Born On This Day- June 30th... Gay Icon, Lena Mary Calhoun Horne

"It's not the load that breaks you down, it's the way you carry it."

She was my father's favorite movie star & he has a story of filling her automobile's gas tank at the gas station he worked at on La Cienega Boulevard in 1944. Lena Horne had a primary occupation of nightclub entertaining, a profession she pursued successfully around the world for more than 60 years, from the 1930s to the 1990s. Besides her club work, she also maintained a recording career that stretched from 1936 to 2000 & brought her 3 Grammys, including a Lifetime Achievement Award in 1989. She appeared in 16 feature films & several shorts between 1938 & 1978. She performed occasionally on Broadway, including in her own Tony winning show- Lena Horne: The Lady and Her Music in 1981/1982; & she sang & acted on radio & TV.

Adding to the challenge of maintaining such a career was her position as an African-American facing discrimination personally & in her profession during a period of enormous social change in the U.S. Her first job in the 1930s was at the Cotton Club, where blacks could perform, but not be admitted as customers.

By 1969, when Horne acted in the film Death of a Gunfighter, her character's marriage to a white man went unremarked in the script. Horne herself was a pivotal figure in the changing attitudes about race in the 20th century; her middle-class upbringing & musical training lent he talent to the popular music of the day, rather than the blues & jazz more commonly associated with people of color. Lena's photogenic beauty was close enough to Caucasian that frequently she was encouraged to try to "pass" for white, something she consistently refused to do. But her position in the middle of a social struggle enabled her to become a leader in that struggle, speaking out in favor of racial integration & raising money for civil rights causes. By the end of the century, Horne could look back at a life that was never short on conflict, but that could be seen ultimately as a triumph.

Horne was closely associated with the songs of her friend-the openly gay Billy Strayhorn.

She left this world 10 years after the start of the new century, with a legacy of the music & images of her stunning beauty.

Born On This Day- February 28th... Broadway Baby Bernadette Peters

Happy Birthday, Bernadette Lazzara! Of all the Broadway Divas: Betty, Barbara, Patti, Chita, Kristin, Audra, Chita, Carol, or even Angela, the one with the most special place in my heart & on my stereo is Bernadette Peters. I first saw her in George M! in 1968 & I absolutely fell in love with the voice, the va va voom curves, the cinnamon curls, the dramatic chops, & the crack comic timing. But, it is really about the voice. She has been working on stage for 59 years: Curley McDimple, Dames At Sea, George M!, On The Town, Mack & Mabel, Sunday In The Park With George, Song & Dance, Into The Woods, The Goodbye Girl, Annie Get Your Gun, & Gypsy!.

Bernadette does amazing work for animal rights with her organization with Mary Tyler Moore- Broadway Barks & is the author of a popular children’s book of the same name.


I have seen her many times in musicals & in concert. My personal favorite was Annie Get Your Gun on Broadway in 1999. Peters sings with her whole body. Not just a few arm gestures for punctuation, as many excellent singers offer, but the music seems to travel from her toes to the tip of her nose as she bends, reaches & throws her head back to let out the final notes.



Peters is wrapping up a run in Follies on Broadway, a production that started at The Kennedy Center last summer. I believe that her version of Losing My Mind on the cast album is the most moving of all the many takes on this Sondheim ballad.


Peters turns 64 today & she looks terrific. A perfect example of the advantage of staying out of the sun. But again, for me it is all about the voice:

Broadway Baby

Happy Birthday, Bernadette Lazzara! Of all the Broadway Divas: Betty, Barbara, Patti, Chita, Kristin, Audra, Chita, Carol, or even Angela, the one with the most special place in my heart & on my stereo is Bernadette Peters. I first saw her in George M! in 1968 & I absolutely fell in love with the voice, the va va voom curves, the cinnamon curls, the dramatic chops, & the crack comic timing. But, it is really about the voice. She has been working on stage for 59 years: Curley McDimple, Dames At Sea, George M!, On The Town, Mack & Mabel, Sunday In The Park With George, Song & Dance, Into The Woods, The Goodbye Girl, Annie Get Your Gun, & Gypsy!.

