Elisa Rolle's Blog, page 223

March 3, 2017

Rupert Doone (August 14, 1903 – March 3, 1966)

Rupert Doone was a British dancer, choreographer, theatre director, and teacher in London.
Born: 1903, Redditch, United Kingdom
Died: 1966
Lived: 46 Fitzroy Street, W1T
Find A Grave Memorial# 100907609
Movies: Rainbow Dance
Organization founded: Group Theatre

Rupert Doone was an English dancer, choreographer, theatre director, and teacher. In Paris on November 1925, Doone met and fell in love with Robert Medley, who was the cofounder of the Group Theatre. Charles Robert Owen Medley CBE, RA, always known as Robert Medley, was an English painter who worked in both abstract and figurative styles, and a theatre designer. He held several teaching positions, in London and Rome. At school, Medley was the friend of W.H. Auden, and first suggested that Auden might write poetry (although Medley did not know at the time that he had this effect). As described in his memoir, Drawn from the Life, in his early years he believed he was heterosexual (and therefore did not understand Auden's erotic intentions toward him until they spent a single weekend together after both had left school). Medley and Doone lived together until Doone's death, because of multiple sclerosis. Medley and Doone invited Auden to write plays for the Group Theatre, and through Auden, Medley met Stephen Spender, Louis MacNeice, and others who became associated with the Group.

Together from 1925 to 1966: 41 years.
Robert Medley (December 19, 1905 - October 20, 1994)

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Published on March 03, 2017 01:34

Richard Plant (July 22, 1910 – March 3, 1998)

Richard Plant was a gay Jewish emigre from Nazi Germany first to Switzerland and then to the U.S. who became a professor at the City University of New York, where he taught German language and literature from 1947 to 1973.
Born: July 22, 1910, Frankfurt, Germany
Died: March 3, 1998, New York City, New York, United States
Education: University of Basel
Find A Grave Memorial# 161872777

Richard Plant was a German-American writer. He is said to have written, in addition to the works published under his own name, several detective novels or Kriminalromane, with Dieter Cunz and Oskar Seidlin, under the collective pen name of Stefan Brockhoff. Upon the accession of the Nazis to power in Germany in 1933, and the enforcement of the Paragraph 175 against homosexuality, Plant was obliged to leave Germany for Switzerland in concert with his partner, Oskar Seidlin. In 1939, Seidlin obtained a lectureship (in 1941 elevated to assistant professorship) at Smith College for women in Northampton, Massachusetts. At Smith, he is said to have had a relationship with Newton Arvin. Seidlin also served on the Advisory Council of Princeton University for several terms. Plant is the author of The Pink Triangle: The Nazi War against Homosexuals, the first comprehensive book in English on the fate of the homosexuals in Nazi Germany. The horror of camp life is described through diaries, previously untranslated documents, and interviews with and letters from survivors, revealing how the anti-homosexual campaign was conducted.

Together from (before) 1933 to 1984: 51 years.
Oskar Seidlin (February 17, 1911 – December 11, 1984)
Richard Plant (July 22, 1910 – March 3, 1998)

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Published on March 03, 2017 01:28

Perry Ellis (March 3, 1940 – May 30, 1986)

Perry Edwin Ellis was an American fashion designer who founded his eponymous sportswear house, in the mid-1970s.
Born: March 3, 1940, Portsmouth, Virginia, United States
Died: May 30, 1986, New York City, New York, United States
Education: New York University
College of William & Mary
Buried: Evergreen Memorial Park, Portsmouth, Portsmouth City, Virginia, USA, Plot: Plot A-62
Find A Grave Memorial# 7238791
Children: Tyler Alexandra Gallagher Ellis
Parents: Edwin Ellis, Winifred Rountree Ellis

Perry Ellis was an American fashion designer who founded a sportswear house in the mid-1970s. In 1981, Ellis began a relationship with divorced attorney Laughlin Barker. Later that year, Ellis appointed Barker the President of licensing division of Perry Ellis International. They remained together until Barker's death in January 1986. In February 1984, Ellis and his long-time friend television producer and writer Barbara Gallagher conceived a child together via artificial insemination. Their daughter, Tyler Alexandra Gallagher Ellis, was born in November 1984. Ellis bought a home for Gallagher and their daughter in Brentwood, Los Angeles, and would visit frequently. In 2011, Tyler released her first line of handbags using the name Tyler Alexandra. Ellis' health rapidly declined after Barker's death. By May 1986, Ellis had contracted viral encephalitis which caused paralysis on one side of his face. Despite his appearance, he insisted on appearing at his Fall fashion show held in New York City on May 8. At the end of the show, Ellis attempted to walk the runway for his final bow but was so weak, he had to be supported by two assistants. It was his final public appearance. Ellis was hospitalized soon after and he slipped into a coma. He died
of viral encephalitis on May 30, 1986.

Together from 1981 to 1986: 5 years.
Laughlin McClatchy Barker (1949 - January 2, 1986)

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Published on March 03, 2017 01:25

Norman O'Neill (March 14, 1875 – March 3, 1934)

Norman Houston O'Neill was an Irish and British composer and conductor who specialized largely in works for the theatre. He studied in London with Arthur Somervell and with Iwan Knorr at the Hoch Conservatory in Frankfurt from 1893-1897.
Born: March 14, 1875, London, United Kingdom
Died: March 3, 1934, London, United Kingdom
Buried: Golders Green Crematorium, Golders Green, London Borough of Barnet, Greater London, England
Find A Grave Memorial# 20313
Parents: George Bernard O'Neill

Cemetery: Golders Green Crematorium and Mausoleum was the first crematorium to be opened in London, and one of the oldest crematoria in Britain.

