GUSTAV MAHLER  Bohemian composer, born (d: 1911); It would be nice to claim Mahler as gay if only because his music is so cosmic, so intensely beautiful, so obviously the work of a genius who somehow understood how to shake the emotions of his listeners until they were overcome with pain or sobs or feeling or something resembling whatever a catharsis is supposed to be. But there’s really very little to go on, only Thomas Mann’s suspicion that the composer was homosexual, and the homosexual character of Aschenbach that he created in Death in Venice, based supposedly on Mahler.

It’s not much, but enough to have unleashed Visconti to do a job on Mahler and Mann in the film version of Mann’s unfilmable novella where Aschenbach is now portrayed as a composer whose work is derided, as opposed to being and author in the novella. Visconti’s choice of the Mahler score in Death in Venice left no question of Aschenbach’s identity. It’s Mahler on the Lido putting on makeup to attract the boy Tadzio, not Aschenbach.

GEORGE CUKOR, American director (d. 1983); One of the most influential and successful, Academy Award-winning American film directors, Cukor's career flourished at RKO and later MGM where he directed a string of impressive films including What Price Hollywood? (1932), A Bill of Divorcement (1932), Dinner at Eight (1933), Little Women (1933), David Copperfield (1935), Romeo and Juliet (1936), and Camille (1937). Known as an “actor’s director” and more importantly a “woman’s director” Cukor was hired to direct Gone With the Wind by David O. Selznick in 1937 and he spent two years with pre-production duties as well as spending long hours coaching Vivien Leigh and Olivia de Havilland, the film's stars. Cukor was replaced after less than three weeks of shooting, but continued to coach Leigh and De Havilland off the set.

Following the firing of its original director Richard Thorpe, Cukor also played a similar role in the production of The Wizard of Oz. Brought in on a temporary basis he made crucial changes to the look and feel of the film. In particular, he adjusted Judy Garland's makeup, costuming and performance, encouraging her to act in a more natural manner that greatly contributed to the success of the final film.

Cukor's next film...the one, the only, The Women (1939), a popular film notable for its all female cast and The Philadelphia Story (1940) starring Katharine Hepburn. He also directed another of his favorite actresses, Greta Garbo, in Two Faced Woman (1941), her last film before she retired from the screen. He continued to work into his 80s and directed his last film, Rich and Famous (1981) with Jacqueline Bisset and Candace Bergen. It was an "open secret" (something Hollywood seemed to have invented) in Hollywood that Cukor was Gay. Cukor was a celebrated bon vivant; during the heyday of Hollywood his home was the site of weekly Sunday parties and his guests knew that they would always find interesting company, good food, and a beautiful atmosphere when they visited.

Cukor's friends were of paramount importance to him and he kept his home filled with their photographs. Regular attendees at his A-list soirées included Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy, Joan Crawford and Douglas Fairbanks, Lauren Bacall and Humphrey Bogart, Claudette Colbert, Marlene Dietrich, Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh, Richard Cromwell, Judy Garland, Gene Tierney, Noel Coward, Cole Porter, James Whale, Edith Head and Norma Shearer (notice any themes?), especially after the death of her first husband, Irving Thalberg. George Cukor died on January 24, 1983 at the age of 83. He was interred in the Forest Lawn memorial Park in Glendale, California.

ROBERT A. HEINLEIN, American writer (d. 1988); One of “the Big Three” in science or imaginative fiction (Isaac Asimov and Arthur C. Clarke being the other two) Heinlein was often called “the dean of science fiction writers.” While not Gay himself, for Robert Heinlein, personal liberation included sexual liberation, and free love as a major subject of his writing starting from the 1939 For Us, The Living. Beyond This Horizon (1942) cleverly subverts traditional gender roles in a scene in which the protagonist demonstrates his archaic gunpowder gun for his friend and discusses how useful it would be in dueling — after which the discussion turns to the shade of his nail polish.

