Angelyne – The WOW Report

Photograph by Susmart via Wikimedia Commons

October 3, 1924– Gore Vidal:

“I was born a writer. When that happens, you have no choice in the matter.”

I played him once. Well, not exactly, but I based a character that I portrayed, a theatre critic, in Tom Stoppard‘s brilliant comedy The Real Inspector Hound, on Gore Vidal, taken from his appearances on television talk shows.

Born Eugene Luther Gore Vidal at West Point, NY, the brilliant, erudite, perceptive and sarcastic Vidal could be my own single writer library. He is the author of 23 novels, five plays, three volumes of memoirs, numerous screenplays and short stories, plus over 400 essays. With his special pedigree (his grandfather was a U.S. Senator and his father was a member of the Franklin D. Roosevelt Cabinet), good-looks, good-luck and talent, Vidal was a witness to almost a century of American political and social life.

Vidal was a tried and true progressive promoter of gay visibility. He was a brave man at a time when he had everything to lose. His third novel, The City And The Pillar (1948), was the first mainstream novel to deal openly with male homosexuality. Vidal lacked support from his own editor, who forced him to make the already dark ending less compelling by having the gay main character become a murderer, killing his straight lifelong crush. When the novel was released, The NY Times reviewer was so outraged by the depravity that the newspaper refused to review Vidal’s next five books. Time and Newsweek vowed never to review another book by him.

Abrams Books

Forthcoming with gay themes and characters in his fiction, along with lending strong support to Sexual Freedom and Equal Rights, Vidal still famously believed in gay sex acts, but not gay people. He claimed to be bisexual, but his close relationships with women like actors Joanne Woodward and Claire Bloom were strictly platonic. Vidal claimed that he and his partner of 50+ years, Howard Austen, only had sex at the start of their relationship. Vidal never officially came out of the closet; the very idea of coming out was abhorrent to him.

Vidal:

“‘Homoerotic’ means to lust for one’s own sex, which I certainly did a lot of in my youth, ‘Homosexual’ implies really an organization of one’s life around it, and I never did that, but always kept my options open. Needless to say I was immediately categorized with The City And The Pillar when I need not have been, and never regretted it for one minute. I always thought it was my opinion of others which mattered, not their opinion of me. I was less distressed than you might think for being so categorized but always hesitated to categorize anyone else unless they insisted on it.”

Writers like Vidal, Paddy Chayefsky, Norman Mailer and Rod Serling were public figures in the 1950s and 1960s, and Vidal was asked to appear on talk shows like The Tonight Show. His mellifluous voice, ready wit, gift for mimicry, and unexpected candor about sex, politics and every other subject made him a sought-after guest. When ABC News hired Vidal and conservative pundit William F. Buckley to cover the political conventions in summer 1968, the rancor and resentment came to a head when Vidal called Buckley a “pro-crypto Nazi”. Buckley ranted in his upper-class Atlantic accent:”

“Now listen, you queer. Stop calling me a crypto Nazi, or I’ll sock you in the goddamn face and you’ll stay plastered.”

Buckley continued to attack Vidal in Esquire Magazine just months after The Stonewall Riots, claiming that Vidal: “was proclaiming the normalcy of his affliction”, comparing him to a drug pusher for promoting his gayness.

This little fascinating and entertaining slice of history is the subject of Best Of Enemies (2015), a documentary film directed by Robert Gordon and Morgan Neville about the famed televised debates.

Vidals most famous series of novels: Burr (1973), Lincoln (1984), 1876 (1976), Empire (1987), Hollywood (1990), Washington DC (1967), and The Golden Age (2000) are fictional histories of the USA from the American Revolution to the recent past.

“Apparently, a democracy is a place where numerous elections are held at great cost without issues and with interchangeable candidates.”

He eviscerated anyone challenging his position as a preeminent American novelist. Of Truman Capote: “He has a peculiar interior decorator’s way of constructing a Saks Fifth Avenue window and calling it a novel“; on Norman Mailer: “There has been from Henry Miller to Norman Mailer to Charles Manson a logical progression. The Miller-Mailer-Manson man has been conditioned to think of women as, at best, breeders of sons”; John Updike: “He is forever stuck in a psychic Shillington-Ipswich-New York world where everything outside his familiar round is unreal”. When British actor Claire Bloom said she was going to marry Philip Roth after her second divorce, Vidal told her: “You already have had Portnoy’s complaint. Do not involve yourself with Portnoy”.

