Gay Influence

Berlin's current mayor, openly gay politician Klaus Wowereit (born 1953), has served as governing mayor of Germany’s capital city since 2001. In coming out publicly prior to the 2001 mayoral elections, he coined the now famous German phrase "Ich bin schwul, und das ist auch gut so" (I'm gay, and that’s a good thing). With his coming out, Wowereit wanted to beat the tabloids to exposing his sexual orientation and prevent them from writing sensational and fabricated stories about his private life. Wowereit said those now famous words during a convention of the Berlin SPD (Germany’s Social Democratic Party). At the end of his speech, there was spontaneous cheering and applause. Wowereit’s civil partner, Jörn Kubicki, is a neurosurgeon, and the pair have been in a relationship since 1993.

Wowereit, who was born in Berlin, has served as President of the Bundesrat (the fourth highest office in Germany), and his SPD-led coalition was re-elected in 2006. In the 2011 elections he and his party were again victorious. Wowereit’s election as mayor made Berlin one of three major European cities that saw openly gay mayors take office in 2001, along with Paris’s Bertrand Delanoë and Hamburg’s Ole von Beust. Berlin and Hamburg, being the two largest cities in Germany, are also German states in their own right, which meant that both Wowereit and von Beust became state premiers.

Wowereit also served in the Berlin House of Representatives from 1995-2011, and since 2009 has been Vice Chairman of his party, the SPD.

Wowereit with partner Jörn Kubicki (at left):

Third-century Saints Sergius and Bacchus were openly gay, but secretly Christian – the opposite of the way most of today’s closeted gay Christians deal with their situation. The couple were high-ranking Roman soldiers who were described in historical accounts as erastai, Greek for “lovers”. Modern scholars report that they were united in the rite of adelphopoiesis, a kind of early Christian same-sex marriage. The saints' story is told in the Greek text known as The Passion of Sergius and Bacchus, which dates from the fifth century, when their veneration began. During the Byzantine Empire, they were venerated as protectors of the army.

According to Kitt Cherry*, in the year 303 in present-day Syria “They were tortured to death after they refused to attend sacrifices to Zeus, thus revealing their secret Christianity. The pair were arrested and paraded through the streets in women’s clothing in an unsuccessful effort to humiliate them... Then Sergius and Bacchus were separated and beaten so severely that Bacchus died. According to the early manuscripts, Bacchus appeared to Sergius that night with a face as radiant as an angel’s, dressed once again as a soldier. He urged Sergius not to give up (by renouncing his faith), because they would be reunited in heaven as lovers. His statement is unique in the history of martyrs. Usually the promised reward is union with God, not with a lover. Over the next days Sergius was tortured and eventually beheaded...

...Sergius’ tomb became a famous shrine, and for nearly 1,000 years the couple was revered as the official patrons of the Byzantine army. Many early churches were named after Sergius, sometimes (paired) with Bacchus. They are recognized as martyrs by the Catholic, Eastern Orthodox and Oriental Orthodox churches. The pair was venerated through the Mediterranean, the Middle East, Latin America and among the Slavs. Sergius and Bacchus continue to be popular saints with Christian Arabs...”

I have just returned from a trip to Istanbul, where there is a famous church dedicated to Saints Sergius and Bacchus, just down the hill from the city’s storied Hippodrome from Roman times. Located just a few yards from the shores of the Sea of Marmara, the church, built in 527, is so old that the interior frieze is in Greek, not Latin (Istanbul was a Greek-speaking city before the arrival of Roman emperors Constantine and Justinian). The church, like most in Istanbul, was converted to a mosque in the 15th century, but it existed as a church dedicated to Saints Sergius and Bacchus for nearly a thousand years. The church is commonly known as “Little Hagia Sophia” (Küçük Ayasofia), although it predates its landmark namesake by a few years.

Noted British photographer Anthony Gayton does stylized homoerotic photos based on the history of gay culture. At right he shows Sergius and Bacchus stripped and bound as prisoners in two separate photos. The images are intended to be shown together, but by design they can also be separated. Appropriate Bible quotes are on banners above them. For Bacchus: “But I will not take my love from him, nor will I ever betray my faithfulness.” (Psalm 89:33). For Sergius: “All thy commandments are faithful, they persecute me wrongly; help thou me.” (Psalm 119: 86)

*Kittredge Cherry is a lesbian Christian author and art historian. She founded Jesus In Love in 2005 to support LGBT spirituality and the arts. She was ordained by Metropolitan Community Churches, an LGBT-affirming Christian denomination, and has served as its National Ecumenical Officer. Her blog can be found at:
jesusinlove.blogspot.com

Sam Harris (b. 1961) grew up in Sand Springs, Oklahoma, a town of fewer than 8,000 people at the time. Possessed of a major, seemingly untamable talent for singing, acting and dancing, his overt “gayness” as a misfit youth led to bullying and a failed suicide attempt (small town Oklahoma was not exactly an embracing environment for a singing/dancing gay boy). However, he went on to gain national recognition in 1983 when he won the grand prize on the first season of Star Search, a television talent competition. His rendition of “Over the Rainbow” has to be seen/heard to be believed. Harris has since enjoyed a career as a recording artist, author, script writer and actor on television, stage and in films.

This week saw the release of “Ham: Slices of a Life” (Simon and Schuster) a collection of sixteen biographical essays and stories. I first learned of this last weekend when Harris was interviewed on NPR about his new book (available in e-reader formats; in the audio book format, Harris himself reads the book). The chapters are variously tragic, triumphant and hilarious, sometimes all at the same time. There are already ten YouTube videos of Harris reading from his book (click on link below).

http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLlnSQpV6P9yeR8RgG_5A1lifeRIDjQpc2

The chapter on Liza Minelli’s surreal wedding to David Gest is destined to become a cult classic (Sam and Liza have been best friends for decades). Not to be missed is his recounting of a concert in Cleveland, at which he was the opening act for his idol, Aretha Franklin. The crowd cheered Sam and booed Aretha; the Queen of Soul was not amused.

Sam and his partner Danny Jacobsen, a director, presentation coach and film producer, have been together for twenty years. They adopted a son, Cooper, in April, 2008, and married seven months later. The chapters dedicated to Cooper’s birth and his son's alpha-male bonding with partner Danny are so honest and tender that they will bring a tear to your eye and a belly laugh, simultaneously.

I admit that, while I recognize Harris’s tremendous talent, I am not a fan of his over-the-top vocal performances in which he bleeds all over the floor and needs oxygen to recover, but when he reigns it in a bit, he’s in a class by himself (I can recommend the slow ballads on his album “Standard Time”). Here’s a television performance of the classic revenge ballad, “Cry Me a River”:

Duo-pianists Arthur Gold (1917-1990) and Robert Fizdale (1920-1995) made their professional debut in 1944 when they premiered two works by John Cage for prepared pianos. During subsequent decades they transformed duo-pianism through their increasing international acclaim and contributions of new repertoire by commissioning 23 two-piano works from renowned composers such as Francis Poulenc (Sonata for Two Pianos), Samuel Barber (Souvenirs), Darius Milhaud, Ned Rorem, Virgil Thomson, John Cage, and Paul Bowles. They also revived neglected works, most notably the two early duo concertos by Felix Mendelssohn.

The photo above dates from 1967.

The pianists created a dynamic and emotional experience for their audiences through their artistry, dazzling virtuosity, impeccable ensemble skills, and thorough attention to musical details. Because of their mass public appeal, Gold and Fizdale became the first duo-piano team to sign a recording contract with a major label, Columbia Records.

Both Gold and Fizdale were of Russian Jewish descent, and they met while they were students at Juilliard, forming a lifelong gay partnership based around their common interests of music, travel and cooking. Gold, who was born in Toronto, Canada, moved to NYC to study at Juilliard, and Chicago-born Fizdale arrived at the school three years later. They became important fixtures in New York City's artistic community and were known as “The Boys” by their close friends. They spent many months in Europe, notably Paris and Rome, and befriended composers of the group known as “Les six.” The French Government appointed Mr. Fizdale a Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres.

When Gold began having problems with arthritis in his hands in the late 1970s, the duo turned their attention to literary projects, publishing biographies of Misia Sert (1981) and Sarah Bernhardt (1991). The couple began writing food articles for Vogue magazine and launched a television cooking show. They were also contributing editors of Architectural Digest magazine. In 1984 they published "The Gold and Fizdale Cookbook", dedicated to their friend George Balanchine, "In whose kitchen we spent many happy hours..."

