Get the Blu-ray of my latest movie “The Visitor” from Vinegar Syndrome! This special limited edition spot gloss and embossed slipcover (designed by Adam Maida) is limited to 2,000 units and is only available on the @vinegarsyndrome website and at select indie retailers
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Flamboyantly closeted (how’s that for an oxymoron!) superhomosexual and conservative Republican Liberace was BOTD in 1919 and died of the Mrs. AIDS in 1987 at the age of 67. In 1956, an article in the Daily Mirror by columnist Cassandra (William Connor) described Liberace as “the summit of sex—the pinnacle of masculine, feminine and neuter. Everything that he, she and it can ever want...a deadly, winking, sniggering, snuggling, chromium-plated, scent-impregnated, luminous, quivering, giggling, fruit-flavoured, mincing, ice-covered heap of mother love.” Sounds pretty accurate to me! Liberace sued and won (“fruit-flavoured” was deemed libelous as it inferred “homosexual”), testifying in a London court that he was not homosexual and that he had never taken part in homosexual acts, which was as big a stretch as his limousine and his back door combined. In 1982, Scott Thorson, Liberace’s 22-year-old former chauffeur and alleged live-in lover of five years, sued the bejewelled pants off the pianist for $113 million in palimony after he was dismissed by Liberace. Liberace continued to deny that he was homosexual, and during court depositions in 1984, he insisted that Thorson was never his lover. The case was settled out of court in 1986, with Thorson receiving a $75,000 cash settlement, plus three cars and three pet dogs worth another $20,000. Mr. Liberace never married. If you’ve never seen Steven Soderbergh’s “Behind the Candelabra” (2013), probably his best film, starring Michael Douglas as Liberace and Matt Damon as Scott Thorson (probably their best performances), you should. It’s fabulous, and ultimately moving
Flamboyantly closeted (how’s that for an oxymoron!) superhomosexual and conservative Republican Liberace was BOTD in 1919 and died of the Mrs. AIDS in 1987 at the age of 67. In 1956, an article in the Daily Mirror by columnist Cassandra (William Connor) described Liberace as “the summit of sex—the pinnacle of masculine, feminine and neuter. Everything that he, she and it can ever want...a deadly, winking, sniggering, snuggling, chromium-plated, scent-impregnated, luminous, quivering, giggling, fruit-flavoured, mincing, ice-covered heap of mother love.” Sounds pretty accurate to me! Liberace sued and won (“fruit-flavoured” was deemed libelous as it inferred “homosexual”), testifying in a London court that he was not homosexual and that he had never taken part in homosexual acts, which was as big a stretch as his limousine and his back door combined. In 1982, Scott Thorson, Liberace’s 22-year-old former chauffeur and alleged live-in lover of five years, sued the bejewelled pants off the pianist for $113 million in palimony after he was dismissed by Liberace. Liberace continued to deny that he was homosexual, and during court depositions in 1984, he insisted that Thorson was never his lover. The case was settled out of court in 1986, with Thorson receiving a $75,000 cash settlement, plus three cars and three pet dogs worth another $20,000. Mr. Liberace never married. If you’ve never seen Steven Soderbergh’s “Behind the Candelabra” (2013), probably his best film, starring Michael Douglas as Liberace and Matt Damon as Scott Thorson (probably their best performances), you should. It’s fabulous, and ultimately moving
Flamboyantly closeted (how’s that for an oxymoron!) superhomosexual and conservative Republican Liberace was BOTD in 1919 and died of the Mrs. AIDS in 1987 at the age of 67. In 1956, an article in the Daily Mirror by columnist Cassandra (William Connor) described Liberace as “the summit of sex—the pinnacle of masculine, feminine and neuter. Everything that he, she and it can ever want...a deadly, winking, sniggering, snuggling, chromium-plated, scent-impregnated, luminous, quivering, giggling, fruit-flavoured, mincing, ice-covered heap of mother love.” Sounds pretty accurate to me! Liberace sued and won (“fruit-flavoured” was deemed libelous as it inferred “homosexual”), testifying in a London court that he was not homosexual and that he had never taken part in homosexual acts, which was as big a stretch as his limousine and his back door combined. In 1982, Scott Thorson, Liberace’s 22-year-old former chauffeur and alleged live-in lover of five years, sued the bejewelled pants off the pianist for $113 million in palimony after he was dismissed by Liberace. Liberace continued to deny that he was homosexual, and during court depositions in 1984, he insisted that Thorson was never his lover. The case was settled out of court in 1986, with Thorson receiving a $75,000 cash settlement, plus three cars and three pet dogs worth another $20,000. Mr. Liberace never married. If you’ve never seen Steven Soderbergh’s “Behind the Candelabra” (2013), probably his best film, starring Michael Douglas as Liberace and Matt Damon as Scott Thorson (probably their best performances), you should. It’s fabulous, and ultimately moving
