Felicity Chandell (December 15, 1905 - June 23, 2008)

Felicity Chandell (aka John MacDonald Miller) was born Dec 15, 1905 in Poughkeepsie. He was a husband, father, jet pilot, and cross dresser living in the Hudson Valley. His arrest and termination from Eastern Airlines (1964) provides an interesting context. Felicity was convicted under Section 887, Sub 7, of the New York State Code of Criminal Procedure to the Appellate Term, First Department, of the Supreme Court of the State of New York. Felicity died Monday, June 23rd, 2008 at age 102.

Felicity Chandell's papers are held at The Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Community Center in NYC. The Collection consists primarily of numerous individually titled "she-man" short story pamphlets from nine cross dressing publishers. The collection also includes correspondence, Society for the Second Self national directories, photographs, transvestite Tri-Ess directories (includes individual pictures of the sisters and contact instructions), newsletters, cross dressing clippings and comics, and some scholarly articles. The correspondence includes photo-copies of letters Felicity sent and attached responses, some with photos. Letters in collection are exchanges between a core group of five sisters (1980-1983). The collection represents an array of personal interest transvestite publications from 1960-1980s. Includes a small amount of information on the State of New York vs Felicity Chandell arrested on a charge of misrepresentation in 1964.

Source: http://www.gaycenter.org/community/archive/collection/087

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Jim Fouratt (born June 23, 1945)

Jim Fouratt (born 23 June 1945) is active in the entertainment industry and gay rights.

In the picture, Activist and a founder of Gay Liberation Jim Fouratt photographed by Fred MacDarrah on Saint Mark's Place in 1967. The new younger leaders were social dropouts and castaways. Marty Robinson was the son of a Brooklyn doctor who gave up a prosperous home and future to live openly as a gay man. He worked all his life as a union carpenter. Jim Fouratt, a founder of Gay Liberation, was one of the street kids who started the Stonewall riots. All of these men cultivated a public image that was very counter-cultural and aggressively sexual, wearing tight jeans and making PDA with lovers at their events.

Jim Fouratt was an early member of the Gay Liberation Front and a participant in the Stonewall riots. Fouratt lived with Carl Miller, Allen Young, Giles Kotcher, Bob Bland and Punit Auerbacher in the Seventeenth Street commune. He became the manager for the club Hurrah in 1978 and brought in DJs to create the first "Rock Disco," with music videos playing as well as live music acts. In 1980 he opened Danceteria with Rudolf Pieper. He has also been a writer for Billboard magazine, where he has been an outspoken critic of rappers such as Eminem. In the late 1990's, Fouratt attempted to launch Beauty Records, a recording imprint funded by Mercury Records' Danny Goldberg, but that project was short-circuited when Mercury's parent corporation, Polygram, was bought out by Seagrams, and Fouratt's acts were let go.


GAA-NY's Founders, (Arthur Evans, left, Tom Doerr & Marty Robinson, right) 1969, Photo: Courtesy GAA Reunion Newsletter #6

Fouratt has also been an outspoken critic of transgenderism and transsexualism. He believes that transgender surgeries constitute "mutilation", that gender transitioning is akin to anti-gay reparative therapy, and that transgender identity reinforces gender stereotypes.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Fouratt

In 1969, the only gay organizations with any significant public identity were the Mattachine Society and the Daughters of Bilitis. Just four years later, one could join a radical Gay Liberation Front, Radicalesbians, a more mainstream Gay Activists Alliance, the National Gay Task Force,t the Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund, and hundreds of other groups in New York, across the country, and around the world. "It was like fire, you know," said Jim Fouratt, a founder of the Gay Liberation Front in New York. "Like a prairie fire: let it roar.... People were ready." Fouratt joined a group that traveled around the country to create other GLFs. "I think we set up about forty chapters, most of them on university campuses," he recalled. Even at Catholic Notre Dame in South Bend, Indiana, gay students decided in 1971 to start their own organization. "I am a great believer in nonviolence," one of them wrote, "but if any of the football jocks or whoever starts to give me a hard time ... well, I don't like to brag about my karate, but ..." --Charles Kaiser. The Gay Metropolis: The Landmark History of Gay Life in America (Kindle Locations 2956-2962). Kindle Edition.

