please Prince Egon von Fürstenberg - rainhotss - rainhotss

Eduard Egon Peter Paul Giovanni Prinz zu Fürstenberg (Prince Egon von Fürstenberg, 1946-2004), was a bisexual fashion designer, socialite and interior designer. A member of a German aristocratic family, he was a businessman who managed to keep his name in the press, tabloids especially. Although his given name ended in “zu” Fürstenberg, not “von” Fürstenberg, he chose the latter, because it was better recognized and understood by the public.* In any event, his proper form of address was “His Serene Highness.”

In 1969 he married fashion designer Diane Halfin, a Jewish Belgian-American whose mother was a Holocaust survivor. The marriage was opposed by Egon’s father, mostly for anti-Semitic reasons. Diane’s marriage to Prince Egon brought her a noble title and helped her fashion design business rise to international prominence. 
 

Prince Egon and Diane von Fürstenberg

 
However, the couple became estranged and lived apart after 1972, just one year after their second child was born. In 1983 Prince Egon remarried, this time to an American, Lynn Marshall. That union was childless. But during and between those marriages Prince Egon had many male partners. He was frank about his bisexuality and the openness of his first marriage. He even professed his bisexuality and drug abuse to New York magazine and the Italian daily La Repubblica. Many of his friends remember that among his favorite hangouts were the NYC gay bars Flamingo (for drugs – they had no liquor license at that time) and The Barefoot Boy – not to mention his legendary gay partying on Fire Island.

Fürstenberg certainly didn’t need to work, but he was fascinated by the fashion world. He later published two books on fashion and interior design: The Power Look (1978) and The Power Look at Home: Decorating for Men (1980). After a lowly start as a buyer for Macy’s department store and a designer of plus-size women’s clothing, he launched a successful men’s clothing line. Eventually he opened an interior design firm in New York City, but his career was forever in the shadow of his first wife. It was Diane, not he, who made the name “von Fürstenberg” a famous brand. 

Nevertheless, Diane and Egon remained life-long friends, and she gave him a professional push or two, helping to assure his success. His signature logo reflected noble blood and love for high society – a crown with a star (upper right in photo below). 

In 2004 he died in Rome at the age of 57, survived by his two children and both wives. There was a delay in revealing a cause of death, leading many to confirm what was known by his intimate friends, that his death was from AIDS. Later it was reported “officially” by his second wife that he had died from liver cancer. 

Egon with Errol Wetson and his wife Margaux Hemingway,
and model Pat Amari (right).
Photographed by celebrity photographer Gary Bernstein.

Egon was born with the proverbial silver spoon in his mouth. He was the son of Prince Tassilo zu Furstenberg and Clara Agnelli, the sister of Fiat mogul Gianni Agnelli. Egon was also a cousin of Princess Caroline of Monaco (b. 1957) and the King of Sweden, Carl XVI Gustaf (b. 1946). Although he was born in Switzerland, Egon grew up in a Venetian palazzo with a staff of 21 servants, one of the perks of having a mother with the last name Agnelli. 

In 1965, while studying economics at the University of Geneva, he met fellow student Diane Halfin, from a wealthy German family. After their marriage, they settled in New York City, where Diane started her dress business, and Egon abandoned a career in banking to attend classes in fashion design. The von Fürstenbergs were lionized for their trendy life-style and frank discussion of sexual escapades outside of marriage. They maintained a frantic social life and were among the revelers who participated in drug infused nights at Studio 54.

The Fürstenberg family first rose to prominence as a thirteenth-century noble house in southwestern Germany (Swabia), as part of the Holy Roman Empire. Their noble status was elevated to a princely house during the seventeenth century. Today there are two Fürstenberg  ancestral residences: a magnificent Baroque palace in Donaueschingen (first image below) and a Renaissance palace in Heiligenberg (second image). 

