Richard Chamberlain

Note: this is a much updated version of my post from 2013.

UPDATE: Richard Chamberlain died at age 90 in Hawaii on March 29, 2025, from complications of a stroke.

Deeply closeted for most of his life, actor Richard Chamberlain (1934-2025) was outed by the French women’s magazine Nous Deux (We Two) in December 1989, and the American tabloids took up the story, plastering the news on their front pages. But Chamberlain steadfastly denied his homosexuality. It wasn’t until 2003, at the age of 69, that he publicly acknowledged the truth in his memoir, Shattered Love. The press generated by the book gave Chamberlain a boost in popularity, and he was greatly relieved to find his fans supportive and positive.

Chamberlain, born in Los Angeles in 1934, was a star of television, films, stage and (like Tab Hunter) pop music. An unknown Richard Chamberlain was inducted into the Army in 1956, becoming a sergeant in Korea. Three years after his military service his name was already a household word.

Those of a certain age might remember a TV show called Dr. Kildare (1961-66; clip at end of post), which made Chamberlain an overnight sensation. He played a young intern who wrangled with the medical and personal problems of his patients. He also recorded the song, "Three Stars Will Shine Tonight" (clip at end of post), with the music from the show's familiar opening theme.

After the hit TV series ended, he went to England to pursue a successful stage career. In 1969 Chamberlain performed the title role of Hamlet with the Birmingham Repertory Theatre, becoming the first American to play the role there since John Barrymore in 1929. He earned excellent reviews and reprised the role the following year for television, for The Hallmark Hall of Fame.

Chamberlain had a significant live-in affair with a younger TV actor, Wesley Eure (pronounced “your”), who went on to appear on the NBC soap opera Days of Our Lives for almost ten years. Eure was fired from the show when his homosexuality became known to his employer, even though Earl Greenburg, head of NBC Daytime, was himself a gay man. In those days being outed as gay meant no work as an actor.

Wesley Eure recently spoke of the social atmosphere at the time he was dating Chamberlain. “We'd go to parties at private homes, because we couldn't go anywhere in public. I remember being told about set designer Jacques Mapes (Singin in the Rain) and movie producer Ross Hunter. They were at a big private party in pre-1950s Hollywood. One was Tyrone Powers' lover, and the other was Errol Flynn's lover, and they were the two handsomest boys in town on the arms of important closeted celebrities.” Ross recounted to Wesley, "I remember I was at the top of the stairs, and there was Jacques. Our eyes met, and we left the party, dumped our famous boyfriends, and we've been together ever since." Wesley added, “There was this whole subculture, a hidden culture of gay socializing. I used to go to those parties, and the most famous people you can imagine were there. If the public had any idea...”

Soon after Chamberlain ended his relationship with Eure, he took up with handsome actor-writer-producer Martin Rabbett (b. 1953), who became his partner for almost 40 years. Chamberlain had legally adopted Rabbett to protect his assets. In the spring of 2010 Chamberlain moved from Maui to Los Angeles because of work possibilities, leaving Rabbett behind at their luxury home in Hawaii (above, listed for sale in mid-2010 for $19 million). Later that year, responding to gossip about a split, Chamberlain said in an interview with Advocate, “Well, we haven’t really split. In other words, we’re still very, very close. The essence of our relationship has remained the same; we just don’t happen to be living together. I went home for Thanksgiving and had the most wonderful time, and we’ll be spending Christmas together with friends in New York. So we’re not split, really. I just moved to L.A. because I wanted to work more. Martin, unfortunately, doesn’t like L.A. at all, but he’s thinking of moving to San Francisco.” 

UPDATE: Rabbett and Chamberlain resumed living together until Richard's recent death.

In the film Allan Quatermain and the Lost City of Gold (1986), a bearded Chamberlain and his real-life lover Martin Rabbett played brothers. In this still, a kneeling Chamberlain has a firm grip on Sharon Stone. Rabbett is in white.

After the Maui house sold, Rabbett did indeed move to San Francisco, and in April of 2012 Chamberlain said, “We’re curiously not living together at the moment, but we’re better friends than we’ve ever been.”

In May, 2012, Chamberlain appeared in a Pasadena Playhouse production of The Heiress (left), taking the role of the unyielding Dr. Austin Sloper, who was portrayed by Basil Rathbone in the original 1947 Broadway production.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. Two decades after Dr.Kildare, Chamberlain appeared in some of the most widely-seen television miniseries in history, including the epic Shōgun (1981) and The Thorn Birds (1984). Around 110 million television viewers watched The Thorn Birds (nude clip at end of post!). In the period spanning the years from 1975 to 1989 he was nominated for four Emmy Awards and six Golden Globe Awards, winning three of them. Chamberlain received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2000.

His more recent television appearances include Desperate Housewives, Chuck, and Leverage. At the age of 76 Chamberlain signed on to take a role as a gay man on Brothers and Sisters (2010). Also, in early 2013 Chamberlain published "My Life in Haiku". A description from Good Reads: A philosophical, spiritual, perceptive, subtle and intimate Richard Chamberlain delights the reader with a collection of incisive, spirited and, at times, quite suggestive haiku. He half-opens a window onto a personal history with its bright and dark tones that he backs up with reproductions of some of his paintings, unveiling the hitherto cryptic meaning of a few. The haiku bear witness of his art to capture meaning in a very condensed poetic form and of his command of the language. “My Life in Haiku” confirms the human, spiritual and intellectual stature of a multi-faceted and highly talented actor and painter, above all of a man who has never stopped pondering. An enriching read!

