On this date WILLIAM RUFUS KING, the U.S. Representative from North Carolina, Senator from Alabama, and the thirteenth Vice President of the United States was born (d. 1853).  Historians have argued about the extremely close relationship that King had with President James Buchanan. Mostly the heterosexual historians like looking the other way or whistling to distraction that there was nothing going on at all between these two.

But the two were rather inseparable. They shared a summer cottage outside of D.C. during the summers of Buchanan's presidency (interestingly right across the path from the cottage Lincoln would use during the Civil War). Buchanan is widely considered the worst American President (before Trump, who rescued Bush) for acceding to the demands of the Southern pro-slavery forces. Now why would a Northerner president from Pennsylvania have acted that way? Might it have had something to do with his attachment with the pro-slavery Southerner King?

In any case, people noticed.  Buchanan and King's close relationship prompted Andrew Jackson to refer to King as "Miss Nancy" and Buchanan as "Aunt Fancy," while Aaron V. Brown spoke of the two as "Buchanan and his wife." Further, some of the contemporary press also speculated about Buchanan and King's relationship. If there was nothing happening, why did Buchanan and King's nieces destroy their uncles' correspondence after their deaths?  We know why of course.  Surviving letters illustrate "the affection of a special friendship," and Buchanan wrote of his "communion" with his housemate.

King County, in Washington State (Seattle's county) was named after King.

The British/Grenadian jazz musician LESLIE HUTCHINSON was born on this date (d. 1969). Known as "Hutch", he was one of the biggest cabaret stars in the world during the 1920s and 1930s.  He was born on the Island of Grenada as Leslie Arthur Hutchinson, he took piano lessons as a child. He moved to New York City in his teens, originally to take a degree in medicine as he won a place due to his high aptitude, and began playing the piano and singing in bars.

He then joined a black band led by Henry "Broadway" Jones, who often played for white millionaires such as the Vanderbilts, attracting the wrath of the Ku Klux Klan. In 1924 he left America for Paris, where he had a residency in Joe Zelli's club and became a friend and lover of Cole Porter.  He was for some time the highest paid star in Britain and was one of the biggest stars during the twenties and thirties in the UK.

"Hutch" was believed to have had relationships with Ivor Novello, Merle Oberon, and actress Tallulah Bankhead. The rumors include affairs with Edwina Mountbatten and members of the British Royal Family which supposedly led to his social ostracism and the destruction of his professional career.

Encouraged by his lover Edwina Mountbatten, he came to England in 1927 to perform in a Rodgers and Hart musical, and soon became the darling of society and the population in general. "Hutch" was a favorite singer of the then Prince of Wales (later King Edward VIII). He was regularly heard on air with the BBC. One of his greatest hits was "These Foolish Things". He was a much-loved wartime entertainer.  As well as being a friend and lover of Cole Porter, he recorded several of his songs, including "Begin the Beguine" and Porter's list song "Let's Do It (Let's Fall in Love)", to which he supposedly made up some 70 new verses.

He later married and had a daughter. He would go on to sire six further children to five different mothers.

Hutchinson died from pneumonia in 1969. Only forty-two people attended his funeral. He was, most recently, the basis for the black jazz musician in Downton Abbey.

AUDIO EXTRA!  We've often featured musicians and wondered "what did they sound like?"  Well, in Hutchinson's case, his recordings date back enough that they're no longer copyright protected.  And the Internet Archive has a great collection of his work you can listen to or even download for future enjoyment.  He had a great voice and the arrangements are quite fun.  So, perhaps you can download a bit of his music and enjoy this largely forgotten singer.  Just go to:

http://www.archive.org/details/LeslieHutchinson-01-10

…and give a little listen.  A little player will pop up on that page for you to listen to his music.

Today is the birthday of American stand-up comedian and actress WANDA SYKES. She is well known for her blunt observations on current events, the differences between the sexes and races, and life in general, as well as for her roles on The New Adventures of Old Christine, opposite Julia Louis-Dreyfus, as Barb and on HBO's Curb Your Enthusiasm, as herself.  She now hosts her own late night talk show on Fox

Sykes was born and raised in Portsmouth, Virginia, to an Army colonel father who worked at the Pentagon and a banker mother, and was a graduate of Hampton University in Hampton, Virginia. In 2008, she made it known publicly that she is a Lesbian. She married her wife in California on October 25, 2008, prior to the passage of Proposition 8.

