Antonio D’Amico & Gianni Versace

Antonio D'Amico (born January 20, 1959) is a model and fashion designer. He is best known as the partner of Gianni Versace.

D'Amico was born in Mesagne, Province of Brindisi, Italy, and later lived in Milan. He was hired as a part-time office executive for his first job. He met Versace in 1982 and eventually embarked on a long-term relationship that lasted 15 years, until Versace's murder in 1997. During that time, he worked as designer for the Versace Sport line. D'Amico now runs his own fashion design company.

Versace's will left D'Amico with a pension of 50 million lire a month for life (about €26,000) and the right to live in any of Versace's homes in Italy and the United States. However, since the properties that were left to D'Amico in Gianni's will actually belonged to the company, the homes belonged to Donatella, Santo, and Allegra. After working out some agreements with lawyers, D'Amico obtained a fraction of the pension, and a restricted right to live in Gianni's properties. D'Amico's relations with the rest of the Versace family have not always been easy; Donatella Versace said in March 1999 that "My relationship with Antonio is exactly as it was when Gianni was alive. I respected him as the boyfriend of my brother, but I never liked him as a person. So the relationship stayed the same."

D'Amico was portrayed by actor Oscar Torre in the 1998 film The Versace Murder.


Antonio D'Amico is a model and fashion designer. He is best known as the partner of Gianni Versace. D'Amico was born in Mesagne, Province of Brindisi, Italy, and later lived in Milan. He was hired as a part-time office executive for his first job. He met Versace in 1982 and eventually embarked on a long-term relationship that lasted 15 years, until Versace's murder in 1997. During that time, he worked as designer for the Versace Sport line. D'Amico now runs his own fashion design company.


Officially named Casa Casuarina, this one-of-a-kind Miami Beach property is more commonly known as the "Versace Mansion" because it was previously owned by late Italian fashion designer Gianni Versace. Versace's influence and artistic vision are evident throughout the gated property, which features an opulent 10-bedroom, 11-bathroom Mediterranean villa decorated with hand-painted walls and ceiling frescos.

Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antonio_D%27Amico

( Further Readings )

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

Will Young (born January 20, 1979)

William Robert "Will" Young (born 20 January 1979) is an English singer-songwriter and actor who came to prominence after winning the 2002 inaugural series of the British music contest Pop Idol, making him the first winner of the worldwide Idol franchise. His debut single "Anything Is Possible" was released two weeks after the show's finale and became the fastest-selling debut single in the UK. Young also came in fifth place in World Idol performing his single "Light My Fire". In March 2002, Young revealed that he is gay, pre-empting a tabloid newspaper that was preparing to out him. He also stated that he had never hidden it and was comfortable with his sexual orientation.

As a teenager, Young studied politics at the University of Exeter before moving to London, where he studied musical theatre at Arts Educational School. Young put his studies on hold in late 2001 to become a contestant on Pop Idol. After winning the competition the following year, he released his debut album From Now On (2002) which went to straight to number one. Friday's Child (2003) followed and enjoyed greater success, eventually going platinum five times in the UK and spawning three top five singles. His albums Keep On (2005) and Let It Go (2008) are also multi-platinum and his most recent release Echoes (2011) became his third UK number-one album. His albums have spawned many songs that have accomplished top ten positions in the UK: four of which went to the number one spot. Young has also undertaken numerous concert tours. He has also accumulated multiple honours, including two BRIT Awards from 12 nominations, and the estimated worldwide sale of over eight million albums. Young's net worth was estimated at £13.5 million in April 2012.

Alongside his music career, Young has acted in film, on stage and in television. For his performance in the 2013 London revival of the musical Cabaret, he was nominated for the Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actor in a Musical. He has also participated in philanthropy and released books Anything is Possible (2002), On Camera, Off Duty (2004) and his autobiography Funny Peculiar (2012).



Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Will_Young

( Further Readings )

More LGBT History at my website: www.elisarolle.com/, My Ramblings/Persistent Voices

Beatrice Lillie (May 29, 1894 – January 20, 1989)

Beatrice Gladys "Bea" Lillie (May 29, 1894 – January 20, 1989) was an actress and comedic performer. Following her 1920 marriage to Sir Robert Peel in England, she was known in private life as Lady Peel.

