Truman Capote

Truman Capote born 30 September 1924 (d. 1984)

Truman García Capote was an American writer whose non-fiction, stories, novels and plays are recognised literary classics. He is best known for In Cold Blood (1966) and the novella Breakfast at Tiffany's (1958). At least 20 films and TV dramas have been produced from Capote novels, stories and screenplays.

Capote stood at just over 5'4" and was openly gay in a time when it was common among artists, but rarely talked about.

Capote was well known for his distinctive, high-pitched voice (often said to have a lisp, which is untrue), his offbeat manner of dress and his fabrications. He claimed to know intimately people he had in fact never met, such as Greta Garbo. He professed to have had numerous liaisons with men thought to be heterosexual, including, he claimed, Errol Flynn. Many photographic images of Capote, especially those from the 1950s, are now iconic.

He travelled in eclectic circles, hobnobbing with authors, critics, business tycoons, philanthropists, Hollywood stars, theatrical celebrities, royalty and members of high society, both in the US and abroad. Part of his public persona was a long-standing rivalry with writer Gore Vidal. Apart from his favorite authors (Willa Cather, Isak Dinesen), Capote had faint praise for other writers.

A short story published in Esquire in the 1970s, part of his never completed work Answered Prayers (published as an 'unfinished novel' after his death) - conceived as an American version of Proust's Remembrance of Things Passed - alienated most of his celebrity acquaintances, who recognised thinly veiled versions of themselves in the story.

He has recently been brought back into public consciousness through the 2005 Oscar-winning film Capote featuring a multiple award-winning star turn by Philip Seymour Hoffman. Another film about Capote starring Toby Jones, with Sandra Bullock as his close friend Harper Lee, called Infamous was released in 2006.

Truman Capote [Wikipedia]

Johnny Mathis

Johnny Mathis born 30 September 1935

John Royce Mathis, known popularly as Johnny Mathis, is an icon and American popular music singer.

The last in a long line of traditional male vocalists who emerged before the rock-dominated 1960s, Mathis concentrated on romantic jazz and pop standards for the adult contemporary audience through to the 2000s. Starting his career with a standard flurry of singles, Mathis was far more popular as an album artist, with several dozens of his LPs receiving gold and platinum status and over 60 made the Billboard charts.

Mathis was the first black entertainer to become a millionaire before the age of 21 and is one of the wealthiest entertainers in the world. He was the first entertainer to perform to integrated audiences in South Africa in 1977, helping to dismantle the apartheid system.

Johnny Mathis has the distinction of being the first recording artist to have a 'Greatest Hits' album released. The album, simply titled Johnny's Greatest Hits was released in 1958 and peaked at number one in Billboard's Pop Album charts. It would stay on the charts for nearly ten years.

He has performed for more heads of state than any other performer, with 6 performances at the White House and 2 command performances for the British Royal Family; and numerous other presidents, royalty and prime ministers.

Mathis is one of only a few recording artists whose career has spanned six decades.

He made his homosexuality public in 1982, which has had little effect on his incredible popularity. However, he revealed in 2006 that a death threat following that coming out had prompted him to remain silent on the subject for over 20 years.

Mathis continues to perform and release successful recordings.

Johnny Mathis

Hector MacDonald

Hector Archibald MacDonald born 1852* (d. 1903)

Major-General Hector Archibald MacDonald was a distinguished but controversial officer in the British army. He committed suicide, possibly to avoid exposure as a homosexual.

Unlike most British generals of the time, he came from a humble background, and worked his way up from the ranks. Also unlike many generals, he was popular with his men, nicknamed Fighting Mac.

He was the son of a crofter, born at Muir of Allan-Grange in the Black Isle, Ross and Cromarty, Scotland, in 1852. As a boy he was employed in a drapers shop at Dingwall, but in 1870 he enlisted in the 92nd (Gordon) Highlanders.

He rose rapidly through the non-commissioned ranks, and had already been a Colour Sergeant for some years when, in the Afghan War of 1879, he distinguished himself in the presence of the enemy so much as to be promoted to commissioned rank, his advancement being equally acceptable to his brother officers and popular with the rank and file. As a subaltern he served in the First Boer War of 1880–81, and at Battle of Majuba Hill, where he was made prisoner, his bravery was so conspicuous that General Joubert gave him back his sword.