Today is the birthday of American writer BRET EASTON ELLIS. His books include: Less than Zero, The Rules of Attraction, American Psycho, The Informers, Glamorama, and Lunar Park. When asked an interview in 2002 whether or not he was gay, Ellis explained that he does not identify himself as gay or straight. He explained that he is comfortable to be thought of as Gay, bisexual or heterosexual and that he enjoys playing with his persona, identifying variously as Gay, straight and bi to different people over the years.

In a 1999 interview, the author puts forward that his reticence to definitively label his sexuality (in his own words, he is "very coy and weird about it") is for "artistic reasons", because "if people knew that I was straight, they'd read [my books] in a different way. If they knew I was gay, 'Psycho' would be read as a different book." In an interview with Robert F. Coleman, Bret refers to his as an "indeterminate sexuality", and said "any other interviewer out there will get a different answer and it just depends on the mood I am in".

In a 2011 interview Ellis again states that his answers to questions about his sexuality have varied from interviewer to interviewer, citing an example where his reticence to refuse the label "bi" had him and it was published that way. "I think the last time I slept with a woman was five or six years ago, so the bi thing can only be played out so long," he clarifies. "But I still use it, I still say it." In responding to Dan Savage’s It Gets Better campaign, aimed at preventing suicide among LGBT youth, Ellis tweeted "Not to bum everyone out, but can we get a reality check here? It gets worse."

Maybe for you, Bret. Maybe just for you.

ALICE B. TOKLAS, American companion to Gertrude Stein, died (b. 1877); The life partner of writer Gertrude Stein, as Stein's confidante, lover, cook, secretary, muse, editor, critic, and general organizer, Toklas remained a background figure, chiefly living in the shadow of Stein, until Stein published her memoirs in 1933 under the teasing title The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas

Ironically it became Stein's bestselling book. The two were a couple until Gertrude Stein's death in 1946. After the death of Gertrude Stein, Toklas published her own literary memoir, a 1954 book that mixed reminiscences and recipes under the title The Alice B. Toklas Cookbook. The most famous recipe therein (actually contributed by her friend Brion Gysin) was called "Hashisch [sic] Fudge", a mixture of fruit, nuts, spices, and "canibus sativa” [sic], or marijuana. It is more of a spiced fruitcake than a fudge.

The original Toklas recipe:

"Take 1 teaspoon black peppercorns, 1 whole nutmeg, 4 average sticks of cinnamon, 1 teaspoon coriander. These should all be pulverized in a mortar. About a handful each of stone dates, dried figs, shelled almonds and peanuts: chop these and mix them together. A bunch of canibus sativa can be pulverized. This along with the spices should be dusted over the mixed fruit and nuts, kneaded together. About a cup of sugar dissolved in a big pat of butter. Rolled into a cake and cut into pieces or made into balls about the size of a walnut, it should be eaten with care. Two pieces are quite sufficient. Obtaining the canibus may present certain difficulties.... It should be picked and dried as soon as it has gone to seed and while the plant is still green."

Her name was later lent to the range of cannabis concoctions called “Alice B. Toklas brownies.” The cookbook has not been out of print since it was published. A second cookbook followed in 1958 called "Aromas and Flavors of Past and Present," however Toklas did not approve of it as it had been heavily annotated by Poppy Cannon, an editor from House Beautiful magazine. She also wrote articles for several magazines and newspapers including The New Republic and the New York Times. In 1963 she published her autobiography, What Is Remembered, which abruptly ends with Stein's death, leaving little doubt that Stein was the love of her lifetime.

Harris Glenn Milstead, aka DIVINE, American actor, died on this date (b. 1945); An actor and singer, best known for his drag persona, Divine, especially in the role of "Edna Turnblad" in the 1988 comedy film Hairspray. 

The New York Times said of Milstead's films in the 1980s, "Those who could get past the unremitting weirdness of Divine's performance discovered that the actor/actress had genuine talent, including a natural sense of comic timing and an uncanny gift for slapstick." In 1988, Milstead was chosen to play Peggy's mother on the FOX series Married...With Children. However, he died in Los Angeles from an enlarged heart. He was 42 years old.

PAUL WINFIELD, American actor, died (b. 1941); an Emmy Award-winning and  Academy Award-nominated American television and film actor. He was known for his portrayal of a Louisiana sharecropper who struggles to support his family during the Great Depression in the landmark film Sounder and as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in the television miniseries King. Off camera, Winfield narrated the television crime series City Confidential. He was openly gay in his private life, but remained discreet about it in the public eye. Winfield died of a heart attack in 2004; he was 64. His partner of 30 years, architect Charles Gillan Jr., preceded him in death in 2002.