Curiously, openly gay American poet Edgar Bowers (1924-2000) is little known today, even though he was the recipient of several important prizes and fellowships, including the prestigious Bollingen prize and two Guggenheim fellowships. Poet and critic Yvor Winters thought the poems in Bowers’s early books were among the best American poems of the 20th century, and distinguished colleagues included his works in British anthologies. Among his advocates were Richard Wilbur, Robert Lowell, Harold Bloom and Tony Tanner.

The title of a 1990 collection of poems was For Louis Pasteur, and every year Bowers celebrated the birthdays of three of his heroes: Louis Pasteur, Paul Valéry and Mozart. According to Clive Wilmer (The Guardian), those three all “suggest admiration for the life of the mind lived at its highest pitch – a concern for science and its social uses, and a love of art that is elegant, cerebral and orderly.” Although a rationalist, Bowers's poems are marked by aesthetic refinement and an intense feeling for the mystery of things. He rarely engaged with homosexuality as a literary theme.

Born in Rome, Georgia, Bowers had to leave the University of North Carolina in 1943, when he was called up for military service during World War II, serving in the Counter Intelligence Corps as a translator. At the age of 21 he traversed the ruins of Europe and for a while was stationed at Hitler's retreat at Berchtesgaden, where he participated in the de-Nazification campaign. The impact of those experiences on a sensitive and ethical consciousness influenced his poetry.

After the war, Bowers returned to his studies, earning a doctorate at Stanford University. His subsequent academic career included teaching positions at Duke University, Harpur College and the University of California at Santa Barbara. According to Wilmer he “fought against political compromises (over Vietnam, for instance) and the exploitation of young, untenured teachers. He sometimes suffered from sneering suggestions about his homosexuality, and, despite being the most radical and egalitarian of men, stood accused of elitism.” Throughout his career Bowers suffered from bouts of depression and alcoholism. Until 1965 he wrote in immaculately constructed rhymed stanzas, but changed to blank verse for the following decades.

After the death of his aged mother, Bowers left his beach front house in Montecito, CA, and moved to San Francisco, where he enjoyed the love and support of an openly gay community. Bowers remained in San Francisco until his death at age 75, fourteen years ago this month.

This poem is typical of Bowers, a writer who lived brightly but wrote darkly:

Living Together (from Collected Poems, 1997)

Of you I have no memory, keep no promise.
But, as I read, drink, wait, and watch the surf,
Faithful, almost forgotton, your demand
Becomes all others, and this loneliness
The need that is your presence. In the dark,
Beneath the lamp, attentive, like a sound
I listen for, you draw near -- closer, surer
Than speech, or sight, or love, or love returned.

Sources:

Clive Wilmer for The Guardian

Literary critics Donald Justice and David Rigsbee

Out & Gay in Hollywood

William “Billy” Haines was born the evening of January 1, 1900, at the start of a new century, in Staunton, a railroad town in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia (my home state!). Although it is still possible to to stand in awe before the house he was born in, the small city of Staunton doesn't make a fuss over its famous citizen, likely because so few people are still alive who remember his meteoric rise to Hollywood stardom.

He has my never-ending admiration, because he stood up to movie studio heads, refusing to "pretend" to be straight for the sake of the publicity machines. He chose dignity and respect for his lover over hypocrisy and ill-gotten fame. Haines, Rock Hudson, Tab Hunter, Farley Granger and others were all told that their movie careers would be over if they came out of the closet. Out of those men, only Haines had the courage to defy the studios; the others chose to enter into sham relationships or marriages to cover up their sexual orientation.

While Cary Grant and Randolph Scott and their like tried to put one over on the public, Haines chose an honest life, and did one better for himself. He switched careers, becoming fabulously wealthy as an interior designer to the stars. While he never left the glamorous world of Hollywood, he never again stood before a camera. Surprisingly, he had not longed to be a movie star, nor did he dream about being a decorator. Haines, an exceptionally bright and talented young man, recognized opportunity when it was thrust in front of him, and he took advantage of it. He lived by his wits, always seeming to make the right moves. Astonishingly, he reached the pinnacle of success in successive careers for which he had no training.

Haines was the grandson of one of Staunton's most prominent citizens, but at age 14 (!) he ran away from home with his boyfriend and opened a dance hall in Hopewell, VA, a city so known for wickedness and lawlessness that it was called "Sin City." His place of business, like everything else in the town, was burned to the ground in a great fire in 1915. Rather than go back to Staunton, he struck out for New York City, where he took a factory job at age 16. A tall, exceedingly handsome young man, Haines soon returned to Virginia to help support his family; his mother was pregnant, and his bankrupt father was in a mental institution following a breakdown. At 19 he returned to NYC, where an elderly gentleman arranged a job for Billy at a brokerage firm. He lived in an apartment in Greenwich Village for two years, becoming friends with Archie Leach (later known as Cary Grant), who was then in a gay relationship with costume designer Orry-Kelly.

Restless and opportunistic, Haines found work as a model. He sent in his photograph to the "New Faces of 1922" contest sponsored by movie producer Samuel Goldwyn – and won. A screen test followed, and he packed up and moved to Hollywood, where he became one of the leading silent film stars of the 1920s and 1930s. Haines was named the leading male film star for 1930. His closest friend was Joan Crawford, much less well-known at the time. William Haines appeared in over fifty films, was the first MGM star to speak on film, and has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, just a few feet from the entrance to the Roosevelt Hotel, where the Academy Awards were first presented in 1929.

Haines with co-star Joan Crawford in West Point (1928):

However, gossip about his openly gay life threatened his leading man image, and MGM studio head Louis B. Mayer gave Haines an ultimatum: deny his homosexuality by engaging in a sham marriage or be shown the door. Haines refused to lie about his personal life, and Mayer did not renew his contract. He never worked in films after 1934, but pursued a stupendously successful career as an interior designer, which made him a multi-millionaire. Billy's life-long adage was, "One could be forgiven for illiteracy, but never for lack of good taste."

His Hollywood clients included prominent figures of the film community such as Joan Crawford, Claudette Colbert, Jack Benny, George Burns and Gracie Allen, Carole Lombard, William Powell, Frank Sinatra, Lionel Barrymore, Marion Davies, Douglas Fairbanks, studio head Jack Warner and director George Cukor. His social standing was decidedly A-list. Ronald and Nancy Reagan were frequent guests at his house. In 1969, most importantly, he was hired by Ambassador Walter Annenberg to design the interiors of Winfield House in London, the official residence of the American Ambassador to the Court of St. James. The million-dollar commission received international attention. In a career that continued until his death in 1973, he achieved fame as one of the most influential interior decorators of the 20th century. William Haines Designs remains in business to this day, with main offices in West Hollywood and showrooms in New York, Denver and Dallas. Many of his original furniture designs are still produced for the high end interior design trade.

Winfield House, the U. S. Ambassador's House in London, as decorated by William "Billy" Haines.

From the mid 1920s Haines lived openly with his lover Jimmy Shields (his former movie stand in) for nearly 50 years. Joan Crawford described them as "the happiest married couple in Hollywood." Haines died from lung cancer at the age of 73. Two months afterward, a grief-stricken Shields put on Haine’s pajamas, took an overdose of pills, and died in his sleep. Their ashes are interred side by side in the Woodlawn Memorial Cemetery in Santa Monica, CA.

The dashing Billy Haines with actress Anita Page.

William Haines, dashingly handsome in a white suit, acting opposite his best friend Joan Crawford in a flirty, comic scene from Spring Fever (1927). Haines and Crawford remained devoted friends until Haines’ death in 1973. Every time she changed husbands, Haines redecorated her home. Kept him busy.

Out in Sports: Gay Australian Rugby Player

(Updated February 21, 2014) London-born Australian rugby player Ian Roberts came out in 1995, the first person in the sport’s history to do so. This admission surprised many, because Ian did not fit many stereotypes of gay men. It was noteworthy that there were minimal repercussions that resulted, and lucrative endorsements continued to pour in. He remains an inspiration to young gay men all over the world who see in him a brave, tough role model who stands against the clichés of what gay men are like. However, both epilepsy and recognition of his homosexuality nearly led to his giving up the game. Instead, by the mid-1990s he had become the highest paid rugby player in Australia.

Roberts forged a stellar career as an aggressive forward with Souths, Manly and North Queensland and represented both New South Wales and Australia. In 2005, he was named one of the 25 greatest ever New South Wales players.

