The New Issue: Leo Lerman
Leo in the mid-30s.
SP: One thing that I learned about Leo – here was a man who lived very much as an out gay man. He lived as a gay man in a house to which he invited every blabbermouth in New York. It wasn’t like he was keeping this a secret. He was with Richard from the mid-30s. The idea that this was very much going on and he knew – what I’m trying to say is that there was very much a gay urban culture in New York that predates Stonewall and our perception of that. And the fact that it operated under a slightly different code doesn’t mean that it was any less prevalent.
This book is terrific!
Thanks for that…and yes, read the book.
I loved the current pictures too!
STB
What’s pretty extraordinary about Lerman’s journals — aside from the thoughtful writing and personal honesty — is his first-person candid commentary about still-fascinating cultural figures such as his buddy Marlene Dietrich (who tells LL that she doesn’t like sex, but since men seem to expect it from a sex symbol, however old she’s getting, Dietrich just gives in to get it over with) and Maria Callas (who spills the beans about Ari Onassis’s preference for anal sex and how Jackie O refused to go that far). It’s like an insider’s guide to the realities behind 20th-century culture.