Today was the birthday of two-time Emmy Award-winning and Tony Award-winning American comedian, actress and singer BEA ARTHUR. During a career spanning six decades, Arthur was perhaps best remembered for her trademark role as the title character, “Maude Findlay,” on the 1970s sitcom Maude, and for playing “Dorothy Zbornak,” the divorced substitute teacher on The Golden Girls.

She managed to become a Gay icon for many men who grew up in the 1970s and 80s. On stage, her roles included "Lucy Brown" in the 1954 Off-Broadway premiere of Kurt Weill's Threepenny Opera, and “Yente the Matchmaker” in the 1964 premiere of Fiddler on the Roof on Broadway, and a 1966 Tony Award-winning portrayal of "Vera Charles" to Angela Lansbury's Mame (she recreated the role in the ill-advised and unsuccessful film version opposite Lucille Ball in 1974).

Bea Arthur passed away April 25th 2013. Over the years I've heard rumors that she was a Lesbian, and it isn't hard to believe. But I don't know it for a fact. It would fit, though, with my remembrance of this strong, smart, brave woman. This writer had personal history with her.

I moved to Los Angeles (as crew with A Chorus Line, another story), and, as is my wont, got involved with SAG union activities. I was serving on the SAG Morals & Ethics Committee in 1977 when Anita Bryant announced that she was bringing her pitiful, small-minded ignorance, intolerance and fear to California in the form of support for State Senator John Briggs' Proposition 6, the Prop 8 of the day, that would have forbid Gay people...or any of their supporters...from holding teaching jobs in California. Nice, huh?

I thought the Screen Actors Guild needed to be the first industry union to come out against Prop 6, and that the only way to accomplish that was to get some big star power to appear before the Morals & Ethics Committee and demand it. Enter Bea Arthur. Ms. Arthur had just made her splash in Norman Lear's Maude, and would receive the first of two career Emmy's (the other for Golden Girls) that year for it. On television, there just wasn't a bigger star.

It was just about this time of the year that I sat down and wrote a letter to Ms. Arthur, outlining my idea. I mailed the letter and didn't think anything more about it. It was a shot in the dark. Weeks later, May 16th was my birthday, and I was getting ready to go out on the town with friends. Literally, just as we were heading out the front door, the phone rang (cell phones were still a Dick Tracy fantasy...I could still decide whether or not I was going to stop and answer). I picked up, said hello, and heard the unmistakable, gravelly contralto of Bea Arthur,

"Is Bo Young there?"

"Speaking," I said. I immediately recognized her unmistakable voice, my heart pounded out of my chest, my eyes popping out of their sockets as I pantomimed to my friends at the door, who were wondering what was going on.

"Well hello," she growled on, "I just wanted to let you know that I received your letter and I wanted you to know I'll do whatever you want me to do."

To which I responded, with breathless gratitude, "Oh god bless you Ms. Arthur!"

To which she responded, "What's this 'god bless you' shit?...I didn't sneeze."

The surprise was finding out, later, just how shy a woman this powerhouse actor was. When I met with her she insisted that I write something for her to say when she came before the committee because she was sure she would become tongue-tied and not be effective. Maude. Not effective. Right. She did everything I asked, just as promised, to perfection. Reading my lines to the committee, which immediately came through with the required vote, which then went on to the larger Steering Committee of the Screen Actors Guild, which was the first industry union to oppose the Briggs Initiative. As a result I was brought into the campaign as "assistant state press secretary" to Sally Fisk.

Later, I had cause to call Ms. Arthur again, to see if she would appear at a fundraiser we were holding in connection with the 1978 Briggs Initiative in support of No On Six. Unbeknownst to me, she had undergone a face lift just weeks before, and as a result her face was still puffy and black and blue. She still had bandages on her face, albeit small ones...and she appeared at our fundraiser. She said it was more important than what she looked like.

In November of 2005, Bea flew to New York City from her home in Los Angeles to give a special benefit performance of her one-woman show. The performance raised over $40,000 for the Ali Forney Center. In an interview for Next Magazine Bea explained her decision to offer her support "I'm very, very involved in charities involving youth and the plight of foster children. But these kids at the Ali Forney Center are literally dumped by their families because of the fact that they are Lesbian, Gay, or transgender - this organization really is saving lives." Bea continued to offer her support, both as a donor and as an advocate. In one of her very last interviews, published in the New York Blade in May 2008, Bea spoke with pride of having done the benefit for AFC, and indicated that she would do anything to help Gay kids disowned by their parents.

Her estate left $300,000 to the Ali Forney LGBT Shelter. As a result, in December of 2017, Ali Forney opened its doors to its facility for homeless LGBT youth, the Bea Arthur Residence..

That's the kind of person Bea Arthur was.

