2005-05-31

The right-wing fundamentalist group American Family Association launches a nationwide boycott of FORD MOTOR COMPANY in retaliation for Ford support of LGBT issues.

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Gay Wisdom – Today in Gay History

Born

1905 -

EMLYN WILLIAMS, Welsh actor, born (d: 1987); Although he was already known as a playwright and stage actor, Emlyn Williams became famous in 1935 for playing the baby-faced psychopath murderer Dan in his own Night Must Fall. He became an international celebrity three years later when his autobiographical play The Corn is Green was first performed. It has been said many times that Williams’s plays are eminently theatrical and readable, even though they are somewhat shallow, sentimental and dependent on melodramatic effects. But these shortcomings were obviated by Williams’s charm, intelligence, and moral integrity – qualities he demonstrated as a director and an actor, on both stage and screen. He often appeared in his own plays, and was famous for his one-man-show, with which he toured the world, playing Charles Dickens in an evening of readings from Dickens' novels.

He wrote a two-volume autobiographical George (his original first name) and Emlyn (the middle name he adopted for the stage). In Emlyn he recounts the story of his love affair with an actor on the skids. It is beautifully told and considering that Williams was a married man with children when he wrote it, is boldly courageous in its honesty. He also describes his Gay life in New York in the 1920s, including a rather hilarious scene at the Everard Baths regarding someone’s false teeth coming loose in an act of fellatio. When’s the last time you read a book by a living, married celebrity that recounted a night at the tubs? Read his…he is an honest man and can be trusted to be authentic.

This writer had the privilege of dining with Williams on a number of occasions in Los Angeles in the early 80s. The first time, seated next to Williams (I was the fresh young thing at the time) I watched as a dessert bowl of plain vanilla ice cream was set before him. He asked me to pass him the pepper mill, which I did, and he proceeded to grind a healthy dusting of the pepper all over his ice cream. To this day, I do the same. It is delicious and so was he.

1940 -

American educator, author and gay activist, ARNIE KANTROWITZ born; Having received a bachelor's degree from Rutgers in 1961 and a master's degree from New York University in 1963, he taught English at State University College at Cortlandt (New York) before accepting a position in the English Department at Staten Island Community College (now The College of Staten Island, City University of New York) in 1965.

After many years of struggle with his sexuality, including psychotherapy and two suicide attempts, Kantrowitz "came out" and immediately became active in the Gay liberation movement in New York City.

He joined the recently established Gay Activists Alliance (GAA) in 1970, was elected secretary and, the following year, vice-president. In addition to participating in GAA's non-violent protest "zaps," and speaking out for Gay rights on national television, Kantrowitz also put his writing talent at the service of the movement. He contributed first to GAA's newsletter Gay Activist and then for several other Gay publications. By 1975 he had become a popular regular contributor to the Advocate and Christopher Street. Kantrowitz became known to an even wider audience when his autobiography, Under the Rainbow, was published by William Morrow and Co. in 1977.

Kantrowitz has been an activist in the classroom for over twenty years. To present a positive role-model for Gay students and increase the understanding of Gay men and Lesbians among all students, he made it a policy to formally discuss his sexuality in each of his classes, and invite responses from the students. He was also Associate Professor of English at The College of Staten Island.

In 1985 Kantrowitz became a founding member and officer of the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD), an organization devoted to advancing fair and accurate portrayals of Gay men and Lesbians in the media. He has continued to write frequently about the Gay experience for the Gay and popular press, and his essays have been widely anthologized, most recently in Personal Dispatches: Writers Respond to AIDS, 1990; Hometowns, 1991, Leatherfolk: Radical Sex, People, Politics, and Practice, 1991; A Member of the Family: Gay Men Write About Their Families, 1992; Friends and Lovers: Gay Men Write About the Families They Create, 1995; and Gay and Lesbian Literary Heritage, 1995. He is also the author of Walt Whitman, a biography of the American poet written for the Chelsea House series Lives of Notable Gay Men and Lesbians. Kantrowitz currently lives in New York City with his life partner, fellow writer and activist Lawrence D. Mass, MD, and wrote regularly for White Crane.

Died

1943 -

WINNARETTA SINGER ,PRINCESS EDMOND DE POLIGNAC, known as "Winnie" died in London on November 26, 1943 *b: 1865): A musical patron, a notorious but discreet Lesbian, and the heiress Singer sewing machines.

After an unhappy marriage with Prince Louis de Scey-Montbéliard in 1887 (she was 22 years old), annulled by the Vatican in 1892, she married the following year to 59-year old Prince Edmond de Polignac, a discreet homosexual, each living freely thanks to this "white marriage," (a chaste union.) In the parlance of the era, her divorce cast a shadow on her reputation that a marriage to a Prince illuminated.

