Perfection

"It's not the load that breaks you down,

 it's the way you carry it."

She is still with us in her songs. Click here for last year's Birthday Post:

Lena Horn

Born On This Day- June 10th.. Francis Ethel Gumm

How can I come up with a gay connection to Judy Garland? Lets see… her father was gay, 2 of her husbands were gay, the man she hand picked as a husband for her daughter was gay, her gay fans remained her most steadfast fans through the drugs & the booze ups & downs, the fruit of her loins was Liza Minnelli & then there is that little film- The Wizard Of Oz.

42 years after her death, Judy Garland remains the very definition of gay icon. Her failed relationships, her self-doubt, & her battle with substance abuse are aspects of a life that most of us can identify with, while her live performances reflect a truth & freedom that are desired by anyone that has wasted time hiding their own emotions.

Gay culture can't escape Garland's influence. The Stonewall riots have been attributed to the anger & grief felt on Garland's funeral that day. The term- "Friend of Dorothy," is from our identification with Garland's most famous role.

Garland's 1961 concert at Carnegie Hall is a landmark in Show Biz. 2 years earlier, she had been advised to retire from performing after being diagnosed with hepatitis, but instead she took on a series of concerts in Europe & the USA that reestablished her reputation as the top entertainer of all time. The Carnegie Hall show is regarded as the greatest evening in show-business history. The live recording of that concert spent more than a year on the Billboard charts & won 7 Grammys, including Album of the Year.

Last year, my dear friend- WCK3 & I stayed up late into the night watching CDs of her TV show from the early 1960s. I was entranced by her presence & horrified by the histrionics. Sometimes when listening to her recordings, I am off put by the feeling that she sings every single song as if it were her last. Her over the top interpretations of the great standards push me away. But, then I hear her original version or her late in life version of Over The Rainbow & I end up crying. Judy Garland loved her fans & they loved her back. I love her for that.

Cher Turns 65 Today

The Husband: Cher!
Stephen: Where?
The Husband: There!
Stephen: Cher? Where?
The Husband: There Cher!
Stephen: There Cher?
The Husband: There! Cher!
Stephen: Cher!

Things I love about Cher:
Silkwood, Mask, Come Back To The 5 & Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean,Tea With Mussolini, & most especially- Moonstruck

Bang Bang, I've Got You Babe, The Way of Love, The Beat Goes On

"Men should be like Kleenex... soft, strong & disposable"

A #1 Single in each of the past 6 decades

Sonny

Grammy, Emmy, Golden Globe, Oscar

Chaz

Farwell Tours

"After a nuclear holocaust, all that will be left are cockroaches & Cher."

Kooky & Nutty: 2 Icons Share A Birthday

Shirley MacLaine: 6 Oscar nominations with a win for Terms of Endearment, 20 Golden Globe nominations with 7 wins including Best Newcomer in 1955 & the Cecil B DeMille Look Alike Award. 14 books, all best sellers. Her brother is Warren Beatty. They have never worked together, but that is something I would pay to see, especially if they would play senior citizen lovers. She talks to her dog- Terry & her dog talks back. My favorite MacLaine role – Doris (a thinly disguised Debbie Reynolds) in Post Cards From The Edge.

Barbra Streisand: 5 Oscar nominations with 2 wins, including one as a composer, 16 Golden Globe nominations with 8 wins including the Cecil B DeMille Look Alike Award. 8 Grammy Awards, & one of only a handful of performers to have an Oscar, Emmy, Tony & Grammy on their mantle, & the only artist to have a #1 Album in 5 different decades. Her son-in-law is Josh Brolin. Last year she wrote a frightening coffee table book about her questionable interior designing taste. She gave her very cute son-Jason Gould a role in the underrated Prince Of Tides.  She talks to her dog- Sammy. My favorite Streisand role- Doris in The Owl & The Pussycat.

They share a birthday today- April 24th. MacLaine turns 77 & Streisand, 69. Traditionally, they spend their birthdays together. I would like to be a fly on the wall at that party.

On This Day In Gay History, 50 Years Ago: Judy At Carnegie Hall

Judy Garland was only 37 years old, but near death, addicted to booze & pills. Her acting & singing careers were considered long over. Defying doctors’ directives, Garland put all her eggs in one big show biz basket- a 1961 Carnegie Hall Concert. That performance became a moment in time for those who were there & a showbiz legend for everyone else. The evening is still considered the greatest night in show business history.