*Note: A German noble with “zu” before the surname meant that the family still owned the hereditary feudal land holdings and residence, while many un-landed commoners who were subsequently ennobled simply placed a “von” before the surname. Thus, “zu” carried far greater prestige. I know, I’m always telling you more than you want to know.
Sources:
Wikipedia, People Magazine profile (Dec. 21, 1981), NYT obituary, Village Voice

please William "Billy" Haines - rainhotss - rainhotss

Out & Gay in Hollywood

William “Billy” Haines was born the evening of January 1, 1900, at the start of a new century, in Staunton, a railroad town in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia (my home state!). Although it is still possible to to stand in awe before the house he was born in, the small city of Staunton doesn't make a fuss over its famous citizen, likely because so few people are still alive who remember his meteoric rise to Hollywood stardom. 

He has my never-ending admiration, because he stood up to movie studio heads, refusing to "pretend" to be straight for the sake of the publicity machines. He chose dignity and respect for his lover over hypocrisy and ill-gotten fame. Haines, Rock Hudson, Tab Hunter, Farley Granger and others were all told that their movie careers would be over if they came out of the closet. Out of those men, only Haines had the courage to defy the studios; the others chose to enter into sham relationships or marriages to cover up their sexual orientation.

While Cary Grant and Randolph Scott and their like tried to put one over on the public, Haines chose an honest life, and did one better for himself. He switched careers, becoming fabulously wealthy as an interior designer to the stars. While he never left the glamorous world of Hollywood, he never again stood before a camera. Surprisingly, he had not longed to be a movie star, nor did he dream about being a decorator. Haines, an exceptionally bright and talented young man, recognized opportunity when it was thrust in front of him, and he took advantage of it. He lived by his wits, always seeming to make the right moves. Astonishingly, he reached the pinnacle of success in successive careers for which he had no training.

Haines was the grandson of one of Staunton's most prominent citizens, but at age 14 (!) he ran away from home with his boyfriend and opened a dance hall in Hopewell, VA, a city so known for wickedness and lawlessness that it was called "Sin City." His place of business, like everything else in the town, was burned to the ground in a great fire in 1915. Rather than go back to Staunton, he struck out for New York City, where he took a factory job at age 16. A tall, exceedingly handsome young man, Haines soon returned to Virginia to help support his family; his mother was pregnant, and his bankrupt father was in a mental institution following a breakdown. At 19 he returned to NYC, where an elderly gentleman arranged a job for Billy at a brokerage firm. He lived in an apartment in Greenwich Village for two years, becoming friends with Archie Leach (later known as Cary Grant), who was then in a gay relationship with costume designer Orry-Kelly. 

Restless and opportunistic, Haines found work as a model. He sent in his photograph to the "New Faces of 1922" contest sponsored by movie producer Samuel Goldwyn – and won. A screen test followed, and he packed up and moved to Hollywood, where he became one of the leading silent film stars of the 1920s and 1930s. Haines was named the leading male film star for 1930. His closest friend was Joan Crawford, much less well-known at the time. William Haines appeared in over fifty films, was the first MGM star to speak on film, and has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, just a few feet from the entrance to the Roosevelt Hotel, where the Academy Awards were first presented in 1929. 


Haines with co-star Joan Crawford in West Point (1928): 

However, gossip about his openly gay life threatened his leading man image, and MGM studio head Louis B. Mayer gave Haines an ultimatum: deny his homosexuality by engaging in a sham marriage or be shown the door. Haines refused to lie about his personal life, and Mayer did not renew his contract. He never worked in films after 1934, but pursued a stupendously successful career as an interior designer, which made him a multi-millionaire. Billy's life-long adage was, "One could be forgiven for illiteracy, but never for lack of good taste."