The birthday of neo-dadaist painter JASPER JOHNS. He is best known for his Flag painting (1954-55). Robert Rauschenberg and Jasper Johns were lovers during a six-year period of collaboration, and their relationship had a profound impact on their art. For years, the art world ignored this vital component of the Johns/Rauschenberg story, while the artists themselves kept mum on the matter.

But 2010’s exhibition Hide/Seek at the National Portrait Gallery broke the silence, openly exploring the artists’ sexuality as it intersected with their work—the first ever Gay-themed exhibition at a major American museum. 

MoMA, however, sent them back to the closet. Were MoMA a publicly funded museum, it might be concerned about offending its state patrons—that concern may sound very 1999, but the censorship issue reared its head again during Hide/Seek’s run, when Congressional Republicans threatened to cut the National Portrait Gallery’s funding over a Gay-themed, allegedly “blasphemous” work of art. (The museum quickly removed the offending works.) MoMA, however, is privately funded, and accepts no government cash. So why the dodge on Johns and Rauschenberg?

The English novelist, archeologist and travel writer BRUCE CHATWIN was born in Sheffield England (d: 1989). Chatwin's book include the travelogue "In Patagonia" (1977), "The Viceroy of Ouidah" (1980), on the slave trade in Benin, "For The Songlines," on the power of Australian aboriginal music and "On the Black Hill" a novel on the relationship of twin brothers in Wales.

In the late 1980s, Chatwin contracted AIDS. He was one of the first high-profile sufferers of the disease in Britain and although he hid the illness - passing off his symptoms as fungal infections or the effects of the bite of a Chinese bat, a typically exotic cover story - it was a poorly kept secret. He did not respond well to AZT, and suffered increasing bouts of psychosis which included extravagant shopping trips around the auction rooms of London - many of which purchases his wife quietly returned.

With his condition deteriorating rapidly, Chatwin and his wife went to live in the South of France at the house that belonged to the mother of his one-time lover, the designer Jasper Conran. Chatwin died in Nice in 1989 at age 48. The novelist Paul Theroux, Chatwin's one-time friend and fellow-writer, later commented on the memorial service in a piece he wrote for Granta, condemning Chatwin for failing to acknowledge that the disease he was dying of was AIDS. Lovers of the little black moleskin journals have undoubtedly read the story of Chatwin's popularizing of the books. The story goes that when the small bookmaker in Paris was going out of business, Chatwin bought out all of their stock to use on his travels.

Today is the birthday of writer, serialist and national treasure ARMISTEAD MAUPIN (1944). Maupin is most famous for his six book "Tales of the City" series of books. The first were originally published in serial forms in Bay Area newspapers. His later novels include "The Night Listener" and "Maybe The Moon" and 2009's "Michael Tolliver Lives." His name, coincidentally, is an anagram of "is a man I dreamt up."

It’s a busy life for The Wonderful Mr. Maupin with a brand spanking new musical based on Tales of the City. And PBS just featured a delightful documentary, The Untold Tales of Armistead Maupin, He is married to Christopher Turner. His most recent book revisits his beloved characters from Tales, The Days of Anna Madrigal. New York: Harper. 2014. ISBN 978-0062196248.

For more on Armistead Maupin, and maybe to send him a birthday greeting, visit his website at http://www.armisteadmaupin.com/

Happy Birthday Armistead. Long may you wave!

Today is the birthday of Academy Award-winning screenwriter, director, producer and occasional actor ALAN BALL, who is best known for writing the screenplay for the Oscar-winning film "American Beauty," and for creating the Emmy and Peabody Award-winning HBO original drama series "Six Feet Under."

In July 2016, it was announced that Ball's family drama Here and Now had been ordered to series by HBO. A ten-episode first season will star Tim Robbins and Holly Hunter.

U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Georgia's sodomy laws were unconstitutional. The Georgia State Attorney General appealed the decision to the Supreme Court, which reversed the lower decision.

During a speech at Northeastern University in Boston, presidential candidate JESSE JACKSON criticized the Reagan administration's response to AIDS and opposed mandatory HIV testing. While thousands were dying, mostly Gay men at that time, Ronald Reagan, the sitting president at the time, had never mentioned their deaths or AIDS in public. Not even once. Jackson's decrying the government's inaction brought the issue to the presidential race.

TIMOTHY R. MCVEIGH was promoted to master chief petty officer, the Navy's highest enlisted rank. He was chosen from a pool of 168 candidates. The Navy had attempted to discharge him after discovering his AOL profile said he was Gay. As such he became the first person to ever win a case against the U.S. military's "Don't ask, don't tell" policy. (He is not to be confused with Timothy McVeigh, the Oklahoma bomber).

The Human Rights Campaign announced that it would run a counter ad to recent anti-Gay television ads urging parents to teach their children tolerance.

The general manager of the New York Liberty WNBA basketball team CAROL BLAZEJOWSKI came out publicly at the WNBA team's Media Day.