Bob Mackie & Ray Aghayan

Robert Gordon "Bob" Mackie (born March 24, 1940 in Monterey Park, California) is an American fashion designer, best known for his costuming for entertainment icons such as Cher, Judy Garland, Diana Ross, Liza Minnelli, Tina Turner, and Mitzi Gaynor. He was the costume designer for The Carol Burnett Show during its entire 11 year run and designed the costumes for the 1993 television adaptation of Gypsy.

On 14 March 1960, Mackie married LuLu Porter (née Marianne Wolford), a singer, actress, and later an acting teacher. She had given birth to the couple's only child, a son, Robert Gordon Mackie Jr. (aka Robin Mackie), the previous year. The couple divorced in 1963, and Robin Mackie, a makeup artist, died in 1994 of an AIDS-related illness.

Mackie's life partner was costume designer Ray Aghayan, whom Mackie had started working with as an assistant. The two worked together on projects at least through the 1970s, as well as having separate clients.

Mackie is also known for his exclusive dress designs for collector's edition Barbie dolls.

Mackie designed costumes for the Las Vegas Strip-based burlesque shows, Hallelujah Hollywood, which was inspired by the Ziegfeld Follies and ran at the MGM Grand (now Bally's Las Vegas) from 1974 to 1980, and Jubilee!, which has been running since 1981. Both productions involve intricate, elaborate costumes and grandiose sets. Images of many of Mackie’s design drawings for these productions are available in the Showgirls collection from UNLV Libraries Digital Collections.


Gorgen Ray Aghayan was a costume designer in the United States film industry. He won an Emmy Award in 1967 with his partner Bob Mackie for his work in Alice Through the Looking Glass. Aghayan was the lifetime partner of costume designer Bob Mackie for nearly 50 years. Aghayan was also nominated for an Academy Award for Costume Design three times for his work (Gaily, Gaily, Lady Sings the Blues, Funny Lady). Aghayan died on October 10, 2011 at his home in Los Angeles, California.


Bob Mackie Gown Worn by Cher in 1988 - Fred Leighton Jewelry

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

Gorgen Ray Aghayan (July 28, 1928 – October 10, 2011) was a costume designer in the United States film industry. He won an Emmy Award in 1967 with his partner Bob Mackie for his work in Alice Through the Looking Glass. Aghayan was also nominated for an Academy Award for Costume Design three times for his work in "Gaily, Gaily" in 1970, "Lady Sings the Blues" in 1973 and "Funny Lady" in 1976. He was also responsible for designing the costumes for the opening and closing ceremonies of the 1984 Summer Olympics held in Los Angeles. (Picture: Ray Aghayan with Judy Garland)

Aghayan was the lifetime partner of costume designer Bob Mackie for nearly 50 years.

Aghayan died on October 10, 2011 at his home in Los Angeles, California.




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

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

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

David Kermani & John Ashbery

John Ashbery (born July 28, 1927), one of the leading contemporary American poets, avoids explicit gay content in his poetry, but his work shares concerns with other late twentieth-century gay writing. He lives in two places-a rented apartment in Chelsea and an ornate Colonial-revival house in Hudson, New York-with his partner David Kermani. They met in 1970, when Ashbery was 42 and Kermani was 23.

Ashbery was born in 1929 near Rochester, New York. He is author of more than fifteen books of poems, beginning with Turandot and Other Poems in 1953, and is considered one of the leading contemporary American poets. His works range in length from two-line poems and haiku to the book-length Flow Chart.

Ashbery is a disconcerting poet to read. He produces poems that look like poems, yet do not live up to our expectations of poems and how they create meaning. His poems follow the action of his mind and so always are in danger of being solipsistic, yet they are also clearly engaged in a discourse with the reader.

Ashbery is often referred to as a philosophical poet. He is clearly concerned with the nature of language and its connection to thought. He is also concerned more specifically with the nature of poetry and its boundaries in the second half of the twentieth century, as well as with the relationship between poet and reader.

Although Ashbery's poems often have the feel of autobiography, he does not include his own life in his poetry in a recognizable way. His claim to being a gay poet depends more on his friendship with Frank O'Hara and his inclusion in O'Hara's poems than it does on anything in his own writing. For example, Ashbery appears as a character in O'Hara's "At the Old Place," under the names "Ashes," "J.A.," and "John." In a memorable section of this poem celebrating a seedy gay bar, O'Hara dances with Ashbery: "Wrapped in Ashes' arms I glide. / (It's heaven!)."