The marriage had been arranged by the Countess Greffulhe and Robert de Montesquiou, declaring: "Thus we will marry the sewing machine with the lyre. And when the complicated estate of Isaac Singer - who had left two separate wills - was eventually settled, in 1877, Winnaretta received $167,000 (around $4.25 million in 2018 dollars) directly from his father's personal savings account; in addition, she inherited part of the sale of the Singer Sewing Machine Company, more than $50,000 ($1.2 million) in cash and about $610,000 (almost $15 million in today’s economy) in shares. Another disposition left Winnaretta a part of English property. In the end, Isaac Singer's will made Winnaretta a fabulously rich young heiress.

While they each pursued their other interests, they both were very much involved in music and the musical evenings of Polignac became regular and very sought after. All of Paris that counted then in the world of illustrious personalities in the arts, letters and sciences, pressed into their salons. But the Prince was beleaguered with fragile health and died on August 8, 1901, at the age of sixty-seven. The princess was deeply bereaved by the loss of the man who had been her best friend and had played such an important role in the world of art and beauty that she had created around them.

Winnie's youngest brother, Franklin Singer, died in Paris on August 10, 1939. The princess accompanied her body to England to join the family of Singer in the crypt of Torquay, and she decided to stay a little longer to visit to friends. On September 3rd, England and France declared war on Germany. On September 17, the princess wrote to Nadia Boulanger and Francis Poulenc that her family had asked her to stay a little in England. She moved to Devonshire, where she had spent her younger years. She helped organize concerts whose profits were donated to the Red Cross. In the early spring of 1940, Winnaretta left Devonshire for London.

She organized many dinners, which included tenor Peter Pears, the publisher Cyril Connolly - who helped him record his memories - the writer Stephen Spender - who was curious to hear him recall his personal memories about Proust - composers Benjamin Britten, Lennox Berkeley, Gerald Berners, and other artistic and political figures. The princess died of a heart attack in the early hours of November 26, 1943.

Born

1957 -

FELIX GONZALEZ-TORRES (d: 1996) was an American, Cuban-born, gay visual artist born on this date. González-Torres was known for his minimal installations and sculptures in which he used materials such as strings of lightbulbs, clocks, stacks of paper, or packaged hard candies. In 1987, he joined Group Material, a New York-based group of artists whose intention was to work collaboratively, adhering to principles of cultural activism and community education. González-Torres's 1992 piece "Untitled" (Portrait of Marcel Brient) sold for $4.6 million at Phillips de Pury & Company in 2010, a record for the artist at auction. González-Torres was born in Guaimaro, Cuba.

In 1971, he and his sister Gloria were sent to Madrid where they stayed in an orphanage until settling in Puerto Rico with relatives the same year. González-Torres graduated from the Colegio San Jorge in 1976 and began his art studies at the University of Puerto Rico while actively participating in the local art scene. He moved to New York City in 1979 with a study fellowship. The following year he participated in the Whitney Independent Study Program where his development as an artist was profoundly influenced by his introduction to critical theory. He attended the program a second time in 1983, the year he received a BFA in photography from the Pratt Institute. In 1986, González-Torres traveled to Europe and studied in Venice.

In 1987 he was awarded the degree of Master of Fine Arts by the International Center of Photography and New York University. Subsequently he taught at New York University and briefly at the California Institute of the Arts in Valencia. In 1992 González-Torres was granted a DAAD fellowship to work in Berlin, and in 1993 a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts.

Best known for his cascading light bulb installations, his “candy piles” and the “Unmade bed” billboard, González-Torres died in Miami in 1996 due to AIDS-related complications.

Died

1994 -

JOEY STEFANO, American porn actor, died (b. 1968); an American porn star who appeared in gay adult films. He was popular in the late 1980s and early 1990s. His real name was Nicholas Anthony Iacona, Jr.

After several years of prostitution and drug use in New York City, Stefano moved to Los Angeles and enjoyed a meteoric rise to stardom in gay porn. A notable reason for his popularity, besides his smoldering good looks, was his early mastery of the "hungry bottom" persona. He was HIV+. His image and success caught the attention of Madonna, who used him as a model in her 1992 book, Sex.

During his lifetime, he was the subject of rumors (some of them spread by himself) regarding his relationships with prominent entertainment industry figures who were known to be gay. At a May 1990 dinner and interview with Jess Cagle (Entertainment Weekly) and Rick X (Manhattan Cable TV's "The Closet Case Show"), Stefano discussed an alleged series of "dates" with David Geffen, who at one point implored Stefano to quit using drugs. After the videotaped interview appeared on Rick X's show, OutWeek Magazine "outed" Geffen, who went on to proudly announce his homosexuality at an AIDS fundraiser. Stefano died of an overdose of cocaine, morphine, heroin and ketamine at age 26. His body was taken back to Pennsylvania where he was buried next to his father.

White Crane Institute

2005-05-31

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