All You Zombies (1959) is the story of a person who undergoes sex reassignment therapy, goes back in time, has sex with herself, and gives birth to herself. Sexual freedom and the elimination of sexual jealousy are a major theme of Stranger in a Strange Land (1961), in which the progressive minded yet culturally canalized reporter, Ben Caxton, acts as a dramatic foil for the less parochial characters, Jubal Harshaw and Mike. Paralleling Ben's gradual philosophical awakening, the nurse Gillian Boardman learns to embrace her innate tendency toward exhibitionism and to be more accepting of other people's sexuality (e.g., Duke's fondness for pornography). Stranger's treatment of homosexuality is ambiguous. Two negative references to homosexuality have been interpreted by some as being homophobic, but both deal with Jill's hang-ups, and one is a discussion of Jill's thoughts.

It is therefore unclear if they reflect Heinlein's own point of view. In The Moon is A Harsh Mistress, homosexuality is ill-regarded, but accepted as necessary, in an overwhelmingly male society, by the book's point-of-view character.

In contrast, homosexuality is regarded with approval — even gusto — in books such as 1970s I Will Fear No Evil, which posits the social recognition of six innate genders, consisting of all possible combinations of male and female, with straight, gay, and bisexual. In The Number of the Beast, a male character discusses unsuccessful homosexual experimentation as a teenager, eventually stating that, while his previous experimentation had failed, if his friend and son-in-law Zeb Carter was to display a sexual interest in him, he would do his best to enjoy the experience and make Zeb feel as if he had desired it all along. In later books, Heinlein dealt with incest and the sexual nature of children.

In Time Enough For Love, Lazarus Long uses genetic arguments to initially dissuade a brother and sister he has adopted from sexual experimentation with each other, but he later arranges for them to be married, having discovered that they (in an extremely rare but scientifically possible circumstance) are not brother and sister on a genetic level; he also consummates his strong sexual attraction to his own mother, whom he goes back in time to see again. In some of Heinlein's books, To Sail Beyond the Sunset, for instance, sexual urges between daughters and fathers are exemplified and briefly discussed on several occasions.

Later in the same book, the protagonist/narrator (Maureen Johnson) discovers that her two youngest children are engaged in heterosexual incest. After failing to dissuade them from the relationship, she forcibly returns the two to their father, and never mentions them again. The protagonist of The Cat Who Walks Through Walls recalls a homosexual experience with a Boy Scout leader, which he didn't find unpleasant.

In Heinlein's treatment of the possibility of sex between adults and adolescents, some readers may feel that he dodges many of the valid reasons for the taboo by portraying the sexual attractions or actual sex as taking place only between Nietzschean supermen, who are so enlightened that they can avoid all the ethical and emotional pitfalls. Also, the individuals involved in almost all cases are fully mature (if not "over mature", as in centuries-old), with stable personalities. The question of incest at this point, in Heinlein's characterizations, is more one of genetic compatibility and progeny issues than morality.

One of the greatest tennis players in history, BARON GOTTFRIED VON CRAMM, was born today (d. 1976). Never heard of the German tennis champion? Well his life is so unbelievable that it would make a great movie. Aside for his being known for his gentlemanly conduct and fair play, he was one of the most winning tennis players in history. In 1932 he won the Davis Cup for Germany on his first attempt, the following year he won the mixed doubles title at Wimbeldon with Hilde Krahwinkel. Two years later he earned his first individual Grand Slam title, winning the French Open.

Gottfried von Cramm is most remembered for his match against Don Budge during the 1937 Davis Cup. Considered won of the greatest matches in tennis history, von Cramm and Budge played in Wimbeldon's center court to a crowd of 14,000 people mesmerized by these two champion players. Alistair Cooke, who covered the match as a radio journalist, wrote that the two players "set the rhythms of something that looked more like ballet than a game where you hit a ball. ... People stopped asking other people to sit down. The umpire gave up stopping the game to beg for silence during rallies." They played on into twilight and finally the match ended with a passing shot whose landing was never seen by Budge, who fell to the ground as soon as the ball was hit. When it was over the British crowd in Cooke's words "forgot its nature. ... It stood on benches" and emitted a "deep kind of roar."

