please Cary Grant & Randolph Scott - Part II - rainhotss - rainhotss

Where there’s smoke...
Hot Saturday (1932 Paramount Pictures)

Grant and Scott met at Paramount while making the movie, Hot Saturday, and sparks flew on screen and off. IN one scene a very tall 34-year-old Randolph Scott (Bill) dances with his fiancée (Ruth, portrayed by Nancy Carroll). 28-year-old Cary Grant (Romer) emerges from the rumble seat of his car as he arrives at the dance, and Cary Grant cuts in on Carroll and Scott, and the sexual tension between the two men is so hot that Nancy Carroll is all but superfluous. See for yourself on Netflix.

American actor Randolph Scott reaches out to British born Cary Grant.

The two stars shared a Santa Monica beach house (jokingly known as Bachelor Hall) during the 1930s as well as a mansion in Los Feliz (2177 West Live Oak Drive* – the house still stands). The two cohabitated for 11 years and remained friends throughout their lives, and between them had seven marriages. Randolph Scott’s career reached its peak in the 1950s, when he was the king of Hollywood westerns.

Both went on to marry heiresses. It is well known that Grant was married to Barbara Hutton. Scott was married to heiress Marion DuPont for three years, but they did not live together or have a sexual relationship. Scott remained in Los Angeles, while Marion pursued her equestrian interests at her estate in Virginia; Montpelier, her 55-room mansion in Orange, Virginia, was the ancestral and retirement home of President James Madison. Today a framed black and white photograph of Scott sits on a bookcase in the Montpelier museum annex that preserves the Art Deco interior of DuPont’s equestrian trophy room; the photo is the sole reference to their marriage. The rest of the house has been returned to its appearance as it was when President Madison lived there. Weirdly, Scott had served as best man at Marion’s first wedding. Stranger still is the fact that Scott had been born in Orange County, Virginia. Clearly fond of each other, Marion and Randolph remained close friends all their lives.

People who knew them early in their careers said Grant and Scott lived openly gay lives behind closed doors, but, as was the case with Rock Hudson, arranged marriages were the order of the day. Studios had to protect their financial properties and interests. The name "Bachelor Hall" and the reported parade of women through there were orchestrated by the studios, who wanted to keep their valuable actors away from any scandal.

Famed homosexual film director George Cukor said this 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.” Fashion critic Richard Blackwell claimed he had affairs with both Grant and Scott; before meeting Scott, Grant had lived with gay Hollywood costume designer John Orry-Kelly.

An oft-repeated swipe was: “Archie Leach was gay, but Cary Grant was straight.” Cary Grant later said that ultimately, he BECAME Cary Grant, the guy up on the screen, because that’s what everyone wanted him to be.

That says it all, I think.








Photo: Cary Grant in the prime of his youth.

The mansion and pool shared by Cary Grant and Randolph Scott during the 1930s in the Los Feliz area of Los Angeles. The house stands to this day.

please Henri III of France - rainhotss - rainhotss

The twenty-three-year-old dandy Henryk Walezy (1551-1589) had served only two years as King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania when he received news that forever changed his life. His brother Charles X (Henryk’s bitter enemy), who happened to be king of France, had just died, leaving Henryk with a much better prospect. King of France trumped King of Poland any day of the week. Born Alexandre-Édouard de Valois-Angoulèm in the Royal Château de Fontainebleau (built by his grandfather, François I of France), the outrageously vain and effeminate Henryk took a leave of absence from Poland* to hie himself to Reims, where he was crowned Henri III, King of France, on February 13, 1575.

*The Polish population soon realized that the leave of absence was permanent, and the Polish throne was declared vacant.

The day after his coronation as the king of France, Henri participated in an arranged marriage to Louise of Lorraine, and it was expected that they would conceive a child. Never happened. Though Louise fell deeply in love with Henri, the sexual feelings were not reciprocated. Henri treated his wife as a doll, dressing her up, applying makeup to her face, teaching her how to flirt. Her mild and gentle virtues contrasted her husband’s vice, vulgarity and coarseness. Louise soon learned that her husband was a flamboyant omni-sexual given to wild sadomasochistic orgies while dressed in drag. Among the passions he was unable to restrain was an obsession for outrageous jewelry. He surrounded himself with legions of twenty-something boyfriends, favorites known as “mignons de cœur” (darlings of the heart), and they scandalized the public with their effeminate mannerisms. They also copied their king’s fashion innovations, protecting their hands by carrying small muffs, wearing outsized earrings and keeping pet parrots and monkeys. Even the king’s fondness for lapdogs – especially small spaniels – was copied by his mignons. When Henri changed the style of his beard or moustache, his mignons followed suit. I kid you not.