Lillie was born in Toronto, where she performed, along with other Ontario towns as part of a family trio with her mother and older sister, Muriel. Eventually, her mother, Lucie, took the girls to London, England where she made her West End debut in the 1914 Not Likely. She was noted primarily for her stage work in revues, especially those staged by André Charlot, and light comedies, and was frequently paired with Gertrude Lawrence, Bert Lahr and Jack Haley.

In her revues, she utilized sketches, songs, and parody that won her lavish praise from the New York Times after her 1924 New York debut. In some of her best known bits, she would solemnly parody the flowery performing style of earlier decades, mining such songs as "There are Fairies at the Bottom of our Garden" and "Mother Told Me So" for every double entendre, while other numbers ("Get Yourself a Geisha" and "Snoops the Lawyer", for example) showcased her exquisite sense of the absurd. Her performing in such comedy routines as "One Double Dozen Double Damask Dinner Napkins", (in which an increasingly flummoxed matron attempts to purchase said napkins) earned her the frequently used sobriquet of "Funniest Woman in the World". She never performed the "Dinner Napkins" routine in Britain, because British audiences had already seen it performed by the Australian-born English revue performer Cicely Courtneidge, for whom it was written.

In 1926 she returned to New York city to perform. While there, she starred in her first film, Exit Smiling, opposite fellow Canadian Jack Pickford, the scandal-scarred younger brother of Mary Pickford. From then until the approach of World War II, Lillie repeatedly crisscrossed the Atlantic to perform on both continents. She was long associated with the works of Noel Coward (giving, for instance, the first ever public performance of "Mad Dogs and Englishmen"), though Cole Porter is among those who also wrote songs for her. She made few appearances on film, appearing in a cameo role as a revivalist in Around the World in Eighty Days and as "Mrs. Meers" (a white slaver) in Thoroughly Modern Millie.

( Read more... )

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

Numerous artists of the 1920s and 1930s, some of them widely known to be gay within the gay world if not beyond it, produced work that fairly bristled with gay meanings. "Noel Coward was the Mount Everest of double entendre," recalled one gay fan playwright, and Cole Porter's songs were mainstays in gay culture. Some performers were so well known for the gay-tinged double entendre of their lyrics that their performances drew large audiences of gay men. Whether or not the other memebers of the audience noticed them, they were aware of their numbers in the audience and often shared in the collective excitement of transforming such a public gathering into a "gay space," not matter how covertly. Judy Garland's concerts would take on this character in later years; Beatrice Lillie's concerts were among the most famous such events in the early 1930s. "The Palace was just packed with queers, for weeks at a time, when Lillie performed," remembered one man who had been in the audience. One of her signature songs, "There Are Fairies at the Bottom of Our Garden," was a camp classic in the gay world, and twenty years later Lillie noted that she still "always" got requests for it from her audience. Her rendition of "I'm a Campfire Girl" was also always a hit. --Gay New York: Gender, Urban Culture, and the Making of the Gay Male World, 1890-1940 by George Chauncey

Lillian Faderman notes that many women prominent in New York theater, such as Beatrice Lillie, Jeanne Eagels, Tallulah Bankhead, and Libby Holman, established public reputations as sexually adventuruos women with both female and male partners. Their association with respectable Broadway theater gave them economic security as well as the social freedom to live their lives outside the cultural and sexual mainstream. --A Queer History of the United States by Michael Bronski

( Further Readings )

More LGBT History at my website: www.elisarolle.com/, My Ramblings/Gay Classics

John Minton (December 25, 1917 - January 20, 1957)

Francis John Minton (25 December 1917–20 January 1957) was an English painter, illustrator, stage designer and teacher. After studying in France, he became a teacher in London, and at the same time maintained a consistently large output of works. In addition to landscapes, portraits and other paintings, some of them on an unusually large scale, he built up a reputation as an illustrator of books.

In the mid-1950s, Minton found himself out of sympathy with the abstract trend that was then becoming fashionable, and felt increasingly sidelined. He suffered psychological problems, abused alcohol, and in 1957 committed suicide.

