Thornton Wilder (1897 - 1975), playwright. and novelist

b. April 17, 1897

d. December 7, 1975

American playwright and dramatist,who is the only writer to have won Pulitzer Prizes for both literature (his novel "The Bridge of San Luis Rey"), and for drama (twice, for his plays "Our Town" and "The Skin of Our Teeth"). He also earned a National Book Award for his novel "The Eighth Day".

Although Wilder never discussed being gay publicly or in his writings, his close friend Samuel Steward is generally acknowledged to have been a lover. Wilder was introduced to Steward by Gertrude Stein, who at the time regularly corresponded with the both of them. Wilder's mainstream literary works are landmarks of American literature, but they reveal scant traces of his homosexuality. A discreet homosexual, his sexual proclivities were kept far out of the limelight.

Wilder seems to have been regarded even by his closest friends as a kind of Henry James figure, somewhat sheltered and cerebral, and frightened of sex. The relationship between Wilder and his one documented companion, Steward, may have begun as a furtive sexual fling in Zurich in 1937. Steward, a writer, pornographer, tattoo artist, and one-time college professor, was, in pointed contrast to Wilder, open and adventurous. He wrote popular erotic gay works in the 1970s under the pseudonym Phil Andros.

Wilder seems to have backed away from Steward after several awkward encounters. Intimate affection eventually became fond intellectual acquaintance. Typical of some gay men of the era, Wilder preferred to play the role of the perennial Respectable Bachelor. Although he never publicly discussed his homosexuality, later in his life he is believed to have had discreet affairs with younger men.

Bessie Smith, (1892/4 - 1937)

Singer
b. Unknown: July 1892 or April 15, 1894
d. September 26, 1937

It's a long old road, but I know I'm gonna find the end

Details of Bessie Smith's childhood, including the year of her birth, vary. Both Smith's parents died before her ninth birthday. As a child, she and her brother performed as a musical duo on the streets of Chattanooga, Tennessee to support themselves.

In 1912, Smith joined a traveling troupe. While with the troupe she met blues singer Ma Rainey, who became Smith's friend and mentor. Smith's extraordinary talent as a blues singer, coupled with her vivacious personality, quickly landed her a solo act in Atlanta, Georgia. She entered the Eastern Seaboard vaudeville circuit and over the next ten years her popularity soared.

Columbia Records signed her in 1923 and she quickly became the highest paid African American entertainer of her time. She earned up to $2000 per week during the height of her career. Her successful first recording, titled "Down-Hearted Blues," catapulted her to national success.

Smith toured the country and recorded over 160 songs while accompanied by some of the greatest jazz instrumentalists of her time, including Louis Armstrong. From slow blues to jazz standards, Bessie Smith consistently produced original work with her broad range and versatility. Columbia Records upgraded her unrivaled status as "Queen of the Blues" to "Empress of the Blues."

Five years after signing with Columbia Records, Smith's career began to decline during the Great Depression. Her last recording, featuring Benny Goodman, took place in 1933. Although she never received the same level of acclaim bestowed on her during her early career, Bessie Smith continued to perform in clubs up until her death. She died shortly after a car accident in 1937.

Bibliography
“Bessie Smith: Selected Artist Biography.” PBS: Jazz, a Film by Ken Burns. June 29, 2007
Albertson, Chris. Bessie. Yale University Press, 2003
Selected Works
After You’ve Gone (2001)
An Introduction to Bessie Smith: Her Best Recordings 1923-1933 (1996)
Beale Street Mama (1996)
Bessie Smith Sings the Jazz (1996)
Bessie Smith: The Complete Recordings, Vol. 1 (1991)
Bessie Smith: The Complete Recordings, Vol. 2 (1991)
Bessie Smith: The Complete Recordings, Vol. 3 (1992)
Bessie Smith: The Complete Recordings, Vol. 4 (1993)
Best of the Empress of the Blues (2004)
Down Hearted Blues (2006)
Queen of the Blues Vol. 1 (2007)
St. Louis Blues (2005)
The Collection (1989)
The Essential Bessie Smith (1997)
The Incomparable (1999)

Leonardo da Vinci, Artist/Inventor/Scientist

Artist/Inventor/Scientist
b. April 15, 1452
d. May 2, 1519

Nothing strengthens authority so much as silence

Leonardo Da Vinci was the archetypal Renaissance man. His curiosity and genius led him to make observations, experiments and breakthroughs in a variety of fields including engineering, architecture, math, anatomy, optics, astronomy, geology, biology and philosophy. His artwork and inventions, many of them advanced far beyond normal innovations of the time period, continue to earn him wide acclaim.