Garland had not worked in films since A Star Is Born in 1954. After a period of rest & nutrition, & a more moderate indulgence in alchahol & pharmacuticals,she had gradually been building a solid reoputaion for showing up, & giving well regarded performances in all sorts of venues in Europe & North America in 1960 & early 1961. But no one was anticipating the mania was on the evening she brought her act she to Carnegie Hall. Her audience would call her her back for encore after encore, even asking her to repeat a song after her book of arrangements sung through.

On Sunday, April 23rd, 1961, after a bombastic overture that built high emotion, Garland made her entrance 20 minutes late, looking exceptionally restored, & put together, to a very loud ovation from the audience. Her audience that night included theatre performers & show biz greats on their usual Sunday night off & the celebrities were as crazed in their veneration towards Garland as her gay audience.

Barry Manilow: “Name me one other artist, ever, whose concert is celebrated 50 years after the concert was done. When her voice was in tip-top shape, everything she did was filled with the truth. I think that’s the big difference between her & everybody else. Everybody else, oh yeah, they’re great singers—they do vocal acrobatics. But they don’t tell the truth. This woman always told the truth, and especially that night.”

Lorna Luft attending with sister Liza & brother Joey: “The one thing I remember, when you’re 8, adults are supposed to act like adults. They are not supposed to jump out of their chairs, screaming, yelling, running towards the stage. They’re supposed to be in control. There they were, all dressed up in the tuxedos, going nuts.”

The recording of this evening is the only Judy Garland recording on my collection. I don’t need another, she sings each song as if it were her last. The album is still stunning, vivid & vital. It was #1 on the Billboard charts for 13 weeks in 1961, & has never been out of print since.

Judy Garland At Carnegie Hall is the only Garland recording on my collection. I don’t need another, she sings each song as if it were her last. The album is still stunning, vivid & vital. It was #1 on the Billboard charts for 13 weeks in 1961, & has never been out of print since. Judy at Carnegie Hall is an essential album for those who wish to understand pop culture of the 20th century.

Whoopi Goldberg: “When she sings ‘Come Rain or Come Shine’, she combusts onstage at the end of it, that’s how I always wanted to be as an actor. That has always been one of my bars to reach, that state of grace that she goes into at the end of that song, when she sounds like she’s shaking like a branch that’s being blown, & she’s slightly off-key—just slightly. But it doesn’t matter, because she’s on fire.”

Garland's return to the top would be brief. In 1962, Garland was nominated for a best-supporting-actress Oscar for Stanley Kramer’s Judgment at Nuremberg; & a CBS TV special she did with Frank Sinatra & Dean Martin was a smash hit, leading the network to sign her to a $24 million variety series.

We know the sad story: she couldn’t stay away from the pills & her health deteriorated. In 1967, Garland married Mickey Deans, who supplied her with drugs. 3 months later, soon after her 47th birthday, her new husband found her dead of a barbiturate overdose in the bathroom of their London apartment. The viewing of her body at NYC’s Frank E. Campbell Funeral Home, was a stupendous spectacle, with tens of thousands mourners, just a few days before the Stonewall riots, a coincidence connecting the 2 events in many gay peoples’ minds & cemented Garland’s status as The Gay Icon. But Garland was a great artist & remains an icon to people of all persuasions, & the audience at her most celebrated concert was distinguished by diversity as well as devotion.

I Just Don't Know What To Do With Myself

She is one of the most important recording artists of my considerable lifetime. Her music has moved me, thrilled me & comforted me for nearly 50 years.  For me, the album- Dusty In Memphis is a perfect LP & in my top 5 albums of all time.

Dusty Springfield was an unlikely celebrity. Mary Isobel Catherine Bernadette O'Brien was London born on this day in 1939, a month before that start of WW2. She started life as an Irish Catholic schoolgirl, yet she gained stardom as a sultry singer of soul, the "white girl singing black music."

Her love for other women was forbidden & in the UK at the time, illegal. The most frustrating thing for any creative person must be an inability to express in your work the things that mean the most to you. Art is inspired by our strongest emotions, including love & desire. It must be difficult to write, compose, paint or act when your own feelings of love & desire are considered off limits to most of society. Like most of the great gay artists in history, we have found innovative ways of sidestepping the heterosexual expectations of the public yet covertly conveying our constrained emotions in our work.

Springfield’s sexuality is at the heart of the melancholy & vulnerability that she brings her recordings, including this one. Her songs go straight to my heart: How Can I Be Sure, All Cried Out, I Close My Eyes & Count To Ten, Some of Your Lovin’, The Look of Love, You Don’t Have To Say You Love Me, & my personal favorite, her really truly devastating version of I Just Don’t Know What To Do With Myself. She does more than sell the song; she inhabits & makes them her own in the way that only the true great artists can do.


