Jack Cole

Jack Cole (1911-1974) was the most influential choreographer you’ve never heard of. As a dancer, choreographer and director, Cole’s relative obscurity today belies the major influence he had on stage and cinema musicals of the 1940s-50s and -60s. Considered the father of modern jazz dance, his many disciples became much more famous than their muse – Gwen Verdon, Bob Fosse, Jerome Robbins, Tommy Tune, Matt Mattox, and Alvin Ailey, among others. According to Agnes de Mille, “They all stole from Cole,” a sentiment shared by his greatest interpreter, the sassy redhead Gwen Verdon – Cole’s protégée.

A New Jersey native, Cole ventured far beyond his modern-dance roots. Entranced by the Asian influences of the Denishawn Dance Company, he studied bharata nātyam with master instructor Uday Shankar (Ravi's uncle). As a dynamic, powerhouse solo dancer, Cole projected tough masculine energy. Photos show the elegant, muscular young Cole striking sphinx-like poses dressed in harem pants and jewels, captivating audiences at NYC’s Rainbow Room with exotic, weird, entrancing movements. In many ways, he was America’s Nijinsky. He was also homosexual, but he remained closeted during his entire career. Even though the field of choreography is not exactly overly populated by heterosexuals, such were the times.

Entering the Manhattan nightclub scene, he infused Afro-Caribbean, Spanish and Asian dance motifs into floor shows. During the late 1930s the Jack Cole Dancers headlined at leading nightclubs, including regular stints at NYC’s Rainbow Room and Ciro's on the Sunset Strip in L.A. He then became a master choreographer for Broadway. stage. Among his many hits were Kismet (1953), A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (1962), and Man of La Mancha (1965).

His greatest fame came from his work in nearly 30 films. Miraculously, he was able to coach stellar performances from untrained dance novices: Betty Grable, Rita Hayworth and, most notably, Marilyn Monroe. He made Rita Hayworth sizzle in “Put the Blame on Mame” in Gilda (1946). Cole was responsible for Grable’s astonishing “No Talent Joe” number in Meet Me After the Show (1951). Perhaps his greatest triumph was “Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend,” a show-stopping performance by Marilyn Monroe in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953). That was the role that made her a famous sex symbol, and Cole was responsible for every shimmy, strut, arm gesture, shoulder shrug and hip bump. Monroe, a complete dance novice at the time, was so impressed by his coaching that she insisted he work with her on five more of her film projects.

Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend (YouTube)



This production number made Marilyn Monroe a star. Her every gesture is Cole’s creation; he was even responsible for her breathy singing delivery. Knowing her limitations, he made a showcase number out of her available talents.

Ain’t There Anyone Here for Love
(Jane Russell – Gentlemen Prefer Blondes)
Can there be any question that it was a gay man who choreographed this number?

20th-Century Fox does not allow embedding, so you’ll have to click the link below to see this production number.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CxDbvtqcNxs

"Marilyn and I had never danced before; we were a pair of klutzes," Russell told Cole biographer Glenn Meredith Loney of Dance magazine. "Jack was horrible to his own dancers, but with us, the two broads, he had the patience of Job. He would show us and show us and then turn us over to Gwen Verdon." Russell said she fled several sessions in exhaustion, while Monroe begged Cole and Verdon to continue into the night. Cole not only choreographed the Gentlemen Prefer Blondes dance numbers, he directed them, as well. Russell revealed that “Gentlemen” director Howard Hawks was not even on the set when the dance sequences were being shot.

Much of Cole's choreography reflected the hip, cool-Daddy flavor of the Beat generation. His infamous knee glides were a trademark, but famously hard on the knees of the dancers. Cole was a slave driver, notoriously demanding of his dancers. He was a known terror in the dance studio, a force to be respected and feared. He cussed a blue steak, sparing no one, and his technique classes were brutal. When a female dancer fainted in rehearsal, others were afraid to stop, hopping awkwardly over her body. He harangued bandleaders who didn't swing and scolded chatting customers during his nightclub performances. Wearing harem pants and sporting a bare chest, he once chased a belligerent client down Wilshire Boulevard wielding a kitchen knife.

