, fascist and later a collaborator with the Nazis.
Walter Sedlmayr (1926 – 1990) German
Stage, television, and movie actor.
Nancy Ruth (1942 – ) Canadian
On her appointment to the Canadian Senate in 2005, she became Canada's first openly lesbian senator.
Suzi Wizowaty (1954 – ) US
Author and politician who is a member of the Vermont House of Representatives.
Yvonne Zipter (1954 – ) US
Journalist, author and poet, who was inducted into the Chicago Gay and Lesbian Hall of Fame in 1995.
Bjorn Lomborg (1965 – ) Danish
Author, academic, and environmental writer, who became internationally known for his best-selling and controversial book The Skeptical Environmentalist.
Gabor Szetey (1968 – ) Hungarian
Former Secretary of State for Human Resources in Hungary's Gyurcsány government, for the Hungarian Socialist Party.
Szetey publicly declared that he was gay at the opening night of Budapest's Gay and Lesbian Film Festival, on July 6, 2007. He is the first LGBT member of government in Hungary, and the second politician to come out, after Klára Ungár.
Danny Pintauro (1976 – ) US
Actor best known for his role on the popular American sitcom Who's the Boss? and his role in the 1983 film Cujo.
Trenton Straube (???? – ) US
Journalist
Died this day
Adolf de Meyer (1868 - 1949) French / German
Photographer famed for his elegant photographic portraits in the early 20th century, many of which depicted celebrities such as Mary Pickford, Rita Lydig, Luisa Casati, Billie Burke, Irene Castle, John Barrymore, Lillian Gish, Ruth St. Denis, King George V of the United Kingdom, and Queen Mary.
His marriage was one of marriage of convenience rather than romantic love, since he was homosexual and the bride was bisexual or lesbian.
Weaver W Addams (1901 - 1963) US
Chess master, author, and chess opening theoretician. His greatest competitive achievement was winning the U.S. Open Championship in 1948. Addams disclosed his sexuality in an autobiographical article, republished in Chess Pride.
Ian Charleson (1949 - 1990) UK
Scottish stage and film actor. He is best known internationally for his starring role as Olympic athlete and missionary Eric Liddell, in the Oscar-winning 1981 film Chariots of Fire. He is also well known for his portrayal of Rev. Charlie Andrews in the 1982 Oscar-winning film Gandhi.
Rudolf Nureyev (1938 - 1993) Russian
Dancer, considered one of the most celebrated ballet dancers of the 20th century. Nureyev's artistic skills explored expressive areas of the dance, providing a new role to the male ballet dancer who once served only as support to the women.
Rudolph Nureyev and Margot Fonteyn became longstanding dance partners and continued to dance together for many years after Nureyev's departure from the Royal Ballet. Their last performance together was in Baroque Pas de Trois on 16 September 1988 when Fonteyn was 69, Nureyev was aged 50, with Carla Fracci also starring, aged 52. Nureyev once said of Fonteyn that they danced with "one body, one soul".
Nureyev met Erik Bruhn, the celebrated Danish dancer, after Nureyev defected to the West in 1961. Nureyev was a great admirer of Bruhn, having seen filmed performances of the Dane on tour in Russia with the American Ballet Theatre, although stylistically the two dancers were very different. Bruhn and Nureyev became a couple[23][24] and the two remained together for 25 years, until Bruhn's death in 1986
Henrietta Moraes (1931 - 1999 ) UK
Artists' model, bohémienne, and memoirist. During the 1950s and '60s, she was the muse and inspiration for many artists of the Soho subculture, like Lucian Freud and Francis Bacon, and known for her marriages and love affairs.
Among these affairs were relationships with the singer Marianne Faithful, and the artist Maggi Hambling,
Francesco Scavullo (1921 - 2004 ) US
Fashion photographer best known for his work on the covers of Cosmopolitan and his celebrity portraits. Some of Scavullo's more controversial work included a Cosmospolitan centerfold of a nude Burt Reynolds, and photographs of a young Brooke Shields that some considered overly sexual.
Sodomy in history, January 6th
1950 — California increases the maximum penalty for sodomy from 10 to 20 years.
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