Address: 60 Hoop Ln, London NW11 7NL, UK (51.57687, -0.19413)
Phone: +44 20 8455 2374
English Heritage Building ID: 199262 (Grade II, 1993)

Place
The land for the crematorium was purchased in 1900, costing £6,000, and the crematorium was opened in 1902 by Sir Henry Thompson. The crematorium, the Philipson Family mausoleum, designed by Edwin Lutyens, the wall, along with memorials and gates, the Martin Smith Mausoleum, and Into The Silent Land statue are all Grade II listed buildings. The gardens are included in the National Register of Historic Parks and Gardens. Golders Green Crematorium, as it is usually called, is in Hoop Lane, off Finchley Road, Golders Green, London NW11, ten minutes’ walk from Golders Green tube station. It is directly opposite the Golders Green Jewish Cemetery (Golders Green is an area with a large Jewish population.) The crematorium is secular, accepts all faiths and non-believers; clients may arrange their own type of service or remembrance event and choose whatever music they wish. A map of the Gardens of Remembrance and some information on persons cremated here is available from the office. The staff are very helpful in finding a specific location. The columbaria are now locked, although they can still be visited (if accompanied.) There is also a tea room.

Notable queer burials at Golders Green Crematorium:
• Richard Addinsell (1904-1977), was a British composer, best known for film music, primarily his Warsaw Concerto, composed for the 1941 film “Dangerous Moonlight” (also known under the later title “Suicide Squadron”). Addinsell retired from public life in the 1960s, gradually becoming estranged from his close friends. He was, for many years, the companion of the fashion designer Victor Stiebel, who died in 1976.
• Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson (1862-1932), Scholar and advocate of a league of nations. He was the third of the five children of Lowes Cato Dickinson (1819-1908) and his wife, Margaret Ellen (d. 1882), daughter of William Smith Williams.
• Edith Ellis (1861-1916), psychologist. She was noted for her novels and memoirs.
• Havelock Ellis (1859-1939), psychologist. He and his wife, Edith Ellis, were psychologists and writers. He wrote the controversial "Studies in the Psychology of Sex," which was banned as obscene.
• Anna Freud (1895-1982) and Dorothy Burlingham (1891-1979), next to each other and to others in the Freud family, including Sigmund Freud.
• Kenneth Halliwell (1926-1967), British actor and writer. He was the mentor, partner, and the eventual murderer of playwright Joe Orton. Their ashes were mingled and scattered in the same garden.
• Leslie Poles Hartley (1895–1972), known as L. P. Hartley, was a British novelist and short story writer. Until his death in 1972, Hartley lived alone but for a household of servants, in London, Salisbury and at a home on the Avon, near Bath. Between the wars, Venice was a favoured and frequent destination.
• Ivor Novello (1893-1951), actor, writer and lyricist. His ashes are buried beneath a lilac tree which has a plaque enscribed "Ivor Novello 6th March 1951 ‘Till you are home once more’.” He has also a memorial inside the St. Paul's Cathedral (New Change, London, London, EC4M 9AD)
• Norman O'Neill (1875-1934), British composer and conductor. His studies were facilitated by Eric Stenbock, with whom it is said he had a relationship. He married Adine Berthe Maria Ruckert (1875-1947) on 2 July 1899 in Paris, France. Adine was a celebrated pianist and music teacher in her own right. When he died in 1934 he was cremated at Golders Green Crematorium, London, as was Adine on her death in 1947. There is a plaque there in memory to both of them.
• Joe Orton (1933-1967), playwright. Orton and his lover, Kenneth Halliwell, moved at 25 Noël Road, Islington, in 1959, at a time when the area was far from fashionable. Eight years later, Halliwell killed himself after murdering Orton.

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Published on March 03, 2017 01:21

Sir Michael Duff, 3rd Baronet (May 3, 1907 – March 3, 1980)

Sir Charles Michael Robert Vivian Duff, 3rd Baronet was a British socialite who was Lord Lieutenant first of Caernarvonshire and then of Gwynedd.
Born: May 3, 1907
Died: 1980, Kensington, London, United Kingdom
Lived: Vaynol, Pentir (LL57 4BP)
Find A Grave Memorial# 176499776

House: Vaynol or Y Faenol is a country estate dating from the Tudor period near Y Felinheli in Gwynedd, North Wales. It comprises 1,000 acres (4.0 km2) of park, farmland, and gardens on the estate, with more than thirty listed buildings, surrounded by a wall which is 7 miles (11 km) long. "Y Faenol" means "the manor" and is a mutated form of the Welsh word maenol.

Address: Pentir, Bangor, Gwynedd LL57 4BP, UK (53.2036, -4.19035)
Cadw Building ID: 4166 (Vaynol Old Hall, Grade I, 1952), 4173 (Vaynol Hall, Grade I, 1952)