To learn about his career as a painter (a talent he shared with Tony Bennet, Duke Ellington and Henry Fonda), and for updates on Mr. Chamberlain's recent projects, visit:

www.richardchamberlain.net


Dr. Kildare: Flaming Youth
A clip from Dr. Kildare. Richard Chamberlain appears at the 1min 40sec mark, and this is fairly typical of the series, which made Chamberlain a star.




Red Skelton Variety Hour: Haven't We Met?
TV clip from 1967, as a guest on the Red Skelton variety hour. This was just after Dr. Kildare ended its run, and it was the custom at the time for TV and film stars to be invited as participating guests on variety shows. He sings (sort of) and dances (sort of), but he is handsome as hell throughout, as everyone agreed.



“You Are the Most Beautiful Man I Have Ever Seen...”
This clip from the 1984 miniseries The Thorn Birds is beyond creepy. The best part is that Richard Chamberlain is naked and wet. A much older Barbara Stanwyck paws a nude priest, sending millions of TV viewers straight to confession.




Richard Chamberlain sings! 
He had several hits albums and singles in the 1960s.
Three Stars Will Shine Tonight (1962; theme song from Dr. Kildare)

George Maharis

UPDATED BLOG POST: George Maharis died at home in Beverly Hills on May 24, 2023. He was 94 years old.

Hollywood actor George Maharis (b. 1928) was arrested November 21, 1974 and charged with committing a sex act with a male hairdresser in the men's room of a gas station in Los Angeles. 46 years old at the time, Maharis was booked on a sex perversion charge and released on $500 bail. Six years earlier Maharis had been arrested by a vice squad officer for lewd conduct in the restroom of a Hollywood restaurant; the officer said Maharis made a pass at him.

Well, now that we have that out of the way...

Best known for his role as Buz Murdock on the hit 1960s CBS television series Route 66, Maharis had just posed nude for Playgirl magazine the year before his 1974 arrest. Route 66 was a 1960-1964 series about two guys and a Corvette who roamed the country together – often dressed in coats and ties, for no apparent reason. I kid you not. Maharis received an Emmy nomination for this role in 1962. However, Maharis left the wildly popular show before it ended its run, and there has been much speculation as to why.

Maharis told the story that he had contracted infectious hepatitis in 1962, and that the shoots were so grueling that to continue would risk his health. He asked the producers to give him a less arduous schedule, but they refused, and he left the show, to be replaced by Glenn Corbett in the role of  Lincoln Case. However, others relate a different scenario. Route 66 producer Herbert B. Leonard found out that Maharis was gay and was having a hard time keeping his star’s sexual activities away from the press. Maharis also used the illness, Leonard said, as an excuse to break his contract so that he could get into movies. Co-star Martin Milner (in the role of Tod) and a Route 66 writer-producer confirm this version. 

George Maharis & Martin Milner

Maharis eventually did break into movies, but they were all forgettable B-grade films. Maharis also played stage roles, but nothing ever matched his success as Buz on Route 66, and the TV show never recovered from Maharis’s departure.

According to Karen Blocher, who is working on a book about Maharis and has interviewed him for the project, the reality of why Maharis left Route 66 is a combination of the two. She writes, “The producers felt betrayed and duped when they learned of Maharis's sexual orientation, and never trusted him again. Maharis, for his part, started to feel that he was carrying the show and was going unappreciated. So when he got sick, and came back, and started griping about the working conditions, the producers assumed it was all a ploy to either get more money or else get out of his contract and go make movies. In a less homophobic era, they might have communicated better, and worked things out instead of letting each other down.”

Maharis also had a singing career, releasing seven albums between the years 1962 and 1966, a time period that overlapped his appearance on Route 66. Maharis regularly appeared in Las Vegas nightclubs during the 1980s. Video below.

 

Here’s a complete Route 66 one-hour episode from early 1962.

Anthony Perkins: sexually conflicted actor

Anthony Perkins was an actor who had affairs with A-list male celebrities: Rock Hudson, Tab Hunter, Troy Donahue, Rudolf Nureyev, Paul Newman, Leonard Bernstein, James Dean, and Stephen Sondheim. The one that lasted, however, was with dancer/choreographer Grover Dale, with whom Perkins had a six-year relationship before his 1973 marriage to photographer Berry Berenson, the sister of actress Marisa Berenson. Dale, who had been Perkins’ understudy in the stage musical Greenwillow, also married in 1973 (must have been something in the water that year). Perkins was 41 years old at the time of his marriage and said he had sex with a woman for the first time just a year before that, at age 39, with his co-star Victoria Principal during filming of The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean.