Vidal ran as a Democrat for the U.S. House Of Representatives from New York. From his opposition to the Vietnam War in the 1960s to his opposition to the Iraq war in the 21st century, Vidal was one of the country’s most outspoken social critics. During the Vietnam War, he helped found the short-lived People’s Party, a revival of the 19th century Populist movement in which his grandfather had been a young leader. In 1972, the People’s Party nominated Dr. Benjamin Spock for President. Spock promised that, if elected, he would appoint Vidal Secretary of State. Vidal made a more serious foray into electoral politics in 1982, when he ran for the United States Senate in California, where he had long maintained a home. He was defeated in the Democratic primary by then-Governor Jerry Brown, who lost to San Diego Mayor Pete Wilson in the general election.

After losing two elections, Vidal turned his political genius into literature, chronicling the decline and fall of the American Empire in a series of essays, United States: Essays 1952-1992, which won the 1993 National Book Award. Vidal’s best essays are collected in The Selected Essays Of Gore Vidal (2008).

Vidal’s Point To Point Navigation (2006) is a memoir about dealing with the loss of his partner, Austen, who left this world in 2003. As always, Vidal’s personal drama reflects the larger political and historical picture of the USA, in this case George W.’s legacy of war, torture, and autocratic rule. The book’s title refers to Vidal’s flight service during WW II, a method of visual navigation in which one flies from one landmark to the next. It is a very readable follow-up to one of my favorite books of all time, his memoir Palimpsest (1995).

I love this moment from Point To Point Navigation: Austen asks from his deathbed: “Didn’t it go by awfully fast?” Vidal answers:

“Of course it had. We had been too happy and the gods cannot bear the happiness of mortals.”

Always a conundrum, Vidal actually begins a paragraph in his final memoir Gore Vidal: Snapshots In History’s Glare (2009): “Despite never having been very social…”, but then immediately proceeds to tell of asking Andy Warhol, Mick and Bianca Jagger to visit him and Austen at their villa outside Ravello, Italy. Vidal:

“Our old friends the Newmans (Paul and Joanne Woodward) used to drop by. So did Lauren Hutton, Susan Sarandon, Rudolf Nureyev, Hillary Clinton, Sting, James Taylor, Leonard Bernstein, Johnny Carson, Bruce Springsteen and many others.”

I have seen photographs of young Vidal setting off to war and later frolicking with Tennessee Williams; and of a middle-aged Vidal running for Congress and hobnobbing with John F. Kennedy (Vidal shared a stepfather with Jackie Kennedy). Williams told Vidal that JFK had “a nice ass”; Vidal told Kennedy, who answered: “Why, that’s very exciting.”

Vidal left us with a treasury of quips, bon mots and his vast knowledge of literature and history, particularly American History. He is a smart observer and his sharp insights cut down the powerful, and he does it with aplomb:

“I never miss a chance to have sex or appear on television.”

“There is no human problem which could not be solved if people would simply do as I advise.”

“Style is knowing who you are, what you want to say, and not giving a damn.”

“A Narcissist is someone better looking than you are.”

Vidal left this world in summer 2012. Austen and Vidal are buried together at Rock Creek Cemetery in Washington DC. Vidal continues to fascinate me with his wit and insight. He is a true American Treasure and a Gay Icon. Can you even imagine what he would have to say about this terrible administration and the president’s followers?

“As the age of television progresses the Reagans will be the rule, not the exception. To be perfect for television is all a President has to be these days.”

From Metro Pictures Corp. Archives (Public domain), via Wikimedia Commons

October 4, 1895– Buster Keaton

Referring to her friend Natalie Talmadge‘s marriage to Buster Keaton, screenwriter Anita Loos wrote:

“I used to think that looking across a pillow into the fabulous face of Buster Keaton would be a more thrilling destiny than any screen career.”

In his trademark rumpled suit and porkpie hat, Keaton downplayed his beauty and kept his flawless body under wraps. He was called “The Great Stone Face”, and chaos would whirl all around him while his expression showed no emotion, except through the depth of his gorgeous eyes.