Later the captain of the U.S. team was quoted as saying, "No man, living or dead, could have beaten either man that day." [for more on the match and on von Cramm and Tilden check out the recent book "A Terrible Splendor: Three Extraordinary Men . . . and the Greatest Tennis Match Ever" by Marshall Jon Fisher] In an interview after the match, Budge told a reporter that von Cramm had received a phone call from Hitler minutes before the match started and came out pale and serious and had played each point as though his life depended on winning.

Budge was more right then he knew. Von Cramm in fact once confessed to his coach, the American tennis legend Bill Tilden (himself quite closeted), that he was "playing for my life." Less than a year after the match, the Nazis would move against him. But why? His winning ways made him a hero in his native Germany. Certainly the handsome, blond athlete fit the "Aryan-race" image of the Nazis. But von Cramm refused to join the party. He detested them.

Figures, as von Cramm was madly in love with the Galician Jewish actor and singer MANASSE HERBST. In 1938 he was found guilty of having a "homosexual relationship" with Herbst and sentenced to a year in prison. Later von Cramm was sent to the Russian front. After the war he returned to tennis, settled down with a Woolworth heiress (later divorcing) and went into the cotton exporting business. He died in Egypt in 1976 when the car he was riding in collided with a truck. He was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame in Newport, Rhode Island in 1977.

GIAN CARLO MENOTTI, Italian-born composer (d. 2007); One of the leading classical composers of the twentieth century, Gian Carlo Menotti not only had a distinguished career, but also achieved acclaim at a time when his uncloseted homosexuality could have been a major barrier. Amazingly prolific and indefatigable, even in his nineties he continued to be a vital presence in the world of classical music.

Among his fellow students at Curtis were composers Leonard Bernstein and Samuel Barber. Barber (1910-1981), with whom he was to share a relationship that endured more than thirty years, soon became his life-partner, though Menotti later also had a long personal and professional relationship with the conductor Thomas Schippers. Menotti wrote the libretto for Barber's most famous opera, Vanessa (1964).

Menotti's first mature work, the one-act opera buffa, Amelia Goes to the Ball (1936), had its premiere in Philadelphia. It was subsequently staged at the Metropolitan Opera in New York where it received popular and critical acclaim.

Menotti then wrote a series of operas that were staged very successfully on Broadway. The Medium (1945), The Telephone (1946), The Consul (1949), and The Saint of Bleecker Street (1954) established his reputation as the most popular opera composer in America. He received New York Drama Critics Circle awards and Pulitzer Prizes for The Consul and The Saint of Bleecker Street. Menotti's Amahl and the Night Visitors was originally written for television and broadcast in 1951. It has since become a Christmas classic, performed all over the world during the Christmas season.

TANABATA, meaning "Evening of the seventh" is a Japanese star festival, derived from the Chinese star festival, Qi Xi "The Night of Sevens.” It celebrates the meeting of Orihime (Vega) and Hikoboshi (Altair). The Milky Way, a river made from stars that crosses the sky, separates these lovers, and they are allowed to meet only once a year on the seventh day of the seventh lunar month of the luni-solar calendar. Since the stars come out at night, the celebration is held at night. The festival originated from The Festival to Plead for Skills. In the Edo period, girls wished for better sewing and craftsmanship, and boys wished for better handwriting by writing wishes on strips of paper. At this time, the custom was to use dew left on taro leaves to create the ink used to write wishes.

A retrial verdict acquits cross-dressing JOAN OF ARC of heresy 25 years after her death. Oops! So sorry. Our bad. Actually, for the Roman Catholic Church, this is a pretty quick turnaround. Oops! Our bad.