#QueerQuote: “Ignorance, Allied with Power, is the Most Ferocious Enemy Justice Can Have.” – James Baldwin

By Stephen Rutledge on August 2, 2022 12:12 pm

Baldwin (right of center) with Charlton Heston (left) and Marlon Brando (right) at the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom; with Sidney Poitier (rear) and Harry Belafonte (right of Brando) also in the crowd. Photo via Wikimedia Commons, public … [Read more...]

Was George Bernard Shaw an Early Gay Rights Activist?

By Stephen Rutledge on July 26, 2022 1:05 pm

1936, public domain George Bernard Shaw (1856 - 1950): "If You Want to Tell People the Truth, Make Them Laugh, Otherwise They'll Kill You." Shaw is one of my favorite figures in history. He was a man of Theatre and Film, a vegetarian, a Socialist, and a rabble … [Read more...]

#QueerQuote: “That Queer, Penetrating Personality Was More Important Than His Shape, Which Could Be Easily Altered.” – James Whale

By Stephen Rutledge on July 22, 2022 1:29 pm

Boris Karloff, Whale and John J. Mescall on the set of Bride Of Frankenstein (1935) James Whale (1889 -1957) was a great film director, a true artist, and the subject of one of my favorite films, Bill Condon‘s Gods And Monsters (1998) with Sir Ian McKellen's masterful … [Read more...]

Was Writer Ernest Hemingway Queer?

By Stephen Rutledge on July 21, 2022 11:30 am

Hemingway working on For Whom the Bell Tolls at the Sun Valley Lodge, Idaho, 1939 Ernest Hemingway: "I love sleep. My life has the tendency to fall apart when I'm awake." I haven't read any Hemingway in decades. In young, handsome, dynamic, delicious professor Daniel … [Read more...]

#QueerQuote: “Love is a Striking Example of How Little Reality Means to Us.” – Marcel Proust

By Stephen Rutledge on July 10, 2022 11:00 am

Photograph by Otto Wegener, 1882, public domain via Valentin Louis Georges Eugène Marcel Proust's (1871- 1922) quote is better in French, but then most things are: "L'amour est un exemple frappant de la façon dont la petite réalité nous paraît." I have often thought of … [Read more...]

#BornThisDay: Jean Cocteau

By Stephen Rutledge on July 5, 2022 3:03 pm

1923 portrait, Wikimedia Commons, public domain July 5, 1889 - Jean Maurice Eugène Clément Cocteau: "Life is a horizontal fall." He was a poet, writer, designer, playwright, artist and filmmaker. While still in his teens, Cocteau began to date older, well-connected … [Read more...]

#BornThisDay: Writer/ Photographer/ Railroad Historian, Charles Clegg

By Stephen Rutledge on June 30, 2022 3:07 am

Clegg (R) with his partner Lucious Bebee, public domain June 30, 1916 - Charles Clegg Clegg is mostly remembered now as the lifelong romantic partner of famed railroad writer Lucius Beebe and was a co-author of many of Beebe's best-known books. Clegg grew up in … [Read more...]

#BornThisDay: The Cop Friend & Lover to Famous Edwardians, Harry Daley

By Stephen Rutledge on June 24, 2022 3:03 am

Harry Daley by Duncan Grant June 24, 1901 - Harry Daley: ''My life has been delightful and given a chance by God or somebody of another life at the end of this then I’d say without hesitation, Same Again, please!'' Because I am a geezer, I was late to appreciate the … [Read more...]

#BornThisDay: Writer, Mary McCarthy

By Stephen Rutledge on June 21, 2022 3:03 am

1963, Library of Congress. New York World-Telegram & Sun Collection, Creative Commons, public domain June 21, 1912– Mary McCarthy: ”Liberty, as it is conceived by current opinion, has nothing inherent about it; it is a sort of gift or trust bestowed on the … [Read more...]

#BornThisDay: Pioneering American Theatrical & Literary Agent, Bessie Marbury

By Stephen Rutledge on June 19, 2022 3:03 am

1922, Library of Congress, public domain June 19, 1856 - Elisabeth "Bessie" Marbury: "There is no intolerance in the world so great as the intolerance of tolerance, and no bigotry so excessive as the bigotry of the image breaker." Marbury is an important cultural figure … [Read more...]