Frank Langella

Dropped Names – Famous Men and Women As I Knew Them

I just finished this gossipy, entrancing memoir from stage and screen actor Frank Langella (b. 1938), best known for his portrayal of Richard Nixon in both the play and film versions of Frost/Nixon, and for his performance of the title role in Dracula, again both on stage and screen.

For years there has been speculation about Frank Langella’s likely bisexuality, and his recent memoir does little to dispel the rumors. The entire thing reads like a worldly, mannered gay man dishing the dirt – albeit a guilty pleasure of a book that is extraordinarily well written. All but one of his subjects is deceased, and the one still alive is 102 years old – Bunny Mellon, a fabulously wealthy, cultured and well-connected woman whose acquaintance changed his life (she lives about 30 miles from me on a 4,000 acre Virginia estate with a private jet strip). Frank was working at the bottom of the totem pole alongside Bunny’s 19-year-old daughter Liza in 1961 painting scenery at the Cape Playhouse in Dennis, Massachusetts. Mrs. Mellon met Frank when she came by to pick up her daughter for a picnic, and she immediately took him into her privileged circle, acting as his private tutor into the world of the rich and famous.

Not only did Langella meet Noel Coward, JFK and Jackie – even the Queen of England and the Queen Mother – through Mrs. Mellon, she taught him how to be comfortable among such luminaries. Her advice on how to handle himself at cocktail parties with people he didn’t know: “It’s very simple. Just repeat the last few words of whatever has just been said to you in the form of a question, and you’ll have no trouble. For instance, if someone has just said to you, ‘I just went to an art show and saw the most fascinating painting’, you then say,  ‘Oh really, the most fascinating painting?’, and you’ll be off and running.”

When Frank once mispronounced the last name of French philosopher Descartes as “Dess-cart-tees”, Mrs. Mellon said, “Frank, would you read that passage again? It was so interesting, particularly the part that refers to Descartes” (correctly pronouncing the name as Day-KAHRT). Of that incident, Frank writes: “She had found a way to correct my ignorance and preserve my dignity as casually as if she were opening a packet of sugar. What she had done, of course, was open my mind. And into it, she began to pour generous granules of knowledge in all the arenas I needed it most.”

Langella relates that when Bunny Mellon was at the White House redesigning the rose garden for JFK and Jackie (Mellon was and still is an authority on gardening), Bunny and Jackie were waiting for a White House elevator. When the door opened, Bunny stepped back to let Jackie enter first.

“What are you doing?” Jackie asked.

“Well, you’re the First Lady.”

“Oh stop that nonsense and get in,” replied Mrs. Kennedy.

Several years ago, a theater writer was granted an interview with Langella. His publicist laid down the rule that "You will not ask Mr. Langella ANYTHING about his personal life!" Langella is known for being pathologically secretive about his private life, and I interpret that as meaning he has a lot to hide. He may guard his own privacy, but he certainly spills the beans on dozens of actors and actresses, both gay and straight, in this juicy memoir. A review by Michael Ladenson stated, "As several of the memoir's gay characters circle around his charismatic young self, Mr. Langella flirtatiously leaves open the possibility that he played both sides of the street. As he basks in Noel Coward's attentions, feeds shrimp to Roddy McDowall, and commiserates with Dominick Dunne about the agonies of being a closeted gay man, Langella hides coquettishly behind his fan in a way that seems rather archaic in 2012."

Langella adored Jill Clayburgh and Raul Julia, who starred with him on stage in Noel Coward’s Design For Living. Also a friend of Al Hirschfeld, Langella is among the three actors  depicted in this illustration of their Design for Living roles. Of Raul Julia, Langella writes, “In this era when young male stars seem a sexless set of store-bought muscles set below interchangeable screw-top heads with faces of epic blandness – sheep trying to look like bulls – Raul defined real masculinity.” It’s obvious Langella and Julia had huge crushes on each other. Describing one such "homoerotic moment" (Langella’s words), Frank writes about the night, when it was just Raul and Frank in the room, that Raul dropped trou to show Frank his new kind of ultra-comfortable underwear – boxer briefs – which Frank had not seen before.

“I want us to be friends,” said Raul.

“Me too,” replied Frank.

Raul got drunk, Frank stayed sober. When it became late and Frank walked to the door to leave, Frank recalls Raul’s send off:

“Good night, Frank. I love you – you are my boyfriend.”

Well, there you have it.

During the run of Design for Living, as Raul was changing his shirt, Clayburgh rushed over and started clawing at his chest, and soon they were involved in passionate embraces. Feeling somewhat left out, Langella insinuated himself into the mix: "We became a pulsating Oreo cookie with nothing remotely chaste about where our hands and mouths wandered. It was fast, hot and dirty."

Let me pause right now to state that I read every page of this book.