Minton was born in Great Shelford, Cambridgeshire, the second of three sons of Francis Minton, a solicitor, and his wife, Kate, née Webb. From 1925 to 1932, he was educated at Northcliff House, Bognor Regis, Sussex, and then from 1932 to 1935 at Reading School. He studied art at St John's Wood School of Art from 1935 to 1938. and was greatly influenced by his fellow student Michael Ayrton, who enthused him with the work of French neo-romantic painters. He spent eight months studying in France, frequently accompanied by Ayrton, and returned from Paris when the Second World War began.

At the start of the war, Minton was a conscientious objector, but changed his views and joined the Pioneer Corps in 1941. He was commissioned in 1943, but was discharged on medical grounds in the same year. While still in the army, Minton, with Ayrton, designed the costumes and scenery for John Gielgud's 1942 production of Macbeth. The settings moved the piece from its 11th century setting to "the age of illuminated missals"; The Manchester Guardian wrote that they "should be long remembered". In the same year he and Ayrton held a joint exhibition at the Leicester Galleries in London. The Times wrote, "Mr. Minton is seen to have an overcast, gloomy realism, and much intensity of feeling, which he expresses in dark colour schemes, both in a curious and effective self-portrait and in paintings of streets and bombed buildings." Minton's early penchant for dark colour schemes can be seen in his 1939 "Landscape at Les Baux", in the Tate Gallery.


Portrait of Kevin Maybury

( Read more... )

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Minton_(artist)

( More paintings )

( Further Readings )

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

Randy Burns

Randy Burns is a Northern Paiute native American and a member of the Pyramid Lake Indian Tribe. In July of 1975, along with the late Barbara Cameron, Burns founded Gay American Indians, an organization that serves the Gay and Lesbian Native American community.

Randy Burns' activist career started as an outspoken student leader while attending San Francisco State University trying to recruit Native American students to campus. He then became an activist for the queer community when, still as a student, he interviewed with the Nevada State Journal. His subsequent interviews with nearly all queer magazines and newspapers on the West Coast has earned Burns the reputation of "Media Queen." Randy has also written some of his own editorials, including the introductions to such books as Living The Spirit: A Gay American Indian Anthology, Changing Ones and Third and Fourth Genders in Native North Americans. Burns plans to publish his own full work of literature in the near future entitled You Never Heard Me Sing, a portrait of two spirit people.

Included on Burns' long list of activist work are positions on some prominent local government advisory committees such as the People of Color AIDS and the Human Rights Commission. Randy has also been an election officer for over twenty years, as he believes in the importance of voting. Over the years, Randy has volunteered his services to various nonprofit agencies and worked with many Native American programs here in the Bay Area. Up until recently, Randy worked at SF General Hospital as a nurse assistant.

For his work, Burns has been recognized numerous times, most recently with the "Pioneer Award" from the San Francisco Gay and Lesbian History Society. Yet, the modest Randy evokes his High School Hall of Fame induction as the award that he is most proud of. Randy is also very honored to have been photographed with one of his heroes, former President Bill Clinton.


@Lisa Kanemoto

( Read more... )

Source: www.ncpc.info/projects_paiutefamily.html

( Further Readings )

More LGBT History at my website: www.elisarolle.com/, My Ramblings/Persistent Voices

Reynolds Price (February 1, 1933 – January 20, 2011)

Although they do not treat gay themes at length, the poems and novels of Reynolds Price often reflect homoerotic and homosocial male relationships.

A native of eastern North Carolina, Reynolds Price rarely strayed far from home. After attending Oxford University on a Rhodes scholarship, he returned to Duke University, where he taught for more than 50 years.

Though most acclaimed for his fiction, Price has also published drama, poetry, essays, and memoirs. His abiding interest in narrative yielded a volume of biblical retellings and three memoirs: Clear Pictures (1989), a collection of childhood memories; A Whole New Life (1994), an account of his life since the 1984 diagnosis of a spinal tumor that left him unable to walk; and Ardent Spirits (2009), recollections of his years in Britain and the friendships he made there, the first time in which he discussed his homosexuality in print.