In his 1984 Cole biography, "Unsung Genius," Dance magazine writer Glenn Meredith Loney relates that, although Cole purported to loathe Los Angeles (keeping a Manhattan pied-a-terre for Broadway work), his primary residence was in an isolated location in the Hollywood Hills, way up on Kew Drive on a precipice reachable only by a dangerous, narrow twisting road, barely wide enough for one car. This was the perfect place for a closeted gay man to hang out, and Cole lived here from 1943 until his death from cancer at 62 in 1974. In his last two years of life, he was a treasured UCLA dance instructor and a scholar with an impressive private dance library.

Jack Cole: Jazz Dancing

Brothers Enrique & Guillermo De Fazio

...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.

George Quaintance

George Quaintance (1902-1957) was a gay American painter, photographer and sculptor who produced a large body of homoerotic art of an exaggerated macho, muscular quality. He was a major influence on later artists such as Tom of Finland.

His work became known to his niche market when published in male physique magazines, championed by Bob Mizer of the Athletic Model Guild, publisher of Physique Pictorial (1951-1990). Many of Quaintance’s photographs and paintings depict idealized muscular semi-nude males in an American West setting.

Quaintance was born in northwest Virginia, surrounded by the Blue Ridge mountains, where he grew up on a farm near Luray, 90 miles west of Washington DC. He displayed a strong aptitude for art while still a youth. By the age of 18 he was studying painting and drawing at the Art Students League in New York City (Norman Rockwell and Jackson Pollock were students there), where he also explored dancing, a skill he utilized in numerous stints as a vaudeville performer of classical ballet, tap and the tango. He was briefly married to Miriam Chester, even though he was actively homosexual. In the 1930s he became a hairstylist, perhaps as a way to explore solutions to his own thin, limp hair. From his early 30s he wore wigs to further his macho image as a handsome, youthful body builder (photo of Quaintance at top of post and below). George was one of the most sought-after women's hairstylists of the 1930s, with star clients the likes of Marlene Dietrich, Jeanette MacDonald, Lynne Fontanne and Helen Hayes.

His first work in the field of art was in (unattributed) advertising, but by the mid 1930s he had begun to sell freelance cover illustrations to pulp and movie fan magazines, sold at burlesque halls and under the counter at discreet newsstands. These illustrations of pinup girls were usually signed with the pseudonym "Geo. Quintana." By 1937 he was the highest-paid illustrator for Gay French magazine, earning more than $50,000 a year. As such, he was a forerunner to later masters of the female pin-up genre, such as Vargas. During this time he also painted portraits of Washington DC diplomats, society wives and his friends.

In 1938, George teamed up with Victor Garcia, who became his model, life partner and business associate. Victor, the subject of many of George’s photographs, and George were not sexually faithful to one another, each openly taking on other lovers. In 1951, Quaintance's art was used for the first cover of Physique Pictorial, a homoerotic magazine edited by Bob Mizer. George wrote articles and provided artwork for a slew of magazines catering to the burgeoning bodybuilding cult of the 1940s and 50s. During this time George often judged bodybuilding competitions.

Because of the mores of the day, his published work did not include full-frontal nudity, which was depicted only in private commissions. Within a year of George’s death, however, Tom of Finland, who cited Quaintance as a major influence, broke through the barrier of full frontal male nudity.

George and Victor moved to an Arizona home they dubbed Rancho Siesta, the headquarters of Studio Quaintance, a business venture to produce and promote Quaintance's artwork, which began to fetishize the macho cowboy look. His paintings from this era also depicted Mexican, Native American and Central American men, and for a time George took a Mexican lover. Quaintance's Arizona “ranch”, as touted in the pages of Physique Pictorial magazine, was described as a landed estate in Paradise Valley. The setting was described as a place populated by livestock, models, staffers, ex-lovers and a coterie of followers who were young, handsome, built like gods and clad in little more than 501 Levis and boots. It was all a ruse. In reality this Arizona studio/residence was a modest 1950s ranch style house in the Loma Linda neighborhood of east Phoenix. The house, built on a small suburban lot, still stands.

In 1953, Quaintance completed a series of three paintings about a matador, modeled by Angel Avila, another of George’s lovers. By 1956, the Studio Quaintance business had become so successful that George could not keep up with the demand for his works, often working through the night, taking pep pills to remain awake.