Flamboyantly closeted (how’s that for an oxymoron!) superhomosexual and conservative Republican Liberace was BOTD in 1919 and died of the Mrs. AIDS in 1987 at the age of 67. In 1956, an article in the Daily Mirror by columnist Cassandra (William Connor) described Liberace as “the summit of sex—the pinnacle of masculine, feminine and neuter. Everything that he, she and it can ever want...a deadly, winking, sniggering, snuggling, chromium-plated, scent-impregnated, luminous, quivering, giggling, fruit-flavoured, mincing, ice-covered heap of mother love.” Sounds pretty accurate to me! Liberace sued and won (“fruit-flavoured” was deemed libelous as it inferred “homosexual”), testifying in a London court that he was not homosexual and that he had never taken part in homosexual acts, which was as big a stretch as his limousine and his back door combined. In 1982, Scott Thorson, Liberace’s 22-year-old former chauffeur and alleged live-in lover of five years, sued the bejewelled pants off the pianist for $113 million in palimony after he was dismissed by Liberace. Liberace continued to deny that he was homosexual, and during court depositions in 1984, he insisted that Thorson was never his lover. The case was settled out of court in 1986, with Thorson receiving a $75,000 cash settlement, plus three cars and three pet dogs worth another $20,000. Mr. Liberace never married. If you’ve never seen Steven Soderbergh’s “Behind the Candelabra” (2013), probably his best film, starring Michael Douglas as Liberace and Matt Damon as Scott Thorson (probably their best performances), you should. It’s fabulous, and ultimately moving
RIP ethereal chanteuse and actress Claudine Longet who has died at the age of 84. Her most famous film role was opposite Peter Sellers in Blake Edward’s “The Party” (1968). Her most famous other role was when she was arrested and charged with fatally shooting her boyfriend, Olympic skier Vladimir “Spider” Sabich, at his home in Aspen, Colorado, on 21 March 1976. At her trial, Longet said the gun discharged accidentally as Sabich was showing her how it worked, although it was widely perceived as a crime of passion. Cocaine was detected in her blood, but the test was obtained without a warrant and therefore inadmissible. Her ex-husband, the crooner Andy Williams, publicly supported Longet throughout the trial, paid for her legal defense team, and escorted her to and from the courthouse. Asked later about his unwavering support of his ex-wife, Williams said, “She is the mother of my children and we never stopped being friends. We just didn’t want to be married anymore.” After the trial, at which she was sentenced to 30 days in prison for negligent homicide, she married her defense attorney, as one does
HBD gay painting legend Jasper Johns who was BOTD in 1930, making him 96 years old today! Johns is the last survivor of the generation of gay white male art stars that included John Cage, Merce Cunningham, Ellsworth Kelly, Robert Rauschenberg, Cy Twombly and Andy Warhol. Johns and Rauschenberg were twinnie lovers for 6 years...
“The story goes that in 1958 Castelli was visiting Rauschenberg to discuss a planned exhibition, but by a fortuitous turn of events found himself in Johns’ flat directly below. There he discovered a room full of paintings, “years of work never before exhibited”, Flags and Targets, an entirely new pictorial language that turned symbols into abstractions. Soon, of course, they would be turning Johns into America’s most successful living artist.
Castelli signed Johns immediately and Rauschenberg’s planned exhibition was instantly forgotten. In the years that followed Johns’ career thrived, selling out his sensational first exhibition as well as having three works snapped up by MoMA. But Rauschenberg’s career waned and for a time, faltered. By the beginning of the 1960s, their relationship was in tatters; their professional, aesthetic and romantic conflicts utterly irreconcilable. The break up was bitter, and they didn’t speak for years.”