Frank O'Hara and John Ashbery
John Ashbery, a leading contemporary American poets, avoids explicit gay content in his poetry, but his work shares concerns with other late twentieth-century gay writing. He lives in two places-a rented apartment in Chelsea and an ornate Colonial-revival house in Hudson, New York-with his partner David Kermani. They met in 1970, when Ashbery was 42 and Kermani was 23. He adopts an attitude similar to camp. His ironic mocking of the culture he lives in betrays his passion for that culture.

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Citation Information
Author: Johnson, Terrence
Entry Title: Ashbery, John
General Editor: Claude J. Summers
Publication Name: glbtq: An Encyclopedia of Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer Culture
Publication Date: 2002
Date Last Updated October 13, 2007
Web Address www.glbtq.com/literature/ashbery_j.html
Publisher glbtq, Inc.
1130 West Adams
Chicago, IL 60607
Today's Date July 28, 2013
Encyclopedia Copyright: © 2002-2006, glbtq, Inc.
Entry Copyright © 1995, 2002 New England Publishing Associates

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

Henry Blake Fuller & Wakeman T. Ryan

Henry Blake Fuller (January 9, 1857 – July 28, 1929) was a United States novelist and short story writer, born in Chicago, Illinois.

Perhaps his finest achievement is the controversial Bertram Cope's Year (1919), a subtle novel about homosexuals. Fuller self-published the novel in Chicago after unsuccessfully making the rounds of several New York publishing houses. Set on the campus of Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, it featured an attractive young English instructor who becomes the elusive object of desire for several young women and at least two men of different ages. Cope's primary emotional attachment is to his effeminate college chum Arthur Lemoyne, who comes to Evanston to live with Cope until Lemoyne is expelled from the campus for making a backstage pass at another male student while dressed as a woman. The novel ends on an ambiguous note concerning the issue of Cope's sexuality. It received less than enthusiastic reviews from critics who did not understand the book's satirical intentions. It puzzled critics and embarrassed his friends. Upon its republication in 1998, it received enthusiastic reviews.

Fuller was born in Chicago on January 9, 1857. He never married. His journals from his teenage days make it clear he was in love with some dormitory roommates at Allison Classical Academy. At the age of nineteen, he wrote in an imaginary personal advertisement: "I would pass by twenty beautiful women to look upon a handsome man".

At the age of 34 he wrote that he was in love with an adolescent boy who had blue eyes and strawberry blonde hair. Five years later, Fuller wrote and published a short play, At Saint Judas's, about a homosexual who commits suicide at the wedding of his former lover. It is credited with being the first American play dealing explicitly with homosexuality. In 1924 Fuller embarked upon the last of his many European tours with William Emery Shepherd, a 24-year-old college student. Their letters do not indicate their relationship was anything but a friendship. The trip exhausted Fuller, who continued writing literary reviews for a variety of newspapers and magazines upon his return to Chicago, as well as two novels that were published posthumously.


Chicago Historical Society, ICH 10342. Henry Blake Fuller (©1)
At the age of 34 Henry Blake Fuller wrote that he was in love with an adolescent boy who had blue eyes and strawberry blonde hair. Five years later, Fuller wrote and published a short play, At Saint Judas's, about a homosexual who commits suicide at the wedding of his former lover. It is credited with being the first American play dealing explicitly with homosexuality. Fuller died in Chicago on July 28, 1929, "at the home of Wakeman T. Ryan, with whom he had lived for the last three years."

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Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Blake_Fuller

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

Judy Grahn (born July 28, 1940)

Judy Rae Grahn (born July 28, 1940, in Chicago, Illinois) is an American poet. Grahn's work focuses on the feminist and lesbian experience.

Judy Rae Grahn was born in 1940 in Chicago, Illinois. Her father was a cook and her mother was a photographer's assistant. Grahn described her childhood as taking place in "an economically poor and spiritually depressed late 1950s New Mexico desert town near the hellish border of West Texas." When she was eighteen, she eloped with a student named Yvonne at a nearby college . Grahn credits Yvonne with opening her eyes to gay culture. Soon thereafter she would join the United States Air Force. At twenty-one she was discharged (in a "less than honorable," manner, she stated) for being a lesbian.

At the age of 25, Grahn suffered from Inoculation lymphoreticulosis, or Cat Scratch Fever, which led to her being in a coma. After overcoming her illness, she realized that she wanted to become a poet. This realization was partially due to the abuse and mistreatment Grahn faced for being openly lesbian. Of the incident, Grahn stated "I realized that if I was going to do what I had set out to do in my life, I would have to go all the way with it and take every single risk you could take.... I decided I would not do anything I didn't want to do that would keep me from my art."

Grahn would move to the west coast where she would become active in the feminist poetry movement of the 1970s. During this period, many rumors surfaced pertaining to Grahn's weight and a possible eating disorder. Grahn attributes her thin frame to poor eating habits, smoking cigarettes, and drinking coffee.