Perkins was a veteran of stage, screen and TV, even earning an Oscar nomination for Friendly Persuasion, but he lived in utter fear that Confidential magazine would out him, as it did with Tab Hunter, one of his early lovers. Perkins had two sons with Berenson, but he died of AIDS in 1992 at age sixty; according to the Los Angeles Times obituary, Perkins did not acknowledge that he had the disease until he released a statement shortly before his death, even though the National Enquirer had broken the story two years earlier. According to author Shawn Levy (The Castle on Sunset, 2019) during the 19 years of his marriage and while being a father, Perkins kept a hotel room on hold for himself at Chateau Marmont so that he would have a place for trysts with young men. Hmmm...

Before his marriage Perkins met influential gay men who resided at Chateau Marmont at various times -- Gore Vidal, Christopher Isherwood (and his partner Don Bachardy) among them. Earlier, Perkins had been introduced to Tab Hunter at the hotel's pool. Moments later, Perkins invited Hunter up to his room. Thus began a two-year sexual relationship between Perkins and Hunter. Studio executives tried to quash rumors by "allowing" Perkins and Hunter to go on double dates with studio-provided starlets.

His performance as Norman Bates in Hitchcock’s film Psycho* is unforgettable, but his career went into decline soon afterward. Perkins was known to frequent gay porn stores and gay movie houses in Times Square, NYC, where he watched men have sex in the stairwells.

*Note: Perkins was not filmed in the infamous Psycho shower scene. A double was used. On the day that scene was shot, Perkins was in rehearsals for Greenwillow, a Broadway musical. Source: Stephen Rebello, Alfred Hitchcock and the Making of Psycho.

For over a decade Perkins lived in a platonic relationship with photographer Helen Merrell, a dominating force of a woman fourteen years his senior. Merrell went on to become an influential theatrical agent and philanthropist.

In the late 1950s, Perkins released three pop song albums, but a career as a singer never materialized, although he did have a starring role in Greenwillow, a Broadway musical (closed after 97 performances). Perkins also worked as a stage actor. In 1958, he was nominated for a Tony Award for Best Actor for his performance in the Broadway play Look Homeward, Angel. During this time he also starred in Green Mansions (1959) with Audrey Hepburn and the college comedy Tall Story (1960) with Jane Fonda.


His widow, Berry Berenson, was tragically killed while aboard American Airlines flight 11 as it crashed into the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001.


In a role that forever defined him: Perkins (as Norman Bates) with Janet Leigh in Hitchcock's masterpiece PSYCHO:

 

Ramón Novarro

Revision of previous post:
Mexican born Ramón Novarro (1899-1968) was Hollywood’s silent-film Latin superstar. While he was still a teenager his well-off family moved to California to flee the Mexican Revolution, and Novarro immediately found work in films, accepting nine uncredited bit parts. Possessed of a fine voice, he supplemented his income by working as a singing waiter. Novarro then worked in three silent films under his real name, Ramón Samaniego, and at age 22 he appeared in The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (1921), a major studio release starring Rudolph Valentino. Rex Ingram, that film’s director, worked hard to make Ramón a star and suggested that he change his surname to Novarro. By 1922 studio publicity was calling Novarro “the next Valentino.” 

Photo below: In The Midshipman (1925) Novarro’s co-star was Joan Crawford.

Then two things happened that changed Novarro’s life forever. Valentino died of a ruptured appendix in 1926, and Novarro appeared in the title role of the critically acclaimed Ben Hur (1925), an epic film that took the country by storm, making Novarro a major star. Ben-Hur, which cost between $4-6 million in the mid-1920s, was the most expensive film ever made, adjusted to today’s dollars. Its original theatrical release lasted for years, and the film was re-released in 1931 with added music and sound effects. Photos below:

Novarro, who had appeared in Ben Hur "as naked as the censors would allow", brought to the screen a delicate masculine body and boyish eroticism that unsettled many male viewers. Although his screen persona was usually that of "a boy in love", he displayed an androgynous quality similar to that of Valentino. However, there was a natural style to Novarro's acting that distinguished him from his rivals, and critics praised the ease and charm of his performances. By the mid-1920s Novarro was commanding $100,000 per picture, a fortune at the time.

Above: 
Novarro reading in a still from The Flying Fleet (1929) 

Great successes followed with The Student Prince in Old Heidelberg (1927) and the talking film Mata Hari (1931, photo below), opposite Greta Garbo. He made a successful transition to talking films and played opposite some of Hollywood’s greatest female stars, including Joan Crawford and Myrna Loy.

Here is a clip from Mata Hari, with Novarro helplessly enthralled by Greta Garbo.

However, Novarro’s homosexuality brewed trouble for his career. MGM studio head Louis B. Mayer demanded that Novarro marry to cover up his true sexual orientation, but Novarro refused. He defiantly shared a home with Herbert Howe, his publicist, enjoying a romance in a house they sold to Joan Crawford. Novarro, a devout Catholic, had difficulties reconciling his sexuality with his deep religious convictions. Along with the pressures and demands of Hollywood, these factors led to the actor’s eventual alcoholism, which ruined his career. When Novarro's contract with MGM Studios expired in 1935, the studio did not renew it.