Place
Much of Faenol Old Hall dates from the Williams' period of ownership, while Vaynol Hall was built in 1793 and extended during the XIX century. Once Vaynol Hall was built, Faenol Old Hall became a farm house and subsequently deteriorated; in 2003 it appeared on the BBC's Restoration programme, championed by Robert Hardy. In 2009, the BBC revisited the project, and said that Faenol Hall was now "in private ownership and has been restored". The estate's origins are in the XVI century when the bishops of Bangor sold property belonging to their manor, Maenol Bangor. The estate was developed during that century by the Williams family. It passed to the Crown on the death without issue of Sir William Williams in 1696. In 1723 it was presented to John Smith of Tedworth, and passed to his nephew Thomas Assheton Smith I in 1762. Assheton Smith was the 3rd largest landowner in Gwynedd. This area of Wales is known for its slate production, and the Assheton Smiths profited from slate quarrying, and owned the Dinorwic Quarry, which made a profit of £30,000 in 1856. Even after farms were let on long leases to encourage good tenant behaviour, slate was the family's main economic interest. The Assheton Smiths extended their estate through enclosure, despite strong opposition from local farmers, including the enclosure of existing properties at Gallt-y-foel. The Assheton Smiths remained in possession of the estate until the XX century. In 1847, it passed to Mary Astley, niece of Thomas Assheton Smith of Vaynol, who married Robert George Duff, a distant cousin of the Earls of Fife. Vaynol passed in turn to their two eldest sons (the first of whom left no son) and they took the surname Assheton-Smith instead of Duff. The younger son, Sir Charles Garden Assheton-Smith, was created a baronet in 1911. His son and grandson the 2nd and 3rd baronets, reverted to the name of Duff. Sir Michael Duff, 3rd Baronet had an adopted son, Charles, but left the estate on his death in 1980 to a nephew who sold it. At the beginning of the XX century, the estate amounted to 36,000 acres (150 km2) of land and had 1,600 tenants. The Prince and Princess of Wales (later King George V and Queen Mary) stayed there as guests of the Assheton Smiths during a visit to North Wales in May 1902. Within a few years, however, it became necessary to sell parts, a pattern later repeated. The main core part of the estate was put up for auction in 1984, in addition to the public sale of various properties around the estate. Caernarfon-based Glan Gwna Estates Ltd now owns the bulk of what was the main estate. The National Trust also owns much of the land of the original estate, along with many private individuals owning various properties around the estate. In the second half of the XIX century the park had a zoo, but it was dismantled by 1900. The park has been the setting for Bryn Terfel's Faenol Festival since 2000 and in 2005 hosted the National Eisteddfod. BBC Radio 1's Big Weekend was held at the park in May 2010. The estate began breeding the rare Vaynol cattle, a type of White Park cattle, in the 1870s. A herd was kept there until the death of the owner Sir Michael Duff in 1980, when the estate was sold and the herd was moved to a series of locations in England.

Life
Who: Sir Charles Michael Robert Vivian Duff, 3rd Baronet (May 3, 1907– March 3, 1980) and Caroline, Lady Duff (née Lady Caroline Paget) (June 15, 1913 - May 22, 1973)
Sir Michael Duff, 3rd Baronet, was a British socialite who was Lord Lieutenant first of Caernarvonshire and then of Gwynedd. Duff was the only son of Sir Robert George Vivian Duff, 2nd Baronet, of Vaynol (d. 1914), and his wife, Lady Juliet Lowther (1881-1965), only child of the 4th Earl of Lonsdale and his wife, Constance Robinson, Marchioness of Ripon. His maternal grandmother was a sister of the 13th and 14th Earls of Pembroke and Montgomery, and a daughter of the Rt. Hon. Sidney Herbert, 1st Baron Herbert of Lea, the half-Russian younger son of the 10th Earl of Pembroke, and a good friend to Florence Nightingale. He had one sibling, Victoria Maud Veronica Duff (1904—1967, married John Edward Tennant). He was a godson of Mary of Teck (queen of King George V). Among his relatives was his maternal aunt, Lady Diana Cooper (née Manners). Exceedingly handsome and with the courteous manners of a true gentleman, he was famed as a host and raconteur. He inherited the 1,000 acre (4 km²) Welsh estate of Vaynol, the slate of which was the principal source of the family's wealth. Surrounded by the estate's seven-mile-long stone wall, the Duffs lived in Vaynol New Hall. On reaching his maturity in 1928, Sir Michael assumed the additional surname of Assheton-Smith, only to renounce it in 1945. He was a practical joker, one of his favourite pranks being to dress up as Queen Mary and pay surprise visits to friends - until he bumped into the Queen herself in a neighbour's hall. He also wrote a light novel, “The Power Of A Parasol.” Sir Michael Duff-Assheton-Smith married first, on 5 March 1935, Hon Millicent Joan Marjoribanks (born 1906), daughter of the 3rd and last Baron Tweedmouth. They divorced in July 1936, and the marriage was annulled 1937. He then married on 1July 4, 1949, Lady (Alexandra Mary Cecilia) Caroline Paget, the eldest daughter of Charles Paget, 6th Marquess of Anglesey, and his wife, Lady Marjorie Manners, the eldest daughter of the Henry Manners, 8th Duke of Rutland. They adopted a son, Charles David Duff (b. 1950), who became a theatre historian. A documentary screened on BBC Two Wales in 2005 (“Faenol: Secrets Behind the Wall”) featured Charles Duff discussing his childhood, the bisexuality of his adoptive parents, their marriage of convenience, and the details of his parentage. He did not inherit the estate, and when it was sold all the records were burnt, so compounding the mystery. In another interview for the BBC (“Wall Of Silence”) Charles said of Vaynol: "It was a place of great conviviality and energy and joy." However, by the time Charles was in his teens, Sir Michael had come to believe that his second marriage and the adoption of his son had been grave errors, and according to Charles Duff, "he started to demonise both my mother and myself." Although appearances were maintained, neither could then do much right in Sir Michael's opinion. By this time the house and estate were also in decline. During the thirties, Caroline, Lady Duff was a notable British socialite, and a minor actress. There are several references to her in the published journals of Edith Olivier and The National Screen and Sound Archive of Wales has footage of short films featuring Caroline and her sister Elizabeth, as well as other material. She died at the age of 59.