Ian's first clear, public statement that he was gay was made to The Advocate magazine and then quoted in a Sydney newspaper without Roberts' permission. Regardless, he never denied it, and the press jumped all over the story. News of his sexuality was followed by photos of his male partner Shane Goodwin and mention of their intention to adopt children.

Having come out, Ian was called on by most gay charities and many youth charities to do fund raising work, appear in poster campaigns, and sit on Mardi Gras floats, among others. Acutely aware of his media position, Roberts kept up a busy charity schedule as well as his Rugby League career, shifting from the Manly Sea Eagles in Sydney to the North Queensland Cowboys in Townsville. During this period his biography, Finding Out, was released.

After retiring from Rugby League at the age of 34, Ian moved to Sydney and completed an acting degree at the National Institute of Dramatic Art (NIDA, the alma mater of Mel Gibson)) and began a second career as an actor. Ian drastically reduced his public visibility as a sports idol and concentrated on his new career.

In a 2000 father-son newspaper interview, Ian talked about his relationship with his dad:

“Most of the time my father and I talk about sport. We never stop fighting. We've always disagreed about everything, especially politics. Dad is a bit of a racist We'd also argue about the whole gay thing. He came from the old school, where everything was black and white and no grey. Now he's mellowed; he really believes that there should be allowances for gay couples, that they should have equal rights and they should be able to marry in some form...

...I was surprised how cool he was about it when I told him I was gay; it was my mum who freaked out. I was about 25 at the time. Dad said, 'Your mum's heard something at work today; we don't believe it, but we just want to hear you say it. Tell us you're not gay.' I said, 'No, Dad, I am gay.' He went white as a sheet. Mum started screaming. Dad said, 'Shut up, Jean, and talk to your son!' I was upset, so I went out to the car, and Dad followed me. He gave me a hug and said, 'This is still your home, boy.'

We didn't bring the subject up for a while, because Mum was still having a really difficult time accepting it. One day, Dad tried to have this safe-sex talk with me. I told him that I knew what I was doing, but I appreciated his concern. He was very inquisitive; he wanted to know all about it.”

From Ian’s father:

“One of the proudest moments of my life was when he finally did come out. That took a hell of a lot of guts. I think he was just fed up with living a lie, and he got to the stage where he didn't care what people thought about him. I'd go along to watch him at the football, and some of the crap I used to hear from the crowd made me very upset.

We argue about everything. That's what most of his friends could never understand. When they first meet us, they think we're forever fighting, but it's just the way we are. We talk about everything. Nothing is taboo. I just wish he'd told us earlier. It would have been easier for me, and for him.”

Roberts finished playing professional rugby league in 1999, and began studying at the National Institute of Dramatic Art in Sydney. Roberts had a brief cameo part in the Australian film “Little Fish,” starring Cate Blanchett and Hugo Weaving, playing an ex-rugby league star. He appeared in the 2006 motion picture “Superman Returns” as Riley, a henchman of Lex Luthor, and the highly acclaimed Australian television series “Undervelly: A Tale of Two Cities.” Roberts also won second place in the Australian version of "Dancing with the Stars" competition.

This video features highlights of his rugby days, acting career and even some clips from "Dancing with the Stars." Enjoy.

Born in 1947, Andrew Tobias is an American journalist, author, and columnist. He has written chiefly on investment, politics and insurance, but, using the pseudonym John Reid, published an autobiography titled The Best Little Boy in the World (1973), an early classic of gay coming-out literature. It has remained in print for over forty years and was reissued under his real name in 1998, when he was comfortable enough to reveal his sexual orientation to the general public. Subsequently, Tobias served as grand marshal of the 2005 New York City LGBT Pride Parade. An influential gay rights activist, he is also a member of the board of directors of the Human Rights Campaign.

A staunch Democrat, since 1998 he has served as treasurer of the Democratic National Committee, and he has been a strong opponent of Republican efforts to reduce taxes for high-income individuals.

Among his other accomplishments, Tobias created one of the most popular early financial computer programs, Andrew Tobias’s Managing Your Money, later sold to and subsumed by the makers of Quicken. Although a major voice in the financial industry, he has never been employed in that field. As well, he has written investment advice columns for New York Magazine, Esquire, Playboy and Time. One of his most controversial books proposes radical insurance reform. He has appeared numerous television shows, including Today, Good Morning America, Oprah, Tonight and Face the Nation.

For 7 years Tobias was in a relationship with journalist Scot Haller. Fashion designer Charles Nolan, Tobias’s subsequent partner of 16 years, died of cancer in 2011 at age 53. Nolan mixed politics and fashion, causing shock waves when he left as head designer of Ann Klein in 2003 to volunteer for the presidential campaign of Howard Dean.

http://andrewtobias.com

John Ireland (1879-1962) was an English composer, organist and teacher whose music is “easy on the ears,” in contrast to most of the arresting music written after the Edwardian era; Ireland’s feet remained firmly planted in the nineteenth century (with a few seconds and sixths thrown in for spice). Even so, he was a teacher of composition at the Royal College of Music in London, where his most famous pupil was Benjamin Britten. Ireland is known chiefly for his piano miniatures and songs influenced by nature, although his organ compositions, violin sonatas and piano concerto are a major part of his musical works still performed today. It was the premiere of his second violin sonata in 1918 that brought him overnight recognition as a composer. Portrait at left, circa 1922.

Even though he held important posts as a church organist and choirmaster, Ireland was troubled by his uneasy relationship with Anglo-Catholic beliefs and traditions. In 1936 he wrote, “I am a Pagan. A Pagan I was born and a Pagan I shall ever remain. That is the foundation of religion.”

Ireland was a severely closeted homosexual who was crippled by pressure to live a life of social normalcy. This strategy culminated in a brief, but disastrous and unconsummated marriage that led to his public humiliation. According to Byron Adams (Gay Histories and Cultures, Volume 2), Ireland’s personal life was one of “relentless gloom.” Although Ireland enjoyed passionate homoerotic attachments to male friends and his young choirboys, social pressures against such relationships led him deeper into depression and alcoholism. Because his sexual inclinations led to alienation, he did not mix in homosexual circles, and he never found a long-term or stable sexual partner.

Ireland virtually stopped composing after World War II and spent his last years suffering from illness, blindness and profound melancholy.

His music is uncomplicated and lands comfortably on the untrained ear. Give this a try:

Piano Concerto in E-flat (1930): First movement

...man-on-man tango dancers

The next time you draw stares when dancing with your guy in public, reference the De Fazio brothers. Enrique and Guillermo De Fazio rightly call themselves traditional tango dancers, because when tango was in its infancy, men danced together. In the late 19th century, the rich landowners in Argentina needed thousands of workers to prepare their vast mineral and agricultural products for shipment from Buenos Aires to Europe. They advertised in Europe for workers, and great numbers of immigrants arrived in Buenos Aires, eager for the opportunity to work. When they arrived, they encountered a huge problem: there were very few women immigrants. To engage in sexual relations with a women, the heterosexual immigrants patronized bordellos, and while they waited in (inevitable) lines, they practiced dancing – with each other, for lack of female partners. In order to climb the social ladder, among the skills they needed was to be able to dance properly with respectable ladies. With so many men to choose from, ladies in Buenos Aires selected only the best male dancers as partners, so competition among the men was keen.

The brothels of Buenos Aires provided live music to entertain the men while they waited their turn, and by necessity the men practiced their dance steps with each other. Most of the immigrants were from Spain and Italy, and they lived in tenement blocks that formed huge ghettos. With their different tongues and cultures, music and dance became their common language. They possessed only portable musical instruments, and a version of an accordion, called a bandoneón, became the backbone of tango music (the bandoneón has buttons on both ends – no keyboard on the right end, as on an accordion; the player is seated, with the instrument resting on his knees -- see photo above). Thus the tango rose from the ghettos of European immigrants, who soon enough exported it to Europe, via France, where Argentine sailors danced with the local girls of Marseille. By 1909 the tango had reached the stages of Montmartre in Paris, but in 1912 the tango took Paris by storm. Although the tango was danced by the lower classes in Argentina, upper class men in Paris began dancing the tango, and it shed its lower class stigma almost overnight. By 1913 the tango had become a massive craze all over Europe.

Then the “European” version of the tango got exported back to Argentina. A book published in Buenos Aires in the early part of the 20th century stated in its introduction that the purpose of the book was to teach people the elegant Tango as it was danced in Paris, which was nothing like the tasteless, squalid little dance done by the lower classes in the outskirts of Buenos Aires (!). From about 1917 onwards, a new respectability led to Tango lyrics written by the finest poets that Argentina and Uruguay had ever produced. As the lyrics improved in quality, great tango singers began to emerge, particularly with the advent of radio, and later sound films.

