STEPHEN SPENDER, English poet (d. 1995); Of the “English trinity,” Auden-Isherwood-Spender, only the latter is rarely given his due. Although Spender is mentioned in many biographies and studies of modern English writers, his appearances are walk-ons, where he delivers his lines and disappears for another hundred pages.

Even in Isherwood’s Christopher and His Kind, he seems to recede into the background, despite his height and unruly shock of hair. In reading these works one gets the impression that Auden took his virginity and that Isherwood gave it back to him. What is his version of their youthful friendships? Since this important poet, editor, and critic’s autobiography appeared more than forty years ago, when one had to talk and write in whispers, we can hardly know.

Spender's changing attitudes towards homosexuality and heterosexuality have caused him to be labeled bisexual, repressed, homophobic, or simply someone so complex as to resist easy labeling.

Many of his friends in his earlier years were Gay. Spender himself had many affairs with men in his earlier years, most notably with Tony Hyndman (who is called "Jimmy Younger" in his memoir World Within World). Following his affair with Muriel Gardiner he shifted his focus to heterosexuality, though his relationship with Hyndman complicated both this relationship and his short-lived marriage to Inez Maria Pearn (1936-39). His marriage to Natasha Litvin in 1941 seems to have marked the end of his romantic relationships with men. Subsequently, he toned down homosexual allusions in later editions of his poetry. The following line was revised in a republished edition:

Whatever happens, I shall never be alone. I shall always have a boy, a railway fare, or a revolution.

It was later revised to read:

Whatever happens, I shall never be alone. I shall always have an affair, a railway fare, or a revolution.

As late as 1994, Spender sued author David Leavitt for allegedly using his relationship with "Jimmy Younger" in Leavitt's While England Sleeps. The case was settled out of court with Leavitt removing certain portions from his text.

TOMMY TUNE, American dancer, born; At 6-foot-6-and-a-half-inches, Tommy Tune cast a long shadow over Broadway for many years, accumulating nine Tony Awards in eighteen years. Tune is the first person to have won Tonys in four different categories: Best Director, Best Choreographer, Best Featured Actor in a Musical, and Best Actor in a Musical. (The only other person to accomplish this feat is Harvey Fierstein.)

Tune's trademark style is infused with a respect for and knowledge of old-fashioned musical theater, but staged with state-of-the-art savvy. While other choreographers such as Jerome Robbins and Agnes de Mille individuated members of the ensemble, Tune celebrates the chorus line.

Normally reticent about his personal life, Tune shocked many by discussing his bisexuality in his autobiography, Footnotes (1998). "What I arrived at in my 59^th year is that I just want to walk in truth and live by my own time." The book contains moving passages about his lover of almost ten years, stage manager David Wolfe, who died of AIDS in 1994, and about actor and costumer Michael Stuart (1943-1997), with whom Tune lived for seven years.

WILLIAM FINN, an American composer, born; an award-winning American composer and lyricist, especially of musicals. Finn is a heavily autobiographical writer (he always writes his own lyrics); his topics are the gay and Jewish experiences in contemporary America, and very often conflict, loyalty, family, belonging, sickness, healing, and loss.

Finn is especially well noted for his work on what was to become a trilogy of short musical shows off-Broadway. In Trousers, March of the Falsettos, and Falsettoland all chronicle the lives of the character Marvin, his ex-wife Trina, his boyfriend, Whizzer, his psychiatrist, Mendel, and his son, Jason. He lives with his life partner in New York City, where he is an independent composer and writer. He is also "Adjunct Faculty Composer/Lyricist" at NYU.

A revival of Falsettos opened on Broadway at the Walter Kerr Theatre in September 2016, in previews and officially on October 27, directed by James Lapine..

LAURA Z. HOBSON, American novelist died (b. 1900); Her most famous work, Gentlemans Agreement, reached #1 on the The New York Times best-sellers’ list in 1947. A later novel, Consenting Adult (1975), about a mother dealing with her son's homosexuality, was based on her experience with her son, Christopher.