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Published on March 03, 2017 01:15

Edmund Lowe (March 3, 1890 – April 21, 1971)

Edmund Dantes Lowe was an American actor. His formative experience began in vaudeville and silent film. He was born in San Jose, California. His father was a local judge. His childhood home was at 314 North 1st Street, San Jose.
Born: March 3, 1890, San Jose, California, United States
Died: April 21, 1971, Woodland Hills, Los Angeles, California, United States
Lived: Lilowe, 718 North Linden Dr, Beverly Hills
Buried: San Fernando Mission Cemetery, Mission Hills, Los Angeles County, California, USA
Find A Grave Memorial# 161806424
Height: 1.82 m
Spouse: Rita Kaufman (m. 1936–1950), Lilyan Tashman (m. 1925–1934), Esther Miller (m. ?–1925)
TV shows: Front Page Detective
Married: September 21, 1925

Lilyan Tashman was a Brooklyn-born Jewish American vaudeville, Broadway, and film actress. Tashman was a lesbian and had numerous backstage same-sex liaisons as a New York City chorine and actress. From 1928 to 1932, she was Greta Garbo’s lover. However, Tashman was a fiercely jealous person and had frequent altercations with her lovers. By November 1932, Garbo's patience had worn thin and she ended the relationship, leaving Tashman devastated. In 1925, Tashman married openly gay actor and longtime friend Edmund Lowe, presumably to present a heterosexual façade to the world. The two became the darlings of Hollywood reporters and were touted in fan magazines as having "the ideal marriage". The couple entertained lavishly at "Lilowe", their Beverly Hills home, and weekly parties became full-blown orgies with A-list celebrities seeking invitations. Tashman died from cancer at Doctor's Hospital in New York City on March 21, 1934. Her last film, Frankie and Johnny, was released posthumously.

Together from 1925 to 1934: 9 years.
Edmund Dantes Lowe (March 3, 1890 – April 21, 1971)
Lilyan Tashman (October 23, 1896 – March 21, 1934)
Married: September 21, 1925

Queer Places, Vol. 1 edited by Elisa Rolle
ISBN-13: 978-1532901904
ISBN-10: 1532901909
Release Date: July 24, 2016
CreateSpace Store: https://www.createspace.com/6228297
Amazon (print): http://www.amazon.com/dp/1532901909/?...
Amazon (kindle): http://www.amazon.com/dp/B01IZ1BU9K/?...

Cemetery: Edmund Lowe (1890-1971), American actor, is buried at San Fernando Mission Cemetery (11160 Stranwood Ave, Mission Hills, CA 91345). Rumored to be gay, Lowe married three times. After his first marriage to Esther Miller ended in early 1925, Lowe met Lilyan Tashman (1896–1934) while filming “Ports of Call.” Lowe and Tashman were wed on September 21, 1925. The wedding occurred before the release of the film. The two made their home in Hollywood. Tashman was rumoured to be lesbian, and their to be a lavender marriage. Lowe's third wife was costume designer Rita Kaufman (1888–1968). They were married from 1936 to 1950.

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Published on March 03, 2017 01:10

March 2, 2017

Renata Borgatti (March 2, 1894 – March 8, 1964)

Renata Borgatti was an Italian classical musician, performing in Europe and the United States.
Born: March 2, 1894, Bologna
Died: March 8, 1964, Rome
Buried: Cimitero di Palestrina, Palestrina, Città Metropolitana di Roma Capitale, Lazio, Italy
Find A Grave Memorial# 161024877

Renata Borgatti was an Italian classical musician, performing in Europe and the United States. She settled in Capri in the early 1900s, where her lifestyle raised fewer eyebrows than elsewhere in Europe. In 1918, she entered into a lesbian affair with Italian socialite, and baroness, Mimì Franchetti. The two remained together for just over a year, until Franchetti left Capri and linked with the prominent American artist Romaine Brooks. Borgatti had an affair with Faith Stone, whose husband Sir Compton Mackenzie wrote the satirical roman à clef Extraordinary Women, about a group
of lesbians arriving on the island of Sirene, a fictional version of Capri. In 1920, she herself began a liaison with Brooks, who was by that time pursuing a relationship with the American writer Natalie Clifford Barney. Borgatti's affair with Brooks proceeded on and off for at least three years, but was curtailed when Brooks began avoiding her. During the early-1920s, she became intimately involved with Winnaretta Singer (who previously was as well involved with Brooks), heiress to the Singer sewing machine fortune.

Together from 1920 to 1923: 3 years.
Renata Borgatti (March 2, 1894 – March 8, 1964)
Romaine Brooks, born Beatrice Romaine Goddard (May 1, 1874 – December 7, 1970)

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Published on March 02, 2017 05:50

Norman St John-Stevas (May 18, 1929 - March 2, 2012)

Born: May 18, 1929, London, United Kingdom
Died: March 2, 2012, London, United Kingdom
Education: Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge,
Christ Church, Oxford
Yale University
Lived: Old Rectory, Preston Capes
34 Montpelier Square, Knightsbridge, London SW7 1JY
Find A Grave Memorial# 86311243
Party: Conservative Party
Books: Obscenity and the law, The two cities, more
TV shows: BBC-3

House: Norman St John-Stevas (1929–2012) loved beautiful places – Venice and Rome were particular favourites – and attractive things. His Knightsbridge house at 34 Montpelier Square, Knightsbridge, London SW7 1JY, contained a large collection of Victoriana. Visitors were sometimes astonished to call on him in late morning and be welcomed by St John-Stevas in an imperial purple dressing gown. He died in March 2012 from undisclosed causes, aged 82. His homosexuality was summarised by Simon Hoggart in The Guardian obituary note: "He lived in that period where gay politicians never came "out", yet were happy for everyone to know. He lived life as a camp performance."