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

( The earring: Judy Grahn with Chris Brandenberger, 1988, by Robert Giard )

( Further Readings )

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

Sarah Schulman (born July 28, 1958)

Sarah Miriam Schulman (born July 28, 1958 in New York City) is an American novelist, historian and playwright. An early chronicler of the AIDS crisis, she wrote on AIDS and social issues, publishing in The Village Voice in the early 1980s, and writing the first piece on AIDS and the homeless, which appeared in The Nation. She is openly a lesbian.

Sarah Schulman is the author of fifteen published or soon to be published works: nine novels, four nonfiction books, and a play.

Schulman's early novels were set in the artistic, bohemian, lesbian subculture of the Lower East Side of Manhattan. Books such as The Sophie Horowitz Story and Girls, Visions and Everything were published by small presses. After Delores was published by E. P. Dutton in 1988, and received a favorable review in The New York Times, was translated into eight languages, and was awarded an American Library Association Stonewall Book Award in 1989.

Schulman's subsequent novel, 1990's People in Trouble described the lives of AIDS activists. In 1992, Empathy was released, an experimental novel about lesbian existence. The 1995 novel Rat Bohemia was listed as one of the 100 best lesbian and gay novels by The Publishing Triangle. Her 1998 historical novel Shimmer was set in New York City during the McCarthy era and features a black male protagonist and a white lesbian protagonist.

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

( Sarah Schulman – NYC, 1988/89, by Robert Giard )

( Further Readings )

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

GRL: Tempeste O'Riley

Starting from June 1, 2015, I will daily feature authors attending the three conventions I will join, Euro Pride in Munich (July), UK Meet in Bristol (September) and GRL in San Diego (October).

For the GRL in San Diego, October 15-18, 2015, today author is Tempeste O'Riley: Tempeste O’Riley is an out and proud omnisexual / bi-woman whose best friend growing up had the courage to do what she couldn’t–defy the hate and come out. He has been her hero ever since.

Though new to writing M/M, she has done many things in her life, though writing has always drawn her back–no matter what else life has thrown her way. She counts her friends, family, and Muse as her greatest blessings in life. She lives in Wisconsin with her children, reading, writing, and enjoying life.

Tempe is also a proud member of Romance Writers of America® and Rainbow Romance Writers.

Further Readings:

Caged Sanctuary by Tempeste O'Riley
Paperback: 204 pages
Publisher: Dreamspinner Press (December 29, 2014)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1632166127
ISBN-13: 978-1632166128
Amazon: Caged Sanctuary
Amazon Kindle: Caged Sanctuary

Kaden Thorn, a dental surgeon who lives a quiet life, has no hope of finding the love he craves. A vicious gay bashing cost him the use of his legs and confined him to a wheelchair. He has given up hope of finding a Dom or even a nonkink partner to love him. When his best friend practically forces him to attend a dinner party, the last thing he expects is a strong Dom who can see beyond his wheels.

Deacon James is an architect and a demanding Dom, but he has spent the past couple of years without a sub or partner. When an employee invites him to a dinner party to meet his girlfriend, Deacon smells a setup but agrees anyway. He prides himself on being an excellent judge of character, and when he meets the younger dentist, he sees past the chair and finds a sweet submissive man who more than piques his interest.

Kade's fears and demons continue to haunt him, challenging Deacon to use everything he's learned as a Dom to earn Kade’s trust and submission. Deacon's determined, though, willing to battle all of it to have Kade by his side and at his feet.

2015 Rainbow Awards Submission: An Older Man by Wayne Hoffman

An Older Man by Wayne Hoffman
Gay Contemporary General Fiction
Paperback: 148 pages
Publisher: Bear Bones Books (August 8, 2015)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1590212916
ISBN-13: 978-1590212912
Amazon: An Older Man
Amazon Kindle: An Older Man

Moe Pearlman — once the 20-something protagonist of Hard — is now over 40, overweight, and going gray. For someone used to being the adorable younger guy chasing after older men, that’s not particularly easy. But Moe’s whole conception of himself is challenged when he spends Bear Week in Provincetown, an event that brings thousands of men to the tip of Cape Cod the week after Independence Day.

Still singular in his focus and sexual appetites, Moe hopes he’ll find a hot older guy — at tea dance, walking down Commercial Street, or cruising the Dick Dock — and have an intense summer fling. But things aren't going exactly as planned. Joining him on vacation is Moe’s ex-lover Gene and Gene’s new boyfriend Carlos, so Moe has no reason to feel lonely, but when the older objects of Moe’s affection start looking right past him in favor of younger rivals, Moe is shaken to the core.

One thing is certain: When Moe gets on the ferry to go home after a week in Provincetown, he won't be the same man he was when he arrived.

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