At one of the last Mattachine meetings before the police attack on the Stonewall Inn, Jim Fouratt, a younger member, insisted: “All the oppressed have to unite! The system keeps us all weak by keeping us separate.” --Bronski, Michael (2011-05-10). A Queer History of the United States (Revisioning American History) (Kindle Locations 4384-4385). Beacon Press. Kindle Edition.

( Jim Fouratt, 1994, by Robert Giard )

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More Particular Voices at my website: http://www.elisarolle.com/, My Ramblings/Particular Voices

Swen Swenson (1932 - June 23, 1993)

Swen Swenson (1932–1993) was a Broadway dancer and singer. Born in Inwood, Iowa, Swenson was trained by dancer Mira Rostova and at the School of American Ballet.

He had featured and co-starring roles on Broadway in such musicals such as Wildcat with Lucille Ball, Little Me (for which he received a Tony Award nomination), Annie, No, No Nanette, I Remember Mama and the 1981 revival of Can-Can. He appeared in movies and on television variety shows, including Your Show of Shows and The Ed Sullivan Show.

Swenson died in 1993 of AIDS-related illness.

"Two nights after Swen Swenson's death in Los Angeles in 1993, close to 100 people -- including family members, friends and even one of the nurses who'd taken care of Swen during his last months in the hospital -- marched on Santa Monica Boulevard, carrying signs with his picture, stopping traffic and chanting. Despite police harassment, when the march reached the Bank of Los Angeles at Santa Monica and La Cienega the group piled their signs in the middle of the street and set the pile ablaze. Watching the flames rise higher and higher from the bonfire, they continued to cry the words they had shouted along the length of the march: "Swen is dead and no one cares!"

Their actions, of course, belied their chant.

Swen was a man of many talents. He is best known for his work on television -- where he was a featured dancer on Sid Ceasar's Show of Shows for years -- in films and on Broadway, especially his Tony-nominated performance in Little Me. Few, however, may be aware of his passion for collecting art. He had unique and eclectic tastes: In his lifetime he amassed one of the world's largest collections of carousel figures. Swen also had a great love for animals and bred and raised Yorkies for over 40 years. But mostly he loved people, all kinds of people, usually the more eccentric the better.



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Source: http://www.poz.com/articles/259_1859.shtml

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Michael Arlen (November 16, 1895 - June 23, 1956)

Michael Arlen (Armenian: Մայքլ Արլեն; November 16, 1895 – June 23, 1956), original name Dikran Kouyoumdjian, was an Armenian essayist, short story writer, novelist, playwright, and scriptwriter, who had his greatest successes in the 1920s while living and writing in England. Although Arlen is most famous for his satirical romances set in English smart society, he also wrote gothic horror and psychological thrillers, for instance "The Gentleman from America", which was filmed in 1956 as a television episode for Alfred Hitchcock's TV series Alfred Hitchcock Presents. Near the end of his life, Arlen mainly occupied himself with political writing. Arlen's vivid but colloquial style "with unusual inversions and inflections with a heightened exotic pitch", came to be known as Arlenesque.

Very much a 1920s society figure resembling the characters he portrayed in his novels, and a man who might be referred to as a dandy, Arlen invariably impressed everyone with his immaculate manners. He was always impeccably dressed and groomed and was seen driving around London in a fashionable yellow Rolls Royce and engaging in all kinds of luxurious activities. However, he was well aware of the latent suspicion for foreigners mixed with envy, with which his success was viewed by some. Sydney Horler (1888–1954), another popular author of the time, is said to have called Arlen "the only Armenian who never tried to sell me a carpet" , while Arlen half-jokingly described himself as "every other inch a gentleman". (Picture: Michael Arlen And Atalanta Mercati)

Michael Arlen was born Dikran Kouyoumdjian on November 16, 1895, in Rousse, Bulgaria, to an Armenian merchant family. In 1892, Arlen's family moved to Plovdiv, Bulgaria, after fleeing Turkish persecutions of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire. In Plovdiv, Arlen's father, Sarkis Kouyoumdjian, established a successful import business. In 1895, Arlen was born as the youngest child of five, having three brothers, Takvor, Krikor, and Roupen, and one sister, Ahavni. In 1901, apparently not feeling satisfied with Bulgaria's position in the oncoming war, Arlen's family moved once more: this time to the seaside town of Southport in Lancashire, England.



