reviews_and_ramblings | May. 29th, 2015

May. 29th, 2015

Brian Shucker (May 29, 1958 - April 12, 1991) was an award-winning composer and lyricist who wrote the score of Babes, a 1940s-style musical that opened in L.A. the day he died of the complications of AIDS.

Earlier in 1991, Shucker, 33, received awards from Dramalogue and the Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle for his score of "Babes," a reflection on the Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland "kiddie musicals" of the 1940s. Much of the lyric writing and composing of "Babes" was done as Shucker struggled with his illness, friends said.

After being hospitalized on and off for 2 1/2 years since contracting the disease, Shucker was told by doctors he had developed a brain tumor.

Friends said Shucker seldom spoke of his illness, choosing instead to focus on his work.

Although visibly weakened, Shucker attended an audition session in March 1991 to select the cast for a production of "Babes" at the Matrix Theater in West Hollywood. From his hospital bed, using a portable keyboard, he rescored one of the play's pieces titled, "Give It a Whirl."

It was the second run for "Babes" in Los Angeles, and it opened on Friday, April 12, 1991, the day Shucker died.

AIDS Quilt
Brian Shucker was an award-winning composer and lyricist who wrote the score of Babes, a 1940s-style musical that opened in L.A. the day he died of the complications of AIDS. In the early 80s Shucker met Bill Sawyer, his collaborator and companion. Sawyer wrote the book for "Babes," and was in the process of completing what would have been their second full musical together. Bill Sawyer died exactly four months after his companion. They are listed side by side on the AIDS quilt project.

( Read more... )

http://articles.latimes.com/1991-04-16/news/mn-310_1_brian-shucker

Days of Love: Celebrating LGBT History One Story at a Time by Elisa Rolle
Paperback: 760 pages
Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform; 1 edition (July 1, 2014)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1500563323
ISBN-13: 978-1500563325
Amazon: Days of Love: Celebrating LGBT History One Story at a Time

Days of Love chronicles more than 700 LGBT couples throughout history, spanning 2000 years from Alexander the Great to the most recent winner of a Lambda Literary Award. Many of the contemporary couples share their stories on how they met and fell in love, as well as photos from when they married or of their families. Included are professional portraits by Robert Giard and Stathis Orphanos, paintings by John Singer Sargent and Giovanni Boldini, and photographs by Frances Benjamin Johnson, Arnold Genthe, and Carl Van Vechten among others. “It's wonderful. Laying it out chronologically is inspired, offering a solid GLBT history. I kept learning things. I love the decision to include couples broken by death. It makes clear how important love is, as well as showing what people have been through. The layout and photos look terrific.” Christopher Bram “I couldn’t resist clicking through every page. I never realized the scope of the book would cover centuries! I know that it will be hugely validating to young, newly-emerging LGBT kids and be reassured that they really can have a secure, respected place in the world as their futures unfold.” Howard Cruse “This international history-and-photo book, featuring 100s of detailed bios of some of the most forward-moving gay persons in history, is sure to be one of those bestsellers that gay folk will enjoy for years to come as reference and research that is filled with facts and fun.” Jack Fritscher

Crossposts: http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/2010908.html

Feral Benga (1906-1957) was a Senegalese dancer who lived and worked in Paris in the the 1930s. Benga was the illegitimate son of a wealthy man in Dakar and he migrated to France in order to improve his life. He went to dance rehearsals and wound up playing the drums for Josephine Baker when she performed The Banana Dance. Benga's own reputation as a dancer began to grow and was considered by some the male equivalent of Josephine Baker. Benga was the exotic fetish of the moment among Paris' artsy circles, particularly among his male audience and his body became a symbol of homoeroticism.

There is very little known about Benga and the art historian, James Smalls is currently doing research on Benga. Benga became a model for artistic expression like James Richmond Barthé's famous sculpture, pictures by Carl van Vechten, postcards by George Platt Lynes, paintings by James Porter and Pavel Tchelitchew.

He had a relationship with anthropologist Geoffrey Gorer. Benga and Gorer travelled together to Africa, and Gorer wrote Africa Dances. Originally published in 1935, Africa Dances takes the reader on an odyssey across West Africa, in the company of one of the great black ballet stars of 1930s Paris (Feral Benga). It's a devastating critique of colonial rule, which is shown to be destroying African society while Christian missionaries undermine indigenous morality. The book captures the rich physical and psychological detail of village life-from food and architecture to witch doctors, dance, and magic.

Geoffrey Gorer is an English anthropologist and author, noted for his application of psychoanalytic techniques to anthropology. He had a relationship with Senegalese dancer Feral Benga. Benga and Gorer travelled together to Africa, and Gorer wrote Africa Dances. Benga became a model James Richmond Barthé's famous sculpture, pictures by Carl van Vechten, postcards by George Platt Lynes, paintings by James Porter and Pavel Tchelitchew. Benga died in 1957 and Gorer went back to the UK.

