Born On This Day- August 2nd... Director, John Dexter

John Dexter worked & mingled with the greatest talents of his day: Laurence Olivier, Joan Plowright, Rudolf Nureyev, Paul Scofield, Richard Burton, Stephen Sondheim, Maria Callas, Anthony Hopkins, Kenneth Tynan, & Maggie Smith, among others. Often working with a nearly bare stage to draw out the audience's imagination, Dexter worked to bring freshness to his work without getting in the way of the considerable talent that he had assembled. When the producers of M Butterflyapproached him to direct, Dexter countered: “I am known to be difficult, British, homosexual, & expensive, & whilst I can, with modified rapture, admit to the first 3 charges, the last is deeply wounding.''

Dexter, with little formal education, was a leading English director of theater & opera. He won 2 Tony Awards, & was known for the sweep of his directorial imagination with contemporary plays & classics. In the late 1950's & early 1960's Dexter led the Royal Court Theater into trying new & venturesome plays. Under the leadership of Laurence Olivier, he also served for 7 years as an associate director of Britain's National Theater. In later years, as a director of opera & as director of productions for the Metropolitan Opera (from 1974 to 1981), he achieved an international reputation for a new theatre form.

He won his Tony Awards as best director for David Henry Hwang's M Butterfly, & for directing Peter Shaffer's Equus. His final Broadway production was a revival of A Threepenny Opera starring Sting.

Dexter's career led him from small, naturalistic plays to grand epics, & he moved between genres with apparent ease, although sometimes with controversy. The range of his work was demonstrated by the plays he did in association with Mr. Shaffer: the historical spectacle of The Royal Hunt Of The Sun, the farce Black Comedy & the psychological drama Equus.

Shaffer: ''Dexter directs powerfully through suggestion. Into the theatrical spaces he contrives, flows the communal imagination of an audience. He enables it to charge the action of a play with electric life. He is a master of gesture & of economy. Esthetically, his foundation ranges Noh drama to Bertolt Brecht: the plain plank; the clear light; the visual pleasure of the set. He is naturally drawn to plays which demand elaborate physical actions to complete them.''

I was fortunate enough to have spent Christmas Eve-1976 at the apartment of actor Michael Higgins who was appearing with Richard Burton in Equus on Broadway at the time. Mr.Higgins' daughter was a friend of my buddy WCK3. John Dexter was in attendance. His acerbic wit & biting tongue were a bit cruel & I was more than a little intimidated, but I sensed that beneath the satire & irony there was self-doubt & nervous tension. Being Christmas, I told him that I greatly admired his work & gave him a big hug. He died in 1990.

Was King James I The First Openly Gay Monarch?

King James I, who commissioned The King James Bible & to whom it was dedicated, loved men & had sex with them. I wonder if Pat Robertson thinks about that when quoting Leviticus? The title page of The King James Bible boasted that it was "newlytranslated out of the original tongues", but the work was actually a revision of The Bishop's Bible of 1568, which was a revision of The Great Bible of 1539, which was itself based on 3 previous English translations from the early 1500s. So, the men who produced the King James Bible not only inherited some of the errors made by previous English translators, but invented some of their own.

Without King James, the most widely touted Bible in Christian history would never have been produced. When I was in Presbyterian Sunday School, I wish the teacher had thought to mention that the quoted scripture reading from a Gay Bible.

When Mary Queen of Scots was forced to abdicate, her 1 year old son James became the King of Scotland. At 14, he fell in love with 38 year old- Esme Stewart, 1st Duke of Lennox. Accounts from the time claim that he was “in such love with him as in the open sight of the people often times he will clasp him about the neck with his arms & kiss him." The disapproving Scottish nobles first made Lennox choose between James & his Catholicism. He chose James. Lennox's life was threatened & he fled to France.

When Elizabeth I died in 1603, James became King of England, his exploits with men were well known & Londoners snidely said, “Elizabeth was King, now James is Queen”. James fell in love in 1607, when he attended a jousting tournament & eyed 17 year old Robert Carr being thrown from his horse & breaking his leg. James made Carr a gentleman of the bedchamber. He gave Carr many gifts, among them the divorce decree for the married woman he loved. For a wedding gift he gave Carr the title- 1st Earl of Somerset. Carr preferred his wife to James, even when it was revealed she had poisoned his best friend Sir Thomas Overbury, who had been against their marriage. To save her, Carr threatened to reveal his sexual relationship with James at the trial. Carr didn't, but his wife confessed her crime & they were both sentenced to die. James held them in the tower for 7 years, & then pardoned them. He later gave them an estate in the country.

James had now fallen in love with hunky George Villiers, whom he later made 1st Duke of Buckingham. Buckingham became good friends with James’s wife Anne; she addressed him in affectionate letters begging him to be "always true" to her husband. Buckingham wrote in a letter to James: "Sir, all the way hither I entertained myself, your unworthy servant, with this dispute, whether you loved me now... better than at the time which I shall never forget at Farnham, where the bed's head could not be found between the master & his dog.”

