The Gay Aesthetic

Those Victorians!
#VintageMen

William "Billy" Haines and Joan Crawford. Of Billy and his partner, Jimmie Shields, Crawford said they were “the happiest married couple in Hollywood”.

When she arrived in Hollywood, she was a jazz baby as rough as a pair of burlap undies. He was already a top star hiding a career ending secret. Kindred spirits, they hit it off like a house fire. He gave her class. She gave him devotion. And they became lifelong friends. #film

les femmes du noir

#VintageMen
First tea
Then shopping
And maybe later .....

Dorothy Arzner (b. 3 Jan 1897), American film director whose career in Hollywood spanned from 1919 into the early 1940s. With the exception of silent-film director Lois Weber, until her retirement in 1943, Arzner was the only female director working in Hollywood.

In the 30s, Ross Alexander was a charismatic, highly talented actor on the rise at Warners. But weary of covering up his homosexual antics (supposedly at one point blackmail was involved), the parts the studio offered him were hardly A-material and Ross suffered because of it. After a series of sham marriages, one of which resulted in the suicide of the bride, and becoming increasingly alcoholic, on January 2, 1937, three weeks after his third marriage, with his professional and personal life in disarray, Ross shot himself in the head with a .22 caliber pistol. With despair the theme of “Horses”, Alexander and Twelvetrees (who left films in 1939 after struggling to establish a career beyond the lachrymose roles she was offered and who committed suicide in 1958 after a lengthy illness), were intriguing choices. And likely by no coincidence, Henry Fonda (who in the 30s had been close personal friends with Ross) had a daughter, Jane, who was the star of the film.

I don’t know if it was Pollock’s or the screenwriter’s idea, but when the emcee welcomes two actors to the audience in “They Shoot Horses, Don’t They” (1969), they picked Ross Alexander and Helen Twelvetrees. A telling choice. Click on the tweet, then ALT on the photo for more.

William Haines (b. 02 Jan 1900) was a major silent film star at MGM until his 1933 arrest with a sailor in a YMCA. After Louie Mayer fired him and cancelled his contract, Billy became a successful interior designer, much sought after by the Hollywood elite.

Also starring Michael Sarrazin, Susannah York (Oscar-nominated), Gig Young (Oscar-winner), Red Buttons, Bonnie Bedelia, and Bruce Dern. It received nine nominations at the 42nd Academy Awards including Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay (from the Horace McCoy 1935 novel) and holds the record for obtaining the most Oscar nominations without receiving one for Best Picture. Perhaps too bleak.

After the year I had, it seemed fitting to end it with a viewing of “They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?”, Sidney Pollock’s 1969 ode to desperation and despair. Starring Jane Fonda (returning from France, graduating from sex symbol to dramatic actress, and Oscar-nominated), it's an American classic.

Jamie O'Neill (b. 01 Jan 1962) gay Irish author whose critically acclaimed novel, At Swim, Two Boys (2001), earned him the highest advance ever paid for an Irish novel and frequent praise as the natural successor to James Joyce, Flann O'Brien and Samuel Beckett.

E. M. Forster (b. 01 Jan 1879) English author best known for his novels A Room with a View (1908), Howards End (1910), A Passage to India (1924), and Maurice (1971), a gay love story published posthumously because his own homosexuality had not been widely acknowledged.

It's the boots that made the outfit.
The Texas Lodge 1940
#VintageMen

Celebrating Ismail Merchant (b. 25 Dec), Academy Award nominated film producer and part of Merchant Ivory Productions, which included Merchant's longtime professional and domestic partner, director James Ivory. A Room With A View, Howard's End, Remains of the Day, Maurice

Celebrating Bob Smith (b. 24 Dec 1958) American comedian and author (“Openly Bob” 1997; “Way to Go, Smith!” 1999); who was the first openly gay comedian to appear on The Tonight Show and the first to have his own HBO half-hour comedy special.

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auld lang syne - the good years

Cary Grant style - as seen in Town and Country

les femmes du noir - Jane Greer

les femmes du noir - Coleen Gray

Classic films from the New Hollywood (1967 - 1979) - when auteur cinema created some of our most unforgettable movies
#film

les femmes du noir - Marie Windsor

#VintageMen
Feeling the love

Classic films from the New Hollywood (1967 - 1979) - when auteur cinema created some of our most unforgettable movies
#film

les femmes du noir - Claire Trevor

les femmes du noir - Audrey Totter

Classic films from the New Hollywood (1967 - 1979) - when auteur cinema created some of our most unforgettable movies
#film

Celebrating artist Paul Cadmus (b. 17 Dec) known for his paintings of gritty social interactions in urban settings which combined elements of eroticism and social critique. His 1934 painting for the WPA, “The Fleet’s In”, created a public outcry due to its erotic exaggeration.

I always turned to the bottle. It was easier and cheaper to find a liquor store 🤓

Constance Ford, model & actress, photographed by Philippe Halsman for the 1941 Elizabeth Arden Victory Red campaign. Her most famous acting role was as Sandra Dee's heartless mother in A Summer Place (1959) who slaps Dee so hard she crashes into a tacky tinsel Christmas tree. Happy Holidays!

Classic films from the New Hollywood (1967 - 1979) - when auteur cinema created some of our most unforgettable movies
#film

Rivals. By 1931, with his career thriving, Coop joined the Countess Dorothy di Frasso for an extended stay in Italy. When he ignored Paramount’s appeals to return, they found a new star with initials suspiciously like his own. Cary Grant. For whom he developed a lasting contempt.

After a drugs-and-sex scandal was quietly hushed up, Tommy lost his contract at Disney, made a few “beach and bikinis” movies, and before becoming a professional carpet cleaner, wrapped it up with “Mars Needs Women”. “Mars Needs Women” (1967) would have been the nadir of anyone’s career. It was filmed in Dallas on a two-week shooting schedule, a $20,000 budget, and featured as one of the abductees a local exotic dancer named Bubbles Cash.

Remembering Tommy Kirk (b. 10 Dec), a Disney Studios mainstay in the Fifties and Sixties whose career ended abruptly when news he was gay threatened to become public. Drug addiction, depression, and low-budget films followed before he left acting to open a carpet cleaning business in the mid-1970s.