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Geoffrey Gorer (1905 – May 29, 1985), is an English anthropologist and author, noted for his application of psychoanalytic techniques to anthropology. He had a relationship with Senegalese dancer Feral Benga. Benga and Gorer travelled together to Africa, and Gorer wrote Africa Dances. Originally published in 1935, Africa Dances takes the reader on an odyssey across West Africa, in the company of one of the great black ballet stars of 1930s Paris (Feral Benga). It's a devastating critique of colonial rule, which is shown to be destroying African society while Christian missionaries undermine indigenous morality. The book captures the rich physical and psychological detail of village life-from food and architecture to witch doctors, dance, and magic.

He was educated at Charterhouse and at Jesus College, Cambridge. During the 1930s he wrote unpublished fiction and drama. His first book was The Revolutionary Ideas of the Marquis de Sade (1934, revised 1953, 1964). He then published an account of a journey in Africa, Africa Dances (1935, new edns. 1945 : Penguin, 1949, 1962), and another cultural study Bali and Angkor, or, Looking at Life and Death (1936). Hot Strip Tease appeared in 1937 and Himalayan Village in 1938.

Feral Benga by George Platt Lynes, 1934

( Read more... )

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

Crossposts: http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/2078771.html

Kirk LeMoyne "Lem" Billings (April 15, 1916 – May 28, 1981) was a prep school roommate and then lifelong close friend of President John F. Kennedy (May 29, 1917 – November 22, 1963). Billings took leave from his business career to work on Kennedy's 1960 presidential campaign. He had his own room in the White House and declined Kennedy's offers of official positions.

Billings was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, on April 15, 1916, the third child of Frederic Tremaine Billings (1873-1933) and Romaine LeMoyne (1882-1970). His father was a prominent physician and a graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy. His mother was a Mayflower descendant and had ancestors who were prominent abolitionists linked to the underground railroad and negro education. The Billings family was Episcopalian and Republican.

Billings, a 16-year-old third-year student, and Kennedy, a 15-year old second-year student, met at Choate, an elite preparatory school, in the fall of 1933. Billings as a teenager was 6' 2", weighed 175 pounds, and was the strongest member of the Choate crew team. They became fast friends, drawn to each other by their mutual distaste for their school. From Billings' first visit with the Kennedy family for Christmas in Palm Beach in 1933, he joined them for holidays, participated in family events, and was treated like a member of the family. The Depression had hurt the Billings family financially, and Lem Billings was at Choate on scholarship. Billings repeated his senior year so that he and Kennedy could graduate from Choate together in 1935. They spent a semester together at Princeton University until Kennedy withdrew for medical reasons. While attending college, they frequently spent weekends together in New York City.

Discretion was also the watchword within all of society's fancier families. "The sexual scene I'm sure was exactly the same, but it was much more discreet," said "Stephen Reynolds" (a pseudonym), the son of a wealthy New England manufacturer who first started visiting Manhattan in the late 1930s. Reynolds's family was extremely rich, and his father was unaffected by the Crash. At the Choate School, Reynolds was in the same form as John Kennedy. "Nobody liked him very much," Reynolds recalled. "I wasn't crazy about him personally. But if I had known he was going to be president, I would have been so nice to him. It never crossed our mind. We voted him `Most Likely to Succeed' because his father was ambassador to Great Britain, and we naturally thought, Well, he'll be taken care of. But we never dreamed he would be president. He was very loud and-I don't like to use the word, but I'm going to-very common. My family background is New England, and you know what they thought of the Kennedys. They thought they were pushy Irish. He had kind of fire engine hair-it all flew around-and he had a roommate called Lemoyne Billings." Billings, who happened to be gay, remained close to John and Bobby Kennedy all his life. --Charles Kaiser. The Gay Metropolis: The Landmark History of Gay Life in America (Kindle Locations 269-274). Kindle Edition.

Crossposts: http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/2076093.html

Helmut Berger (born Helmut Steinberger; 29 May 1944) is an Austrian film and television actor. He is most famous for his work with Luchino Visconti, particularly in his performance as King Ludwig II of Bavaria in Ludwig, for which he received a special David di Donatello award. He was Luchino Visconti' last partner, for 12 years before the director's death in 1976. It has been said that Berger tried to commit suicide the day of the first anniversary of Visconti's death.

He appears primarily in European cinema, but has also acted in films such as The Godfather Part III and Iron Cross.