A real fashionista, Henri changed his garments, jewelry and perfumes several times a day. He showed little interest in typically masculine pursuits such as hunting, preferring masked balls, parlor games and the intrigues of court life and etiquette (he introduced the use of a fork to the tables of France, an item of cutlery that had been in use while he was king of Poland).

In fact, the contemporary reports of Henri’s untempered homosexual activity and effeminate mannerisms were so numerous and blatant that some historians dismiss many of them as politically motivated exaggerations. However, seldom in history had the homosexual activity of a monarch been so public and undisguised. His harem of young male mignons was not confined to the royal palaces; when the king attended public fairs and carnivals, his fawning favorites accompanied him in full force. Not only did Henri dress in women’s clothes, he did so in public.

Henri III (seated) amongst his mignons:

Throughout his life Henri had been controlled by his power-mad mother, Catherine of Medici, whose pet name for her son was “chers yeux” (precious eyes). She was responsible for setting him up on the throne of Poland. She had been the one to embroil her children in the hideous crimes of the St. Bartholomew Massacre of Protestants. Catherine was content to watch her son Henri occupy himself with frivolous fashion and childish games, allowing herself to control many affairs of state, marked by religious animosity between Catholics and Protestants. However, Henri’s inability to produce an heir resulted in a succession crisis.

For King Henri III, it all came to an early and ignominious end. Just shy of his thirty-eighth birthday he was assassinated by a young fanatical Dominican friar, Jacques Clément, who was carrying false papers. Clément was granted access to deliver important documents to the King. The monk gave Henri a bundle of papers and stated that he had a secret message to deliver. The King signaled for his attendants to step back for privacy, and Clément whispered in his ear while plunging a knife into his abdomen. Clément was killed on the spot by the guards, but Henri did not die until the following day. Thus Henry of Navarre, the legitimate heir to the French throne because Henri III remained childless, became his successor as Henri IV, one of the great kings of France.

please Edward Tanner, a.k.a. Patrick Dennis - rainhotss - rainhotss

Edward Everett Tanner III was born in 1921 in Illinois into a prominent family of staunch Republicans. Edward, nicknamed "Pat", was a popular high school student who excelled in writing and theater. In 1942, at the age of 21 he joined the American Field Service, working as an ambulance driver in North Africa and the Middle East. After WW II he married Louise Stickney, with whom he had two children, even though he had struggled with homosexual leanings his entire adult life.

Under an assumed name at the age of 36 he wrote a best-selling novel, which remained on the NYT Bestseller list for more than two years, selling more than 2 million copies in the first edition. A year later he became the first writer to have three books on the NYT Bestseller list at the same time. His books were mostly biting social satires which almost single-handedly introduced "camp" into mainstream American culture. He also wrote several books under the female pseudonym, Virginia Rowans.

Tanner made millions from his 16 books and became the toast of New York society. His novels were made into wildly popular films, plays, television series and musicals, but by the 1970s his writing style had fallen out of fashion. A week after he was profiled in Life magazine, he attempted suicide and was committed to a mental hospital for eight months. After years of leading a double life as a gay man, he had fallen in love with another man and decided he had to abandon his family. He had always been a profligate spender, and by the time he left his wealthy wife, he was broke and had to go to work as a butler, a job he actually enjoyed. Giving full vent to his homosexual orientation, he became a fixture in the Greenwich Village gay scene in New York.

His employers at the time, Mr. and Mrs. Ray Croc (founder of McDonalds), had no idea that their butler, Edward Tanner, was in fact the writer Patrick Dennis, author of Auntie Mame, which in stage, movie and musical forms would provide Rosalind Russell and Angela Lansbury with major theatrical roles.

Mr. Dennis died from pancreatic cancer in 1976, at the age of 55, his days as a dilettante long behind him. In the year 2000 his ashes were interred with the body of his wife Louise in St. James’s Cemetery in Stony Brook, Long Island.