His next career moves resulted in one failure after another. He pursued a career as an opera singer, planned to reinvent himself as a star of the stage and accepted smaller and smaller film roles in B movies. During the last ten years of his life he worked as a guest star on TV episodes. He appeared as a priest on NBC’s western series The High Chaparral the year of his death (see photo).

What happened next was a great tragedy. Because Novarro had made wise investments at the peak of his career, he was able to live out his life in a comfortable style, in spite of the collapse of his career. During his last years he lived as a near recluse in his fabulous home, usually drinking until he passed out. For sexual gratification, he set up liaisons through male escort services. In late October, 1968, 70-year-old Novarro was brutally tortured and beaten to death by Paul and Tom Ferguson, two brothers/hustlers who believed that the actor had a large sum of cash in his home. Finding just $20 in the pocket of Novarro’s bathrobe, they left the actor to choke on his own blood. The sordid press coverage of the murder outed Novarro as a homosexual to those who did not already know.

 
In this clip Novarro sings “The Night Is Young” in a highly-accented tenor voice. Novarro fashioned himself as possessed of a voice capable of an operatic career, an opinion held by no one other than himself. Fortunately, the clip offers a fine series of photographs that play up the actor’s great good looks.

  

Sources:
André Soares
Peter J. Holliday
Richard C. Bartone
Jesse Monteagudo

Hutch Hutchinson: Gigolo extraordinaire

When the hit television series Downton Abbey* added Jack Ross, a jazz cabaret singer, to its cast, few viewers on this side of the pond realized that the role of Jack Ross was based on a real-life personage, Leslie “Hutch” Hutchinson (1900-1969), an immensely talented black man who made a fortune as a cabaret singer and pianist, while insinuating himself into the upper echelons of high society in Paris and London. He moved about in a chauffeur-driven Rolls Royce to and from his grand house in Hampstead, exquisitely dressed in custom-tailored finery. Equally spectacular was his crash landing after falling out of favor, ending his life on the cusp of penury.

*Your blogger must be the last person on earth who has never seen a single episode.

Hutch was a philanderer, seducer, gigolo and a pathological liar, constantly reinventing himself and overstating his credentials. He was also handsome, talented, devastatingly charming and notoriously well endowed – not to mention rabidly bisexual, possessed of a voracious sexual appetite. Among his male lovers were Cole Porter and Ivor Novello; among females he was intimate with Tallulah Bankhead and Merle Oberon, not to mention nobles, royals and the merely rich, but it was his torrid affair with Countess Edwina Mountbatten (wife of bisexual Lord Louis Mounbatten*) that brought him down. Afterward, although Edwina’s name was cleared (the plaintiffs wrongly assumed that the negro with whom she was having sexual relations was singer Paul Robeson), Buckingham Palace refused to have Hutch participate in Royal Command performances, and Lord Beaverbrook insisted that Hutch's name was never to be mentioned again in any of his newspapers. As a result, Hutch’s professional and social decline was precipitous.

*Lord Louis was involved in extramarital affairs of his own and was none too particular about the gender. Behind his back his whispered nickname was "Lord Mountbottom."


Leslie Hutchinson was born of mixed parentage on the island of Grenada, making him a British citizen. He attended the best schools and was celebrated as a piano prodigy. While in his mid-teens his father sent him to study medicine in Nashville, TN, at one of the few schools that allowed black students, but his heart was not in it. He stole away to NYC, settling in Harlem, where he became a successful stride pianist; soon Fats Waller and Duke Ellington were included in his circle of friends, and among his patrons were the Vanderbilts, who hired him to play piano for private functions. One of the reasons he was not well known in the US is that he departed from NYC after a stay of only five years.

Hutch left New York for Paris, where he started his climb to the world of high society. He landed a residency at Joe Zelli's club, where he met Cole Porter, who was living in Paris at the time. But it was in London that his career reached its peak during the late twenties and thirties. Primarily just a pianist prior to settling into London, he began singing while accompanying himself on the piano. As a cabaret singer, he reigned supreme, much like Bobby Short in NYC a generation later. Hutch became a favorite cabaret singer and protégé of the then Prince of Wales (later King Edward VIII) and was regularly heard on BBC radio. During this time he was the highest-paid musical star in Britain.

Although Hutch had a wife and child at home, most visitors assumed that the woman of the house was his servant. A black Anglo-Chinese woman, wife Ella was always excluded from Hutch’s professional and social life, which tended toward scandal. Hutch fathered seven more children with six different mothers, all of them white. And that's not counting the lovers who elected to have abortions.

Few entertainers could blow through money at the pace set by Hutch: houses, cars, sartorial finery and a decided bent toward betting on the horses. Accustomed to being pampered and gifted by legions of high-born women, his finances took a nosedive after his fall from society. After the changes in musical style and tastes that took place after WW II, Hutch eventually had to live on receipts from occasional jobs in small venues, and he often had to borrow money to pay his bills. He let himself go physically and drank too much, thus his trademark slim physique and good looks were forever lost. During the 1950s he had a comeback of sorts in India, where his homosexual inclinations once more rose to the forefront. By 1967, two years before his death, he had to sell his beloved Hampstead house (below) to settle bank debts.

