MARCEL CARNÉ, French film director was born on this date (d. 1996); a French film director, born in Paris, France, he began his career in silent film as a trainee with director Jacques Feyder. By age 25, Carné had already directed his first film, one that marked the beginning of a successful collaboration with surrealist poet and screenwriter Jacques Prevért. This collaborative relationship lasted for more than a dozen years, during which they created films that defined French cinema of the day. Together, they were responsible for developing poetic realism.

Under the German occupation of France during WWII, Carné worked in the Vichy zone where he subverted the regime's attempts to control art and filmed his masterpiece Les Enfants du paradis (Children of Pardise). In the late 1990s, the film was voted "Best French Film of the Century" in a poll of 600 French critics and professionals.

Post war, he and Prévert followed this triumph with what at the time was the most expensive production ever undertaken in the history of French film. But the result, titled Les Porte de la nuit, was panned by the critics and a box office failure failure that ended the duo's working relationship. Carné was Gay and made little secret about. Several of his later films contain references to Gay male sexuality or bisexuality. His long-time partner was Roland Lesaffre who appeared in many of his films.

SIR FRANCIS ROSE, British artist, born (d: 1979); The English artist was the last, and probably the most infamous, though least known, of Gertrude Stein’s many protégés. Several of Francis Rose’s drunken escapades are wonderfully recollected in Samuel M. Steward’s Dear Sammy. One story, peculiarly or not-so-peculiarly omitted from the artist’s autobiography, Saving Life. (1961), is about Luis, his valet de chambre.

In 1952 Alice B. Toklas wrote Sam Steward to tell him that Francis Rose “was in a good deal of trouble with Luis his valet de chambre boyfriend.” A casual encounter between the artist and a Spanish gypsy boy in front of a bistro in Paris had resulted in not only an evening pickup, but in the young man being hired for the entire summer, as both valet and bed mate. As Sam Steward tells I, “It was only after Luis got into some trouble with the gendarmérie over a stolen bicycle that Francis — called to help him out of his difficulty — examined his papers and discovered that the boy was his illegitimate son.

This episode titillated both France and England for some time. It certainly titillated Alice B. “Francis,” she wrote, “is saying that he is going to recognize Luis so he will inherit his title! As yet this tale has not been confided to any English friends — who would put him straight about bastards inheriting titles…”