Note: I can especially recommend an obscure book by Mr. Dennis: Tony (1966). The narrator, whose name is never disclosed, meets Tony, a name-dropping scoundrel, when they become college roommates. Tony is a complete fraud and a pathological liar, yet the narrator chronicles their decades long love-hate friendship in hilarious style. Tony morphs into whatever form will get him ahead. An inveterate social climber, even Tony’s sexuality is “fluid” when a wealthy homosexual man falls in love with him (the man’s mother writes a very large check to have Tony fly the coop). Many aspects of  Tony’s character are autobiographical (the author had three real life identities as Edward Tanner, Patrick Dennis and Virginia Rowans, not to mention the bisexuality), and the reader can easily lose track of the number of times Tony reinvents himself . This is perfect “beach” reading, and used copies are readily available from Amazon and Alibris.

A 2002 biography, Uncle Mame: The Life of Patrick Dennis, written by Eric Myers, is available in a Kindle edition, and used copies of the print editions are likewise available from Amazon and Alibris.

please The Marquis de Sade - rainhotss - rainhotss

Let’s see. According to the Wikipedia page, he was born Count (not Marquis) Donatien-Alphonse-François de Sade in 1740 in Paris and died in a French mental asylum in 1814. He was a rich, bisexual pint-sized (5'2") libertine and writer (novels, plays, poems) who spent a third of his life incarcerated for indecency – and that’s a charitable assessment of his life. The engraving at left (de Sade at age 19) is the only surviving image of the Marquis.

The word “sadism” (deriving sexual pleasure from inflicting pain) is derived from his name, and he is thought to have acted out in real life most of the debauchery and perversions he wrote about. A rabid atheist, de Sade also held enlightened views on homosexuality, which he described as no more or less normal than heterosexuality. Indeed, one of de Sade’s favorite sexual acts was to be impaled by his male valet while engaging in intercourse with a female.

Where to start? Although he had a wife and three children, there was nothing respectable about him. He used these words to describe himself: “Imperious, angry, furious, extreme in all things, with a disturbance in the moral imagination unlike any the world has ever known –  there you have me in a nutshell: and one more thing, kill me or take me as I am, for I will not change.” His aristocratic family’s reputation was ruined by his depravity; his son removed “Donatien” from his name so as not to be associated with his infamous father. His other son burned his father's manuscripts upon his death in 1814. De Sade's writings, which detailed acts of rape, incest and pedophilia (for starters), were banned until 1957, and his family took extensive measures to erase the memory of their disgraced ancestor. When, as newly-weds during the 1940s, the parents of Hughes de Sade (b. 1948) explored the attic of their chateau, they discovered that a wall had been bricked up generations ago. Stored inside were papers, letters and writings by the Marquis. The couple had never heard of him and knew nothing about his reputation.

There has been a huge turnabout in recent times. The de Sade family now celebrates its link to the so-called “Marquis.” Hughes de Sade, who boldly named his now 39-year-old son “Donatien”, has created a luxury brand that capitalizes on the Marquis de Sade legacy. Offerings from the Maison de Sade include wine (one red variety is labeled “Justine”), scented candles and gourmet items, and the family is in negotiations with Victoria’s Secret to develop a line of lingerie that will pay homage to the Marquis.

Exactly two months ago – December 2, 1814 – marked the two hundredth anniversary of the death of the Marquis, and the Musée d’Orsay in Paris had an exhibition on de Sade’s influence on the visual arts titled “Sade – Attacking the Sun.” A big tourist draw at the Château de Vincennes, a short distance east of Paris, is the prison cell in which the Marquis was incarcerated. Also notable is an exhibit at the Paris Museum of Letters and Manuscripts titled “Sade: Marquis of the Shadows, Prince of the Enlightenment” that opened in late 2014.