In 1885 he served under Sir Evelyn Wood in the reorganisation of the Egyptian army, and he took part in the Nile Expedition of that year. In 1888 he became a regimental captain in the British service, but continued to serve in the Egyptian army, being particularly occupied with the training of the Sudanese battalions. In 1889 he received the DSO for his conduct at the Battle of Toski and in 1891, after the action at Tokar, he was promoted substantive major.

In 1896 he commanded a brigade of the Egyptian army in the Dongola Expedition, and during the following campaigns he distinguished himself in every engagement, above all in the final Battle of Omdurman (1898) at the crisis of which Macdonald's Sudanese brigade, manoeuvring as a unit with the coolness and precision of the parade ground, repulsed the most determined attack of the Mahdists. Kitchener later acclaimed him as 'the real hero of Omdurman'.

After this great service Macdonald's name became famous in Britain, the popular sobriquet of 'Fighting Mac' testifying the interest aroused in the public mind by his career and his soldierly personality. He was promoted colonel in the army and appointed an aide-de-camp to the queen, and in 1899 he was promoted major-general and appointed to a command in India.

In December 1899, during the Second Boer War, he was called to South Africa to command the Highland Brigade, which had just suffered very heavily and had lost its commander in the Battle of Magersfontein. He commanded the brigade throughout Lord Roberts' Paardeberg, Bloemfontein and Pretoria operations, and in 1901 he was made a KCB.

In 1902 he was appointed to command the troops in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) but early in the following year he committed suicide by shooting himself with his pistol in Paris. Controversy surrounds this, but it now seems that the most likely explanation is that he was about to be court-martialled, facing charges of sodomy with Sri Lankan boys.

MacDonald had secretly married in 1884 and fathered a son, although he saw his wife on only four brief occasions in 19 years and never revealed his marriage to his military superiors.

Rumours circulated about a supposed affair with a male Boer prisoner in a concentration camp over which MacDonald had authority in South Africa in 1900, and about an unspecified irregular sexual activities in India in 1902. There were also rumours about his friendship with a Burgher (mixed-race) Ceylonese family, especially with the two sons. Nevertheless, there is no firm evidence concerning homosexual activities, and the Scottish verdict of 'not proven' seems appropriate concerning MacDonald's homosexuality.

He was lauded as a hero, and had a James Scott Skinner tune written in his honour called Hector the Hero. A memorial to him, in the form of a tower 100 ft high, was erected at Dingwall and completed in 1907.

For some years after his death there were rumours among his old soldiers that he was still alive, and even that the German General August von Mackensen was really him, but there is no truth in this.


*actual birthday unknown

Kurt von Ruffin

Kurt von Ruffin born 28 September 1901 (d 1996)

Kurt von Ruffin was a German actor and opera singer who was imprisoned by the Nazis for the crime of homosexuality.

Von Ruffin began his career as a singer. Starting in 1927 he sang with the operas of Magdeburg, Mainz, and Nuremberg. He made his film début in 1931 in Die Faschingsfee and Walzerparadies, also starring in Harry Piel's Bobby geht los in the same year. For the latter film von Ruffin took boxing lessons from heavyweight champion Hans Breitensträter.

After completing filming on Schwarzwaldmädel in 1933, von Ruffin was denounced as a homosexual by another gay man who named him under torture, and imprisoned at Lichtenburg, where many gay men were imprisoned, for two years. Von Ruffin says that SS guards touched prisoners and then beat those who got sexually aroused. He also recalls being forced to watch as some prisoners were beaten to death.

After nine months in Lichtenburg, von Ruffin was released thanks to the intervention of prominent theatre director Heinz Hilpert, and his lawyers arranged for the destruction of his Gestapo file.

Von Ruffin went on to star in five more movies: Königswalzer (1935), Die Geige lockt (1935), Schwarze Rosen (1935), Die Stunde der Versuchung (1936), and Du bist so schön, Berlinerin (1936) before he was finally prohibited from appearing in any more films. From 1941 until the end of the war, he appeared only on stage.