The Golden Age of tango was from the mid 1930s until the 1955 coup in Argentina that ousted General Perón. Carlos Gardel* was by far the most popular tango singer, achieving cult status. In the 1940s and the 1950s practically everyone in Buenos Aires danced the tango. There were great tango orchestras, wildly popular tango singers and famous tango dancers. The average citizen of Buenos Aires would work from 6:00 am until 2:00 pm, go home to eat and sleep, then go out for a late night of tango dancing, arriving home only in time to shower and get dressed to head back to work.

Young men started to learn the tango at age 13. They started at men-only practice dances, just watching at first, then learning to dance the women’s part. After about nine months, the boys were allowed to lead, dancing with another younger, less experienced lad. The tango was so difficult a dance to learn, and the public so critical of poor performance, that this period of apprenticeship generally took about three years to master. Thus, a 16-year-old boy attended his first “milonga” by arrangement of an older practitioner. No woman would dance with a young man she had never seen dancing. There were too many good dancers for her to be interested in risking a dance with someone with poor skills, so unless he was exceptionally good looking (nothing changes!), one of his more experienced friends would have to ask a woman, as a personal favor, to dance with the boy. If it went badly, he would have to go back to the practice dances until he could hold his own.

The men did not go to the “práctica” just to learn to dance, or there would not have been any experienced men for the beginners to dance with. The men continued to go to the práctica for a couple of hours each night, four or five nights a week, before they went to the milonga. They did their real dancing at the práctica; they went to the milonga to meet women. Generally the men in the prácticas followed better than the women at the milongas. At the prácticas they could experiment more and take risks. Dancing with women, they had to stick to what they could do perfectly, to increase the woman’s enjoyment of the dance. In the prácticas there would be men who specialized in following..., and I think you can see where I’m headed with this.

From 1955 until the fall of the military junta in 1983 after the Falklands War, tango went underground, since the military suppressed anything having to do with ousted Perón, a populist who had endorsed the tango. The fall of the military junta in Argentina in 1983 began a spectacular tango renaissance in Buenos Aires, leading to the “tango nuevo” movement, in which more freedoms and variations were incorporated into the traditional music and dance, leading to much higher artistic quality. The music of classically trained composer Astor Piazzolla epitomizes this new style. Purists resisted these developments, and many of them literally spit on the grave of Piazzolla to this day (he died in 1992). As for myself, I never tire of Piazzolla, and I frequently perform his music in public.

*Gardel (above left, wearing his trademark fedora) was a real mamma’s boy (some diehards deny that he was gay, citing his [sole] attachment to a member of the opposite sex, a 14-year-old girl, for a few months when he was 31, but come on!; he exhibited no sexual or romantic attraction to women, although they literally threw themselves at his feet). Gardel grew up on the streets of a poor part of Buenos Aires. His movie-star looks and highly emotional vocal interpretations made him the Frank Sinatra and Elvis Presley of his day, all wrapped up into one. A skilled baritone, he also composed hundreds of tangos, sang on the radio and appeared in movies. In addition to Latin America, he performed to adoring crowds in Europe and New York. He died in 1935 in a tragic airplane crash in Medellin, Columbia, at the age of 44. Millions of his fans throughout Latin America went into mourning. Hordes came to pay their respects as his body was taken from Colombia through New York City and on to Rio de Janeiro. Thousands rendered homage during the two days he lay in state in Montevideo, where his mother lived at the time. Gardel's well-traveled body was finally laid to rest in Buenos Aires, and he attained a cult status that exists to this day.

“El dia que me quieras,” composed during the last months of his life, is considered by many to be his greatest hit. This version, performed by my favorite classical tenor, Juan Diego Flórez, will make your hair stand on end.

El dia que me quieras (music composed by Carlos Gardel, 1935)

The day when you’ll love me, the roses will dress up in festive hues,
the wind chimes will be ringing to tell the world you’re mine now...

The night when you will love me, from the blue sky above us
the jealous stars will see us as we walk hand in hand...

...etc. – you get the idea! This is schmaltz of the highest order. The passion this singer from Peru brings to this lyric is nearly overwhelming.

Tip: If you are young and unattached, do yourself a favor and find yourself a Latin lover, even if for a brief affair. Do not delay -- just go for it. You can thank me later.

Bayard Taylor (1825-1878), was an American poet, novelist, travel writer, literary critic, diplomat, lecturer and translator. He was a frustrated poet who, even though he published twenty volumes of poetry, resented the mass appeal of his travel writings, because his desire was to be known as a poet. Even his travel writings have been relegated to the dustbin of literary history, and he is known today solely for his translation of both volumes of Goethe’s Faust.

He shared Walt Whitman’s penchant for homosexual relationships. Taylor confided to Whitman that he found in his own nature “a physical attraction and tender and noble love of man for man.” Taylor’s novel Joseph and His Friend (1870), which depicted men holding hands and kissing, is considered the first American gay novel. This novel is said to be based on the romantic relationship between poets Fitz-Greene Halleck and Joseph Rodman Drake. As well, Taylor’s poem To a Persian Boy and short story Twin-Love explored homosexual attraction.

In Keith Stern’s Queers in History, it is revealed that the love of Taylor’s life was George Henry Boker, although both men had married. Mitch Gould relates that American banker, diplomat and poet George Boker wrote to Taylor in 1856 that he had “never loved anything human as I love you. It is a joy and a pride to my heart to know that this feeling is returned.”

Taylor wrote popular columns in important newspapers and magazines, and he served as a diplomat to both Russia and Germany. He was so well known at the time of his death in Germany that the New York Times printed his obituary on its front page.

To a Persian Boy in the Bazaar at Smyrna

Excerpt:

The gorgeous blossoms of that magic tree
Beneath whose shade I sat a thousand nights
Breathed from their opening petals all delights
Embalmed in spice of Orient Poesy,
When first, young Persian, I beheld thine eyes,
And felt the wonder of thy beauty grow
Within my brain, as some fair planet’s glow
Deepens, and fills the summer evening skies.
From under thy dark lashes shone on me
The rich, voluptuous soul of Eastern land,
Impassioned, tender, calm, serenely sad, –
Such as immortal Hafiz felt when he
Sang by the fountain-streams of Rocnabad,
Or in the bowers of blissful Samarcand.

The engraving at the top of this post is by John Chester Buttre after a photograph. Courtesy of the Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.

The multimillionaire German steel industrialist F. A. Krupp (1854-1902) loved the Italian island of Capri, off the coast of Naples, where he resided for several months each year at the Hotel Quisisana*. He kept two yachts there, Maya and Puritan, from which he entertained and pursued his hobby of oceanography. He could well afford to, since his father – Alfred, the Cannon King – had amassed the largest personal fortune in Germany. Alfred's power was so great that crowned heads negotiated directly with him.

While on the island, Krupp (known all his life as Fritz) indulged his homosexual leanings in a big way. He set up a lavish private pleasure club in a grotto, where he entertained underage Italian boys, mostly the sons of local fishermen. Man on man sex was performed to the accompaniment of a live string quartet, and orgasms were celebrated with bursts of fireworks. Solid gold pins shaped like artillery shells or two crossed forks, both designed by Krupp, were given to the boys if they performed well. I'm not making this up.

When Krupp's wife, back home in Germany, heard rumors of what was going on, she went straight to Kaiser Wilhelm II, who promptly had her committed to an insane asylum in Jena. The thinking was that the Krupp industrialist empire (steel and arms manufacturing) was too vital to German national security to be compromised, even if such lurid stories were deemed true. Besides, Fritz was an important philanthropist who advanced the study of eugenics, which was later to become associated with the Nazis. The company lives on today as Thyssen-Krupp AG, the result of a controversial merger completed in 1999. The new company operates worldwide in steel manufacture, capital goods (elevators and industrial equipment) and services (specialty materials, environmental services, mechanical engineering, and scaffolding services).

