Arch & Bruce Brown

[reviews_and_ramblings]

Filmmaker, photographer, playwright, and philanthropist Arch Brown died of natural causes at his home in Palm Springs, California, on September 3, 2012. He was 76 years old. (Picture: @James Waller)

Born Arnold Krueger in Chicago on June 2, 1936, Brown attended Northwestern University before moving to New York City in the late 1950s. There, he met his life partner, Bruce Brown, whose last name he used professionally.

Following Bruce Brown’s death in 1993, Arch Brown established the Arch and Bruce Brown Foundation, which gives grants to LGBT playwrights and to theater groups mounting LGBT-themed plays and which has sponsored periodic literary competitions awarding prizes to playwrights and fiction writers whose works are “based on, or inspired by, a historic person, culture, event, or work of art.” Among the works the Foundation awarded recognition through its literary grants were plays by Carolyn Gage (The Last Reading of Charlotte Cushman), David Brendan Hopes (St. Patrick’s Well), David Johnston (Candy & Dorothy), Quiara Alegria Hudes (Pennsylvania for Stargazers), and novels by Jameson Currier (Where the Rainbow Ends), Harlan Greene (The Lost Light), Raymond Luczak (Men With Their Hands), and Merlyn A. Hermes (The Lunatic, the Lover and the Poet).

Brown gained famed during the 1970s and early 1980s as the director of a series of feature-length gay pornographic films, including, among others, The Night Before (1973), Five Hard Pieces (1977), Harley’s Angels (1977), Dynamite! (1978; starring Jack Wrangler), So Many Men, So Little Time (1979) and All Tied Up (1981). During this period, he also worked as photographer, taking erotic photographs that appeared in gay slicks such as Mandate and Honcho.


Arch Brown & Bruce Brown are interred together in Maple Hill Cemetery, Charlotte, Eaton County, Michigan, USA, Plot: E-64
Arch Brown (1936 - 2012) attended Northwestern University before moving to New York City in the late 1950s. There, he met his life partner, Bruce Brown, whose last name he used professionally. Following Bruce Brown’s death in 1993, Arch Brown established the Arch and Bruce Brown Foundation, which gives grants to LGBT playwrights and to theater groups mounting LGBT-themed plays and which has sponsored periodic literary competitions awarding prizes to playwrights and fiction writers.

In the late 1970s, Brown began writing plays, which he continued to do until very recently. His first play, News Boy, was his most successful, receiving an Off Broadway production in 1979; centering on the coming-out of the gay son of a conservative politician, the play was later produced by numerous community theater groups around the country. A 1998 comedy by Brown, FREEZE!, received the Eric Bentley Playwriting Prize that year and has been produced several times. During the last decade of his life, Brown founded and ran the Thorny Theater, in Palm Springs, which mounted several gay-themed plays each season; the theater closed in 2010.

Brown’s remains will be interred at a cemetery in Charlotte, Michigan, in a grave next to that of Bruce Brown. There are no survivors.

Source: http://www.lambdaliterary.org/features/rem/09/22/arch-brown-filmmaker-and-playwright-is-dead-at-76/#sthash.l2fuoVia.dpuf (Posted on 22. Sep, 2012 by Jameson Currier in Remembrances)

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