With a strong, masculine countenance but a feminine style, she appealed to gay men, lesbians. She even went one step further by studying and copying drag acts, creating the image of a woman, dressed like a man who is dressed like a woman. Gender bending & confusing to a 1960s listening public. In the press, her image was still being vigorously protected against her sexuality. Every press release stressed her Catholic faith & middle-class roots. The fact she was living with a fellow singer Norma Tanega was conveniently overlooked. after Springfield & Tanega had split up, there was always an other woman keeping her company.

Springfield also managed an iconic image for herself, tall beehive hair & thick, dark eye make-up. Her look was copied by fellow artists of the time, teenage girls, & drag queens. Her short career left an lasting legacy on modern fashion.

But she had other image matters to worry about too. Having become an expert in all aspects of sound recording, the male dominated industry felt resentment by this young woman who seemed to know it all. She also had a sharp ear for quality & a perfectionist approach to her work. Women were simply not allowed to lean across the mixing desk & proceed to take over. Soon, she had acquired the unfair reputation for being difficult & eccentric. Most producers braced themselves for an argument when they heard that Dusty Springfield would be in their studio that day.


Her headstrong ways & strong working knowledge of the technical aspects of recording did not endear Springfield to the professional male dominated professional musical community, but she certainly enchanting her fans.

In 1964, while on tour in South Africa, & with no real interest in politics, she found it abhorrent that it was illegal to perform a concert to a mixed audience. But there was a loophole in the law presented to her that allowed live performances to mixed audiences as long as they were in a movie theatre. Springfield booked the biggest cinema she could find & played to a large mixed audience. When she arrived back at her hotel, Springfield & her entourage were placed under arrest & deported from the country immediately. Back home the public loved her for it. She was hailed as an anti-apartheid hero.


Springfield was at her apex in the mid-1960s. She had several hit albums, a #1 single (You Don’t Have to Say You Love Me), & her own TV show. She had also been credited as the woman who brought Motown to the UK. But in the early 1970s, when I loved her the most, Springfield’s style was pushed aside in preference for more experimental styles & songs with a strong political message. Her simple love songs & throaty jazzy voice, began to lose popularity.


Springfield was sucked into the spiral of drink, drugs & the party culture. She abused a variety substances on a daily basis. The pressure of her double life manifested itself in cutting, depression & a desire to avoid the spotlight. Then an album she had started to record for Atlantic Records was shelved due to her ‘poor mental health’.

Aghast at the abandoned album Springfield moved to LA & dropped deeper drug abuse, alcohol & self harm. Abandoning her career, she spent most of the 1970s living late nights of partying & drug taking. Her cutting so severe that on several occasions, she was hospitalized.

Late in the 1970s Springfield had begun to speak openly about her attraction to both sexes, although she was never known to ever have had a boyfriend. The poor press she received for coming out devastated Springfield. She told her parents she was gay, but far from outraged, they laughed & did not take the situation seriously. This seemed to hurt her even more.


In the 1980s Springfield’s drug abuse was at an all-time high. She continued to enjoy short-lived affairs with women in the music industry, including Rough Trade’s lead singer, Carol Pope. Her recordings made little impact & had low sales . Springfield was constantly between rehab or the hospital.

Salvation came in 1987 when her long time fans the Pet Shop Boys asked her to collaborate with them . The resulting record,-What Have I Done to Deserve This was a worldwide smash hit & one of my favorite singles ever. All of a sudden, the 48 year-old faded star was among the smart set again. Pet Shop Boys to produce an album for her. Her life started to get better. No drugs & no long nights partying. More hits singles followed.

In 1994, just as Springfield was riding high again in 1994, she was diagnosed with breast cancer. She seemed beating the cancer, but remission was to be short lived. For several years, she fought against the second bout of cancer. Before long, it was clear that this time, there would be no remission. Springfield lived with lifelong friend & backing singer, Simon Bell, who took care of her.

On New Year’s 1999, Springfield was awarded an Order of the British Empire for her contribution to music. Too sick to make the ceremony, her long time manager, Vicki Wickham, with permission from Queen Elizabeth 2, picked up the award on her behalf. It was carried directly to Springfield & given to her in front of a few friends, & her doctor. On the day when Springfield would have received the award, she lost her fight against cancer. Her funeral took over the small town where she had spent the end of her life- of Henley, & the service was attended by thousands of mourners including Elvis Costello, Lulu, Elton John & Pet Shop Boys. 10 days after her death. her friend Sir Elton inducted Springfield into the Rock N’ Roll Hall of Fame, stating: “She was the greatest white singer of all time”.

Born On This Day- April 5th... Ruth Elizabeth Davis

"Everybody has a heart. Except some people."