But I digress. Krupp’s homosexual tastes predated his holidays on Capri. Conrad Uhl, proprietor of the Hotel Bristol in Berlin, related that he was charged with supplying Fritz with young boys when he stayed there. However, the German press eventually found out about Krupp's illicit private affairs, and printed the whole story, complete with damning photographs taken by Krupp himself inside the grotto on Capri. On November 15, 1902, the Social Democratic magazine Vorwärts reported that Friedrich Alfred Krupp was homosexual, that he had a number of liaisons with local boys and men, and that his principal attachment was to Adolfo Schiano, an 18-year-old barber and amateur musician who lived on Capri. A week later, Krupp requested a meeting with his close friend, Kaiser Wilhelm II, whose circle of friends included many prominent gay men. On the day he was to meet the emperor, November 22, 1902, Krupp was found dead in his home. Rather than face disgrace, Krupp had committed suicide; he was 48 years old at the time.

The suicide was covered up, and his body was concealed in a casket with no autopsy, even though law required it. No one, not even close relatives, was allowed to see the body. After three days, Germany had a great memorial ceremony involving the Kaiser, who was closely allied to the family. When Fritz was laid to rest in the Krupp family cemetery in Essen, his tomb was guarded day and night.

Ten years ago, when I first visited Capri**, I looked down in wonder from the Gardens of Augustus to the switchback paved footpath known as the Via Krupp, a scenic walkway constructed by Fritz in 1900. Ostensibly Via Krupp was a connection for Fritz between his rooms at the Hotel Quisisana and Marina Piccola, the small port where his marine biology research ship (ironically named the Puritan) lay at anchor. Secretly, however, this path conveyed him to Grotta di Fra’ Felice, the grotto where sex orgies with local boys took place. When the scandal surfaced, Krupp was asked to leave Italy in 1902, and a week after his return to Germany his life was over.

*The Grand Hotel Quisisana is today a member of Leading Hotels of the World.
www.quisisana.com/en/index

**At the time I had no knowledge of this lurid tale. Today there is a small family-run three star hotel called Villa Krupp on Capri which many people mistakenly believe was built by Fritz Krupp. However, this structure was built as a private villa in 1900 by Eduardo Settanni. By the way, Capri was then known as the gay capital of Europe, hosting hordes of lesbians and gay men, who could pursue their interests openly. Tip: remember to pronounce Capri with the accent on the first syllable (KAH-pree).

The Via Krupp descends 300 feet from the Gardens of Augustus to Marina Piccola, where Fritz hosted all male sex orgies in the nearby Grotta di Fra’ Felice. The iron gate pictured below leads to the grotto. He referred to this grotto as the "holy place of a secret fraternity," and he gave out golden keys to the private gate to waiters and fisherman. He wasn’t even trying to be discrete. This stone path, which had been closed for thirty years because of the danger of falling rocks, was reopened to foot traffic in 2009.

Photo below: On Capri Fritz Krupp satisfies his "needs," which leads to disaster (Auf Capri geht Fritz Krupp den Bedürfnissen nach, die ihm schließlich zum Verhängnis werden) – a scene from the 2009 three-part German TV miniseries, Krupp – Eine Deutsche Familie. In this scene Krupp (center) brings one of the local boys back to his hotel to "satisfy his needs."

I’ve written about gay king Frederick the Great of Prussia. However, I just learned that a former aide of his had to flee Prussia amid allegations of taking familiarities with young boys. Baron Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben, an experienced military officer, made his way to America with the aid of Benjamin Franklin, who was based in Paris at the time, trying to convince the French to come to our aid in fighting the British. George Washington asked for the Baron’s assistance in bringing order to the tattered Continental troops serving in the Revolutionary War. General Washington sent him to Valley Forge in February, 1778.

The soldiers were unaccustomed to the Baron’s – well, let’s call it "style". Von Steuben showed up in a grandiose sleigh (sporting 24 jingling bells) pulled by black Percheron draft horses. The Baron was wearing a robe of silk trimmed with fur, all the while petting his miniature greyhound, Azor, who was curled up on his lap. Behind him were his retinue of African servants, a French chef, his French aide-de-camp Louis de Pontière and the Baron’s 17-year-old lover/secretary Pierre-Étienne du Ponceau.

Impressive, if not entirely appropriate.

However, von Steuben proved his worth and soon shaped a hundred soldiers into a model company that, in turn, trained others in Prussian military tactics. He was a mere captain, but was so invaluable to Washington, that he was promoted to Major General. In 1781, he served under the Marquis de Lafayette in Virginia when the British General Charles Cornwallis invaded. He also served at the siege of Yorktown, where he commanded one of the three divisions of Washington's army.

Steuben spoke little English, and he often yelled to his translator, "Hey! Come over here and swear for me!" Steuben punctuated the screaming of his translator with fierce-sounding shouts in German and French. In an effort to codify training, Steuben wrote a Revolutionary War Drill Manual, which became the standard method for training army troops for over thirty years. It addresses the arms and accoutrements of officers and soldiers, formation and exercise of a company, instruction of recruits, formation and marching, inspection, etc., etc.

Steuben became an American citizen by act of the Pennsylvania legislature in March 1784. In 1790, Congress gave him a pension of $2,500 a year, which he received until his death, and an estate near Utica, NY, granted to him for his military service to our nation.

But wait, that’s not all. Steuben legally adopted two handsome soldiers (one of them, William North, became a U.S. Senator). A third young man, John Mulligan, considered himself a member of the stable of Steuben’s “sons.” Before moving in with Steuben, Mulligan had been living with Charles Adams*, the son of then-Vice President John Adams. Adams was concerned about the intense “closeness” between his son and Mulligan, insisting that they split up, so Mulligan wrote to Von Steuben with his tale of despair. Actually, Von Steuben offered to take both men into his ~~arms~~ home. Charles Adams, the handsomest son of one president and brother of another (John Quincy), resided with Von Steuben and Mulligan for a while. The 19-year-old Mulligan received – how shall we say – a very warm welcome. Von Steuben was a 62-year-old bachelor at the time. Hmmm.

Adams left the cozy love nest after a short while, but Mulligan stayed on for several years, serving as Von Steuben’s “secretary” until the Baron’s death. Mulligan inherited von Steuben’s library, maps and $2,500 cash, a considerable amount at the time, especially considering that the Baron was not a wealthy man.

Every year since 1958 the German-American Steuben Parade has been held in New York City. It is one of the city’s largest parades and is traditionally followed by an Oktoberfest celebration in Central Park. Similar events take place in Chicago and Philadelphia. Chicago’s Steuben Day Parade was featured in the movie Ferris Bueller's Day Off. To further honor von Steuben, the Steuben Society was founded in 1919 as an educational, fraternal, and patriotic organization of American citizens of German background. In the difficult post-WW I years the Society helped the German-American community reorganize.

Steubenville, Ohio, is named in the Baron’s honor. As well, numerous submarines, warships and ocean liners were named after him. A statue of the Baron stands in Lafayette Square opposite the White House in Washington, DC*. Even one of the cadet barracks buildings at Valley Forge Military Academy and College is named after Von Steuben. Really.

Steuben was cited by Randy Shilts in his book, Conduct Unbecoming, as an early example of a valuable homosexual in the military.

*I traipsed over to Lafayette Park yesterday afternoon to inspect the statue of Baron von Steuben. It’s a tall bronze life-size statue placed upon a high stone pedestal. The statue shows von Steuben in military dress uniform surveying the troops at Valley Forge. The monument, which stands opposite the White House, was erected in 1911 and sculpted by Albert Jaegers. At the rear of the pedestal is a medallion with the images of von Steuben's adopted aides-de-camp, William North and Benjamin Walker, facing one another. It says: "Colonel William North - Major Benjamin Walker - Aides and Friends of von Steuben". On each side of the pedestal are bronze Roman soldiers. Above the carved words “military instruction” on one side is a seated, helmeted Roman soldier “instructing” a naked youth (photo at left). Appropriate, no?

Check it out the next time you come to Washington DC.

*In 1796 Charles Adams was one of a group of men who frequented the theater in New York City and wrote critiques of what they saw for further distribution. Others in the group, called the Friendly Club, were John Wells, Elias Hicks, Samuel Jones, William Cutting and Peter Irving. This is noted in William Dunlap's "History of the American Theatre," published in 1832 (p. 193). Adams, whose father vowed never to see him again after Charles abandoned his wife and two daughters, drank himself to death in 1800, succumbing to alcoholism at the tender age of 30. Some scholars believe this was caused by his inability to deal with his homosexual leanings. Charles Adams, who streaked naked across the campus of Harvard during his student days, had a reputation as a rogue and renegade, and his family's wall of silence after his death may support that theory. Charles certainly spent much time in the company of men who engaged in homosexual activity. In researching this post, I enjoyed a cheap smile over the fact that the law office of young Adams was located on Little Queen Street (since renamed Cedar St. in the financial district).