While a prisoner at the Bastille, de Sade wrote The 120 Days of Sodom on a 6" tall, 39' long scroll, that was found hidden away in his cell when the Bastille was stormed during the Revolution of 1789. Somehow the scroll fell into the hands of a wealthy French family that sold it in 1904 to a German collector who published a limited edition of 180 copies. The scroll was returned to France in 1929, but in 1982 a descendant of the de Sade family lent it to a bookseller, who stole it and promptly sold it to a Swiss collector. In the spring of 2014, the French National Library brought the manuscript back to France for an astonishing settlement of $9.6 million dollars with the contentious French and Swiss owners. That makes The 120 Days of Sodom one of the most valuable literary works in existence, on a par with the Magna Carta and da Vinci’s Leicester Codex. All the more amazing is that the subject of this über-valuable scroll is the imprisonment, sexual torture and death of dozens of adolescent and teenaged men and women at the hands of four depraved male aristocrats.

Notes: Tony Perrottet wrote an extended article, “The Marquis de Sade – Crimes of Passion”, that appeared in the February 2015 issue of Smithsonian Magazine:
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/who-was-marquis-de-sade-180953980/?no-ist

A short English-language article about de Sade can be found at: http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/desade.htm

please Pianist Earl Wild - rainhotss - rainhotss

Earl Wild was one of the greatest virtouso pianists of the 20th century, often compared to Horowitz and Rachmaninov. Openly gay, Wild lived in Palm Springs, California, and Columbus, Ohio, with his domestic partner of 38 years, Michael Rolland Davis. Wild had an outsized talent and played flamboyantly. He specialized in piano transcriptions, performing the music of Lizst and Rachmaninov, but also arranged and composed extensively. In a nod to a fellow gay man, his Piano Sonata (2000) features a 4-minute toccata dedicated to Ricky Martin. Wild’s landmark piano fantasy on themes from Gershwin’s opera,  “Porgy and Bess,” was followed by his own solo piano settings of Rachmaninov and Gershwin songs. Wild lived to the ripe old age of 94. He died at home on January 23, 2010, of congestive heart disease.

Wild  was the first pianist to give a recital on television, in 1939. Nearly sixty years later, in 1997, he gave the first piano recital to be streamed live over the Internet. Over the course of his career, Wild played at the White House, gave annual recitals at Carnegie Hall (always sold out within minutes) and remained active until his final recitals and recordings in 2005.

Wild was also known as a formidable wit and saucy raconteur. When he was interviewed by David Dubal, Mr. Wild was asked about his years of playing flute in the United States Navy Band during World War II (Wild was stationed at a base outside Washington, DC). “Did you see any action?” Mr. Dubal asked. “Only in the cemetery,” Mr. Wild deadpanned.

Wild’s piano arrangement of “Mexican Hat Dance,” recorded at the age of 88! Guaranteed to put a smile on your face.



Earl Wild: Etude on Embraceable You (Gershwin)
Performed by Yeol-Eum Son
Wild’s Etudes on Gershwin’s popular songs are becoming staples of concert repertoire, especially as encores. I never thought it possible, but I think this performance actually surpasses Wild’s own interpretation.

please Gary Burton - rainhotss - rainhotss

Jazz Musician: the undisputed king of vibes

Gary Burton (b. Jan. 23, 1943) is an American jazz vibraphonist. After many years of marriage Burton came out as a gay man in 1985, making him one of only a few openly gay jazz musicians. He chose a public means to declare his homosexuality, by coming out during an interview on National Public Radio's "Fresh Air" radio show with Terri Gross. That interview is frequently re-broadcast. Burton fathered two children from his marriage to Catherine Goldwyn, granddaughter of movie mogul Samuel Goldwyn (of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer fame).

Burton is the undisputed master of the vibraphone, not just a vibes player, but THE vibes player whose rule spans from the 1960s to the present. Today he lives in South Florida, where he shares a newly built house with his partner, Jonathan Chong.

A true original on the vibraphone, Burton developed a pianistic style of four-mallet technique as an alternative to the usual two-mallet style. This approach caused Burton to be heralded as an innovator. His sound and technique are widely imitated. But have a look and listen. Here Gary Burton plays a vibes solo (performance dating from the 1960s): “Chega de Saudade” (No More Blues), composed by Antonio Carlos Jobim and Vinícius de Moraes. Do your best to ignore the dated fringed jacket and concentrate on his mind-blowing four mallet technique.

please Dave Kopay - rainhotss - rainhotss

Former NFL player Dave Kopay

In a 2008 column that appeared in the University of Washington alumni newsletter, Jon Naito wrote a feature on Dave Kopay (b. 1942), a veteran National Football League player who had been an All-American running back at the University of Washington in the early 1960s. Kopay, who had relocated to Seattle after spending decades in the West Hollywood area of Los Angeles, had recently announced his intention to leave a $1 million endowment to the university’s Q Center, a resource and support center for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender students and faculty. The value of this bequest amounts to half of Kopay’s estate.

