Today in Gay History

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October 20

Born
Arthur Rimbaud
1854 -

ARTHUR RIMBAUD, French poet born (d. 1891); a French poet, born in Charleville. His influence on modern literature, music and art has been pervasive. Born into the provincial middle class of Charleville (now part of Charleville-Mezieres) in the Ardennes departmement in northeastern France. He was the second child of Captain Frédéric and Vitalie Rimbaud (née Cuif). It is evident through his writing that he never felt loved by his mother. As a boy he was a restless but brilliant student. By the age of fifteen he had won many prizes and composed original verses and dialogues in  Latin. In 1870 his teacher Georges Izambard became Rimbaud's literary mentor and his original French verses began to improve rapidly.

He frequently ran away from home and may have briefly joined the Paris Commune of 1871, which he portrayed in his poem L’orgie parisenne (The Parisian Orgy or, "Paris Repopulates"). He may have been raped by drunken Communard soldiers (as his poem Le Coeur supplicié ("The Tortured Heart") perhaps suggests). By this time he had become an anarchist, started drinking and amused himself by shocking the local bourgeoisie with his shabby dress and long hair. At the same time he wrote to Izambard and Paul Demeny about his method for attaining poetical transcendence or visionary power through a "long, intimidating, immense and rational derangement of all the senses" (Les lettres du Voyant ["The Letters of the Seer"]).

He returned to Paris in late September 1871 at the invitation of the eminent Symbolist poet Paul Verlaine (after Rimbaud had sent him a letter containing several samples of his work) and resided briefly in Verlaine's home. Verlaine, who was married, promptly fell in love with the sullen, blue-eyed, overgrown (5 ft 10 in), light-brown-haired adolescent. They became lovers and led a wild, vagabond-like life spiced by absinthe and hashish. They scandalized the Parisian literary coterie on account of the outrageous behavior of Rimbaud, the archetypical enfant terrible, who throughout this period continued to write strikingly visionary verse. Rimbaud's and Verlaine's stormy love affair took them to London in September 1872, Verlaine abandoning his wife and infant son (both of whom he had abused in his alcoholic rages).

In July 1873, Rimbaud committed himself to journey to Paris with or without Verlaine. In a drunken rage, Verlaine shot at him, one of the two shots striking the 18-year-old in the left wrist. Rimbaud considered the wound superficial and at first did not have Verlaine charged. After this, Verlaine and his mother accompanied Rimbaud to a Brussels train station where Verlaine "behaved as if he were insane". This made Rimbaud "fear that he might give himself over to new excesses", so he turned and ran away. In his words, "it was then I (Rimbaud) begged a police officer to arrest him (Verlaine)." Verlaine was arrested and subjected to a humiliating medico-legal examination, including his intimate correspondence with his lover and the accusations of Verlaine's wife about the nature of their relationship. Rimbaud eventually withdrew the complaint, but the judge sentenced Verlaine to two years in prison.

Rimbaud returned home to Charleville and completed his Une Saison en Enfer (A Season in Hell) in prose, widely regarded as one of the pioneering instances of modern Symbolist writing and a description of that "drôle de ménage" (domestic farce) life with Verlaine, his "pitoyable frère" ("pitiful brother") and "vierge folle" ("mad virgin") to whom he was "l'époux infernal" ("infernal groom"). In 1874 he returned to London with the poet German Nouveau and put together his groundbreaking Illuminations, including the first-ever two French poems in free verse. Eventually, he wandered the world, finally becoming a trader in Abyssinia. He died, aged 37, with the name of his faithful native boy, Djani, on his lips.


1952 -

MELANIE MAYRON is an American actress and director of film and television. Today is her birthday. Mayron is best known for her role as photographer Melissa Steadman on the ABC drama thirtysomething  for which she won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series in 1989, and was nominated for same award in 1990 and 1991. In 2018, the Santa Fe Film Festival honored Mayron for her outstanding contributions to film and television.

Mayron was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to Norma (née Goodman), a real estate agent, and David Mayron, a pharmaceutical chemist. Her family is Jewish; her father is from a Sephardic background (the original surname was "Mizrahi"), while her mother is of Russian Jewish descent. She trained as an actress at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts.

Mayron appeared in the 1974 film Harry and Tonto, the 1976 movies Gable and Lombard and Car Wash, and the 1977 films The Great Smokey Roadblock and You Light Up My Life, and starred in 1978's Girlfriends. In the mid-1970s, she played Brenda Morgenstern's best friend, Sandy Franks, on three episodes of the sitcom Rhoda. In 1982, she played Terry Simon, the photographer, in director Costa-Gavras' political drama Missing.

In 1988, she co-wrote and co-produced the comedy film Sticky Fingers. In 1995, Mayron directed The Baby-Sitters Club, a film based upon the book series of the same name. She also directed the television movie Toothless (1997) starring Kirstie Alley and the movie Slap Her... She's French (2002), starring Piper Perabo (which appeared on television as She Gets What She Wants). In 2006, she appeared as a judge in the reality show Looking for Stars on the Starz! channel.

In addition to her role as a primary cast member on thirtysomething, she also directed episodes of the show, as well as episodes of In TreatmentThe FostersProvidenceDawson's CreekEdState of GraceNash BridgesWastelandTell Me You Love Me and The Naked Brothers Band; the latter series was created and showran by Mayron's former thirtysomething co-star Polly Draper.

In 2015, she directed and released on YouTube The Living Room Sessions, a collection of videos of up-and-coming musical artists performing acoustic sets in her living room.

Mayron was in a long-term relationship with screenwriter and producer Cynthia Mort, with whom she shared co-parenting of their two children.


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