There are certain paintings that are recognizable by most everyone, true icons of the art world: Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa and Edvard Munch'sScream, for instance. American Gothic is among this elite group, but few can recall the name of the artist.

In 1930, painter Grant Wood achieved unexpected fame with American Gothic, his painting of a pitchfork-wielding farmer and a stern, black-clad woman posed before a Victorian farmhouse. Trivia: the models for American Gothic were Grant’s sister and his dentist. It is one of the most reproduced and parodied artworks in history. Even those who know the name of the painter of American Gothic are unlikely to know that the soft-spoken artist who painted it was a deeply-closeted gay man.

Wood’s homosexuality was something of an open secret in his hometown of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, where an attitude of “don’t ask – don’t tell’’ allowed a small gay and lesbian subculture to exist in peace, so long as it remained practically invisible. Respected figures in the community, including prominent businesspeople and a local school principal, shielded Wood from scrutiny and encouraged his artistic aspirations. Thus Wood’s earliest vocational activities were not in farming, but in jewelry design, interior decorating and various theatrical pursuits. David Turner, owner of a funeral home in Cedar Rapids and a member of one of the county’s founding families, acted as Wood’s first patron. Wood and his widowed mother lived for years rent free in the mortuary’s vacant carriage house, formerly a storage facility for horse-drawn hearses.

For a man with a secret, sudden celebrity was a mixed blessing. Major national media outlets hinted all too broadly at the hidden subtext of his life, describing him as “a shy bachelor’’ who maintained “a discreet silence about marriage,’’ while making pointed reference to his high-pitched voice and affinity for the color pink – all too obvious allusions to his homosexuality.

Fear of exposure seems to have led Wood to adopt the down-to-earth public persona of America’s farmer-artist. Possessed of pudgy physical appearance, he routinely donned denim overalls for interviews and photographs (see above) and once ludicrously proclaimed, “All the really good ideas I’ve ever had came to me while I was milking a cow,’’ even though he hadn’t lived on a farm since he was 10 years old. Although Wood had studied in Paris and Germany, he downplayed his worldliness and put the accent on his midwestern farmhand persona, albeit somewhat embellished and fabricated.

Several times exposure of Grant’s homosexuality seemed imminent. In the late 1920s, he was blackmailed by a young man over their relationship. MacKinlay Kantor, who later became a Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist and screenwriter, wrote a description of Wood in a gossip column for the Des Moines Tribune-Capital that played up Wood’s bachelorhood and feminine taste and appearance. Wood’s being outed would have threatened not only his reputation but his income, as well, so Wood was cautious and circumspect in public. As the bartender in a Cedar Rapids watering hole Wood favored put it, “Wood was only gay when he was drunk.”

In Grant Wood’s Arnold Comes of Age (1930), a painting of a slight young man staring into the distance against a fall landscape, the image might be understood as one of Wood’s signature depictions of traditional America, were it not for the nude boys bathing in the corner of the portrait (click image to enlarge). The bathers are so subtly incorporated into the picture and the title so nondescript that the work seems to simultaneously suggest and repress the possibility of same-sex desire. Arnold Pyle, Wood's assistant, had just turned 21 when this portrait was made.Wood had been Pyle's eighth grade art teacher and went on to become Pyle’s mentor and longtime friend. Tragically, in 1973, while returning from a Grant Wood Art Festival, Pyle was killed in an automobile accident. One should note here that the somewhat overweight Wood had a taste in men that seldom varied – his ideal types were dark-haired, slender young men, and Wood surrounded himself with same for the rest of his life.

His mother’s death in 1935 created a crisis. No longer able to justify bachelorhood with the excuse of filial obligation, Wood entered into a disastrous marriage with a woman much his senior, the former actress Sarah Moxon, to the surprise of his friends and family. It was a loveless, unconsummated, unhappy, and brief marriage – the result of a sort of gay panic. Worse, he fell in love with her handsome, 20-something son from a previous marriage, installing the young man in their home, lavishing money and attention on him. Wood also kept a secretary, Park Rinard, another slightly-built, dark-haired young man with whom he was also in love, again unrequited. All this was too much for Sara, and their brief marriage ended acrimoniously.

Wood left Cedar Rapids for Iowa City, where he taught art classes at the University of Iowa. Lacking the network of friends who had previously supported and protected him, he was denounced as a homosexual in a formal departmental complaint lodged by five colleagues. The matter was eventually hushed up, and Wood was allowed to keep his job, but the ordeal wreaked havoc on his health, and he developed a severe drinking problem. One of Wood’s accusers was H.W. Janson, whose “History of Art’’ later became a standard college-level textbook. Janson vindictively omitted Wood from this canonical guide to art history.

Wood died in 1942, at the tender age of 50, as a result of pancreatic and liver cancer.

Paul von Thurn und Taxis, a Bavarian prince, kept a diary, but like everything else concerning him in the Regensburg archives of the powerful and wealthy Thurn und Taxis family, it was destroyed. Aside from the fact that he pursued a career as a professional stage actor, a likely reason is that Paul was an intimate, devoted boyfriend to the Wittelsbach crown prince Ludwig (shown at right), who ascended to the throne at age eighteen. Paul and Ludwig engaged in behavior that would be unflattering to the Thurn and Taxis dynasty.

From a letter sent by Paul to Ludwig on May 5, 1866, when King Ludwig was 20 years old:

“Dear and Beloved Ludwig! I am just finishing my diary with the thought of the beautiful hours which we spent together that evening a week ago which made me the happiest man on earth… Oh, Ludwig, Ludwig, I am devoted to you! I couldn’t stand the people around me; I sat still and, in my thoughts I was still with you...How my heart beat when, as I passed the Residenz, I saw a light in your window.”

Paul and Ludwig also shared a passion for composer Richard Wagner and the theater. Paul was gifted with a beautiful voice and sang for the king many times. When Paul and Ludwig visited Wagner’s home, the lads shared a “cosy little room,” as described in one of Paul’s letters. Wagner rehearsed Paul in a portion of his opera Lohengrin, which was performed for the 20th birthday of the king on August 25, 1865, at the Alpsee in Hohenschwangau, where Ludwig’s family had a favorite castle. It was magnificently staged with Paul dressed as the hero Lohengrin, wearing silver armor, drawn over the lake by an artificial swan as the scenery was illuminated by electric lights. The King sat enraptured as his intimate friend sang his favorite music.

A year later, on New Year’s day, 1867, all Bavaria was delighted to hear the announcement of their dashing King Ludwig’s engagement to Princess Sophie, a native Duchess and sister to “Sisi,” the beloved Empress of Austria. The royal wedding was arranged to take place on Ludwig’s 22nd birthday, August 25, but an official announcement early in the summer postponed the nuptials until October 12. However, Ludwig broke off the engagement a week before the marriage was to take place. In a long letter to Princess Sophie, he stated that the engagement and wedding had been forced upon him; he loved the Princess “like a sister” and hoped to remain her friend.

Ludwig's Coronation Portrait

There was a reason for the postponement and ultimate cancellation. During the summer Ludwig had met Richard Hornig, a groom employed at one of his stables. A blond, blue-eyed Prussian, five years older than the king, he was to become one of the most important people in Ludwig’s life. Hornig was a superb horseman, and their mutual love of horses allowed a friendship to develop. In a short time Hornig was seeing the king constantly and intimately. Hornig soon occupied the office of Crown Equerry and Master of the Horse. He controlled all horse transport, coaches and carriages, stabling, purchase, breeding and training of the Royal horses, which numbered around 500. The king and Hornig often visited the king’s remote castles, chalets and mountain huts, mostly in a four-horse carriage, but sometimes in a romantic, illuminated sleigh in the moonlight. When the two dined at the king’s castles, they were waited on by footmen dressed in 18th-century livery.

Hornig was soon acting as go-between for the king and his ministers, much as Queen Victoria’s John Brown, which caused much tongue-wagging and criticism. Ludwig and Hornig also set out on a journey through Germany to France, with the King traveling incognito as Count von Berg. It was during this time that the king issued a postponement of his wedding. The appearance of Richard Hornig in his life led to the king’s full break with Sophie. Ludwig’s homosexual relationship with Hornig made him realize that a normal love for any woman was not possible.