 When Hutch died from pneumonia in 1969, he was almost an unknown. Only 42 mourners attended his funeral service, and, ironically, it was Lord Mountbatten who paid for the burial costs.

High Society’s Favorite Gigolo, a one-hour documentary on the life of Leslie Hutchinson, was broadcast on British television in 2008. Hutch, a biography by Charlotte Breese (1999), was adapted as a musical play by Joe Evans (London, 2013; music by Cole Porter). A National Scandal (London, 2018) by Eddie Lewisohn was a play about the relationship between Hutch and Edwina Mountbatten.

His incomparable rendition of The Way You Look Tonight (music by Jerome Kern with lyrics by Dorothy Fields):

Cole Porter wrote I'm a Gigolo for -- and about -- Hutch Hutchinson, who delivered the first-ever performance of the song in 1929:

Sources:

Hutch -- A Biography of Leslie Hutchinson by Charlotte Breese

Wikipedia

Dorset magazine

https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/blue-plaques/leslie-hutchinson/

Aiden Shaw

British-born model, writer and former porn star Aiden Shaw (b. 1966) had a traditional upbringing in England. He came from respectability and has returned to it again, but there’s no ignoring that wild detour in the early 1990s when he established himself as a popular star of gay porn. What set him apart from his adult film peers was that he was a man of intellect.

Shaw made over 50 pornographic films, earning several industry awards along the way. He stood out from the pack of blonds and their smooth all-over-tanned bodies. Shaw didn’t shave his chest and obviously didn’t sunbathe in the nude – in fact, his sharply defined tan line became a trademark. He was further distinguished by his British accent, although his porn roles required limited use of his speaking voice. Shaw’s screen persona was that of a traditionally handsome natural man possessed of a spectacularly generous endowment (and a rose tattoo on his arm). In fact, his penis was as much discussed in the 1990s as international playboy Porfirio Rubirosa’s(*) was in the 1930s (we're all of us too young to remember – just Goggle him). Many of Shaw’s fans noticed a startling facial resemblance to Richard Gere (see photo below).

*OK, I've received numerous E-mails about this, so here's a hint. To this day in Paris, if a restaurant patron wants one of those tall wooden peppermills, he says, "Waiter, may I please have a Rubirosa?" I kid you not.

He became one of the most popular global adult male stars before retiring from the porn industry in 1999 (he was diagnosed HIV positive in 1997). Although a car accident brought a hiatus to his porn career – for a time he was paralyzed and in a wheelchair – he made a return with four more adult videos in 2003/2004.

Nevertheless, it is difficult to reconcile his current appearance as a classically handsome, mature man with salt and pepper hair and a beard with his actual age – 52. He looks years older, in a good way. Talk about aging gracefully.

He comes across as a confident, worldly man, the perfect type for promoting luxury goods. He has modeled for GQ Magazine in Berlin, Le Figaro and El Pais, as well as in other print venues. That his present appearance renders him nearly unrecognizable from his days as a porn star is surely to his advantage, although the rose tattoo is an identity giveaway.

Shaw has worked in diverse fields, as an editor of an interior design magazine, a poet, an HIV activist, vocalist, producer, escort, composer and writer. Print modeling is merely his latest career turn. He undertook formal studies in film, television, photography and video, subsequently taking post- college jobs directing and art directing music videos. Shaw wrote and produced two albums of music, performing lead vocals with his band "Whatever". Individual tracks are available on iTunes.

The first chapter of his autobiography, My Undoing: Life in the Thick of Sex, Drugs, Pornography and Prostitution (2006), begins: “All I could see were pretty shapes and colours, my dick going in and out of his white cheeks.” From his days as an escort, his comment on how to have sex with men who repulse him: “Well, the thing is, very few men physically repulse me. Like a good whore, I can always find something about a man that I like.”

From an interview with Daniel Lee in NYC in 2003:

DL: What makes you laugh hardest?
AS: Getting treated special because I have a big dick.

DL: Would you prefer not to be treated special because you have big dick?
AS: No way!

Well, there you have it.

Shaw’s writing is described by Michael Musto of The Village Voice as prose that “can tug at your heartstrings and your crotch at the same time.” His first novel, Brutal, appeared in 1996, the same year he published a collection of poems titled If Language at the Same Time Shapes and Distorts Our Ideas and Emotions, How Do We Communicate Love? (it sold out), followed by two more novels, Boundaries (1997) and Wasted (2001).

Shaw completed a master’s degree in Creative Writing in 2007 at Goldsmiths University of London, followed by publication of a second autobiography, Sordid Truths (2009). In 2011, Shaw completed training to become a qualified English teacher.

Shaw was recently profiled in the Spring/Summer 2012 issue of Hercules Universal – One Last Colony, the Havana Affair – in which he models luxury men’s clothing (click on link).

http://models.com/mdx/?p=14427

At present Mr. Shaw divides his time between residences in London and Barcelona. In 2016 he reverted to his birth name: Aiden Brady. Here is a sampling of his recent modeling work. You're welcome.