George died of a heart attack on November 8, 1957, at the age of fifty-five, but he will not be forgotten. Ken Furtado and John Waybright are soon publishing a biography titled Quaintance: The Short Life of an American Art Pioneer. Stay tuned.

 
This George Quaintance photograph of model Harry Hambley appeared in the magazine Physique Pictorial in the 1950s. Although Quaintance was a skilled and prolific photographer, it is his paintings that form the bulk of his legacy.

Etienne (aka Domingo Stephen Orejudos)

Leather-culture illustrator and painter

Chicago native Domingo Stephen Orejudos (1933-1991) was a principal dancer with the Illinois Ballet Company, a dance instructor, choreographer and bodybuilder who led a double life as Etienne*, creator of all-male erotic illustrations, many of them published by his partner Chuck Renslow. Orejudos was too short and muscular to continue a career in ballet, so he turned to a second career as an artist whose works depicted graphic sexual activity by butch, muscular gay men.

Many of his erotic drawings graced the pages of the leather culture magazine, Drummer, and the male physique magazine, Tomorrow’s Man. Another pseudonym often used by Orejudos was “Stephen.”

He was still in high school when his first erotic drawings were published. Orejudos was known to friends as Dom, and along with Renslow, his partner from 1950-1991, established Chicago’s gay leather scene. Renslow ran a Chicago-based beefcake photo physique mail order business known as Kris Studio (1950-1979); he also published the male physique magazine, Tomorrow’s Man, and produced bodybuilding competitions. For a long time the two lived in a back room of a Chicago gym owned by Renslow.

In 1958 the couple founded Chicago’s first (and legendary) gay leather bar, Gold Coast, and Orejudos provided erotic murals for the interior. They ventured into gay bath-house territory with Man’s Country Baths, and they founded the International Mr. Leather competition.

Dom was a brilliant illustrator of the gay leather underground, often compared to Tom of Finland, who became a good friend. Dom’s drawings and illustrated books are today highly collectible. Dom died of AIDS related causes in 1991.

*Etienne is French for Stephen, Dom’s middle name; curiously, he did not use the requisite French accent on the initial “E” - Étienne. He used the pseudonym “Stephen” for his illustrated story books (basically gay comic books with a rough sex theme, as in the example above), “Dom” for his more serious oils, and “Etienne” for nearly everything else.

Oil painting by Etienne now on display at the Leather Archives & Museum in Chicago.

This mural was displayed at the Gold Coast at 2265 N. Lincoln Ave, Chicago. The murals in the first Gold Coast were actually painted on the walls of the bar, which opened in 1958, making Chicago the first city in the country to have a leather bar. When Chuck Renslow and Dom (Etienne) lost their lease, they had to remove the murals with paint remover or by painting over them. Some fine pieces were thus lost forever. When the Gold Coast moved, Chuck and Dom decided to paint the murals on 4'x8' panels, so if they ever had to move the bar again, they could save the artworks. This was fortunate, because the Gold Coast operated at five locations before closing in 1988.

Rudolph Nureyev

ballet dancer par excellence

Russian born dancer Rudolph Nureyev (1938-1993) was a last-minute replacement for an injured male star on the Kirov Ballet’s European tour of 1961. Nureyev electrified audiences in Paris and famously defected to the west at Le Bourget airport NE of Paris, with the assistance of French police. He changed the perception of a male ballet dancer’s being only an accessory to female principals.

His muscular, dramatic style of dancing and strengths in both classical and modern dance led to a career in which he attained pop-star fame. He socialized with the likes of Gore Vidal, Freddie Mercury, Jackie Kennedy Onassis, Mick Jagger, Liza Minnelli and Andy Warhol. Gossip about Nureyev’s generous male endowment seems to be validated by this 1961 photograph by Richard Avedon (shown below), taken a month after the Russian star’s defection.

A little-remembered fact is that Nureyev starred as Rudolph Valentino in Ken Russell’s 1977 film Valentino, which was vociferously condemned by the Catholic Church.

His lover for many years was Eric Bruhn, the noted Danish ballet dancer, choreographer, actor and author. Bruhn died in 1986, and Nureyev in 1993, both from complications from AIDS related illnesses.