In fact Ludwig II went on to have a succession of handsome male companions, two of whom were Hungarian theater star Josef Kainz and courtier Alfons Weber. They were both good-looking young men, and Ludwig treated them as other royal males treated their mistresses. Ludwig showed Kainz special favor, giving him expensive gifts, inviting him for stays in the king’s castles and asking him along for a vacation in Switzerland. They even had their photo taken together at the end of the trip, although it is scandalous that in this portrait Kainz is seated, and the king is standing (photo at left).

King Ludwig was an obsessive, devoted patron of the composer Richard Wagner. The king wiped out Wagner’s enormous debts, built him a theater in Bayreuth custom designed for his operas as well as a private villa across town. Wagner lived on money supplied by the king. As the king aged, he became an eccentric recluse caught up in the building of fantasy castles decorated with murals depicting scenes from the legends upon which Wagner’s operas were based, all the while ignoring matters of state, which were left to his staff of ministers. It was during Ludwig’s reign that Prussia launched a successful campaign to unify all the disparate German kingdoms into one unified Germany Empire, with Prussian King Wilhelm I as kaiser.

When the king’s ministers caught wind that Ludwig was planning to dismiss his entire cabinet and replace them, they acted first. They plotted to depose him constitutionally, on grounds of mental illness, subsequently issuing a statement that he was unable to rule. However, this was accomplished without any medical examination, so the king’s diagnosis of insanity remains suspect. Among the list of bizarre behaviors described in this “medical report” was the fact that his young groomsmen were often ordered to strip naked and dance for the king’s entertainment. Poor taste, perhaps, but not insanity. Three of the four psychiatrists who signed the damning medical report had never met the king, and none had ever examined him.

Even so, the ministers made plans to place Ludwig’s younger brother on the throne. On June 12, 1886, a commission arrived at Neuschwanstein castle and served the king with an order of deposition, escorting him to Schloss Berg on the shores of Lake Starnberg. The next day the king’s body was discovered floating in the lake, alongside the corpse of Dr. Gudden, one of the psychiatrists who had declared the king insane. Gudden’s body showed evidence of a struggle and attempted strangulation, suggesting that the king tried to kill him (Ludwig was 6'4" tall and heavy-set, so there is validity to this theory). The exact cause of the king’s death remains open to speculation, since an autopsy found no water present in his lungs.

Ludwig is best known as an eccentric whose legacy is intertwined with the history of art and architecture. He commissioned the construction of several extravagant fantasy castles and palaces, the most famous being Neuschwanstein. Since his legacy of these grandiose castles lives on in the form of massive tourist revenue, King Ludwig is revered by many in Bavaria today. Here is a photo of the extravagant ceramic stove adorned with figures of Tristan and Isolde in the bedroom of Ludwig II at Neuschwanstein palace in southern Bavaria.

The three most-visited of Ludwig's castles:

top to bottom: Neuschwanstein, Linderhof and Herrenchiemsee

Franz, Duke of Bavaria (b. 1933) is the present head of the Wittelsbach dynasty. He is a gay man who lives in a suite of apartments in Schloss Nymphenburg (Munich), the summer residence of the Wittelsbach kings of Bavaria where King Ludwig II was born. Here Franz is photographed in 1993 with his nieces Duchess Marie Caroline of Württemberg (b. 1969) on the left and Duchess Elizabeth in Bavaria (b. 1973).

The Wittelsbachs were opposed to the Nazi regime in Germany, and in 1939 Franz's father Albrecht took his family to Hungary. They lived in Budapest for four years before moving to Somlovar Castle in late 1943. In March 1944, Nazi Germany occupied Hungary, and on October 6, 1944, the entire family including Franz, then aged 11, was arrested. They were sent to a series of Nazi concentration camps including Dachau. At the end of April 1945 they were liberated by the United States Army.

Out in the World of Jazz

In a 2004 interview in “The Advocate” magazine, Koz came out publicly as a gay man at age 40. Initially wary of the impact coming out would have on his story-book career, he sold more records and concert tickets than ever and has never looked back. He has become a generous and hard working advocate for gay issues.

A virtual polymath, in addition to being an award-winning saxophonist, Dave Koz is a vintner, jazz cruise host, radio personality, TV host, founder of Rendezvous Records and global ambassador for the Starlight Children’s Foundation. He was a featured performer at Bill Clinton’s presidential inauguration.

Koz was named by “People” magazine as one of their “50 Hottest Bachelors” in their June, 2004 issue (Dave’s response: “You know, I didn’t get one date out of that thing. The biggest gyp in the world!”). In 2009 Koz received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

In this video Dave interviews Marilyn and Alan Bergman, a song writing team for 50 years, who wrote "The Way We Were," featured on Dave’s album “At the Movies.” He invited Vanessa Williams to perform this classic movie song on his award-winning album.

From a live concert in Tel Aviv, Israel, openly gay (and model handsome) jazz saxophonist Dave Koz plays “Over the Rainbow.” There is a long spoken introduction, so jump ahead to where the music begins at the 1:38 mark.

Dave hosts Jazz Cruises that include the likes of Chris Botti, David Benoit and Jeffrey Osborne. To learn more about them, click on this link
www.davekozcruise.com

Austrian statesman and diplomat Prince Wenzel Anton von Kaunitz-Reitberg (1711-1794) was born in Vienna. Empress Maria Teresia of Austria relied on his expertise throughout her reign, and he furthered her strength in forging an alliance between Austria and France to keep Prussia at bay. For his successes, in 1764 he was made a prince of the Holy Roman Empire as Reichfürst von Kaunitz-Rietberg, and in 1776 was made a prince of the Kingdom of Bohemia.

Unfortunately, his talent and influence went straight to his head. Eccentric, arrogant, conceited and always happy to hear the sound of his own voice, he was accustomed to getting his own way. If what he wanted was a stable of sexy young men, then, by God, nothing would stand in his way; it was reported that he kept a virtual male harem. His wife’s early death forty years before his own left many decades for him to pursue his interests in young men.

Kaunitz had surprising manias. He hated bright light and would not listen to any reports of death, nor approach a sick man; he would not breathe fresh air and kept a handkerchief over his mouth when outdoors. For two years he refused to receive his employer, Austrian Emperor Josef II (son and successor of Maria Teresia), because Josef had returned to Austria sick from battle. Each morning Prince Anton did some riding indoors. He was also consumed by vanity, spending hours each morning preparing his toilet, surrounded by a bevy of handsome male servants, each assigned a particular task.

On the plus side, however, Kaunitz had some good personal qualities – he was astute, laborious and orderly. Plus, his granddaughter married Prince Metternich, his successor to the post of Austria’s State Chancellor.

I have already written two posts about men who sought sexual freedom on Capri, but this rocky speck of an island at the edge of Italy’s Tyrrhenian Sea has hosted so many gay and bisexual men that I dedicate this post to the entire island. The fact that I am sick of winter and wistfully recall warm August days on the island might have something to do with it. So here goes.

From the late 19th century to just prior to the First World War, Capri (pronounced KAH-pree, accent on the first syllable), was especially popular with wealthy gay men. Located about a 30-minute hydrofoil ride from Sorrento across the Gulf of Naples, the island, long a refuge for artists and writers, was a relatively tolerant, safe place for bisexuals and homosexuals to lead a more open life, one of undisturbed lasciviousness.

Then during the 1920s, especially, the island became populated by high profile lesbians in exile, such as artist Romaine Brooks. There was something about the island’s attitude and atmosphere that allowed wealthy expats to unleash their pent-up desire for larger than life extravagance. Thus the Marquesa Casati, an eccentric, bisexual femme fatale, traversed Capri while walking a pair of tame leashed cheetahs, often wearing live boa constrictors as necklaces.

Around the turn of the twentieth century such bisexual notables as Tsar Ferdinand I of Bulgaria and German industrialist Friedrich Krupp played out their same sex desires by hosting orgies that included local young males, who were generously rewarded for their “companionship” (see separate blog entries for both Friedrich Krupp and Ferdinand in the side bar). Later gay and bisexual men of importance who took up residence on Capri include British novelist Norman Douglas and American writer Gore Vidal. Stay tuned for future blog posts about those two.

Among the island’s more notorious homosexuals was wealthy industrialist, artist and writer Jacques d'Adelswärd-Fersen, an aristocrat who moved there in self-imposed exile from France after a 1903 sex scandal involving very young Parisian schoolboys and all manner of debauchery. At age 22 he inherited a vast fortune from his industrialist father.