Jean-Michel Basquiat

New York City graffiti prodigy Jean-Michel Basquiat (1960-1988) had honed his signature painting style of obsessive scribbling, elusive symbols and diagrams alongside mask-and-skull imagery by the time he was 20. He sold his first painting in 1981. Although he received extraordinary exposure and acclaim as a painter, the Brooklyn-born artist was also an accomplished poet and musician. But his meteoric rise as a multi-genre artist was cut short when he died from a heroin overdose at age 27*.

In the early 1980s he fell under the spell of Andy Warhol, with whom he collaborated on a series of paintings. Some say he entered into an intimate relationship with Warhol, his idol and mentor,  but Basquiat’s sexual relationship with fellow East Village artist David Bowes is better documented. However, no matter how fluid his sexual orientation has been described by art historians, most of his sexual relations were with women.

Although Basquiat’s Caribbean heritage provided ample subject matter (his father was Haitian and his mother of Puerto Rican descent), his art incorporated influences from African-American, Aztec and African cultures. Contemporary heroes such as musicians and athletes factored into his paintings, as well. Basquiat was often associated with Neo-Expressionism, and his works were shown at NYC’s most prestigious galleries and events. Tragically, a rapid descent into drug culture eventually stunted his creativity and artistic output. 

Untitled (1982): $10.5 million at auction

 

At a Sotheby’s art auction two months ago (May 18, 2017) Basquiat's “Untitled 1982" painting depicting a face in the shape of a skull, created with oil stick and spray paint, set a new record high for any U.S. artist at auction, selling for $110,500,000. Not a typo. The pre-sale estimate had been $60 million, aligned with the previous Basquiat record that had been set last year at $57.3 million, also for a skull painting. Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maesawa now owns both.

A 2009 documentary film, “Jean-Michel Basquiat: The Radiant Child” was shown at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival and on PBS television in 2011.

*Basquiat is buried at Brooklyn’s historic Green-Wood Cemetery, alongside other gay and bisexual luminaries Leonard Bernstein, Dr. Richard Isay, Jean Moreau Gottschalk, Fred Ebb (of the Kander & Ebb song-writing team) and Paul Jabara. See their individual posts in the sidebar.

Paul Jabara

 Paul Jabara and Donna Summer

You might not know the name, but you know the music. Songwriter, producer, singer and actor Paul Jabara (1948-1992), of Lebanese ancestry, won an Academy Award in 1979 for writing the Donna Summer disco hit "Last Dance" (Oscar for best original song for 1978's “Thank God It’s Friday”). A native of Brooklyn, NY, he made his Broadway debut in the original cast of “Hair,” going on to create the role of King Herod in the original London production of “Jesus Christ Superstar.”

Although he wrote songs for Barbra Streisand (“The Main Event”), Bette Midler (“Jinxed”) and a duet for Streisand and Summer (“Enough Is Enough”), he is perhaps better known as the author of “It’s Raining Men” (The Weather Girls). Jabara also produced Streisand’s Grammy Award-winning “Broadway Album.” As a singer himself, he released seven albums. “Paul Jabara and Friends” (1983) featured a 19-year-old Whitney Houston.

The incomparable WEATHER GIRLS:

Paul’s movie career included roles in "Midnight Cowboy," "The Lords of Flatbush," "The Day of the Locust," "Honky-Tonk Freeway," "Star 80," "Legal Eagles" and "Light Sleeper." He also appeared on television in "Starsky and Hutch," "Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman," "The Equalizer" and the made-for-television movies "The Last Angry Man" and "Out of the Darkness."

Jabara died from AIDS at just 44 years old. He is buried at the historic Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn, alongside such gay luminaries as Leonard Bernstein, Fred Ebb (of Kander & Ebb), Louis Moreau Gottschalk and Dr. Richard Isay (see individual posts in sidebar).

LAST DANCE video -- Donna Summer

Sources:
Wikipedia
New York Times obituary (1992)

Ivor Novello

Welsh Composer, Playwright & Actor (1893-1951)

Born with the name David Ivor Davies in Wales, Ivor Novello was one of the most popular entertainers of the early twentieth century. He was a noted composer, singer, playwright, and actor. Most considered him a rival to Noel Coward, who was six years Novello's junior. Coward later wrote that he was envious of Novello’s handsome appearance and had sought to copy his glamorous, world-weary style. Coward and Novello went on to become good friends. In fact it was actor Robert (Bobbie) Andrews, Novello's life partner for 35 years, who introduced Novello to the young Noel Coward. Bobby Andrews and Novello were later to appear together in many of Novello's plays and musicals.

Novello’s first success was as a songwriter. At age 21 he wrote the music for Keep the Home Fires Burning, an immensely popular sentimental song of the WW I era that brought Novello money and fame.

In the 2002 film Gosford Park, the guests at a country house are entertained by Novello (played by Jeremy Northam), who performs on the piano. Six Novello songs were used in the soundtrack.

While Novello continued to write scores to songs, musicals and revues, he developed a career as an actor. His good looks, talent and suave style led to success on both stage and screen; he was considered England’s first great male silent film star, a British “Rudolph Valentino”. Like Coward, Novello enjoyed simultaneous careers in both Great Britain and the U.S. Novello earned enough money to buy a lavish, sprawling country house near Maidenhead in 1927. Named Redroofs, the property was the setting for extravagant, unconventional entertaining, often characterized by untempered homosexual excesses. Novello later bought a house in Jamaica where he and his partner Bobby Andrews went on holiday together.