This memoir lays bare the outsized egos, eccentricities, crushing insecurities and unflattering habits of household name stars, as only an insider can do. Now 74 years old, Langella also counterbalances these stinging reminiscences with charming, poignant tales of affection and love for those worthy of it. When JFK jumped onto Bunny Mellon’s coffee table in Cape Cod to dance as Noel Coward played his songs on the piano, Jackie sang along, knowing all the lyrics by heart. Before boarding his helicopter, President Kennedy turned to Langella and asked, “What do you think, Frank? Should I keep my day job?”

For younger readers, this memoir will be a great introduction to all the famous stage and screen icons every gay man should know about. Among the things I like about this book is the fact that Langella is not reticent in telling unflattering tales about himself, and it is surprisingly bereft of the author’s own ego. He can also be charmingly coy at times. Writing about Roddy McDowall: "This was a man who, no matter what the occasion, clearly always wanted a return invitation." McDowall once came over to Frank's table at a restaurant and said, "Hello, darling Frank. Look at that face! I've just got to photograph it." In wrapping up that story, Langella writes, "He never did. I'd had my picture taken enough times by then to satisfy my curiosity about what might develop."

Well, then.

Dropped Names is so well written, that I wonder if Langella employed a ghost writer. Whichever – you will not be bored.

Dropped Names – Famous Men and Women As I Knew Them, by Frank Langella, was published last month. Available in hard cover and e-reader formats.


Frank Langella in Dracula (1979 film version)

James Ivory & Ismael Merchant

California-born film director James Ivory (b. 1928, shown at left) and Indian-born producer Ismail Merchant’s collaboration with Merchant-Ivory Productions resulted in films that won six Academy Awards. Merchant (1936-2005) and Ivory were long-term life partners, and their professional and romantic relationship lasted for more than forty years – from the early 1960s until Merchant’s death. They enjoyed a lavish lifestyle together on their 40-acre country estate in the Hudson River Valley north of NYC. They also maintained apartments in London and New York City.

Ismail Merchant (below), born and educated in Bombay, went to the U.S. to earn an MBA from New York University. He met James Ivory in 1961 at a New York City screening of Ivory’s film about Indian art miniatures, and the two became instant friends. Merchant recalled, “Some people meet and part ways, others bond together on a lifelong stream. I guess you could call our relationship destiny.”

Ivory was born in California and educated at the University of Oregon before attending the University of Southern California Film School. He wrote, photographed, and produced “Venice: Theme and Variations”, as a thesis film for his degree in cinema. This film was named by The New York Times as one of the ten best documentaries of 1957.

In 1961, Ivory created Merchant Ivory Productions with Ismail Merchant (right) and Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, who served as the screenwriter for many of their films. Jhabvala, who was married to an Indian man, lived in the New York City apartment above the one occupied by Merchant and Ivory. Of his partnership with Ivory and Jhabvala, Merchant once commented, “It is a strange marriage we have at Merchant Ivory...I am an Indian Muslim, Ruth is a German Jew, and Jim is a Protestant American. Someone once described us as a three-headed god. Maybe they should have called us a three-headed monster!” Merchant raised the money, squeezed the budgets (no Merchant-Ivory film has ever cost more than $3.2 million) and cajoled top talent to work for a pittance. He also sheltered Ivory from the exigencies of the marketplace, leaving the director free to work with the actors, including high-profile stars such as Vanessa Redgrave, Maggie Smith, James Mason and Julie Christie. “We offered them quality,’ says Ivory. The camaraderie on the sets was enhanced by Merchant’s skilled cooking, usually preparing huge Indian meals for the cast and crew. Merchant has published several cookbooks, each covering an aspect of Indian cuisine.

There is no arguing with success. While their first film premiered in 1963, their first real commercial winner was The Europeans, adapted from the Henry James novel. A Room with a View (1985), based on the book by E. M. Forster, was nominated for eight Academy Awards and won three; it won many other awards at home and in the U.K. and Italy.

Maurice (1987) – pronounced Morris – received a Silver Lion Award for Best Director at the Venice Film Festival, Best Film Score for Richard Robbins and Best Actor Awards for co-stars James Wilby and Hugh Grant (seen in photo above). 

Mr. and Mrs. Bridge (1990) was adapted from novels by Evan S. Connell; it received an Oscar nomination and awards from the New York Film Critics Circle.

Ivory directed another Forster-adapted film, Howards End (1992), and it was nominated for nine Academy awards, including Best Picture and Best Director, and won three; the film also won Best Picture at the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) Awards, as well as awards for Best Picture, Best Actress for Emma Thompson and Best Director for Ivory from the National Board of Review; the Directors Guild of America gave its D.W. Griffith award, its highest honor, to Ivory for this film.