One of Capri's more colorful characters, his best-known novel, Lord Lyllian, is a decadent satire inspired by his own scandalous downfall, but he was in fact better known as a character in books by others, especially Roger Peyrefitte’s gossipy L'Exilé de Capri, a fictionalized biography about Fersen. As well, he was one of many eccentric expatriate residents to inspire Scottish novelist Compton Mackenzie's tale of Capri, Vestal Fire.

In 1905 Baron Fersen built Villa Lysis (named for Plato’s dialogue on the nature of male love), one of the island’s more notorious monuments to sin and decadence that often played host to the aforementioned Marchesa Casatti. Perched precipitously atop an enormous outcropping of granite on the eastern tip of the island, with stupendous views of Mt. Vesuvius, the villa seems to teeter on the brink of a freefall into the sea (see photo above). Fersen’s young lover-in-residence, Nino Cesarini, was an inspiration for Bohemian artists.

The lad posed nude for portraits by German painter Paul Hoecker (painting of Cesarini at right) and Italian artist Umberto Brunelleschi, and for photographer Wilhelm von Plüschow. From 1909-1910, while in residence on Capri, Fersen published a monthly literary magazine promoting pederastic love. Their colorful life on Capri had a dark ending, however. A lethal cocktail of champagne and cocaine was ingested by Baron Fersen in 1923 (allegedly a suicide) in a room he built specifically for smoking opium. No kidding. The villa is open to the public, and the photo below shows the exotic gold mosaic embellishments in the column fluting.

The island was immortalized by the song Isle Of Capri (1934), made famous by British actress and music hall singer Gracie Fields, who was another island resident. By the time Frank Sinatra recorded this song for his 1957 album, Come Fly With Me, Capri was already popular with the international jet set, including the likes of Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, Greta Garbo, and Noël Coward (see separate post).

Capri is still somewhat of a gay men's haven, but most come as day trippers to raid the luxury boutiques that litter the narrow alleys of Capri town. Men and women alike seek out historic perfumer Carthusia, who was granted permission from the Pope to use old formulas discovered by Carthusian monks to create fragrances like Aria Di Capri, whose evocative scent is inspired by Capri's sea breezes, warm sun, and blue skies.

Let it be said that your blogger is not a shopper, but even I have been known to sully the portals of a half dozen of Capri town’s boutiques (see photo at right) – more as a respite from the blazing sun, however, than from any interest in commercial goods. Most of the island is a pedestrian zone, so any visit will be a welcome vacation from motor traffic. Taxis with horizontal shade cloths (see photo below) and a funicular are popular ways to ascend from the marina up to Capri town, the island’s main village.

A few years ago I walked from the Piazzetta, the commercial and social center of Capri town, all the way to the ruins of the villa of Roman emperor Tiberius (twice actually, because of a dead camera battery), a 40-minute jaunt (all uphill, all the time), without once seeing even so much as a service vehicle – in August, the peak of high season. Tiberius ruled Rome from Capri during the last ten years of his reign, but no one can say exactly why he abandoned Rome for this rocky perch. Ancient writings describe pan-sexual Tiberius lazing in his pool while his adolescent male “fishes” nibbled at his nether regions underwater. It was good to be emperor.

Tiny buses traverse hairpin turns (on roads not wide enough for buses) to reach Anacapri, the other main town. This lofty village is situated near the top of the island and has a more tranquil atmosphere. The church of St. Michele Archangelo boasts a floor of painted majolica tiles depicting Adam and Eve and fantastical beasts. Villa San Michele (see photo above), the fantastical villa built by Swedish physician Axel Munthe in 1885, hosted Oscar Wilde after his release from imprisonment. The villa is open to the public and is one of the top travel experiences of my life. Go there. From Anacapri you can ride a chairlift to Monte Solaro, the island's highest point, for a breathtaking vista. No matter how or when you leave the island, it will be with wistful regret. Mental images of the island will remain with you for years.

Photographs of Capri by Adalberto Tiburzi, whose hometown is Rome.
I use these photographs under the terms found on his excellent web site:
www.pbase.com/adalberto_tiburzi/profile

Alexander I (1777-1825), emperor of Russia from 1801 to 1825, was born in St. Petersburg, where he was raised by his grandmother, Catherine the Great. He was the first Russian King of Poland (1815 to 1825) and also the first Russian Grand Duke of Finland and Lithuania. At age 24 Alexander ascended to the Russian throne after the assassination of his father, Tsar Paul I. For Alexander’s indirect involvement in the plot to kill his father, he suffered from guilt the rest of his life.

Rumors of Alexander’s homosexuality began soon after his coronation in 1801. His companion and aide was Prince Peter Volkonsky, who served the Tsar as Chief of Staff and Imperial Minister, going on to become one of the most decorated officers in the Russian army. Prince Volkonsky was, according to K. K. Rotikov, “partial to a fair few of his fellow officers.” Alexander was so smitten that he once tearfully proposed that he and Volkonsky “retire together to a villa on the Black Sea.” It should be mentioned that Prince Volkonsky had also participated in the plot to remove Tsar Paul I from the throne.

Well, there you have it.

The dashing Prince Peter Volkonsky:

During the early part of his rule, Alexander relied on four of his young male companions for political guidance and support. Whatever Alexander reaped from his relationship with those four lads, it was definitely not astute political advice. Alexander spent the first years of his reign fighting Napoleon, who defeated him at the Battle of Austerlitz (it was Prince Volkonsky who commanded the Russian troops). Forced to sign the humiliating Treaty of Tilsit in 1807, which among other things brought the Holy Roman Empire to an end, Alexander made a comeback in 1812 by defeating the French – cue Tchaikovsky’s “1812 Overture” while dusting off Tolstoy’s ”War and Peace”. For a brief time Alexander became a hero across the continent.

After the Congress of Vienna in 1815, Alexander’s mental state deteriorated, and he turned to religious mysticism. He had hoped to establish a new Christian order in Europe through a Holy Alliance with Austria and Prussia, but he ended his reign as a recluse.

Napoleon said of Alexander I, "He was the slyest and handsomest of all the Greeks!*"

*At the time of Napoleon’s comment, “Greek” meant “homosexual male.”

London-born composer, conductor and pianist Thomas Adès (b. 1971) is one of the “hot” classical musicians on the current international scene. He is also an out and proud gay man who, in 2006, entered into a civil partnership with Tal Rosner, an Israeli filmmaker and video artist. The two have worked on many projects together, and their apartment in Covent Garden serves as their center of creativity.

Your blogger was lucky enough to attend the world premiere of Polaris, a multi-media work for orchestra and five video screens (music composed by Adès, moving images by Rosner), written for the opening of Miami’s New World Arts Center in January, 2011. The center, designed by superstar architect Frank Gehry, is home to the New World Symphony Orchestra, led by gay conductor Michael Tilson Thomas.

London-born Adès graduated in 1992 from King's College, Cambridge, where his degree was classified as 'double starred first', indicating outstanding academic distinction. Success piled upon success. He was made Britten Professor of Composition at the Royal Academy of Music and in 2004 was awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Essex. By the age of 36
a retrospective of his work was presented in London, and he was the focus of festivals in France Finland.

Asyla, a work for orchestra, was premiered in 1997 by Simon Rattle and the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and received the Grawemeyer Award for Music Composition. Adès was the youngest ever recipient of this award. Asyla has since been performed across the world, including a tour of the Far East by Rattle and the Berlin Philharmonic.

Adès composed a chamber opera, Powder Her Face (1995), which gained immediate notoriety for its musical depiction of fellatio. The Duchess character in the opera was based on the notorious Margaret Campbell, Duchess of Argyll, whose scandalous behavior in the 1960s was revealed during her divorce trial when photographs of her various sex acts were introduction into evidence.

This video clip is an excerpt from In Seven Days (2008), a creative collaboration between Adès and Rosner. The work depicts the biblical creation story via piano, video-installation and orchestra.

Klaus Wowereit

Gay Saints Sergius and Bacchus

Sam Harris

Arthur Gold and Robert Fizdale

Edgar Bowers

William "Billy" Haines

Ian Roberts

Andrew Tobias

John Ireland

Brothers Enrique & Guillermo De Fazio

Bayard Taylor

Steel Magnate Friedrich Alfred Krupp

Baron von Steuben

American Gothic: Grant Wood

King Ludwig II of Bavaria (1845-1886)

Saxophonist Dave Koz

Prince Wenzel Anton von Kaunitz

Jacques d'Adelswärd-Fersen on the Isle of Capri

Tsar Alexander I of Russia

Thomas Adès