While a running back for the Washington Redskins (1969-70), Dave Kopay had a relationship with teammate Jerry Smith, a star tight end for the team. In 1975, three years after his career in football had ended, Kopay gave an interview to the Washington Star newspaper in which he declared his homosexuality. He is believed to have been the first professional athlete to do so. It was while playing for the Washington Redskins under legendary coach Vince Lombardi that Kopay and Smith had their affair. Subsequently, Kopay disclosed that many of their Redskins teammates knew about their relationship. In a January 1998 Kopay profile in GQ magazine, David Kamp wrote:

...You had to comport yourself a certain way as a gay man on the Washington Redskins. When I ask Kopay how well-known it was among the 'Skins that he and Smith were gay, he takes me over to the 1970 team portrait that hangs on his foyer wall. "Walter Rock—he knew. Vince Promuto—he knew. Len Hauss—he knew. Pat Richter knew; he's now the athletic director of the University of Wisconsin. I'm sure Brig Owens knew—he was Jerry's best friend on the team. Larry Brown knew. Ray Schoenke knew. They knew and had ways of making me know they knew. I was always being kidded about it by Walter Rock: 'Where are you and Jerry going tonight? Anyplace we can go?' "...

In 1977 he wrote his autobiography, “The David Kopay Story: An Extraordinary Self-Revelation,” currently in its 5th printing. To this day the book remains a perennial favorite with people coming to grips with their sexual identities.

Kopay told the cable sports network ESPN about his relationship with Jerry Smith, calling it his “first real coming-out experience.” Although Smith died of complications from AIDS in 1987 at age forty-three, Jerry never publicly acknowledged his homosexuality.

Above: Artful image of Kopay by noted gay photographer George Dureau*, who died of Alzheimer's disease earlier this year.


*See separate post on George Dureau in sidebar

At the Gay Games VII in Chicago (July 2006), Kopay was a featured announcer in the opening ceremonies. Currently active as a motivational speaker, Kopay still receives hundreds of letters from fans of his book who received understanding, support and inspiration from his life story.

Kopay had grown up in a strict Catholic family, serving as an altar boy. He was tormented with guilt over his sexual attraction toward men, which drove him to enroll at a junior seminary while in his teens, hoping to “cure” himself by becoming a priest. Instead, he found himself intensely attracted to his fellow seminarians. He transferred to a Catholic high school, where he became a football player. At the University of Washington, where his brother was also on the football team, Kopay became a star running back, culminating in a 9-season professional career in the NFL.

While a member of the Theta Chi fraternity at the University of Washington, Kopay had a clandestine relationship with a fraternity brother. The two slept together on the porch of the frat house, usually after dropping off their female “dates.” His fear and insecurities led to major bouts of depression, and it would take more than a decade for Kopay to begin to confront his big secret.

In the meantime, Kopay entered into a marriage that ended in divorce.  He took measures to mislead others about his sexual orientation, feigning interest in women. Because he wasn’t like the stereotypical gay man, he did not think of himself as a homosexual, and the conflicts and personal torment continued.

Finally, after coming out to a reporter for a Washington, DC, newspaper three years after his professional career ended, he wrote his landmark autobiography, The Dave Kopay Story, which subsequently led to many opportunities as a public speaker and gay rights activist. Unfortunately, it also ended his hopes for a career as a coach. Kopay feels that he was effectively blackballed from the sport of football.

After reconnecting with his alma mater, however, Kopay has been given the recognition and support he had long sought. During halftime of a Huskies' game, he was honored by being named a “Husky Legend.” The crowd roared as he crossed the field, and the moment resonated with him. He was finally one of them.

At the time he wrote the Kopay profile for the UW alumni newsletter, Jon Naito was a reporter for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer newspaper, where he worked on the city desk. The link to his alumni newsletter feature can be found here:

http://www.washington.edu/alumni/columns/dec08/kopay.html  

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