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Published on March 02, 2017 05:44

Nan Mason (July 17, 1896 – March 2, 1982)

Lived: Bearsville, New York
Buried: Artists Cemetery, Woodstock, Ulster County, New York, USA
Buried alongside: Wilna Hervey
Find A Grave Memorial# 143629972

Wilna Hervey and Nan Mason were artists, actresses and occasional house painters, staying together for 59 years. Known to friends and family as "Willie," Wilna Hervey grew up in affluent circumstances at Beach Ninth Street, Far Rockaway. 6’3” Wilna found some success in silent films, playing rugged mountain girls and other hardy characters. In 1919, she was cast in the role of The Powerful Katrinka in The Toonerville Trolley silent film series based on Fontaine Fox's Toonerville Folks comic strip. While Hervey was in Pennsylvania working on the production, she met the painter Nan Mason, the daughter of her co-star Dan Mason, who played the Skipper. Nan and Hervey became life partners, remaining together until Hervey's death in 1979. Wilna studied art with Winold Reiss, and Nan performed music for Edward Weston and Johan Hagemeyer. Around 1919-1920, Hervey's father bought her a studio in Bearsville, New York. She and Nan Mason split their time between painting and farming in Woodstock, New York, and pursuing acting opportunities in California, from 1922 to 1929. They became popular members of the Woodstock artists’ community, and both found some artistic success there during the 1960s. During the harsh New York winters, they also spent time in Carmel, California and Manatee County, Florida.

Together from 1920 to 1979: 59 years.
Nan Mason (1896-1982)
Wilna Hervey (October 3, 1894 – March 6, 1979)

Days of Love edited by Elisa Rolle
ISBN-13: 978-1500563325
ISBN-10: 1500563323
Release Date: September 21, 2014
CreateSpace Store: https://www.createspace.com/4910282
Amazon (print): http://www.amazon.com/dp/1500563323/?...
Amazon (kindle): http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00MZG0VHY/?...

Cemetery: The town has long been a mecca for artists, musicians, and writers, even before the music festival made the name "Woodstock" famous. The town has a separate "Artist's Cemetery". Film and art festivals attract big names, and hundreds of musicians have come to Woodstock to record.

Address: 12 Mountainview Ave, Woodstock, NY 12498, USA (42.04325, -74.12007)
Phone: +1 845-679-2713
Website: www.woodstockartistscemetery.org

Place
The first non-indigenous settler arrived around 1770. The Town of Woodstock was established in 1787. Later, Woodstock contributed some of its territory to form the towns of Middletown (1789), Windham (1798), Shandaken (1804), and Olive (1853). Woodstock played host to numerous Hudson River School painters during the late 1800s. The Arts and Crafts Movement came to Woodstock in 1902, with the arrival of Ralph Radcliffe Whitehead, Bolton Brown and Hervey White, who formed the Byrdcliffe Colony. In 1906, L. Birge Harrison and others founded the Summer School of the Art Students League of New York in the area, primarily for landscape painting. Ever since, Woodstock has been considered an active artists colony. From 1915 through 1931, Hervey White's Maverick Art Colony held the Maverick Festivals, "in which hundreds of free spirits gathered each summer for music, art, theater and drunken orgies in the woods."A series of Woodstock Sound-Outs were staged at Pan Copeland's Farm just over the town line in Saugerties from 1967 to 1970. These featured folk and rock acts like Richie Havens, Paul Butterfield, Dave van Ronk and Van Morrison and were identified with Woodstock's reputation as a summer arts colony. The Sound-Outs inspired the original Woodstock Festival's organizers to plan their concert at the Winston Farm in Saugerties; however, the town turned down their permit, and the "Woodstock" Festival was actually held almost 60 miles (97 km) away at Max Yasgur's Farm in the Sullivan County town of Bethel. Woodstock is also home to the Karma Triyana Dharmachakra Buddhist monastery, situated at the top of Mead's Mountain Road.

Life
Who: Wilna "Willie" Hervey (October 3, 1894 – March 6, 1979) and Nan Mason (July 17, 1896 – March 2, 1982).
Nan Mason was a member of the Woodstock Artist Colony but spent time in Carmel, California as well. As a painter, she was surrounded by her contemporaries and learned well from their interactions. Nan rests beside her partner of 59 years, Wilna Hervey, actress and Artist. Hervey appeared in a number of silent films, most notably the "Toonerville Trolley" comedies made by the Betzwood Film Company in Pennsylvania in 1920. At 6'3" and weighing nearly 300 pounds, she was perfect in the role of "Powerful Katrinka," one of the most popular characters of the "Toonerville" film series.She came from a very wealthy family and when her movie career ended in 1922, she purchased a farm in Bearsville, NY 12409, near Woodstock and lived there with her life partner, Nan Mason, for most of the rest of her life. As an artist, Wilna Hervey is best remembered for tiny exquisite enamel paintings done in a technique she pioneered. "I'm a big woman, but I want my pictures to be small," she was fond of saying. Her partner, Nan Mason concentrated on painting and photography. Both "Willie" and Nan became beloved members of the artists community that was centered in Woodstock. Well known for their eccentricities, their generosity, and the wild parties they threw, Wilna Hervey and Nan Mason are still fondly remembered in Woodstock today.