He was born in Bad Ischl, Austria, into a family of hoteliers. Berger initially trained and worked in this field, even though he had no interest in gastronomy or the hospitality industry. At age eighteen, he moved to London, England, where he did odd-jobs while taking acting classes. After studying languages in Perugia, Italy, Berger moved to Rome, Italy.

In 1964, he first met the film director Luchino Visconti, with whom he later had an intimate relationship. Visconti gave him his first acting role in the film Le streghe (The Witches, 1967) (in the episode "La Strega Bruciata Viva"), but he gained international prominence as the amoral Martin von Essenbeck in Visconti's The Damned (1969). In that film, in what is perhaps his best-known scene, he mimics Marlene Dietrich in the film The Blue Angel (1930). In Visconti's Ludwig (1972), Berger portrays Ludwig II of Bavaria from his blooming youth, to his dissolute final years. In 1974, Berger starred with Burt Lancaster in Visconti's Conversation Piece.

The famous nude photo of Victor Skrebneski was taken in Chicago during the American promotional tour for "The Damned". Helmut Berger, out of this photo, did some Christmas cards, which he sent to his friends in the world. "Helmut Berger - A Life in Pictures" is published by Schwarzkopf & Schwarzkopf Verlag. 200 pages, 99.95 euros. © "HELMUT BERGER: A Life in Pictures Schwarzkopf & Schwarzkopf Verlag."
Luchino Visconti di Modrone, Count of Lonate Pozzolo, was an Italian theatre, opera and cinema director, as well as a screenwriter. He is best known for his films The Leopard (1963) and Death in Venice (1971). Visconti made no secret of his homosexuality. His last partner was the Austrian actor Helmut Berger, who played Martin in Visconti's film The Damned. Berger also appeared in Visconti's Ludwig in 1972 and Conversation Piece in 1974 along with Burt Lancaster.

( Read more... )

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

Luchino Visconti di Modrone, Count of Lonate Pozzolo (2 November 1906 - 17 March 1976), was an Italian theatre, opera and cinema director, as well as a screenwriter. He is best known for his films The Leopard (1963) and Death in Venice (1971).

Visconti made no secret of his homosexuality. His last partner was the Austrian actor Helmut Berger, who played Martin in Visconti's film The Damned. Berger also appeared in Visconti's Ludwig in 1972 and Conversation Piece in 1974 along with Burt Lancaster. Other lovers included Franco Zeffirelli, who also worked as part of the crew in production design, as assistant director, and other roles in a number of Visconti's films, operas, and theatrical productions.

Visconti, who was "born into an ancient aristocratic family in Milan, one of seven children of the Grand Duke of Modrone and his wife Carla (nee Erba, heiress to Erba Pharmaceuticals)" was known as Luchino Visconti di Modrone. In his early years he was exposed to art, music and theatre, and met the composer Giacomo Puccini, the conductor Arturo Toscanini and the writer Gabriele d'Annunzio.

During World War II Visconti joined the Italian Communist Party.

He died in Rome of a stroke at age 69. There is a museum dedicated to the director's work in Ischia.

He began his filmmaking career as an assistant director on Jean Renoir's Toni (1935) and Une partie de campagne (1936), thanks to the intercession of their common friend, Coco Chanel. After a short tour of the United States, where he visited Hollywood, he returned to Italy to be Renoir's assistant again, this time for La Tosca (1939), a production that was interrupted and later completed by German director Karl Koch because of World War II.

( Read more... )

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

( Further Readings )

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

Crossposts: http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/1967662.html

Vicky Gene Robinson (born May 29, 1947 in Fayette County, Kentucky) is an American retired bishop of the Diocese of New Hampshire in the Episcopal Church in the United States of America. Robinson was elected bishop coadjutor in 2003 and succeeded as diocesan bishop in March 2004, becoming the first openly gay, non-celibate Episcopal bishop. Before becoming bishop, he served as Canon to the Ordinary to the VIII Bishop of New Hampshire.

Robinson is featured prominently in the 2007 documentary "For the Bible Tells Me So." In 2008 he spent several weeks in the UK where he was the only bishop excluded from participating in the Lambeth conference, an important meeting hosted by the Archibishop of Canterbury every ten years. Presumably Robinson's partner of over twenty years, Mark Andrew, would not have been permitted to join the concurrent Spouses' Conference hosted by the Archibishop's wife.

Robinson is widely known for being the first priest in an openly gay relationship to be consecrated a bishop in a major Christian denomination believing in the historic episcopate. His sexual orientation was privately acknowledged in the 1970s, when he studied in seminary, was ordained, married, and started a family. He went public with his sexual identity and divorced in 1986. He entered a formal relationship with his current spouse in 1988. When delegates to the Episcopal convention were voting on the ratification of his election, it became an issue of controversy. His election was ratified 62 to 45. After his election, many theologically conservative Episcopalians in the United States have aligned themselves with bishops outside the Episcopal Church in the United States, a process called the Anglican realignment. His story has appeared in print and film.