Price's contribution to the gay literary heritage must be read indirectly since he does not treat gay themes at great length (though his novel The Promise of Rest [1994] focuses on the return home of a man with AIDS) nor did he speak at length about his own sexual identity.

Particularly in his poetry, the careful reader may note a particular idealization in describing the male body, a special attentiveness to a graceful stance or a muscular profile, as when the sight of his young friend Straw sprawled across the hood of a car unearths a buried memory for Hutch Mayfield, the central character in The Source of Light (1981): "Now the different place which Straw constituted, in power and need, demanded homage. The sight of the stripped boy asleep in his arms last Saturday dawn stood clear in Hutch's mind. He watched it gladly with no regret."

( Read more... )

Citation Information
Author: Woodland, Randal
Entry Title: Price, Reynolds
General Editor: Claude J. Summers
Publication Name: glbtq: An Encyclopedia of Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer Culture
Publication Date: 2002
Date Last Updated January 24, 2011
Web Address www.glbtq.com/literature/price_r.html
Publisher glbtq, Inc.
1130 West Adams
Chicago, IL 60607
Today's Date January 20, 2013
Encyclopedia Copyright: © 2002-2006, glbtq, Inc.
Entry Copyright © 1995, 2002 New England Publishing Associates

( Further Readings )

More LGBT History at my website: www.elisarolle.com/, My Ramblings/Gay Classics

Lee Bantle

"I live in Park Slope, Brooklyn in a sunny apartment where I do my writing. I set David Inside Out in Minneapolis, Minnesota where I grew up and went to college.

David Inside Out is based in part on my experiences growing up gay in Minnesota before the age of Gay/Straight Alliances, television shows like Will & Grace, and books like the this one. My goal in writing the book was to capture the evolving dynamics in play today while giving voice to the complicated feelings that still accompany coming to terms with one's sexual identity. I wrote the book for gay teens who are struggling with their sexual identity, but also for the girls who may date and fall in love with these guys. I also hoped to promote greater understanding of LGBT people among straight readers and to tell a good coming of age story.

One of my early memories of writing was in high school. I wrote an essay about an accountant who was buttoned down and hardworking by day, but a party-time guy and playboy by night. My teacher loved the duality. And of course, it spoke of my own dilemma, an expression of self.

What inspired me to write my first book, Diving for the Moon, was the AIDS crisis. My friends were dying. Paul lasted only eight days after diagnosis. So, I wrote Diving for the Moon, about a hemophiliac boy who gets infected with HIV.

I write to understand the world around me and to be a witness to history.

Besides being a writer, I am a practicing lawyer. (It pays the bills.) I represent employees in discrimination lawsuits. You can find out more at my website civilrightsfirm.com. My favorite part of being a lawyer is making the closing argument to the jury. If you want to win, you have to tell a compelling story and capture the jurors' imaginations. This is where my writing career helps out at the office. So I compose the facts in a good narrative and pitch it to each of the men and women of the jury. Then they go out. It's win or lose. I love the drama!"

Further Readings:

David Inside Out by Lee Bantle
Hardcover: 192 pages
Publisher: Henry Holt and Co. (BYR); First Edition edition (May 12, 2009)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0805081224
ISBN-13: 978-0805081220
Amazon: David Inside Out

David Dahlgren, a high-school senior, finds solace in running with the track team; he’s a fast runner, and he enjoys the camaraderie. But team events become a source of tension when he develops a crush on one of his teammates, Sean. Scared to admit his feelings, David does everything he can to suppress them: he dates a girl, keeps his distance from his best friend who has become openly gay, and snaps a rubber band on his wrist every time he has “inappropriate” urges. Before long, Sean expresses the thoughts David has been trying to hide, and everything changes for the better. Or so it seems.

In this thoughtful yet searing coming-of-age novel, Lee Bantle offers a raw, honest, and incredibly compelling account of a teenager who learns to accept himself for who he is.