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Published on March 02, 2017 05:03

D.H. Lawrence (September 11, 1885 – March 2, 1930)

David Herbert Richards "D. H." Lawrence was an English novelist, poet, playwright, essayist, literary critic and painter.
Born: September 11, 1885, Eastwood, United Kingdom
Died: March 2, 1930, Vence, France
Education: University of Nottingham
Nottingham High School
Lived: 9 Selwood Terrace, SW7
D. H. Lawrence Birthplace Museum, 8a Victoria St, Eastwood, Nottingham NG16 3AW, UK (53.01859, -1.30706)
25 Rossetti Garden Mansions, Flood Street, Chelsea, SW3
Hotel Café Royal, 68 Regent Street, W1B
D. H. Lawrence Ranch, Lawrence Ranch Road, Arroyo Seco, NM 87514, USA (36.58075, -105.60291)
Tinner’s Arms, Zennor, St. Ives, Saint Ives TR26 3BY, UK (50.19162, -5.56772)
Higher Tregerthen, between Lower Tregerthen farmstead and the B3306
Durban House Heritage Centre, Mansfield Rd, Eastwood, Nottingham, Nottinghamshire NG16 3DZ, UK (53.02176, -1.30734)
1 Byron Villas, Vale of Health, London NW3, UK (51.56286, -0.17619)
Quinta Quetzacoatl, Calle Zaragoza 307, Chapala Centro, 45900 Chapala, Jal., Mexico (20.28815, -103.19097)
Fontana Vecchia, Via David Herbert Lawrence, 98039 Taormina ME, Italy (37.85911, 15.28719)
Buried: Kiowa Ranch Cemetery, San Cristobal, Taos County, New Mexico, USA, Plot: The Lawrence Memorial, Specifically: Body cremated-ashes mixed in cement used in construction of memorial altar, GPS (lat/lon): 36.24478, -105.34214
Westminster Abbey, Westminster, London, SW1P 3PA (memorial)
Find A Grave Memorial# 1564
Short stories: The Rocking-Horse Winner, more
Movies: Lady Chatterley, Women in Love, The Rainbow, The Fox, more

Much of the bitterness of the war years, along with D.H. Lawrence's disenchantment with English narrow-mindedness, can be found in what is perhaps the novelist's greatest exploration of homosexual subject matter, Women in Love. Here Lawrence and Frieda are depicted as Rupert Birkin and Ursula Brangwen in a tale based partly on Lawrence's clamorous relationship with the writer Katherine Mansfield, her husband, the literary critic John Middleton-Murry, and Lady Ottoline Morrell. It was during the composition of Women in Love that Lawrence, frustrated by his failure to forge a deeper bond with Murry, evidently had a sexual relationship with a Cornish farmer named William Henry Hocking in the town of Tregerthen. The short-lived affair was the culmination of a long-standing struggle with homosexual feelings. "I would like to know why nearly every man that approaches greatness tends to homosexuality, whether he admits it or not," Lawrence wrote to a friend in 1913. "I believe the nearest I've come to perfect love was with a coal-miner when I was about 16.”

Together from 1914 to 1930: 16 years.
David Herbert Lawrence (September 11, 1885 – March 2, 1930)
Frieda Weekley (née von Richthofen) (August 11, 1879 – August 11, 1956)

Queer Places, Vol. 3 edited by Elisa Rolle
ISBN-13: 978-1532906695
ISBN-10: 1532906692
Release Date: July 24, 2016
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Accomodation: “Here we are, in our own house—a long house with no upstairs—shut in by trees on two sides.—We live on a wide verandah, flowers round—it is fairly hot—I spend the day in trousers and shirt, barefoot—have a Mexican woman, Isabel, to look after us—very nice. Just outside the gate the big Lake of Chapala—40 miles long, 20 miles wide. We can’t see the lake, because the trees shut us in. But we walk out in a wrap to bathe.—There are camions—Ford omnibuses—to Guadalajara—2 hours. Chapala village is small with a market place with trees and Indians in big hats. Also three hotels, because this is a tiny holiday place for Guadalajara. I hope you’ll get down, I’m sure you’d like painting here.—It may be that even yet I’ll have my little hacienda and grow bananas and oranges.” – (letter dated 3 May 1923, to Kai Gotzsche and Knud Merrild, quoted in Knud Merrild’s book, “A Poet and Two Painters: A Memoir of D.H. Lawrence.”)

Address: Calle Zaragoza 307, Chapala Centro, 45900 Chapala, Jal., Mexico (20.28815, -103.19097)
Phone: +52 376 765 3653