Bette Davis

I believe All About Eve to be a perfect film, with not a wasted piece of dialogue or an unnecessary scene. It is one of the greatest films about theatre of all time. For me, Margo Channing is the finest & bravest Bette Davis creation (she lost the Oscar to Judy Holliday in Born Yesterday).

Davis was a movie star, but also the most fearless & the least vain actresses of the Golden Age. I am fan of all her 6 decades of work on stage, & on film with Of Human Bondage, The Petrified Forest, Jezebel, The Old Maid, Elizabeth & Essex, The Letter, All This & Heaven Too, The Little Foxes, Old Acquaintance, Pocket Full Of Miracles, & What Ever Happened To Baby Jane among my favorites.

Besides Margo Channing, my favorite would have to be Bette’s work in 1987’s The Whales of August, featuring an understated Vincent Price, a rare & delicate late career performance by the great Lillian Gish, whose career stretched back to the films of D.W. Griffith, & Ann Sothern in her only Oscar nominated performance. But for me the true enjoyment of this film came from seeing Bette Davis do again what Bette Davis always could do: create an indelible, complex character & command every scene in which she appears.

When she was filming Whales of August, the cast & crew were having dinner when Davis started complaining about Joan Crawford. Cast member Harry Carey Jr, became unhappy & told Davis that Crawford had been his friend & that he didn't want to hear anything negative about her. Davis, without missing a beat, responded, "Just because a person's dead doesn't mean they changed."

Davis bickered with her directors over the smallest details, & had a reputation for being difficult to work with. Still, she was so beloved by audiences that she was in great demand, & is one of the few actors in history who worked until the very end of her life, making well over a 100 films. She would dare us to hate her, & we often did, which is why we loved her.

Warner Brothers treated Davis badly for many years, & they paid her far less than other stars. She sued the company & lost, but the court case gave her much valuable publicity. She was able to create a new persona for herself on her own terms, as a strong-willed independent thinker, as strong as any man.

Bette Davis has been an icon for generations of gay men. She helped them learn that with wit, style & camp, it is possible to transcend the hard, unhappy, hateful & often humiliating world that was given to us.

2 American Classics Share a Birthday...

"Nobody gets anything for nothing."

Gloria Josephine May Swanson made her film debut was in 1915, as an extra in The Fable of Elvira. Her last acting role was in the television horror film- Killer Bees (1974,) although she also appeared as herself in the groundbreaking film- Airport 1975; & in between Gloria Swanson signed with Cecil B. DeMille in 1919, & he turned her into a romantic lead. In 1922, she was paired with Rudolph Valentino in Beyond the Rocks (which by coincidence, is a chapter title in my memoir- Jockstraps & Vicodin: The Early Years). Swanson's 1929 film Queen Kelly, was directed by Erich von Stroheim & produced by her lover Joseph P. Kennedy, Sr., the father of President John F. Kennedy.

When Swanson starred in the 1950 film- Sunset Boulevard, it is scenes of Queen Kelly that her character, Norma Desmond, is watching & von Stroheim plays her butler in the Billy Wilder classic. Her performance is astounding. She was born 102 years ago today.

This photo of Gloria Swanson standing in the rubble of the newly demolished Roxy Theatre in NYC is the seed of the idea for & the inspiration of Stephen Sondheim's 1971 musical- Follies.

Sarah Vaughan possessed a glorious alto voice that was so heavenly that she became known as The Divine One.

She was a Grammy winner The National Endowment for the Arts presented her the highest honor in jazz, the NEA Jazz Masters Award. Sarah sang & recorded from 1942 until her diagnosis of lung cancer in 1989. She would have been 86 years old today.

That Is Miss Ross To You

I was 10 years Old in 1964 & the only 2 albums that I had of my very own, bought with my money, were Meet The Beatles & Meet The Supremes. I had my little heart set on my first release having the title Meet The Steve. I have been listening to Miss Diana Ross for 47 years. I do a spot on imitation of her. She turns 67 today. I understand that The Gays like her.

Happy Birthday, Liza!

"Reality is something you rise above."

Liza Minnelli

It wouldn’t be a gay day at a gay blog without saying Happy Birthday to Liza Minnelli. I first saw her in The Sterile Cuckoo (Oscar nomination) in 1969 & I was rather astonished by her performance, followed by another in Tell Me That You Love Me, Junie Moon, & of course there was Cabaret & Liza with a Z in 1971. I once followed her for several blocks until she went into the Russian Tea Room in 1977, but couldn’t bring myself to approach her. I may have seen her at Studio 54 during the same era, but who knows, what with the qualudes & coke, maybe I just thought I saw her with Halston & Andy.