James in some letters addressed him as his spouse stating: "I desire only to live in this world for your sake... I had rather live banished in any part of the Earth with you than live a sorrowful widow's life without you... God bless you, my sweet child & wife, & grant that ye may ever be a comfort to your dear dad & husband".

King James was unashamed of love for Buckingham & told critics: “I, James, am neither a god nor an angel, but a man like any other. Therefore I act like a man & confess to loving those dear to me more than other men. You may be sure that I love the Earl of Buckingham more than anyone else, & more than you who are here assembled. I wish to speak in my own behalf & not to have it thought to be a defect, for Jesus Christ did the same, & therefore I cannot be blamed. Christ had John, & I have George.” Buckingham was at his side when James died in 1625.

If he had lived, King James I would be celebrating his 446 birthday today- June 19th.

The King James Version of the Bible is my preferred version of the book, with its powerful & poetic language in the manner of times of Shakespeare.

Born On This Day- May 31st... Denholm Elliot

Denholm Mitchell Elliott was a distinguished British character actor, well known for his stage, film & television work. He specialized in playing slightly sleazy/slightly eccentric & flawed upper middle class English gentlemen. His career spanned nearly 40 years, becoming a well-known face both in UK & the USA.

Denholm Elliott was born in London & made his film debut in 1949. He went on to play a large range of parts in films as diverse as Alfie, Trading Places, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Brimstone & Treacle, Maurice, & my favorite film of all time- A Room with a View. He was nominated for a Best Supporting Actor Academy Award for his role as Mr.Emerson in my favorite film.


Although gay, Elliott was married 2 times (the first time to the British actress, Virginia McKenna) & starting in 1962, he had an open marriage to actress Susan Robinson, with whom he had 2 children.


Susan had long since become reconciled to her husband's boyfriends, & seldom felt jealous.On one occasion when he brought one of them, a young Moroccan, home to London; as a gesture of defiance she enjoyed an affair with a famous French actor while on vacation on Ibeza, & was reassured to find herself still attractive & desirable, & with no feeling of guilt. Her own sex life with her husband remained active. Susan Elliot:"Between us, he was always 100 percent masculine, both in bed & in taking decisions in our home life."

For his part, Denholm Elliott never inhibited Susan's own affairs ("as long as you don't fall in love & as long as you don't have anyone else's baby"), mainly because, as explained, it made him feel less guilty about his own indiscretions.


The assignations increased in number & frequency as the years passed until, as Susan noted in her biography- Denholm Elliott, Quest For Love, her husband's promiscuity became "almost a psychological disorder". Denholm Elliott was diagnosed with HIV in 1987, & died in 1992 of AIDS-related tuberculosis at his home on Ibiza, Spain. He was cremated. His widow set up a charity, the Denholm Elliott Project, in a hotel complex on Ibiza called Can Bufi, where people who are HIV positive could enjoy a free holiday.


Susan Elliott died in a fire at her home in London on April 12, 2007.

Born On January 1st... 2 British Gay Writers of the 20th Century

I have held an interest in these 2 English poofs for some time. Their work have informed my life since I was a tadpole. They both led very unordinary lives. They were just a couple of the gay men of the 20th century.

Most of the film adaptations of E.M. Forster’s work are 1st rate films, & faithful in style & spirit to the great Edwardian writer, but A Room With A View is simply my #1 favorite movie of all time & the film adapatation of his great posthumous novel- Maurice is way up on my list also.

No other piece of contemporary gay fiction paints a more authentic picture of how a coming-of-age gay man is torn between his sexuality & the need to assimilate to social & cultural constructions of what is "normal" than E. M. Forster’s Maurice . Perhaps the fact that it was written prior to any gay activism & social awareness makes it more important. Forster does not offer any explanation nor attempts any effort to justify his protagonist’s queerness. The result is an honest, often heart breaking & at times poignant map of emotions, inner-working of a tortured mind.

E.M. Forster was a writer who might be said to have been simultaneously ahead of his time or at least better suited to take on certain topics like homosexuality that couldn’t be treated frankly during his own era. Although he always remained a true Edwardian, E. M. Forster embodied more fully than any other writer of his generation a modern gay perspective.

As England's most thoughtful exponent of liberal humanism, Forster in his later years became a significant moral presence, a liberal conscience, especially for young gay writers in the 1930s like Christopher Isherwood, W. H. Auden, & J. R. Ackerley.

He summed up his beliefs in What I Believe (1938), in which he explained his faith in personal relations & individualism. Forster "if I had to choose between betraying my country & betraying my friend, I hope I should have the guts to betray my country. I hold the belief in an aristocracy of the sensitive, the considerate & the plucky, who represent the true human condition, the one permanent victory of our queer race over cruelty & chaos."

Forster deserves a special place in the gay & lesbian literary heritage. He was not only one of the finest English novelists of 20th century but also a tireless defender of humane values.