His Hollywood clients included prominent figures of the film community such as Joan Crawford, Claudette Colbert, Jack Benny, George Burns and Gracie Allen, Carole Lombard, William Powell, Frank Sinatra, Lionel Barrymore, Marion Davies, Douglas Fairbanks, studio head Jack Warner and director George Cukor. His social standing was decidedly A-list. Ronald and Nancy Reagan were frequent guests at his house. In 1969, most importantly, he was hired by Ambassador Walter Annenberg to design the interiors of Winfield House in London, the official residence of the American Ambassador to the Court of St. James. The million-dollar commission received international attention. In a career that continued until his death in 1973, he achieved fame as one of the most influential interior decorators of the 20th century. William Haines Designs remains in business to this day, with main offices in West Hollywood and showrooms in New York, Denver and Dallas. Many of his original furniture designs are still produced for the high end interior design trade.

Winfield House, the U. S. Ambassador's House in London, as decorated by William "Billy" Haines.

From the mid 1920s Haines lived openly with his lover Jimmy Shields (his former movie stand in) for nearly 50 years. Joan Crawford described them as "the happiest married couple in Hollywood." Haines died from lung cancer at the age of 73. Two months afterward, a grief-stricken Shields put on Haine’s pajamas, took an overdose of pills, and died in his sleep. Their ashes are interred side by side in the Woodlawn Memorial Cemetery in Santa Monica, CA.

The dashing Billy Haines with actress Anita Page.

William Haines, dashingly handsome in a white suit, acting opposite his best friend Joan Crawford in a flirty, comic scene from Spring Fever (1927). Haines and Crawford remained devoted friends until Haines’ death in 1973. Every time she changed husbands, Haines redecorated her home. Kept him busy.

Principal source:
Wisecracker: The Life and Times of William Haines
Hollywood's First Openly Gay Star
by William J. Mann (1999)
480 pages; Penguin Paperback edition

please James Costos, Ambassador to Spain - rainhotss - rainhotss

Same-sex Partners Occupy
U. S. Ambassador's Residence

When former HBO executive James Costos (b. 1963) was named the United States Ambassador to Spain and Andorra in 2013, his partner of 15 years, interior designer Michael Smith (Ambassador Consort?), moved in with him to occupy the ambassador’s residence in Madrid. Although they became one of the first same-sex couples to make their home in an embassy, Ambassador Costos says he and Smith were welcomed as any other ambassador would be, even though Spain is overwhelmingly Catholic (93%). In spite of religious cultural influence, same sex marriage was legal in Spain (since 2005) many years before it became law in the United States.

Costos was appointed by President Barack Obama and confirmed by the United States Senate on August 1, 2013. When the Obama family spent a 3-day Father's Day weekend with Costos and Smith at their Palm Springs home last year, the press was mute. This is an indication of how much progress has been made regarding same sex couples. Imagine the hoopla that would have ensued if either the Bush or Clinton families had resided under the roof of a same sex couple.

In addition to the ambassador's residence in Madrid, Costos and Smith maintain a penthouse in New York City, a residence in Holmby Hills, CA, and a third abode in Rancho Mirage (Palm Springs). The well-heeled pair met by striking up a conversation on a commercial flight 15 years ago. They have since become an international power couple, and an invitation to their official residence in Spain is much coveted by anybody who is anybody. When they are together in Madrid, Smith refers to his partner as "the Ambassador," as in "Where is the Ambassador at the moment?"

Michael Smith (seated) and Ambassador Costos at the U.S. Ambassador's residence in Madrid, with Glenn Ligon's neon art sign, "Double America." (Photo: James Rajotte)

High-profile designer Smith, whose business is based in Los Angeles, has been the White House decorator since 2008 and is responsible for the 2010 refurbishment of the Oval Office and the Obama’s private quarters (2009). At that time Smith was also appointed to the Committee for the Preservation of the White House. He spends one week a month in Madrid with Costos and works the rest of the time at his office in California, where he oversees a staff of 40. Smith has tweaked the embassy interiors, especially with artwork and decorative accessories, which the couple plans to leave behind for subsequent ambassadors to enjoy. Much of the refurbishment and entertainment expenses have come out of their own pockets.

Costos is concentrating his efforts on Spain’s economic recovery, stressing youth entrepreneurship as a path to tackle Spain's high unemployment rates.