I wrote about Rauschenberg and Johns last year for @family_style magazine:
https://www.family.style/articles/robert-rauschenberg-unseen-art-bruce-la-bruce
2:2. Brilliant bisexual USA photog Richard Avedon was BOTD in 1923 and died in 2004 at the age of 81. Avedon met author James Baldwin in the late 1930s at DeWitt Clinton High School in the Bronx, New York, where they both worked on the school’s literary magazine, The Magpie. They bonded as outsiders, with Avedon being the son of Jewish immigrants and Baldwin being Black, gay, and growing up in poverty, although their lifelong relationship remained platonic outside of some heavy petting, apparently. They collaborated on the book “Nothing Personal” in 1964 to examine American identity, power, and society during the Civil Rights era. Baldwin was notorious for missing deadlines, so Avedon had to aggressively push and even temporarily sequester Baldwin in various international hotels to get him to finish his searing essay for the book. Avedon provided stark, white-background portraits of various Americans—including Civil Rights leaders, politicians, mental patients, and a former slave—while Baldwin wrote a poignant, four-part essay tackling race, urban life, and the need for love. Avedon both directed and shot the iconic 1980 television commercials and print ads for Brooke Shields’ Calvin Klein Jeans campaign in which the teen model and actress poses provocatively and utters the famous, suggestive line: “Do you know what comes between me and my Calvins? Nothing.” The campaign generated intense backlash across the United States from parents, morality advocates, and religious groups who accused the brand and Avedon of sexualizing a minor. Several major television networks subsequently banned the commercials from airing, though the extreme controversy acted as a massive marketing success for Calvin Klein, of course
1/2. Brilliant bisexual USA photog Richard Avedon was BOTD in 1923 and died in 2004 at the age of 81. Avedon met author James Baldwin in the late 1930s at DeWitt Clinton High School in the Bronx, New York, where they both worked on the school’s literary magazine, The Magpie. They bonded as outsiders, with Avedon being the son of Jewish immigrants and Baldwin being Black, gay, and growing up in poverty, although their lifelong relationship remained platonic outside of some heavy petting, apparently. They collaborated on the book “Nothing Personal” in 1964 to examine American identity, power, and society during the Civil Rights era. Baldwin was notorious for missing deadlines, so Avedon had to aggressively push and even temporarily sequester Baldwin in various international hotels to get him to finish his searing essay for the book. Avedon provided stark, white-background portraits of various Americans—including Civil Rights leaders, politicians, mental patients, and a former slave—while Baldwin wrote a poignant, four-part essay tackling race, urban life, and the need for love. The book was praised for its minimalist, avant-garde design, although some thought the images and text did not speak to each other in a cohesive way, and mainstream, largely white critics condemned Baldwin’s text for its searing focus on the country’s inherent violence, racism, and inequality which they claimed was a disproportionate “fire and brimstone” rant. Modern scholars, like Hilton Als, have radically reassessed the text, viewing Baldwin’s prose, which takes aim at hollow consumerism, mass media delusion, and aggressive assaults on difference, as a prescient view of America. Avedon also allegedly had a twenty-plus year affair with director Mike Nichols (although Dick’s Foundation disputes it, but then again it would), who was married to women 4 times!! You really had to double down with the beards in those days!
The great Joseph Cotten was BOTD in 1905 and died in 1994 at the age of 88. He played one of my all-time favourite coded homosexual characters in Hitchcock’s masterpiece “Shadow of a Doubt” (1943) as Uncle Charlie who menaces his namesake niece Charlie (played by one of my fave classical Hollywood actresses, Teresa Wright). Cotten co-starred with Jennifer Jones in four major films: John Cromwell’s “Since You Went Away” (1944), William Dieterle’s “Love Letters” (1945), King Vidor’s “Duel in the Sun” (1946), and William Dieterle’s “Portrait of Jennie” (1948). He was probably romantically involved with Jones, although he was close to both her and her husband producer David O. Selznick, so maybe a hot buttered threegie? Cotten also had public, well-documented extramarital relationships before the death of his first wife; in his autobiography, Vanity Will Get You Somewhere, he was famously candid about his private life, writing, “I was an actor. A roamer. A lover. I made pictures, I made love, and I made martinis”
HBD the gorgeous and talented Zackary Drucker! In her own words: “I was born on this day May 14, 1983 // 5743 in the Jewish calendar. When I was a bored kid at temple, I would daydream about what my life would be like in 5783, so many years ahead in the future. Now here I am… Thank you to everyone who has shined their love on me and made every passing year so special. I wouldn’t be here without you”. You deserve it, doll!!!Photo: Luke Gilford