Novello hit his stride in the 1930s, writing music for Drury Lane shows that blended musical comedy with opera, operetta and modern and classical dance. Novello frequently starred in his own shows. Unfortunately, he spent a notorious four weeks in prison during WW II for misuse of petrol rationing coupons, a serious offense at the time, and the trauma of this incarceration had serious and lasting effects on his life. The sentimental song We’ll Gather Lilacs was a huge hit (1945) during WW II, first appearing in Novello’s stage show Perchance to Dream. YouTube performance below (Julie Andrews).

Novello remained the most consistently successful writer of British musicals until Andre Lloyd Webber came onto the scene in the 1970s.

Novello died suddenly of coronary thrombosis in 1951, at the age of 58, at his London flat in the presence of Bobby Andrews. Thousands lined the streets to the funeral service, which was broadcast live on radio. For the past fifty-four years, the British Academy of Composers and Songwriters' annual awards have been nick-named the Ivors, in honor of Novello.

Trivia:
• Novello never allowed his left profile to be photographed or filmed.
• It was Novello who came up with the phrase, “Me Tarzan – You Jane.” Novello developed the dialogue for the 1932 film Tarzan the Ape Man.
• Alfred Hitchcock cast Novello in one of his earliest films, The Lodger (1927, entire film at end of post).
• When Noel Coward got news of Novello's sudden death, he said "Please understand and forgive me, but I am too shattered by the news of Ivor Novello's death to write an estimate of his work or his personality that would do justice to either. We have been close friends for thirty-five years, and my feelings at the moment are too private and too unhappy to be put into words."

The web site for the Ivor Novello Appreciation Bureau can be found at this link:
www.ivornovello.com

We'll Gather Lilacs (song from 1945):

The Lodger (1927, early Hitchcock film)
Silent film starring Ivor Novello

 

Andy Bey

Jazz pianist and vocalist

Andy Bey is an openly gay jazz pianist and vocalist. Born in 1939 in Newark, NJ, at the age of 17 he and his siblings formed a trio called Andy and the Bey Sisters. They performed together in Europe and across the country for eleven years, recording three albums before splitting up in 1967. During the 1970s he worked with Dee Dee Bridgewater and drummer Max Roach.

Twenty years ago (1994) Bey was diagnosed as HIV-positive but has continued his career while maintaining a regimen that includes yoga and a vegetarian diet; at the time of this writing he is 74 years old and counting. Herb Jordan assisted Bey with restarting his recording career. Their album, Ballads, Blues, & Bey (1996), helped return Bey to prominence. He also  collaborated with Fred Hersch, another openly gay HIV-positive working jazz musician.

Andy Bey received the "2003 Jazz Vocalist of the Year" award by the Jazz Journalists Association. He has released four albums within the last ten years and has a reputation as a consummate ballad singer, specializing in jazz standards.

Never Let Me Go (written in 1956 by Jay Livingston and Ray Evans)

Sam Harris

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”:

Shane McAnally

38-year-old Shane McAnally is a Nashville anomaly – an openly gay country songwriter, singer and producer. Writing scores of songs a year to wild success, McAnally has written or co-written hits for Kenny Chesney, Lee Ann Womack, The Band Perry, Miranda Lambert and Kelly Clarkson, among many others. As well, he has penned songs for the hit ABC television series "Nashville".

According to McAnally, success finally landed on his doorstep after he came out. “My career really took off when I came out. When I stopped hiding who I was, I started writing hits.”

Shane has a definite propensity for mega-hit songs. Since November 2010, he’s co-written seven No. 1 country singles and dozens of other hits for the likes of Luke Bryan, Lady Antebellum, Reba McEntire and Kacey Musgraves.

McAnally writes chart-topping country songs from an office on the grounds of the Nashville home he shares with his husband and their 7-month-old twins. Last September, Shane married his partner of six years, Michael Baum, a former mortgage specialist who now runs McAnally’s production and publishing companies. The couple’s daughter and son, Dylan and Dash McAnally Baum, were born last December.

A Texas native, Shane appeared on the TV talent show “Star Search” while still a teenager. He lost, but went on to perform in Branson, Missouri, the country-music resort town. He dropped out of the University of Texas, Austin, to move to Nashville to pursue a career as a country singer. He signed a publishing deal with Curb Records and in 2000, he released his self-titled debut album. “I was sure I was going to be a superstar.” Although he shared a manager with Alabama and Kenny Chesney and opened for those acts on tour, the album flopped.

“The truth is, I probably would be dead if I had become a star, because at that point I was so closeted and so afraid of people finding out I was gay. There was no telling what would have happened.”