In November 1987, Gene Robinson, now a retired bishop of the Diocese of New Hampshire in the Episcopal Church, met his partner, Mark Andrew, while on vacation in St. Croix. On July 2, 1988, Robinson and Andrew moved into a new house and had it blessed by Bishop Douglas Theuner, an event which they considered to be the formal recognition of their life together. They were legally joined in June 2008 in a private civil union ceremony, followed by a religious ceremony, both in St Paul's Church, Concord. Robinson and Andrew ended their union in 2014.

( Read more... )

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

( Further Readings )

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

Crossposts: http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/2079036.html

Paula Gunn Allen (October 24, 1939 – May 29, 2008) was a Native American poet, literary critic, lesbian activist, and novelist.

Born Paula Marie Francis in Albuquerque, Allen grew up in Cubero, New Mexico, a Spanish-Mexican land grant village bordering the Laguna Pueblo reservation. Of mixed Laguna, Sioux, Scottish, and Lebanese-American descent, Allen always identified most closely with the people among whom she spent her childhood and upbringing.

Having obtained a BA and MFA from the University of Oregon, Allen gained her PhD at the University of New Mexico, where she taught and where she began her research into various tribal religions.

Allen's studies would eventually result in The Sacred Hoop: Recovering the Feminine in American Indian Traditions, a controversial text which argues that the accounts of Native beliefs and traditions were subverted by phallogocentric European explorers and colonizers, who downplayed or erased the central role that woman played in most Native societies. Allen argued that many Native tribes were "gynocratic", with women making the principal decisions, while others believed in absolute balance between male and female, with neither side gaining dominance.

( Read more... )

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

( Paula Gunn Allen, 1988, by Robert Giard )

( Further Readings )

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

Crossposts: http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/2077952.html

Appetites: Tales of Lesbian Lust by Ily Goyanes
Lesbian Anthology / Collection / Erotica
Series: A Lizzie's Bedtime Stories Anthology
Paperback: 200 pages
Publisher: The Liz McMullen Show Publications; First edition (February 2, 2015)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0692363688
ISBN-13: 978-0692363683
Amazon: Appetites: Tales of Lesbian Lust

Appetites: Tales of Lesbian Lust is like an all-you-can-eat buffet prepared especially for you by some of the world's most celebrated chefs. Whether you're in the mood for erotic adventures or rocking romances, the thirteen stories in this collection are sure to satisfy your hunger as the characters satisfy theirs. Relax and indulge as some of the genre's best writers, including D. L. King, Allison Wonderland, Kiki DeLovely, Jean Roberta, and Erzabet Bishop, as well as a few talented first timers, regale you with vivid descriptions of lesbian lust, featuring everything from exquisite edibles to titillating tousles. Curated by award-winning editor and author, Ily Goyanes, this collection will satisfy your hunger, whether it be for sweet romance or scintillating sex—or both. Bon Appétit! Authors: Allison Wonderland, Foxy Kettir, D.L. King, Lauren Jade, Elle, Erzabet Bishop, Bonnie Morris, Liz McMullen, Ashton Peal, Jillian Boyd, Beth Wylde, Kiki DeLovely, Jean Roberta and Ily Goyanes

2015 Rainbow Awards Guidelines: http://www.elisarolle.com/rainbowawards/rainbow_awards_2015.html

Crossposts: http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/3064597.html

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Page Summary

Bill Sawyer & Brian Shucker
Feral Benga & Geoffrey Gorer
John Fitzgerald Kennedy & Lem Billings
Luchino Visconti & Helmut Berger
Gene Robinson & Mark Andrew
Paula Gunn Allen (October 24, 1939 – May 29, 2008)
2015 Rainbow Awards Submission: Appetites, Tales of Lesbian Lust by Ily Goyanes

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Days of Love Gallery - Copyright Legenda: http://www.elisarolle.com/gallery/index_legenda.html

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Elisa - My reviews and Ramblings

LGBT reviews and ramblings since 2006

May. 29th, 2015

May. 29th, 2015

Bill Sawyer & Brian Shucker

Feral Benga & Geoffrey Gorer

John Fitzgerald Kennedy & Lem Billings

Luchino Visconti & Helmut Berger

Gene Robinson & Mark Andrew

Paula Gunn Allen (October 24, 1939 – May 29, 2008)

2015 Rainbow Awards Submission: Appetites, Tales of Lesbian Lust by Ily Goyanes

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December 2025

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