Artist Andrea del Verrocchio hired Da Vinci, at age 15, as his apprentice. While working with Verrocchio in Florence, Da Vinci learned a broad range of skills including painting, sculpting and drafting. In 1472, he was accepted into the painters' guild in Florence. Da Vinci lived mostly in Florence and Milan for the rest of his career while working on commissioned art. "Mona Lisa," "The Last Supper" and "Madonna of the Rocks" are a few of his most famous paintings.

Da Vinci left behind a collection of 40 notebooks, of which 31 still remain. He filled these notebooks with diagrams and records of his observations and research in the fields of painting, architecture, mechanics, human anatomy, geophysics, botany, hydrology and aerology.

Da Vinci's documents demonstrate that he conceptualized helicopters, tanks and calculators long before construction of these devices became feasible. He also envisioned solar power and developed a rudimentary theory of plate tectonics.

Da Vinci's professions included civil engineer, musician, military planner and weapons designer. He worked as the court artist for the Duke of Milan. From 1513 to 1516 he lived in Rome. He developed a close relationship with Niccolò Machiavelli and mathematician Luca Pacioli, with whom he helped write "Divina Proportione" (1509).

No evidence suggests that Da Vinci had relationships with women. His closest relationships were with two of his male pupils, Melzi and Salai.

Bibliography


“Leonardo Da Vinci: Painter and Sculpter of Florence (1452-1519).” Life of an Artist: Biographies and Galleries. July 1, 2007
Kemp, Martin. Leonardo da Vinci: Experience, Experiment, and Design. Princeton University Press. 2006
Nicholl, Charles. Leonardo da Vinci: Flights of the Mind. Penguin. 2005

Samuel Steward / Phil Andros (1909 - 1993), Tattooist, archivist and porn writer

b. July 23, 1909
d. December 31, 1993

Samuel Steward was a professor of English, who wrote high quality gay erotica, kept meticulous notes of all his sexual encounters, assisted Kinsey in his research, and switched careers to become a professional tattoo artist decades before tats became respectable. He also developed extended correspondence with several literary icons, notably Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Tolkas, and a sexual relationship with Thornton Wilder.

Phil Andros was both the pen - name he used for his erotica, and the name of the hustler who was his chief protagonist. The extraordinarily literate quality of his writing, combined with its explicitly erotic character, and his extensive documentation of his life, sexual escapades and wide correspondence with leading literary figures of his time, make him one of the most fascinating characters in twentieth century queer culture.

While still a student at Ohio State University, he wrote a fan letter to Gertrude Stein in Paris. Her reply began a life - long correspondence and personal friendship. In much the same way, his letters to other writers he admired led to extensive correspondence with many more leading figures in twentieth century art and culture, including André Gide, Thomas Mann, Lord Alfred Douglas, and Alfred Kinsey.

His own early literary studies developed into a twenty year career in academia, including positions in Washington state, and in Chicago later at Loyola University and De Paul University. He also served from 1946 to 1948 as an editor in the departments of religion, fine arts, and education of the World Book Encyclopedia.

As an inveterate diarist and archivist, he kept detailed notes of all of his numerous sexual encounters, and became an unofficial collaborator (and life-long friend) of Alfred Kinsey, who once flew in a sadist from New York for a bondage session with Steward, which he filmed.

During the 1950's, Steward began moonlighting as a tattoo artist (frankly admitting that he particularly enjoyed tatooing male genitals). As this would not have gone down at all well with the authorities alongside his academic work at De Paul University, he kept the two activities strictly separate, adopting the name "Phil Sparrow" for his tattooing work, a name he retained even after giving up his university work two years later, to earn his living exclusively from the tattoo parlour.

When he began writing gay porn later, even the name he chose, Phil Andros, was a literary joke, from the  Greek for "Love" (Philos) and "Man" (Andros).

Beginning with $tud, published in 1966, the Andros books are a series of graphic and witty accounts in the first person of a fictional hustler. As Steward explained, he made the narrator of his stories a male hustler because of a prostitute's "easy entry into any level of society." "He can go see a judge as easily as he could see a surfer," Steward noted.

While most of the Andros books were originally published in the late 1960s and early 1970s, they were revised a decade later to considerable critical and commercial success.

Books:

As Phil Andros:

• Stud (1966)
• The Joy Spot (1969);
• My Brother, the Hustler (1970, revised as  My Brother, My Self  1983);
• Renegade Hustler (1970, revised as  Shuttlecock , 1984);
• When in Rome, Do ... (1971, revised as Roman Conquests, 1983);
• San Francisco Hustler (1971, revised as  Boys In Blue , 1984);
• The Greek Way (1971, revised as Greek Ways, 1984);
• Below The Belt & Other(New Ed) (1981);
• Different Strokes (Perineum) (1984).