Place
“Lawrence went to Guadalajara and found a house with a patio on the Lake of Chapala. There, Lawrence began to write his “Plumed Serpent.” He sat by the lake under a pepper tree writing it. The lake was curious with its white water. My enthusiasm for bathing in it faded considerably when one morning a huge snake rose yards high, it seemed to me, only a few feet away. At the end of the patio, we had the family that Lawrence describes in the “Plumed Serpent,” and all the life of Chapala. I tried my one attempt at civilizing those Mexican children, but when they asked me one day, “Do you have lice too, Niña,” I had enough and gave up in a rage. At night I was frightened of bandits and we had one of the sons of the cook sleeping outside our bedroom door with a loaded revolver, but he snored so fiercely that I wasn’t sure whether the fear of bandits wasn’t preferable. We quite sank into the patio life. Bynner and Spud came every afternoon, and I remember Bynner saying to me one day, while he was mixing a cocktail: “If you and Lawrence quarrel, why don’t you hit first?” I took the advice and the next time Lawrence was cross, I rose to the occasion and got out of my Mexican indifference and flew at him.” – (Frieda Lawrence, “Not I, But the Wind…”, (1934)) The house the Lawrences rented was at Zaragoza #4 (since renumbered Zaragoza #307) and became the basis for the description of Kate’s living quarters in “The Plumed Serpent.” The Lawrences lived in the house from the start of May 1923 to about 9 July that year. Interestingly, the house subsequently had several additional links to famous writers and artists. Immediately after the Lawrences departed, the next renters were American artists Everett Gee Jackson and Lowell Houser, who lived there for 18 months. They did not realize the identity of the previous tenant – “an English writer” – until the following year. Their time in Chapala is described, with great wit and charm, in Jackson’s “Burros and Paintbrushes” (1985.) Jackson visited Mexico many times and made several return visits to Chapala, including one in 1968 when he, his wife and young grandson, “rented the charming old Witter Bynner house right in the center of the village of Chapala. It had become the property of Peter Hurd, the artist…” In 1923, Bynner and Johnson stayed at the Hotel Arzapalo. In 1930, Bynner bought a home in Chapala (not the one rented by Lawrence) and was a frequent winter visitor for many years. Over the years, the house on Zaragoza that Lawrence and Frieda had occupied was extensively remodeled and expanded. The first major renovation was undertaken in about 1940 by famed Mexican architect Luis Barragán. Another large-scale renovation took place after the house was acquired in 1954 by American artist and architect Roy MacNicol. In the late 1970s, Canadian poet Al Purdy, a great admirer of Lawrence (to the point of having a bust of Lawrence on the hall table of his home in Ontario), wrote a hand-signed and numbered book, The D.H. Lawrence House at Chapala, published by The Paget Press in 1980, as a limited edition of 44 copies. The book includes a photograph, taken by Purdy’s wife Eurithe, of the plumed serpent tile work above the door of the Lawrence house. The town of Chapala today would be totally unrecognizable to Lawrence, but the home where he spent a productive summer writing the first draft of “The Plumed Serpent” eventually became the Quinta Quetzalcoatl, an exclusive boutique hotel.

Life
Who: David Herbert Richards Lawrence (September 11, 1885 – March 2, 1930) aka D.H. Lawrence
D. H. Lawrence, together with his wife Frieda, and friends Witter Bynner and Willard (“Spud”) Johnson, visited Mexico in March 1923, initially staying in Mexico City. By the end of April, Lawrence was becoming restless and actively looking for somewhere where he could write. The traveling party had an open invitation to visit Guadalajara, the home of Idella Purnell, a former student of Bynner’s at the Univeristy of California, Berkeley. After reading about Chapala in Terry’s “Guide to Mexico,” Lawrence decided to catch the train to Guadalajara and then explore the lakeside village of Chapala for himself. Lawrence liked what he saw and, within hours of arriving in Chapala, he sent an urgent telegram back to Mexico City pronouncing Chapala “paradise” and urging the others to join him there immediately. Lawrence and his wife Frieda soon established their home for the summer in Chapala, on Calle Zaragoza. In a letter back to two Danish friends in Taos, Lawrence described both the house and the village. Life was not without its incidents and travails. Frieda, especially, was unconvinced about the charms of Chapala. Instead Witter Bynner and Robert Hunt made frequent visits to a second home in Chapala, Mexico. Their home (on the square at Galeana #441, the street name was later changed to Francisco I. Madero) was purchased from Mexican architect Luis Barragán in 1940 and was on the town’s plaza, a short distance from the lake. Hunt restored the house and, in 1943, added an extensive, rooftop terrace, which had clear views of Lake Chapala and near-by mountains. It became Bynner and Hunt’s winter home. Bynner spent much of the 1940s and early 1950s there, until he began to lose his eyesight. He returned to the USA, received treatment, and traveled to Europe with Hunt, who by the late 1950s and early 1960s took increasing responsibility for the ailing poet. Upon Bynner’s death, John Liggett Meigs and Peter Hurd, together, purchased Bynner’s house in Chapala. Along with the house, Bynner had included its content in the transfer of ownership. John described there being only four buildings on the block where the house was, and said that the house had two floors, the rooftop terrace that Hunt had added, and a “tower” overlooking Lake Chapala. The other buildings on the block included a “wonderful cantina,” which became a supermarket; another two-story house, next door, with a high wall between that house and Bynner’s house’s courtyard; and a two-story hotel on the corner. However, after John and Hurd bought Bynner’s house, they discovered that the owners of the hotel had sold the airspace over the hotel, and, one time, when John arrived, he discovered a twenty foot by forty foot “President Brandy” advertisement sign on top of the hotel, blocking his view of the lake. John said that was when he and Hurd decided to sell the place.

Queer Places, Vol. 1 edited by Elisa Rolle
ISBN-13: 978-1532901904
ISBN-10: 1532901909
Release Date: July 24, 2016
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House: D.H. Lawrence (1885-1930) and Frieda travelled on to England for the last visit on July 29, 1926, arriving in London on the evening of the following day. With the help of Millicent Beveridge, Lawrence had rented a top-floor flat at 25 Rossetti Garden Mansions, The Lodge Cheyne Court, Chelsea, London SW3 5TP, for the whole of August; it was close enough to the Victoria and Albert Museum for Frieda to spend time with her son, Monty.

Queer Places, Vol. 2 edited by Elisa Rolle
ISBN-13: 978-1532906312
ISBN-10: 1532906315
Release Date: July 24, 2016
CreateSpace Store: https://www.createspace.com/6228833
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Historic District: Vence is a commune set in the hills of the Alpes Maritimes department in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region in southeastern France between Nice and Antibes.