McAnally then decided to head to West Hollywood, the gay epicenter of Los Angeles, which blew his mind. He had never imagined that there was a place where gay men could walk down the street holding hands and kissing. From 2000-2007 he worked in Los Angeles as a bartender, all the while writing and performing under the name Shane Mack. Five “Shane Mack” songs found their way onto the soundtrack of the film “Shelter,” a gay-themed romantic melodrama. In the video for the movie’s theme song, “Lie to Me,” scenes of Shawn McAnally singing and playing acoustic guitar are intercut with clips from the movie. Have a look/listen:



McAnally returned to Nashville in 2007 to try his hand at country songwriting, but this time as an out gay man. The week he returned, country torch singer Lee Ann Womack recorded “Last Call,” co-written by McAnally with Erin Enderlin. It went to No. 3 on the country music charts and virtually established Shane’s career as a songwriter.




Shane scored a number one hit in 2010 when his song “Somewhere With You” was recorded by Kenny Chesney. In this video McAnally tells the story behind writing the song and then sings it himself.




McAnally has given up his youthful goal of being a country music singing superstar. “One of the greatest tools you have as a songwriter is anonymity,” Shane says. “If listeners know too much about the songwriter, they don’t get to insert their own characters. I don’t want the audience thinking that the guy who wrote the song is gay. Whether it’s a gay or straight guy or gal in the audience, I want them all to hear a song and say, ‘That’s my story.’ ”

Note: Most of the info for this post comes from a New York Times profile published in late May. I’ll wrap up this post with “Fade into You,” a duet written by McAnally for the ABC television series “Nashville”, renewed last month for a second season.

Rob Halford

Rob Halford (b. 1951) is an English-born heavy metal singer who is best known as the lead vocalist for the band Judas Priest. He is one of the pioneers of the operatic vocal style later to be adopted by power metal vocalists and regularly appears near the top in lists of the greatest rock vocalists/front-men of all time. Significantly, Halford came out in 1998, making him the first openly gay heavy metal musician.

Judas Priest was formed in 1974, and their first album was released that same year. A dozen albums later the band changed its appearance and sound. In 1990, with the release of Painkiller, the band dropped its synthesizer sound, and Halford unveiled his new look: tattoos, a shaved head and studded leather biker/S&M outfits. He claimed that this was an attempt to find an outlet for the angst caused by his hidden sexuality, while giving him a professional reason to frequent S&M shops. No stranger to shock value, Halford was known to ride a motorcycle on stage and fire a machine gun into the crowds (loaded with blanks, of course).

He later confessed that hiding his sexuality during his career with Judas Priest caused him a lot of depression and isolation, leading to alcohol and drug abuse. His personal struggles are reflected in the gay and S&M themes of some Judas Priest songs, such as "Raw Deal" and "Pain and Pleasure".

In 1992 Halford and Judas Priest drummer Scott Travis left the band to form Fight, eventually moving on to other projects. By 2003 Halford had rejoined Judas Priest and participated in their around the world tour (2005) to celebrate the band’s 30th anniversary. In 2011 at age 60, Halford participated in what was billed as Judas Priest’s final tour. The band has sold more than 30 million albums and won numerous Grammy Awards along the way.

Halford has been clean and sober since successfully completing rehab in 1986 for a painkiller overdose. These days he resides in homes in Amsterdam, Phoenix, San Diego and his native England. Although he did not acquire a drivers license until he was 38 years old, he is an avid collector of classic cars, including a prized 1970s-era Aston Martin DBS.

Note: Thanks to blog reader André for suggesting a post on Mr. Halford.

Ed Lyon

English tenor Ed Lyon is an out gay man who, at the drop of a hat, poses without his shirt on, much to his fans’ delight. The 34-year-old singer, one of Britain’s leading young tenors, is extremely easy on the eyes, and his body shows evidence of all the time he spends in the gym while following a strict, healthy diet. Lucky us.

He is also outspoken about where he thinks opera needs to go. He recently told Time Out magazine, "Telly and cinema have made a big impact on the way we view other forms. The idea that opera is just fat people getting up to sing is a complete fallacy. The days of ‘park and bark’ are over – we don't just waddle up and sing from where we're standing, we also have to act convincingly."

Lyon did not at first pursue a career in opera. “I did a lot of acting at school, and I found out that I could sing. I was in choirs. I was an alto until I was 18, then I started singing tenor. Opera was an obvious solution to wanting to be an actor but also having a singing voice.”

He has always been completely open about his homosexuality. “Let's be honest,” he said. “Opera isn't known as the most homophobic of industries.”

Lyon got his first big break when baroque specialist William Christie cast him in Handel's opera “Hercules”, and he has had an extraordinary career so far. Among the many highlights, he cites “Pygmalion” with The Trisha Brown Dance Company, Freddy in “My Fair Lady” and singing at La Scala in Milan.

His piercing blue eyes and stubbly beard push all the right buttons. Click the “photos” link on his official web site, and you’ll see that he’s partial to bare skin.
Go on. You know you want to:
http://www.edlyon.info/Tenor_Ed_Lyons_Website/Welcome.html

Now have a look at our tenor in action. Here he sings an early opera (Monteverdi) clad in only a sleeveless tunic. Note that the audio and video are slightly out of sync. For you impatient types, Mr. Lyon starts singing at the 2:05 timing mark.



His Twitter page identifies himself as:
“Tenor, undercover Yorkshireman, architecture and gym bore. Proud to be in #teamgay - bf of the wonderful Harry McIver.”
https://twitter.com/ed_lyon