More Spotlights at my website: www.elisarolle.com/, My Lists/Gay Novels

It Happened Today: January 20

Antonio D’Amico & Gianni Versace: http://reviews-and-ramblings.dreamwidth.org/4144369.html

Antonio D'Amico is a model and fashion designer. He is best known as the partner of Gianni Versace. D'Amico was born in Mesagne, Province of Brindisi, Italy, and later lived in Milan. He was hired as a part-time office executive for his first job. He met Versace in 1982 and eventually embarked on a long-term relationship that lasted 15 years, until Versace's murder in 1997. During that time, he worked as designer for the Versace Sport line. D'Amico now runs his own fashion design company.

Beatrice Lillie (May 29, 1894 – January 20, 1989): http://reviews-and-ramblings.dreamwidth.org/3056562.html

Beatrice Lillie (May 29, 1894 – January 20, 1989) was an actress and comedic performer. "Many women prominent in New York theater, such as Beatrice Lillie, Jeanne Eagels, Tallulah Bankhead, and Libby Holman, established public reputations as sexually adventuruos women with both female and male partners. Their association with respectable Broadway theater gave them economic security as well as the social freedom to live their lives outside the cultural and sexual mainstream." Lillian Faderman

John Minton (December 25, 1917 - January 20, 1957): http://reviews-and-ramblings.dreamwidth.org/1415900.html

John Minton was an English painter, illustrator and stage designer. He became a teacher in London, and at the same time maintained a consistently large output of works. In addition to landscapes, portraits and other paintings, he built up a reputation as an illustrator of books. In the mid-1950s, Minton found himself out of sympathy with the abstract trend that was then becoming fashionable, and felt increasingly sidelined. He suffered psychological problems and in 1957 committed suicide.

Lee Bantle: http://reviews-and-ramblings.dreamwidth.org/870276.html

Lee Bantle lives in Park Slope, Brooklyn in a sunny apartment where he does his writing. He set David Inside Out in Minneapolis, Minnesota where he grew up and went to college: In this thoughtful yet searing coming-of-age novel, Lee Bantle offers a raw, honest, and incredibly compelling account of a teenager who learns to accept himself for who he is. David Dahlgren's team events become a source of tension when he develops a crush on one of his teammates, Sean.

Matthew Bugg & Tobias Oliver: http://reviews-and-ramblings.dreamwidth.org/4144751.html

Theatre Composer Matthew Bugg and Marketing Professional Tobias "Toby" Oliver have been together since 1994. They live in Sheffield with their beloved Dachshund, Georgie. They set up, with producer Keith Arrowsmith, a theatre company, Mr Bugg Presents. They took their current production, ‘Miss Nightingale – the burlesque musical’ on a 12 week tour of the UK on spring/summer 2013, including a stint in London’s West End and two shows at Sheffield’s Lyceum Theatre in July.

Randy Burns: http://reviews-and-ramblings.dreamwidth.org/4145010.html

Randy Burns is a Northern Paiute and a member of the Pyramid Lake Indian Tribe. In 1975, along with the late Barbara Cameron, Burns founded Gay American Indians, an organization that serves the Gay and Lesbian Native American community. "At a very early age I was aware of being gay. It was very difficult to be open about my sexual preference living in an Indian reservation and being proud of my Paiute heritage. Now that I am out, I hope to be a positive role model for young Gay American Youths."

Reynolds Price (February 1, 1933 – January 20, 2011): http://reviews-and-ramblings.dreamwidth.org/3426189.html

Oxford University and Britain—which had scarcely recovered from the severe demands of WWII—were places of enormous vitality for Reynolds Price. From spotting J.R.R. Tolkien on the street in Oxford to intimate dinners with W. H. Auden and Stephen Spender, Price was welcomed into the company of the most respected intellectual and artistic circles. Fully entrenched in the culture of his era, Price unfailingly makes clear the connections between his experience and the tradition of world literature.

Will Young (born January 20, 1979): http://reviews-and-ramblings.dreamwidth.org/4144569.html

Will Young is an English singer-songwriter and actor who came to prominence after winning the 2002 inaugural series of the British music contest Pop Idol. His debut single "Anything Is Possible" was released two weeks after the show's finale and became the fastest-selling debut single in the UK. In March 2002, Young revealed that he is gay, pre-empting a tabloid newspaper that was preparing to out him. He also stated that he had never hidden it and was comfortable with his sexual orientation.