Address: 06140 Vence, France (43.72232, 7.1117)

Place
Within the historic village, a medieval walled village, there are numerous interesting sights and monuments. The Peyra Gate was remodelled in 1810. The fountain was rebuilt in 1822 replacing an older one dating from 1578. Nearby is an oak, donated by François I and planted in 1538. The castle is today the Fondation Émile Hugues, a modern and contemporary art museum. The cathedral was built in the IV century on the site of a Roman temple. The stone of the western façade dates from 239. Another, on the right, was engraved in December 220. Other stones in the external walls represent funerary dedications. Also on the western side of the church, the Pierre du Tauroble evokes the cult of Cybele and also the Great mother of the Gods of Mount Ida. A chapel in the cathedral has a mosaic by Marc Chagall, dated 1911. The rue des Portiques is a section of the old Roman road. The town has a small chapel, the Cité Historique Chapelle du Rosaire (1948, completed in 1951), decorated with stained glass and other fittings by Henri Matisse, who owned a home in the village towards the end of his life. Vence is famous for its spring water, which can be collected from numerous fountains in the town. American artists and life partners for more than 50 years, Maud Hunt Squire (1873-1954) and Ethel Mars (1876-1959), forged distinguished careers in book illustration, painting, and woodblock printing. Émigrées to France, they frequented Gertrude Stein's salons and, during WWI, were among the Provincetown artists working in new methods of printmaking. Squire and Mars were the subject of Stein's whimsical word portrait "Miss Furr and Miss Skeene" (Squire's nickname was Skeene), written between 1909 and 1911. With characteristic playfulness, Stein in this piece spoofs young ladies who come to Paris to "cultivate something." Stein's incessant reiteration of the word "gay" at a time when its coded meaning was not in mainstream use is interpreted today as an in-group double entendre. At the beginning of WWI, Squire and Mars returned to the U.S. and eventually relocated to Provincetown, Massachusetts. The quaint fishing community at the tip of Cape Cod, with its old-world ambience and affordable rentals, had by this time become an artists' colony, and the international reputations of Squire and Mars attracted other artists to the town. In the 1920s Squire and Mars returned to Europe, eventually settling in Vence on the French Riviera. There Squire and Mars were active in an artists' community that included Marsden Hartley and Reginald Marsh. The couple continued to collaborate on children's book illustration and each again took up painting and drawing. Mars, who concentrated on modernist painting and gouache drawing, exhibited in Paris during the 1920s. Squire concentrated on large-scale watercolors of outdoor public scenes. The couple continued working until about 1930. During WWII, Squire and Mars, then in their sixties, went into hiding near Grenoble. After the war, they returned to their home, La Farigoule, in Vence. Squire died on October 25, 1954; Mars on March 23, 1959. The two women are buried together at Saint Paul de Vence Cemetery (Chemin de Saint-Paul, 06570 Saint-Paul-de-Vence, France).

Life
Who: David Herbert Richards Lawrence (September 11, 1885 – March 2, 1930)
D.H. Lawrence was in Bandol from October 1929 until February 1930, when he was persuaded to move to Vence to care for his long-neglected tuberculosis. At the Ad Astra sanatorium he was examined and attended by Doctor Madinier. As the news spread that his life was in danger, H.G. Wells and the Aga Khan, called on him, and the American sculptor Jo Davidson made a model of his bust. He did not take kindly to life in the clinic, and left it on March 1st for the Villa Robermond, where he died the next day, in the care of his wife Frieda von Richthofen, of the English writer Aldous Huxley and his Belgian wife Maria Nys.Lawrence was buried in the old Vence cemetery on a March 1930. His remains were exhumed in March 1935 in the presence of Mrs Gordon Crotch, an English resident, and incinerated at Marseille on March 13. A wooden box holding a sealed zinc container in which were his ashes, was then delivered, together with the appropriate transatlantic transport authorization by the Prefecture, dated 14 March, to the former captain of Bersaglieri Angelo Ravagli, at that time the factotum and lover of Lawrence's widow. His mission was to take the ashes to Taos (New Mexico) in "a beautiful vase" specially ordered by Frieda for this purpose. The ashes brought to Taos by Ravagli in grotesque cicumstances were cast by him into the concrete slab of a "shrine" which he built at the Kiowa ranch at San Cristobal near Taos. When Baron de Haulleville and his sister-in-law Rose Nys-de Halleville (who knew Ravagli through the Huxleys) were Ravagli's guests atTaos, Ravagli after partaking from a bottle of bourbon, confessed late one night to having dumped the box and ashes between Marseille and Villefranche-sur-Mer (where he was due to sail on the Conte di Savoia), so as to avoid the expense and trouble of transporting them to the USA. When in New York he collected Frieda's vase, mailed "to be called for" from Marseille, and put into it some locally procured ashes which he took to Taos. The Villa Robermond, later called the Villa Aurella, was demolished and on its site is now a small apartment house, Le Saint Martin, on the Chemin de Clairefontaine, Quartier de Saint Donat, off the road to Grasse. Of the original villa there only remains part of the old entrance gate, under a metal arch. A memorial plate sent by the Broxtowe district council was unveiled on the garden wall in 1985 for the centenary of Lawrence's death. A tombstone decorated with Lawrence's emblem, the Phoenix, designed in seashore pebbles by the Veneois Dominique Matteucci, was saved after the exhumation by Mrs Crotch, who kept it many years in Vence then moved it to England. It was ultimately rescued by professor Vivian de Sola Pinto and taken to Eastwood.

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Published on March 02, 2017 01:51

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