• A Century of Gay Erotica

As Samuel Steward:

• The Caravaggio Shawl (Gertrude Stein And Alice B. Toklas Mystery)
• Bad Boys and Tough Tattoos: A Social History of the Tattoo With Gangs, Sailors, and Street-Corner Punks, 1950-1965 (Haworth Gay & Lesbian Studies)
• Understanding the Male Hustler

Spring, Justin:

• Secret Historian: The Life and Times of Samuel Steward, Professor, Tattoo Artist, and Sexual Renegade
• An Obscene Diary: The Visual World of Sam Steward

Donatello (1386 -1466 ), Italian Sculptor

b.  c. 1386
d.  December 13, 1466

Italian artist and sculptor from Florence, and the most inventive, prolific sculptor of the early Renaissance. Donatello was both technically versatile and adept at powerfully expressive effects. His most famous work is his bronze David, the first free-standing nude statue known to have been produced since ancient times, but his varied oeuvre includes other figures of beautiful male youths imbued with homoerotic sensuality.

Some have perceived the David as having homo-erotic qualities, and have argued that this reflected the artist's own orientation. Yet, details of Donatello's relationships remain speculative. The historian Paul Strathern makes the claim that Donatello made no secret of his homosexuality, and that his behaviour was tolerated by his friends.

Evidence about Donatello's sexuality comes from the sculptures themselves and from anecdotes collected around 1480, sometimes attributed to Poliziano. Seven of these anecdotes concern Donatello, who was renowned for a sharp wit and called "very tricky (intricato)" by the Duke of Mantua.

Three anecdotes eroticize Donatello's relations with apprentices. He hired especially beautiful boys, and "stained" them so that no one else would find them pleasing; when one assistant left after a quarrel, they made up by "laughing" at each other, a slang term for sex. Two of these anecdotes were omitted from some sixteenth-century editions, and the one on laughter was glossed as "licenzioso."

Evidence about Donatello's sexuality comes from the sculptures themselves and from anecdotes collected around 1480, sometimes attributed to Poliziano. Seven of these anecdotes concern Donatello, who was renowned for a sharp wit and called "very tricky (intricato)" by the Duke of Mantua.

Other than the bronze David, other works with an homoerotic streak include Atys/Amorino (ca 1440), a laughing boy faun with exposed genitals, while clothed youths with a sensual appeal include the marble David (1408-1416), St. George (ca 1415-1417), and St. Louis of Toulouse (ca 1418-1422). In the mid-sixteenth century, the Florentine poet Lasca praised the St. George as an ideal substitute for a living boyfriend, providing constant amorous pleasure to his gaze.

Mary Renault (1905 - 1983 ) UK / South African /English

Writer best known for her historical novels set in Ancient Greece. However, her early novels had a contemporary setting,and dealt with lesbian love. After she and her partner emigrated to South Africa in 1949, she found in Durban a community of gay expatriates and a society, which was more sexually tolerant, but racially repressive.

In South Africa Renault was able to write forthrightly about homosexual relationships for the first time, especially in a series of historical novels, all set in ancient Greece; her sympathetic treatment of love between men would win Renault a wide gay readership. Though Renault appreciated her gay following, she was uncomfortable with the "gay pride" movement that emerged in the 1970s after the Stonewall riots.

George Quaintance (1902/3 - 1957 ) US. Artist / Photographer

b. 3rd June 1902
d. 8th November 1957

Quaintance was a gay American artist, famous for his "idealized, strongly homoerotic" depictions of men  in mid-20th-century physique magazines. Using historical settings to justify the nudity or distance the subjects from modern society, his art featured idealized muscular, semi-nude or nude male figures; Wild West settings were a common motif. His artwork helped establish the stereotype of the "macho stud" who was also gay. He was an influence on many later homoerotic artists, such as Tom of Finland.

His companion and life partner was Victor Garcia, who was also his business associate and model, who was the subject of many of Quaintance's photographs in the 1940s.

In 1951, Quaintance's art was used for the first cover of Physique Pictorial, edited by Bob Mizer of the Athletic Model Guild. In the early 1950s, Quaintance and Garcia moved to Rancho Siesta, which became the home of Studio Quaintance, a business venture based around Quaintance's artworks.In 1953, Quaintance completed a series of three paintings about a matador, modeled by Angel Avila, another of his lovers. By 1956, the business had become so successful that Quaintance could not keep up with the demand for his works.

Related articles

• George Quaintance (glbtq encyclopedia)

"Eminent Outlaws: The GayWriters Who Changed America"

Book Review, at the Star Tribune:

NONFICTION: "Eminent Outlaws: The GayWriters Who Changed America,"

by Christopher Bram 

Once World War II was over, there was no stopping gay writers from stepping out of the shadows.