There is no denying the talent; Oscar, Emmy, Tony, Grammy, BAFTA, & Golden Globes are all on her mantle. Through the ups & down & the marriages, & just when she seems a joke, she redeems & reinvents herself with choices like Results, her terrific album with Pet Shop Boys, & her hilarious turn on Arrested Development. Her performing style is so full of “please, love me” that I find it rude not to. At 65 years old she keeps on giving & giving & demanding the love.

I've Got A Goal Again, I've Got The Drive Again, I'm Gonna Feel My Heart Coming Alive Again, Before The Parade Passes By

It was one of my most favorite musicals growing up. I had the Original Broadway Cast album of Hello, Dolly! with today’s birthday girl, & I augmented my collection with cast recordings with Pearl Bailey, Ethel Merman, & the Japanese & Finnish casts, plus the London cast featuring Mary Martin as Dolly Levi. But nothing was better than the original with Carol Channing.

In 1921, Albert Einstein was explaining his new Theory of Relativity, Charlie Chaplin's movie The Kid was released, Babe Ruth became the home run champ, Turkey made peace with Armenia, President Harding dedicated the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Arlington Cemetery, Eugene O'Neill's Anna Christie received its premiere on Broadway, & in Seattle, on January 31^st, living legend Carol Channing was born.

Channing is a singing, dancing, acting force of nature & one of our biggest stars, but even with her fabulous talent, it is difficult to pinpoint exactly what Channing’s appeal is. Her face & voice are instantly recognizable, yet in her long career, she has worked in only 5 movies including the LSD comedy Skidoo (1968), often cited as one of the worst movie ever. Channing was nominated for an Oscar & won the Golden Globe for her work in Thoroughly Modern Milley. Her triumphs were always been on the Broadway stage.

Channing is a true original. She was never a bombshell, & she is rather demented without being risqué or grotesque. And she's a belter along the like Ethel Merman, but without being brassy. She has been often cast been cast as a gold digger while there is nothing seductive about her persona.


Channing’s contradictions made a little more sense when I read her engaging autobiography- Just Lucky I Guess: A Memoir of Sort. She speaks candidly about her messy break up with her husband of 41 years, Charles Lowe. Carol disclosed that she & Lowe had only ever had sex "once or twice in our 41-year marriage & that was 41 years ago.”  She stuck to her wedding vows the whole time & didn't have sex with anyone else. What opportunities did she pass up?  Lowe had spent most of her hard earned fortune, & to make matters more bizarre, the scandal reached its anti-climax when Channing broke the news that the hubby was a homo.  A camp icon with a gay husband isn’t as shocking as the 41 year dry spell.  After 31 years, even the Husband & I manage to knock one out every month or so. The memoir also reveals that her grandfather was African-American.

Even with her resilient image, Channing has had her hardships. She triumphed on Broadway as fortune hunting Lorelei Lee in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, but Hollywood cast Marilyn Monroe in the film version. Monroe saw the show over & over, & borrowed Channing’s best bits. Channing really owned the role of Dolly Levi in Hello, Dolly!, she was the first & most famous in the role on even followed by such talents as Ethel Merman, Phyllis Diller, & Pearl Bailey. But director Gene Kelly thought casting her was too risky & gave the role to Barbra Streisand who was decades too young for the role (Streisand would be perfect now).

I love her so much in Thoroughly Modern Millie, playing a rich, madcap matron Muzzy Van Hossmere, who makes her entrance flying in a biplane, quaffing champagne. She blew my little13 year old gay mind with her 2 big musical numbers- Jazz Baby where she tap dances on a xylophone, & Do It Again which begins with Channing being shot out of a cannon.

Channing has played Dolly Levi in over 4,000 times to packed-houses around the globe without ever missing a performance. Hello, Dolly! was the first Broadway musical to play China.

In May 2003, she married her 4^th husband, Harry Kullijian, her junior high school sweetheart, who reunited with her after she mentioned him fondly in her memoir.  They renamed the school's auditorium The Carol Channing Theatre in her honor. The city of San Francisco proclaimed a Carol Channing Day, for her advocacy of gay rights & her appearances as the host of the Gay Pride events around the country.

Kullijian: "Carol & I are looking at all the children in the United States. We often say, ‘Those children are our children. They're all Americans.' They have to be uplifted. They have to experience music, literature, poetry, theater, sculpture & paintings. It's a crime that these things are falling to the wayside. Art is the mainstay of our souls. I believe that Carol Channing is the one person in this country who can say ‘Come on folks, let’s get together with one voice & make this happen because the future of this country is at stake."

Carol Channing turns an astonishing 90 years old today. Happy Birthday!