Born On This Day- July 9th... Artist David Hockney

"The moment you cheat for the sake of beauty, you know you're an artist."

He was already a noted & accomplished painter in his native England, but David Hockney's style, point of view, & medium changed from oils to acrylics when he moved to LA.,a city he had fantasized about, in 1963.

Hockney: "Within a week of arriving there in this strange big city, not knowing a soul, I'd passed the driving test, bought a car, driven to Las Vegas & won some money, got myself a studio, started painting, all within a week.& I thought, it's just how I imagined it would be."

The Hockney that I know best is the painter of sunny California skies, swimming pools, palm trees & boys. His work in this period seems to me to be a modernist slant on color Polaroids & snapshots from the life I was brushing up against when I attended college in L.A. from 1972-76. I actually attended an all-boy pool party at a famous producer's Beverly Hills estate & Hockney was one of the guests.

He is absolutely one of the Husband & my favorite artists, & though I would love to own his paintings (they sell in the millions), as a lowly working class gentleman, I am having to be content with my "coffee table" books & postcards of his work.

David Hockney is also notable as a draftsman, printmaker, stage designer & photographer (photo collage). His personal style,with his trademark round glasses & mop of blond hair, & spirited personality also engaged the Husband & I & we took to wearing his colorful horizontal striped ties & Izod shirts in the early 80s. Hockney has always been openly gay & has enjoyed a variety of relationships with men, describing himself as a "playboy".

He was so important to me that for a certain period in the 1980s, I emulated his style, wearing Izod shirts with knit striped ties & round glasses. In the new century he continues to inform my life by with his talent & style. I admire his talent & his bank account.

Considering Don Bachardy On His 78th Birthday

3 films come to mind today as I consider Don Bachardy on this birthday: Cabaret, A Single Man & the unexpectedly uncommon documentry- Chris & Don: A Love Story.

Christopher Isherwood has been one of my favorite writers starting in high school when I learned the Cabaret connection. It was a revelation to read at the start of the gay liberation movement in the early 1970s, of Isherwood leaving England & traveling to Berlin in 1929 to meet boys. His enthusiasm for the boy bars & cabarets gives unfading allure to his look at bankrupt Germany entertaining itself during Hitler’s rise to power. As a gay man, Isherwood identified with the crushed, the criminal, the cast-off, he had to hide aspects of his personal life; defying convention to find love.


By the time Goodbye to Berlin ( the basis for the play & screenplay of Cabaret) was published, Isherwood was living in the USA.  In 1939, Isherwood had published 4 novels, 3 plays, a memoir & a travel when he landed in NYC in 1939 with his lifelong friend-  poet W. H. Auden. Auden settled in Manhattan & Isherwood went to Hollywood. He had been a movie fan since childhood & he soon became a well paid screenwriter.


Isherwood had many friends & lovers in his new country, many of them famous. He met 18 year old Bachardy at the Will Rogers State Beach in October 1952. Bachardy began visiting the Santa Monica beach in the late 1940s with his older brother, Ted. Bachardy: “At first Chris was attracted to Ted. But Ted was a manic-depressive schizophrenic. During his 3rd breakdown, I was distressed to realise I could no longer rely on him. Chris felt sorry for me & he was so successful in cheering me up that we formed a special bond.”


By Valentine’s Day, they had initiated an intimate relationship that lasted until Isherwood's death in 1986. They were a high profile, openly gay couple during the era of McCarthyism, when homosexuals were being driven out of the government & the film world.

A portrait of the pair by David Hockney

Isherwood & Bachardy seemed to live an enviably enchanted existence in their hillside Santa Monica home, where they entertained the leading figures of the world of arts, literature, & the movie stars that Bachardy once sought out for autographs. Yet the documentary- Chris & Don: A Love Story reveals that the couple worked hard & long to achieve their bliss.


From the start, the men's relationship was challenging: Bachardy was 30 years younger than Isherwood & was so boyishly handsome he seemed underage. A student of theatre at UCLA when they met, Bachardy soon felt overwhelmed by Isherwood's vast array of famous friends. Isherwood encouraged Bachardy's talent for drawing & eventually Bachardy did become an internationally acclaimed visual artist. Bachardy: “I was 18, Chris was 48. He had to move out of his home because the owners, close friends, were very uncomfortable about the age gap, blatantly accentuated by my callow appearance. Chris had other friends who disapproved, too, & he broke with them because of me"


Teaching Bachardy gave Isherwood sizable satisfaction. Bachardy: “We were intensely close while I went to college & then art school. I decided I wanted to be a painter, & Chris encouraged me right from the beginning.”


In a 1960 entry in his diary Isherwood wrote: “Don matters more than any of the others. He imposes himself more, demands more, cares more, about everything he does & encounters. He is so desperately alive.”


Isherwood’s success, & his affairs with Stravinsky, Tennessee Williams, Stephen Rutledge, Truman Capote & others, his experience & his demanding nature made their relationship troublesome to Bachardy:  “I needed to establish my own identity. Some of Chris’s friends were kind, but mostly they treated me as the young boyfriend or even just a bit of fluff.”