After the war, von Ruffin appeared in several more films, including Ich mach' Dich glücklich (1949), Der blaue Strohhut (1949), Neues vom Hexer (1965), Die Herren mit der weissen Weste (1970), and his last, Der Unbesiegbare in 1985.

The film We Were Marked With A Big 'A' (1991) tells the story of the gay holocaust through the experiences of three gay survivors, Kurt von Ruffin, Paul Gerhard Vogel and Friedrich-Paul von Groszheim.

As we hear in this film, before the pink triangle there was the big "A". Embarrassed by the crudity of its meaning, Kurt von Ruffin confides off-camera that the "A" stood for arschficker (arse-fucker). This was the identifying label that many gay men in the concentration camps were forced to wear before the more elaborate system of triangle identification was introduced.

Kurt von Ruffin died in Berlin in 1996.

Denham Fouts

Denham Fouts born 1914* (d. 1949)

Denham Fouts was an American prostitute, socialite and literary muse. He served as the inspiration for characters by Truman Capote, Gore Vidal, Christopher Isherwood and Gavin Lambert.

From Jacksonville, Florida, he was the son of a baker. In 1926, 12 year-old Fouts submitted a letter to Time Magazine, protesting the abuse of animals in the making of movies. In his teens, Fouts was sent north by his father to Washington, having asked the boy's uncle, who was the president of Safeway, to give him a job. Fouts later left for Manhattan, working for a time as a stock boy and attracting a good deal of attention. Fouts was 'thin as a hieroglyph, he had dark hair, light brown eyes, and a cleft chin', and Glenway Wescott considered him 'absolutely enchanting and ridiculously good-looking'.

He became the companion of a series of wealthy male and female patrons. His friends, who called him Denny, included Christopher Isherwood, Brion Gysin, Glenway Wescott, Truman Capote, George Platt Lynes, Jane and Paul Bowles, Cyril Connolly, and Michael Wishart. Something of a mythic figure, Isherwood called him 'the most expensive male prostitute in the world' and Capote considered him the 'Best-Kept Boy in the World'. Fouts was an opium addict, and at one time boyfriend of arts patron Peter Watson.

In 1938, Fouts introduced Brion Gysin to Jane and Paul Bowles, later shocking them by 'shooting flaming arrows from his hotel window onto the busy Champs Élysées below', having spent some time in Tibet, learning archery. Fouts' occasionally outrageous behavior made some uncomfortable. Michael Shelden remarked that Fouts' '"Deep South" charm masked a volatile, sometimes nasty temper. There were rumours about his past and tales of erratic, dangerous behaviour.'

During World War II, Watson sent Fouts to the US for his safety. He met Christopher Isherwood in Hollywood in August of 1940. Isherwood's guru, Swami Prabhavananda, refused to accept Fouts as a disciple despite his interest in Vedanta. Isherwood, nonetheless, had Fouts move in with him in the summer of 1941 to 'lead a life of meditation'. This period is described in Isherwood's Down There on a Visit, where Fouts is represented as the character Paul.

Some time into the war, Fouts, who was a conscientious objector, was drafted for the Civilian Public Service Camp. He later completed his high school diploma, studied medicine at UCLA and then settled in Europe. While in Paris, he sent a blank cheque to Truman Capote with only the word 'come' written on it, after becoming enamoured of the Harold Halma photograph of Capote on the original back dust jacket of Other Voices, Other Rooms. Capote rejected the cheque, but accepted his offer to visit, and would spend hours with the Fouts in his dark apartment on the Rue de Bac, talking and listening to Fouts' stories.

Fouts was the lover of numerous notable figures, including Prince Paul I of Greece (later King) and, allegedly, French actor Jean Marais.

Fouts spent much of his later life dissolute, spending time 'in bed like a corpse, sheet to his chin, a cigarette between his lips turning to ash. His lover would remove the cigarette just before it burned his lips.' Fouts died in 1949 in Rome at the age of 35 of a heart attack, and his body was buried in Protestant Cemetery. It is said that he died on the toilet, and his death year has also been reported as 1948.

Gay author and screenwriter Gavin Lambert's 1966 roman-à-clef Norman's Letter is about Fouts.