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Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Arlen

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Erwynn Umali & Will Behrens (plus Jeff Sheng)

On June 23, 2012, Jeff Sheng photographed, as the official wedding photographer, the civil union of Will Behrens (born 1976) and air force service member Erwynn Umali (born 1977). This was the first public same-sex wedding ceremony held on a United States military base and officiated by a military chaplain, since the official repeal of Don't ask, don't tell on September 20, 2011. The male couple had previously been photographed in 2010 as part of Sheng's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" photography series. (Picture: Chaplain Kay Reeb, who officiated the civil union, presides over the ceremony. Photo by Jeff Sheng)

Will was born outside of Chicago in 1976. His mother was a teacher. His father, a Marine-turned-fundamentalist-minister, spent most of the year on the road through his work with Fairhaven Baptist church in Chesterton, Ind. Will’s father was its youth pastor and vice president of the church’s small Christian college. He attended Fairhaven Baptist College, earning a degree in pastoral theology and music. He married his wife, a childhood friend and college classmate in 1998. Then they moved to New Jersey so Will could pursue a career in business. They had two children. (Picture: Jeff Sheng, “Fearless” project exhibition, Drew School (High School), 2009)

Erwynn Umali was born in the Philippines in 1977. When he was 5, his family immigrated to a suburb of San Diego. His parents gave their three sons and a daughter rhyming names: Alwynn, Erwynn, Jerwynn, and Sherwynn. They raised the children as strict Catholics with traditional Filipino family values. In 1998 Erwynn entered the Air Force. Erwynn loved the camaraderie and the knowledge that he was serving his country. Two years later, he married his wife, a fellow airman. They had two sons.

In 2005, while stationed in Korea, Erwynn split from his wife. Both of them say that the divorce was unrelated to his sexuality. Erwynn asked to be stationed at McGuire-Dix in New Jersey in order to be closer to his sons, who were living in Maryland at the time. In 2006, still recovering from his divorce and looking to join a community, he accepted a co-worker’s invitation to visit Solid Rock Baptist Church. The congregation seemed friendly and appreciated his military service. He felt valued.


The two grooms share a moment in a side room of the base chapel before their wedding ceremony. Photo by Jeff Sheng

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Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeff_Sheng

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More Photographers at my website: http://www.elisarolle.com/, My Ramblings/Art

More LGBT Couples at my website: http://www.elisarolle.com/, My Ramblings/Real Life Romance

Steve Sandvoss (born June 23, 1980)

Steve Sandvoss (born June 23, 1980 in New York City) is an American actor. Stephen James Sandvoss grew up in suburban New York City. He attended the Saint Thomas Choir School in Manhattan and The Taft School in Connecticut where he was a member of the rowing team. He went on to study at Harvard University and graduated, cum laude, in 2002.

At Harvard, he was active in the artistic community, pursuing amateur photography, studying poetry and American prose, and often choosing edgier roles in student-written plays as well as in such classics as Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet and Julius Caesar and Bertolt Brecht's Galileo and Ba'al.

In addition, Sandvoss directed readings of his own work at Harvard and wrote criticism and essays for several undergraduate periodicals. Steve was also a member of the prestigious a cappella ensemble, the Harvard Opportunes. During this time, Sandvoss commuted frequently to New York City for professional acting and modeling gigs.

Sandvoss's break as an actor came when he landed the role of a football star competing against Will Estes in the NBC drama series American Dreams. His other television roles include appearances on Dr. Vegas, Nip/Tuck, The Inside, Cold Case, E-Ring and Grey's Anatomy.

Sandvoss made his feature-film debut in the 2003 independent film Latter Days. His second feature film was 2005's Rumor Has It, starring Jennifer Aniston, Kevin Costner, Mark Ruffalo and Shirley MacLaine.

Sandvoss was cast in the short film Waning Moon, directed by Luca Colombo, which debuted in August 2006 at a Swiss Film Festival in Lugano. The film went on to many other festivals and won "Best Film Screenplay" at the Beverly Hills Film Festival in 2007. In June 2006, Sandvoss began filming the horror film Buried Alive, in the role of "Danny". The film was released on DVD in October 2007. In late 2006, it was announced that Steve would reunite with Director/Writer C. Jay Cox in a supporting role in the film Kiss The Bride, released in 2008.



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Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Sandvoss

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