Juan Gonzalez (January 12, 1942 - December 24, 1993)

Juan Gonzalez was a cuban-born realist painter. He taught for nearly two decades at New York City's School of Visual Arts. He died on December 24, 1993, at his home in Manhattan. He was 51.

The cause was AIDS, said his daughter Maria Schleifman of Manhattan.

A creator of meticulously rendered, often sumptuous paintings and collages infused with a sense of fantasy and religious symbolism, Mr. Gonzalez was adept at restating Renaissance and Baroque styles in contemporary terms. Some of his paintings took AIDS as their theme; others dealt with the complexity of human relations and frequently depicted family members and friends.

Mr. Gonzalez was born in Camaguey, Cuba, on Jan. 12, 1942, and immigrated to the United States with his family in 1961. In 1972, after earning a Master of Fine Arts degree from the University of Miami, he moved to New York City and had his first solo show, at the Allan Stone Gallery. Since 1975 he has been represented by the Nancy Hoffman Gallery in SoHo, where his most recent exhibition was presented in 1991.

Mr. Gonzalez designed the sets for two plays by the Spanish writer Federico Garcia Lorca: "Blood Wedding" for the Great Lakes Festival in Cleveland in 1988, and "As Soon as Five Years Pass" in 1991 for Southern Methodist University, which also organized a traveling retrospective of his work. He is represented in numerous public collections, including the Art Institute of Chicago, the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.


AIDS Quilt

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Source: http://www.nytimes.com/1993/12/30/obituaries/juan-gonzalez-51-painter-in-tradition-of-realism-is-dead.html

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Andy Sforzini & Lee Daniels

Lee Louis Daniels (born December 24, 1959) is an American actor, film producer, and director. He produced Monster's Ball and directed the film Precious: Based on the Novel "Push" by Sapphire, which received six Academy Award nominations, including Best Director; the film won two of the awards. In 2013, Daniels directed The Butler, a historical fiction drama featuring an ensemble cast portraying unique events on the 20th century presidents of the United States at the White House. The Butler received positive reviews and became a box office success. Daniels lives in New York City. He and his then-partner, casting director Billy Hopkins, adopted Daniels' biological niece and nephew, Clara and Liam. Hopkins and Daniels later separated. Since 2009, Daniels has been in a relationship with Andy Sforzini. (P: @Tomdog. Lee Daniels on the red carpet of the 2010 Screen Actors Guild Awards at the Shrine Auditorium, Los Angeles, January 23rd, 2010.)

Daniels was born on Christmas Eve, 1959, the son of Clara Watson and William L. Daniels, in Philadelphia. He graduated from upscale, suburban Radnor High School in 1978, and then Lindenwood University in St. Charles, Missouri. He couldn't afford film school, so he started in a liberal arts college in Missouri but realized it wasn't for him, and started working as a receptionist in a nursing agency in California. Realizing he could do it on his own, he quit the job and started his own agency. At the age of 21, his company had 5000 nurses affiliated with it. He sold the company and went to work casting actors using his skills from 'casting' nurses. Later, he realized he had not paid taxes on his income, but over time, he did pay them off. He began his career in entertainment as a casting director and manager after a chance meeting with a Hollywood producer, working on such projects as Under the Cherry Moon and Purple Rain. He continued managing talent. The documentary My Big Break features Daniels early in his career when he was managing actor Wes Bentley who starred as Ricky Fitts in American Beauty. In the documentary, a Daniels comments on Bentley's reluctance to capitalize on his newfound celebrity status.


Lee Daniels is an American actor, film producer, and director. He produced Monster's Ball and directed the film Precious: Based on the Novel "Push" by Sapphire, which received six Academy Award nominations, including Best Director; the film won two of the awards. In 2013, Daniels directed The Butler, a historical fiction drama. The Butler received positive reviews and became a box office success. Since 2009, Daniels has been in a relationship with Andy Sforzini.

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Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lee_Daniels

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

Pat Bond (February 27, 1925 — December 24, 1990)

Pat Bond (February 27, 1925 — December 24, 1990) was an American actress who starred on stage and on television, as well as in motion pictures. She was openly lesbian and in many cases she was the first gay woman people saw on stage. Her career spanned some forty years.

Born Patricia Childers, she spent her childhood in Chicago. She and her family moved to Davenport, Iowa when she was a teenager. While there she attended a Roman Catholic women's college. She later equated this experience to "a finishing school where they finished me". She joined the Women's Army Corps in 1945. Having accepted her homosexuality by this point, she was interested in meeting other lesbians. She acted as a nurse for soldiers returning from the South Pacific and also served in occupied Japan.

Following her discharge from the army, Pat moved to San Francisco and became involved in the gay culture there. She earned a BA and MA in Theater from San Francisco State College. She also began acting on stage and performed in many plays, but did not become nationally known until footage from an interview with her appeared in a landmark documentary about gay people, titled Word is Out, released in 1978. Her performance in this film, in which she spoke comically and nostalgically about her experiences in the Army, stole the show, and launched her career as an actress and storyteller. By the late 1970s/80s, she was performing four one woman shows in theaters around the country.

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

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