The Remains of the Day (1993), was in turn was nominated for eight Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director. Emma Thompson and Anthony Hopkins, who co-starred in Howard’s End, were reunited in working in this film.

Taking a break from filming historical novels, Merchant Ivory Productions had a success with Le Divorce (2003), which Jhabvala adapted from the 1997 novel by Diane Hohnson; despite tepid reviews, the film grossed $13 million on a budget of $3 million. The final Merchant-Ivory film was The White Countess (2005).

MAURICE (1987) deals with the subject of coming of age as a homosexual in a restrictive society; the novel by E. M. Forster was so scandalous that it was not published until after Forster’s death. This clip features scenes of Rupert Graves as Alec Scudder, a gameskeeper, who climbs a ladder into the bedroom (and bed) of Maurice, portrayed by James Wilby. Their sex scene begins at the 7:15 timing mark. Both actors are straight men, so don’t get your hopes up.

Lou Harrison

American composer Lou Harrison (1917-2003) was known for his melodic and lyrical musical style and the use of instruments from the East, especially the Javanese gamelan. He explored diverse interests, including puppetry, the Esperanto language, tuning systems, the construction of musical instruments and dance. He was also an activist for political causes, especially pacifism, the ecological movement and gay rights.

Born in Portland, Oregon, his family moved to the San Francisco area when he was a child, and he lived most of his life on the west coast. Harrison attended San Francisco State University, where he studied with gay composer Henry Cowell, who gave him an 1871 nine-foot Steinway grand which had been the favorite piano of Percy Grainger. Among Harrison’s compositions from that time is a large body of percussion music that showcases Western, Asian, African, and Latin American rhythmic traditions. Later works embraced ethnic musical folk cultures of Mexico, American Indians and the Far East.

He also developed friendships and professional relations with important gay composers and musicologists. Harrison studied the works of American composer Charles Ives, some of whose musical manuscripts he later edited. Harrison conducted the premiere of Ives’s Symphony No. 3, and when that composition won the Pulitzer Prize, Ives gave half the prize money to Harrison. He also worked with gay composer John Cage, with whom he wrote Double Music (1941) for four percussionists. During World War II, Harrison moved to New York and wrote music criticism for the Herald Tribune. Although Harrison was welcomed into the NYC musical circle of gay composer and critic Virgil Thomson, who promoted his works, he decided that he did not enjoy living in a crowded and stressful big city.

A few years later he moved to North Carolina, where he taught at Black Mountain College, the experimental arts college where John Cage and gay choreographer Merce Cunningham also worked. In 1947 Harrison suffered a nervous breakdown and moved back to California. Harrison found it hard to support himself with his music, and took a number of other jobs to earn a living, including stints as a record salesman, florist, animal nurse, and forestry firefighter.

At the age of 50 he found his life partner, William Colvig (on right in photo), a rugged outdoorsman whom he met at a performance of his own music at the Old Spaghetti Factory in San Francisco. Although not a composer, Colvig was a musician who had a knack for mechanical things (his profession was as an electrician). They lived in a cabin in the woods outside of Aptos, California, southeast of Santa Cruz, where together they developed and built musical instruments, including three gamelan. A gamelan is a set of instruments that includes xylophones, metallophones, drums, gongs, bamboo flutes and strings that are both bowed and plucked – all of them incompatible with Western music tuning systems. The two men, both distinguished by beards and long hair, remained partners until Colvig's death in 2000. Friends often commented that the pair looked like “mountain men,” while others noted an alarming physical similarity between Harrison and Col. Sanders, of KFC fame.

Lou Harrison House (below) in Joshua Tree, California:
The straw-bale house, not fully completed until 2002, was designed and built by American composer Lou Harrison and his partner Bill Colvig. Today it is used by composers and other artists in residence to work on projects:

Harrison wrote Young Caesar (1971), an opera that deals with homosexuality and the clashes between the East and West. He accepted commissions from both the Portland and Seattle Gay Men’s Choruses. In 1995 Harrison wrote "Parade for MTT" for the San Francisco Symphony’s celebration of the inauguration of openly gay music director Michael Tilson Thomas. MTT holds that position to this day. Harrison wrote symphonies, works for chamber orchestra, many concerti and dozens of compositions for gamelan. He taught in California at Stanford, Cabrillo College, Mills College, USC and San Jose State, where he was composer-in-residence.

Harrison died in 2003 from a heart attack in Indiana, at the age of 85, while traveling to a festival of his own music at Ohio State University. Celebrated as one of America's most venerated composers, and sometimes dubbed the "Santa Claus" of new music for his white beard, portly physique and ready laugh, he was mourned by music lovers the world over. Fortunately, his 300+ musical compositions continue to delight, challenge and inspire listeners of serious music.

First Concerto for Flute & Percussion (1939):