Born On This Day- July 1st... Farley Granger

He had a career on stage & screen from the early 1940s throught the early aughts. Farley Granger is known best for starring in a pair of Alfred Hitchcock Films with legendary homosexual subtexts: Rope & Strangers on a Train.

His first starring role in They Live by Night, directed by bi-sexual Nicholas Ray, is considered to be one of his finest film performances. Granger’s sensitive portrayal of the bank robber Bowie caught the attention of Alfred Hitchcock. While preparing to shoot Rope a movie inspired by the notorious Leopold & Loeb murder case, Granger & co-star John Dall (whose homosexuality was also well known in the Hollywood community) were cast as a pair affluent young men, who set out to commit a " Prefect Murder".The men’s sexuality is never made explicit in the film, but the relationship between Granger’s & Dall’s characters has a strong homoerotic subtext, skillfully sewn together by Hitchcock & his actors. The film became notorious for it’s continuous, uninterrupted 10-minute takes, the amount of time a reel of Technicolor film lasted. It was a difficult feat as Hitchcock ran into numerous technical problems which frequently brought the action to a halt throughout the 21 day shoot.

 

3 years after starring in Rope, Granger again worked with Hitchcock in the classic thriller Strangers on a Train, based on the first novel by acclaimed lesbian writer Patricia Highsmith, who authored The Talented Mr. Ripley & a series of Ripley books. Although Hitchcock himself was dissatisfied with the end result, Strangers On A Train was a box office hit & the first major success of Granger’s career & is one of my favorite Hitchcock’s films.

Granger remained secretive about his private life, but his homosexuality has been widely known in the Hollywood & Broadway acting communities. Among his may lovers were Arthur Laurents who wrote the screenplay for Rope. Laurents speaks kindly of him in Laurents memoir- Original Story By. Granger had shorter affairs with Leonard Bernstein & Robert Walker, he remained friends with both of them until each of their deaths. In 1995 he was one of many on-screen actors interviewed for Rob Epstein & Jeffrey Friedman’s ground-breaking documentary The Celluloid Closet, discussing the depiction of homosexuality in film, in particular Rope and Strangers on a Train.

Granger was a profoundly good looking actor of considerable range & style: Broadway, films, musicals, light comedies & noir. I found him to be the epitome of how to age with class. He was in a long domestic partnership with stage manager-  Robert Calhoun, who passed away on 2008. Together they had written Granger's dishy memoir, deliciously titled- Count Me Out. Granger died in the same week as Elizabeth Taylor this spring.

Born On This Day- April 15th...Renaissance Man, Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci

In his childhood, the Husband was so entranced by a book on the life of Leonardo da Vinci that he taught himself to write in "mirror", that can only be read by holding it up to a reflection, a skill practiced by the often secretive Leonardo. The Husband can still do the mirror writing to this day & is himself, a bit of a Renaissance man.

Self Portrait

Leonardo da Vinci was denied an education & a profession because he was born out of wedlock in 1452. One of the few professions for the son of a middle class notary & a peasant girl was art. Despite the stigma of being a bastard Leonardo mastered anatomy, architecture, botany, cartography, engineering, mathematics, music, poetry, science, sculpture, sketching, &… painting. He used to sleep 2 hours every day. A left-handed dyslexic, he tried to paint with both of his hands. He was a loner, but also adopted a child which he raised with extra care. He destroyed most of his work.

When he was 24, Leonardo & 3 young companions were arrested on the charge of sodomy. No witnesses appeared against them & eventually the charges were dropped. Although he was not convicted, the accusation may have tormented Leonardo throughout his life. It seems clear to me that Leonardo was homosexual. He kept his private life very private, but throughout his entire life, Leonardo surrounded himself with attractive men. His relationship with the beautiful curly haired Gian Giacomo de' Caprotti lasted 20 years. In the last 10 years of Leonardo's life, his companion was the much younger Francesco Melzi, who would later serve as the executor of Leonardo’s estate.


Leonardo possessed the greatest mind of the Italian Renaissance. He wanted to know the workings of what he saw in nature. his inventions & scientific studies were centuries ahead of his time. He was the first person to ingunuity, & intellectual inquiringness show him to be the epitome of the Renaissance spirit. 6 centuries later, the world is still in awe.