Bernadette does amazing work for animal rights with her organization with Mary Tyler Moore- Broadway Barks & is the author of a popular children’s book of the same name.


I have seen her many times in musicals & in concert. My personal favorite was Annie Get Your Gun on Broadway in 1999. Peters sings with her whole body. Not just a few arm gestures for punctuation, as many excellent singers offer, but the music seems to travel from her toes to the tip of her nose as she bends, reaches & throws her head back to let out the final notes.


Peters is wrapping up a run in Follies on Broadway, a production that started at The Kennedy Center last summer. I believe that her version of Losing My Mind on the cast album is the most moving of all the many takes on this ballad.


Peters turns 64 today & she looks terrific. A perfect example of the advantage of staying out of the sun. But again, for me it is all about the voice:

My Diva...Desire, Despair, Desire

I usually have 2 books going at the same time. For my MAX train ride, I often read non-fiction & my current commuter book is- My Diva: 65 Gay Men on the Women Who Inspire Them, edited by Michael Montlack. These are carefully chosen, insightful, funny & poignant short essays by gay writers & poets on the woman they chose as their Diva. The contributors were asked by the editor:
Who is this woman to you?
Why are you attracted to her?
What about her speaks to you about being gay?
How has she influenced your life?

Only 1 woman by 1 writer could be represented in the book; no repeats. The book has some of the usual suspects: Cher, Bette Midler, & Diana Ross, but many off- beat choices as well: Julia Child, Queen Elizabeth 1, & Sappho. It gave me pause to consider who my Diva would be. I really like, know alot about & can tell anecdotes about the biggies: Bette Davis, Joan Crawford, Gloria Swanson, Marilyn Monroe & Marlene Dietrich. I think almost all gay men of a certain age can. It seems to be in our genes & part of our common language. Gay men seem to have an allegiance to certain talents with more focus than straight people. It makes me sad that younger gay men won’t know or care about them, but they will have divas of their own: Madonna, Mary J Blige, or Tori Amos. The baby queers will have their own divas & I won’t know who they are talking about. Says Montlack: “Whatever role the divas have played for us individually or communally- muse, goddess, sister, pioneer, survivor, alter ego, fairy godmother- they have protected us, guided us, & delighted us”. Sam J. Miller says it so well in his essay on Bessie Smith- “The gay community also has lots of to learn from women who seize hold of the oppression they face & turn it into something revolutionary, something beautiful, something fabulous.”

My true muses have always found their way to me through rock & roll & popular song, not the movies or stage. I have short listed my own diva to Dusty Springfield, Marianne Faithfull, or Annie Lennox. Although I love all 3 beyond all reason, I find that Annie Lennox is the owner of the most thrilling & seductive voice in pop. She holds out her bare arms & shows me her wrists: "there's no Band-Aids on me yet," she says. I am reminded again of the potency & power of her presence, the range & sweep of her high, clear voice & the fabulous catalogue of perfect pop songs on which she can draw her true artistry. These songs are full of cunning ideas, true emotions, & ferocious hooks, from storming Eurythmics classics such as Sweet Dreams Are Made Of These & Here Comes the Rain Again to shivery solo ballads such as Why (one of the greatest songs ever written), or her magnificent album of covers- Medusa including A Whiter Shade Of Pale, Take Me To The River & Train In Vain.. She is eloquent & poetic, but her underlying pessimism verges on the brutal. There is really no one quite like Annie Lennox. For more 30 years, she has maintained a striking image, often verging on the androgynous, but embodying the qualities I admire most in a woman: strength, intelligence & independence. As a gay man she makes me want to turn personal melancholy into shimmery, beautiful, honest music. Her music has been a soundtrack to my life in 3 different decades. She speaks to me...like no other.

"I would say that although my music may be or may have been part of the cultural background fabric of the gay community, I consider myself an outsider who belongs everywhere and nowhere... Being a human being is what truly counts. That's where you'll find me."