*actual birthday unknown

Robert Patrick

Robert Patrick born 27 September 1937

Robert Patrick is a playwright, poet, lyricist, and short story writer and novelist. He was born Robert Patrick O'Connor in Kilgore, Texas.

Robert Patrick is the author of over 60 plays. The first of these, The Haunted Host, was produced in 1964 and Patrick was actually forced to appear in the play himself with fellow playwright William M. Hoffman because he could find no actors willing to appear in a gay-themed drama.

During the 1960s Patrick was a pioneer in the Off-Off Broadway movement and gay theatre, with over 300 productions of his plays being held during this decade in Manhattan alone. He won the 'Show Business' Award in 1969 for Joyce Dynel, Salvation Army, and Fog. That same year his play, Camera Obscura was produced on PBS. A 1974 production of Haunted Host marked the debut of Harvey Fierstein.

Years later, Fierstein included a recording of Patrick's monologue, Pouf Positive on his CD, This Isn't Going to Be Pretty. Positive was also filmed by Dov Hechtman in 1989. The year 1974 also saw international success for the play Kennedy's Children, earning actress Shirley Knight a Tony award, and also the first season of gay theatre in the UK, to which Mr Patrick contributed three plays. My Cup Ranneth Over (1976) was commissioned by Marlo Thomas, who co-starred in the play with Lily Tomlin. It became the most produced of his plays.

Other works by Robert Patrick include Untold Decades (1988), a history of gay male life in the US told in a humorous vein, and Temple Slave, about the early days of Off-Off Broadway and gay theatre. He has also ghostwritten several screen- and television plays, contributed poems and reviews to various magazines, and had his short stories included in numerous anthologies. He has also appeared in the documentary Resident Alien with Quentin Crisp.

He has most recently written his memoirs, Film Moi. Robert Patrick currently lives and works in Los Angeles, where he has lived since 1993.

Click here for Caffe Cino Picture Pages - hundreds of images from the early days of off-off-Broadway and gay theatre.

Robert Patrick website

Tim Campbell

Tim Campbell born 27 September 1975

Tim Campbell is an actor best known for playing the character of Dan Baker in the Australian soap opera Home and Away.

Campbell formerly starred in the children's television show Snobs. He also appeared briefly in Water Rats as a police officer.

Campbell was a contestant in series six of Dancing with the Stars, which premiered in February 2007. He made it to the semi-final, maintaining impressive scores throughout the series. He left Home and Away in October 2007 after filming his final scenes.

He hosted the Seven Network's National Bingo Night with former Girlband member Renee Bargh. In 2008, he cut ties with the Seven Network and transferred to the Nine Network to host a revived version of Wheel of Fortune titled Million Dollar Wheel of Fortune, however the show was soon cancelled.

In late 2007, rumours of Campbell dating Australian Idol star Anthony Callea surfaced in the media. During an interview in December 2007, Campbell confirmed that he was gay, but denied romantic involvement with Callea. Campbell and Callea became friends after performing together in the musical Rent. In February 2008 Campbell admitted during an interview that he and Callea were 'an item'.

Anthony Blunt

Anthony Blunt born 26 September 1907 (d. 1983)

Anthony Frederick Blunt, known as Sir Anthony Blunt, KCVO between 1956 and 1979, was an English art historian, formerly Professor of the History of Art, University of London and director of the Courtauld Institute of Art, London (1947-74). He was the 'Fourth Man' of the Cambridge Five, a group of spies working for the Soviet Union from sometime in the 30s, to the early 50s.

Blunt was born in Bournemouth, where his father was a vicar. He was educated at Marlborough College, where he was a contemporary of Louis MacNeice, John Betjeman and Graham Shepard, and later read mathematics at Trinity College, Cambridge, but he switched to Modern Languages after his first year, eventually graduating in 1930, to become a teacher of French. He became a Fellow of the college in 1932, and in 1965 was Slade Professor of Fine Art in Cambridge. He was a member of the Cambridge Apostles, a secret society which at that time was Marxist, formed from members of Cambridge University. He was also a homosexual.