It is remarkable to recall, as Christopher Bram does in "Eminent Outlaws," that 1948 saw publication of two overtly gay novels -- Gore Vidal's "The City and the Pillar" and Truman Capote's "Other Voices, Other Rooms." Capote's novel was "dazzling," said the Chicago Tribune, but Time magazine said his "theme is calculated to make the flesh crawl." Both books were bestsellers.

Bram, best known as a novelist ("Gods and Monsters"), gives an endlessly fascinating, first-of-its-kind account of about a dozen gay novelists, poets and playwrights, from Vidal and Tennessee Williams to Tony Kushner and Edmund White, each of whom had far-reaching impact over five postwar decades.

Even for those familiar with these writers, Bram's book serves an invaluable, connect-the-dots function. It's also an amiable, opinionated and occasionally gossipy guide to famous feuds, love affairs and literary treasures worth rediscovering.

-full review at StarTribune.com 

In an interview with the Strib, Christopher Bram named his personal favourites by some of the authors discussed in Eminent Outlaws: 

• Edward Albee: "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?"Hands down.
• James Baldwin: "Another Country." In a way this is a post-gay novel. It has gay and straight characters and a sex scene between a gay man and a straight man. It's the mid-'60s and he's already writing a post-gay novel.
• Christopher Isherwood: "Down There on A Visit." I love "A Single Man," but "Down There on a Visit" is even better. I love its scope.
• Edmund White: "A Farewell Symphony." It has a wimpy last quarter, but it has great stuff before then.
• Tennessee Williams: "A Streetcar Named Desire." The great American play, with a major gay episode in it.
• Armistead Maupin: "The Night Listener"
• Andrew Holleran: "Dancer from the Dance." It really holds up. It's now become a great historical novel of New York in the '70s.

Oscar Wilde, (1854 - 1900): Playwright and gay icon

b. October 16, 1854
d. November 30, 1900

"Society exists only as a mental concept; in the real world, there are only individuals."

Oscar Wilde gloried in flaunting his individuality during the Victorian Era, a period synonymous with social conformity and sexual repression.

Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde was born in Dublin to a mother who was a noted poet and Irish nationalist, and a father who was an eye surgeon. Wilde showed brilliance from an early age, winning prizes at school and university. At Magdalen College, Oxford Wilde adopted his signature flowing hair and flamboyant style of dress, openly scorned "manly sports," and decorated his rooms with peacock feathers and beautiful objects.

Wilde first became a public figure as a spokesman for the Aesthetic Movement, whose motto was "art for art's sake." After a lecture tour through the United States, where he met poet Walt Whitman, Wilde said that "America is the only country that went from barbarism to decadence without civilization in between."

In 1892, the debut of his first play, Lady Windermere's Fan, introduced London theatergoers to such Wildean trademark witticisms as, "My own business always bores me to death; I prefer other people's," and "I can resist anything but temptation." Wilde's plays sparkle with keenly observed satirical wit that punctures the stuffy pretenses of Victorian society.

A turning point in Wilde's life came in 1891 when Wilde, who was married and the father of two children, began an affair with Lord Alfred Douglas, known as "Bosie," son of the Marquess of Queensbury. Infuriated by his son's involvement with Wilde, the Marquess instigated legal actions that ended with Wilde's conviction on a charge of gross indecency for "a love that dare not speak its name."

In April 1895, the night he was arrested for "indecent acts," Wilde's name was removed from the playbills outside theatres in London and New York where his hit plays "The Importance Of Being Earnest" and "An Ideal Husband" were playing.

Wilde was sentenced to two years' imprisonment at hard labor. He spent the last three years of his life in poverty and self-imposed exile. He died in Paris in 1900 at the age of 46, his life undoubtedly shortened by the rigors of imprisonment

The continued popularity of Wilde's plays and his novel The Picture of Dorian Gray,as well as numerous films and books about his life, have made him an icon of popular culture. His grave in Pere Lachaise Cemetery in Paris has become a pilgrimage site.

Oscar Wilde us listed at  number 3 in Paul Russell's ranking of The Gay 100: A Ranking of the Most Influential Gay Men and Lesbians, Past and Present.

Bibliography:

• CMG Worldwide: Official Web Site of Oscar Wilde
• Ellman, Richard. Oscar Wilde. Vintage, 1998.
• McKenna, Neil. Secret Life of Oscar Wilde: An Intimate Biography. Basic Books, 2006.

Selected works by Oscar Wilde:

• The Complete Works of Oscar Wilde: Stories, Plays, Poems & Essays (See all Contemporary Literature)
  
• The Importance Of Being Earnest
• The Picture Of Dorian Gray
  

DVD:

• The Oscar Wilde Collection
• Wilde
• The Trials of Oscar Wilde (aka The Green Carnation)