CRIS ALEXANDER, Actor and Photographer, died on this date (b: 1920). New Yorkers tend to believe that creative people trapped in America’s hinterlands hunger to come to their big, pulsating city to fulfill their dreams. In the case of Cris Alexander, it was true. “I came to New York because I thought they were waiting for me,” he once said, recalling how he fled Tulsa, Okla., in 1938 with a high school classmate, Tony Randall.

Mr. Alexander didn’t reach the peaks Mr. Randall did, but he did land a major part in “On the Town,” the 1944 musical that introduced Broadway to its composer, Leonard Bernstein; Betty Comden and Adolph Green, who wrote the book and lyrics; and Jerome Robbins, the show’s choreographer. But rather than on the stage, Mr. Alexander made it in New York as a photographer, taking portraits of the likes of Martha Graham and Vivien Leigh; having gallery shows; working for Andy Warhol’s Interview magazine and the New York City Ballet; and providing droll pictures for the best-selling 1961 satire of a movie star’s memoir, Little Me written by Patrick Dennis and later adapted for the Broadway stage by Neil Simon.

And he found love. When marriage equality became a reality (and legal) in New York in 2011, he married Shaun O’Brien, the celebrated character dancer with the New York City Ballet. They had been together for more than 60 years and died less than two weeks apart — Mr. Alexander on March 7 in Saratoga Springs, N.Y., at age 92; Mr. O’Brien on Feb. 23 at 86. They shared a Victorian house in Saratoga Springs.

“If there is a cause of death, it’s a broken heart,” his friend Jane Klain said in confirming Mr. Alexander’s death. “It’s as simple as that.”

He was born Allen Smith in Tulsa on Jan. 14, 1920, but by his teens he was calling himself Christopher, a name he thought befitting of a distinguished actor. Then, as he recalled, he visited a spiritualist, who asked what he most desired. “Success,” he shot back.

“Well I can guarantee you success if you do one thing,” he quoted her as saying. “Call yourself ‘Chris’ and take the ‘h’ out.” The next day Cris went to a radio station and got a job as an announcer, even though he stuttered. (He would eventually overcome that speech disorder.)

After briefly attending the University of Oklahoma, he arrived in New York and went to the Feagin School of Dramatic Art. He opened a photo studio and acted in summer stock. When a friend was hired for the chorus of a new show, On the Town, Mr. Alexander, who had sung only in his darkroom, figured, Why not? He auditioned for George Abbott, the renowned playwright, director and producer.

“Would you mind not leaving?” Abbott said, Mr. Alexander recalled in an interview with Show Music magazine in 1994. “I have a part I want you to read.” Mr. Alexander read, and Abbott declared, “That’s Chip.” Chip is one of three wildly energized sailors on a 24-hour pass in wartime New York and pursued by a romantically ravenous female taxi driver. Mr. Alexander was the first actor onstage to sing “Ya Got Me,” “Some Other Time” and “Come Up to My Place,” in a duet with the cab driver. (Frank Sinatra played the part in the 1949 movie version.)

In 1953, Mr. Alexander appeared as an inept Walgreens manager in another Bernstein-Comden-Green collaboration, Wonderful Town. Other Broadway parts included an intense young playwright in Noël Coward’s Present Laughter (1946), and multiple roles in Auntie Mame (1956), which was based on a novel written by Mr. Dennis.

He had begun taking pictures with his mother’s Brownie at 11 or 12. As an adult, his photography was uninhibited. He gave costume parties and took vivid pictures of his friends, whom he characterized in the Show Music magazine interview as “very gifted fools.” One day Mr. Dennis, famed for his oddball novels, admired the “fools” hanging in Mr. Alexander’s bathroom. “These are your real work,” Mr. Dennis told him. He suggested they collaborate on a “documented autobiography of someone who never was.”

The result was Little Me: The Intimate Memoirs of That Great Star of Stage, Screen and Television, Belle Poitrine, written by Mr. Dennis and illustrated with more than 150 photographs by Mr. Alexander. It tells of a self-centered actress — whose name means “beautiful bosom” in French — who had portrayed Anne Boleyn in “Oh, Henry” and had roles in “Sodom” and its sequel, “Gomorrah.”

Mr. Alexander, who left no immediate survivors, had lived with Mr. O’Brien in Saratoga Springs since 1993. Each afternoon at 4:30 they had an ice cream party. In the interview with Show Music, Mr. Alexander recalled what his acting teacher, Marjorie Jefferson, once said.

“Tell me, Cris,” he quoted her as saying, “you were such a good actor, why did you never amount to anything?” Then she paused, he said, before adding: “No that’s not true. You were about the most ambitious person I’ve ever known — ambitious to have a lovely life.”