After visiting Russia in 1933, Blunt was recruited in 1934 by the NKVD (forerunner of the KGB). A committed Marxist, Blunt was instrumental in recruiting Guy Burgess and Donald Maclean.

He joined the British Army in 1939 and in 1940 was recruited to MI5, the military intelligence department. He passed on ULTRA intelligence from decrypted Enigma messages to the Soviet Union.

After the war he became director (1947-1974) of the Courtauld Institute of Art. His students there included Brian Sewell and Nicholas Serota.

In 1945 Blunt became Surveyor of the King's Pictures, and retained the post under Queen Elizabeth II, for which work he was knighted as a KCVO in 1956. He retained the post until 1972. He was particularly knowledgeable on the works of Nicolas Poussin.

Interested in architecture, he attended a summer school in Sicily in 1965; this led to a deep interest in Sicilian architecture, and in 1968 he wrote the only authoritative and in-depth book on Sicilian Baroque.

In 1963 MI5 learned of his espionage from an American, Michael Straight, whom he had recruited. Blunt confessed to MI5 on 23 April 1964, but his spying career remained an official secret until he was publicly named by Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in 1979. He was promptly stripped of his knighthood, and removed as an Honorary Fellow of Trinity College.

According to MI5 papers released in 2002, that agency had been told by the writer Moura Budberg in 1950 that Blunt was a member of the Communist Party, but the information was ignored.

Anthony Blunt at Wikipedia
The Cambridge Five

Arnie Zane

Arnie Zane born 26 September 1948 (d. 1988)

A photographer turned dancer and choreographer, Arnie Zane [pictured right] was co-founder and co-artistic director of Bill T Jones/Arnie Zane and Company. At first in duets with Bill T Jones and subsequently as a choreographer in his own right, Zane developed a theatrical brand of post-modern dance replete with text and attractive stage designs created by such famous collaborators as costumer Willi Smith and visual artist Keith Haring.

Zane was born in the Bronx and received his BA from State University of New York at Binghamton. On St Patrick's Day, 1971, Binghamton African American freshman Bill T Jones met the 22-year-old photography major Zane. After forming a relationship with Zane, to whom he was immediately attracted, Jones began to envision their partnership in dance. Working first in solos and duets based on contact improvisation, the pair made an unlikely but striking couple.

Jones and Zane formed the American Dance Asylum with Lois Welk in 1973 in Binghamton. Zane briefly created his own dance company in the early 1980s and then co-founded the Jones/Zane company in 1982. Zane and Jones received a New York Dance and Performance Award, a 'Bessie', in 1986.

Zane's primary focus moved from photography to dance though he continued to introduce photography and slide projections into his danceworks.

Their creative interchange defined each other's artistic vision and led to one of the most celebrated collaborations and explorations of movement, gender, race, and politics in late twentieth-century dance. They shared their personal and creative lives together for the next seventeen years, forging a relationship and a dance company that made them the most visible gay couple in American dance in the 1980s.


Both Zane and Jones were diagnosed with HIV infection in 1984. When Zane died of AIDS-related lymphoma at the age of 39, Jones made the decision to keep Bill T Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company alive as a memorial to his partner of seventeen years. The Dance Company continues to bear Arnie's name and to be inspired by his spirit.

Bill T Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company Website

David Bedella

David Bedella born 25 September 1962

David Bedella is an American TV and stage actor born in Chicago.

Bedella is perhaps most noted for his role in Jerry Springer - The Opera, where he played both the Warm Up Man (in the First Act) and Satan in the Second. For this role, Bedella received the 2004 Laurence Olivier Theatre Award for Best Musical Actor. More recently, Bedella has played the title role in Hedwig and the Angry Inch.

He has also appeared in musicals such as Oh What A Night , HMS Pinafore , and Jesus Christ Superstar.

David Bedella appeared in the British hospital drama Holby City, where he played plastic surgeon Dr Carlos Fashola, making his first appearance on 27 July 2004.

Bedella has also had minor roles in a number of movies, including Batman Begins and Alexander.

He has recently completed a 16-month run playing Dr Frank N Furter in the 2006/2007 UK tour of Richard O'Brien's The Rocky Horror Show. He is the first openly gay man to play this iconic role and received wildly positive reviews.