Bachardy moved to London to study painting. His first shows in London & NYC attracted all kinds of admirers & good reviews, plus he was talented, together, & temptingly young.  Bachardy: “Chris had always had sex friends outside our relationship, & he had been frank with me about his sexual adventures in the years before he knew me. Since I had very little sex experience before Chris, I began to feel deprived. I told him it was unfair to deny me the freedom he had enjoyed. I was usually discreet about my adventures, but I know he was tormented. We had a couple of really difficult years & in 1963 I considered leaving him. We did split up for a few months.”

Self Portrait

In his misery Isherwood wrote A Single Man; the theme of emotional loss reflected Isherwood’s fear that Bachardy would leave & that he would die alone. Ironically, Bachardy thought up the title A Single Man. He has a cameo in the film, & is credited as a creative consultant.

Bachardy & Isherwood survived the 1963 break-up. Bachardy: “Chris allowed me the freedom to have sex with other men, & the comparison favored Chris. I saw more clearly what a great treasure I had in him.” 


They were together for 33 years. Chris & Don: A Love Story, ends with a several scenes of Isherwood, dying of cancer, sitting for a series of portraits by his partner.  Bachardy:“Chris was in a lot of pain towards the end. But he had sat for me so often over the years, & I knew this was something we could still do together. Each day, I could be with him intensely for hours on end.”

The last of the series was completed when Isherwood was already dead. Bachardy remained alone with the body, producing some of his finest works when he himself was newly a single man.

Bachardy still lives in Isherwood's Santa Monica home, his residence for over 50 years, where he paints portraits. Bachardy did indeed become an esteemed artist in his own right. He has painted portraits of most famous folks of the past 50 years including: Fred Astaire, Bette Davis, & Montgomery Clift. He works every day, for hours at a time, with the passion & perseverance of someone much younger. He's one of the only portrait artists in the world who only paints live, he never uses photographs or even work from memory. Once the model has left the room, he puts down his brush.


"What is exciting is to work with the person and get all the input, all the vibration & the aura of a living personality, how can you do that with a photograph?”


One of Bachardy's most notable works is the official gubernatorial portrait of Governor Jerry Brown hanging in the California State Capitol. The California state official biography page for Jerry Brown features a photograph of the painting. I think highly of his work & I have a nice coffee table book of his portraits.

Governor of California- Jerry Brown

Still strikingly handsome at 78, Bachardy can be spotted riding his bicycle around LA. He remains a prolific artist. Bachardy is fond of saying that he is completely Isherwood's creation, but Isherwood's writing also was shaped through the openness of their relationship. I rather love him.

Recent self portrait

There's A Boy I Know, He's The One I Dream Of...

One of the few music genres that I can not embrace is Overwrought Female Ballads, a style of music that has tortured me for more than a 2 decades. Clive Davis- the music executive who discovered Whitney Houston (God bless her), apparently coached her world class, glorious gospel voice, to belt out every song at maximum volume, stretching out every note to the point of torture, trilling up & down the scale for a few minutes before finishing a phrase. Houston’s success paved the way for the frightening Maria Carey, Christina Aguilera, & an untold number of American Idol contestants.

There are few songs that put me on edge like I Will Always Love You, Houston’s monstrous, inescapable hit. When it was receiving unending air play, the Houston version made me noxious. The song, as written & performed by Dolly Parton, is subtle & touching. Houston sucked the emotion out of it.

I hold up another gifted singer with a substance abuse problem who died in the past year- Amy Winehouse. Her instrument, her recordings & the production values sent me over the moon.

Yesterday morning, The Husband tossed off: "They are running a lot of stories about Whitney Houston on the news. Did she die or something?" Stephen: " No, she has been making the rounds, & think there is some sort of comeback going on." I was wrong, but I was right. Whitney's Greatest Hits is #1 on Itunes this morning. She will have a comeback of sorts. Newly deceased artists always sell well. The irony is not lost.

I do have a Whitney Houston Anecdote: Winter of 1986, Reagan was the President, AIDS was snatching away someone I knew every week, & The Challenger Space Shuttle had exploded while I was watching the lift off on TV. I flew from Seattle to LA to visit my 2 college buddies. Stephen B (now Father Stephen B & a resident at the Vatican) picked me up at LAX & whisked me to West Hollywood for lunch & shopping. We avoided the freeways, taking surface streets at my request. Stephen was driving a little red  sports car with the top down. Only a few hours before, I was in dreary, dank Seattle & now it was 80 & sunny & I was flying along with a very attractive man in a sexy little car with the radio blaring: "There's a boy I know, he's the one I dream of. Looks into my eyes, takes me to the clouds above. I lose control, can't seem to get enough.When I wake from dreaming, tell me is it really love?"

Within the first chorus, the pair of Stephens were singing along & gesturing to the new pop song. It was a prefect day in a very imperfect life. I think of that day & those few minutes of uncensored joy & the unfettered lightness of an easy friendship, while the bright, warm California sunlight bounced around the hot little red convertible, as the 2 Stephens sang & smiled. 25 years later, we are both still alive & living lives that never would have been presumed that afternoon. My Whitney Moment.