• Where Angels Fear to Tread (1905)
• The Longest Journey (1907)
• A Room with a View (1908)
• Howards End (1910)
• A Passage to India (1924)
• Maurice (written in 1913–14, published posthumously in 1971)

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If you don’t know or understand Joe Orton’s place in Theatre History, use the briiliant Stephen Frear’s film bio- Prick Up Your Ears, with an eerie portrait of Orton by Gary Oldman, as a jumping off place. The gay British playwright Joe Orton is an important figure of the queer literary movement, is perhaps the finest writer of farce in the 20th century.

After joining several local theatrical companies, mostly playing insignificant roles, Orton took elocution lessons to get rid of both a slight lisp & his Northern accent. He had been a student at a business college but was admitted to the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts after auditioning in 1951.

His move to London was a pivotal moment in his life, serving as the beginning of his real career as a performer & writer & as his introduction to fellow RADA student Kenneth Halliwell, who would become his mentor & lover. Halliwell encouraged Orton to read & study literature & had a great impact on the development of Orton's creative abilities.

Orton worked variously as an actor & stage manager for several years. He & Halliwell collaborated on an unpublished novel, The Boy Hairdresser (1960). They were arrested & charged with defacing books borrowed from public libraries. They used plates from art books to decorate their flat & altered a number of books to make them obscene. They were sent to prison for 6 months in 1962.

After their release from jail, Orton began to write in earnest, working on his own novel- Head to Toe (published in 1971), & writing plays. As Orton became a famous, though controversial, figure in London theatrical circles, Halliwell grew increasingly alienated & distraught, largely as a result of the continuing rejection he faced as both a writer& a visual artist & of his poor self-image as an older, heavier, & balding companion to the boyish Orton. On August 9, 1967, he was bludgeoned to death in his sleep by Halliwell, who subsequently took a lethal dose of Nembutals.

• Fred and Madge (1959)
• The Visitors (1961)
• The Ruffian on the Stair (1964)
• Entertaining Mr Sloane (1964)
• Loot (1965)
• The Erpingham Camp (1966)
• The Good & Faithful Servant (1967)
• Funeral Games (1968)
• What the Butler Saw (1969)
• Up Against It (screenplay)

More Dead Gay People... Born On This Day- December 6th... Osbert Sitwell

I am a decidedly anti-classist, with a lifelong concern for the rights of the poor, downtrodden & the marginalized: racial minorities, women, & LGBT people .I possess an overwhelming alarm at the Republicans’ championing of the very rich at the expense of the middle class & the unemployed. I despised the Reagans, except for Ron Jr., who I once showered with at the gym, & that Reagan is very, very gifted. Why then am I attracted to reading about & seeing movies about the British Upper-Class during the Victorian, Edwardian & 20th century?


The 3 Sitwell siblings: Edith, born in 1887, Osbert, 5 years younger, & Sacheverell, 5 years younger than Osbert, were among the first examples of our new century’s phenomenon, the person who is famous for being famous.

Osbert on the right with his siblings

England between the wars was an epoch of a literary golden age. Evelyn Waugh, Graham Greene, Aldous Huxley, Anthony Powell, Christopher Isherwood, W. H. Auden, E.M. Forster, Virginia Woolf, Nancy Mitford, all knew one another, corresponded, commented on one another’s work, characters, & sex lives. Osbert Sitwell was a minor player in this circle, but he was one of the most colorful figures: pompous, bitchy, exhibitionistic, & possessing a scathing wit.

Osbert, elder sister Edith & younger brother Sacheverell were wealthy, witty, well connected. British of a certain class, they were a deeply eccentric tight knit trio with artistic force to be reckoned. In the 21st century, only Edith’s work has kept the Sitwell a name of literary significance. But during their era Osbert was considered one of the best stylists in the English language, & brother Sacheverell was esteemed as a writer on architecture & gardens.


Like many men of his class who come late into their sexuality, Osbert settled on a younger & prettier man as his partner.

The person Osbert chose as his companion was David Horner, a tall, beautiful young man of younger than himself, a member of the ancient Horner family. Horner had no money of his own, but had recently been left a fortune by an older admirer. He saved the cash & lived off Osbert until the end of their time together, 40 later. Osbert must have thought he was getting a good gig for money & did not begrudge supporting the partner he loved. Sitwell: “Horner is a big gay butterfly, fluttering around & drawing honey from all the flowers.”

Horner was a compulsive troublemaker who purposely did a great deal of damage to Osbert’s relations with his siblings & his friends. The relationship seems to be made up of equal parts affection & financial interest, although though Horner had money of his own. They were together for decades until a last, bitter estrangement that was greeted with joy by sister Edith, who gave Horner the moniker “poor little David Copperfield” & spent years plotting against him.


Osbert died in 1969. His career had been a triumph of willpower over the limitations of his talent. As a writer, he was never added up to much, but I think there might be a movie in the story of his circle, with Stephen Fry as Osgood & Julian Sands as Horner.