He stood only 5 ft. 5 in. and his characters were often bullied by bigger, more masculine men. His defense was to keep his physicality and emotions protected under the persona of a sad-sack. It is not that difficult to think of his characters as something close to gay men before they come out, keeping their feelings and true selves hidden from the peril of a society willing to hurt them.

Keaton’s films can be taken as an allegory of the coming out process. His victory is in finally making his place in the world, not through brute strength or traditional ideas of masculinity, but through talent, tenacity, and especially, grace. He was balletic and poetic instead of strapping and coarse, his triumph is that of every little guy who ever felt powerless, disparaged, and bullied.

MGM, via YouTube

Did I mention that he is absolutely gorgeous? For a look at Keaton beefcake, try Battling Butler (1926), an MGM silent film with an interesting take on being tormented, albeit cloaked in comedy.

At the start of the film, Keaton is the ultimate fop. His idea of camping involves a tent with a brass bed, bearskin rug, and butler. When he tries to impress a woman by claiming to be prizefighter Battling Butler, a series of episodes trips him up in his lie, and he ends up in an actual fight against the real Battling Butler.

In the boxing ring, Battling Butler is brutal. Buster begs, ducks, cowers, and tries to escape while Battling Butler pursues him, finally cornering him and looking as if he is actually screwing Keaton against the wall.

MGM, via YouTube

At last, Keaton snaps with the rage of a victim turning against his abuser, and knocks out his opponent. When he realizes what has happened, Keaton is shocked at his own accomplishment. However, his victory doesn’t turn him into a bruiser; it exposes his lie to the girl, who says she prefers he not be a prizefighter anyway. Happy ending.

The closing shot is absolutely kinky. Escorting the girl through the evening crowd, Keaton is wearing nothing but a top hat, shoes, boxing trunks and gloves. He is still the dandy, but now has a proud physicality.

He was born to the stage. His parents were appearing in a show with the great magician Harry Houdini, when Keaton arrived in this world while the show was playing in Kansas. Houdini gave him his nickname. Houdini is supposed to have exclaimed: “What a buster!” when the six month old Keaton fell down a flight of stairs.

Keaton perfected his stoic look while still a child performer. Hit on the face with a broom, he would wait five or six seconds without moving a facial muscle, and then say “Ouch”. This bit always brought down the house.

In 30 films, mostly shorts, Keaton established an unforgettable character: a sad, silent, solitary little man who stood stoically against a mechanized world. Unlike Charlie Chaplin, he was never sentimental and he never resorted to anything maudlin. His strength was in his ability to survive. He displayed that perseverance not only in his comic characterizations but also in his private life, with periods of artistic triumph and frustration, from wealth to a descent into poverty and alcoholism, and near the end, a return to recognition and audience love.

In 1924, Keaton directed and starred in his first masterpiece, Sherlock Jr., where he plays a film projectionist who falls asleep at work and dreams about the world on screen. The crazy logic of Sherlock Jr. allowed Keaton to use a stream of surreal situations, where he performs his own amazing stunts. His ability to take a dramatic fall without breaking a bone is astonishing.

Just a half year later, Keaton released the film that would become his biggest box-office hit, The Navigator, a comedy about innocents caught up in war and people dwarfed by machines, beating Chaplin to the themes of some of his greatest films by several years. The Navigator has that unforgettable scene of Keaton when he launches a ship: he stands at attention on deck, resplendent in admiral’s uniform, never wavering as it sinks slowly out of sight.

Keaton’s second truly great film is The General (1926), a satire about a train engineer during the Civil War. Keaton spent nearly a million dollars on extras, battle scenes, period costumes, and dizzying stunts. It has one of the great chases in cinema history where he chases a train as it crosses a burning bridge, which collapses, plunging the locomotive and Keaton into a river.

Keaton’s films from the 1920s are visual wonders of uncommon comic scenes that anticipate surrealism before that art movement really began and his work certainly had an influence on Salvador Dalí and Luis Buñuel as they began making films. Keaton’s use of comic action and the chances to fool the eye into seeing the impossible was what made his films unique. The average full length silent film used 240 subtitles. The most Keaton ever used was 56. He was the best at conveying action through imagery.

In 1924, he spent $33,000 building a house in Beverly Hills for his new wife. But when the house was completed, Natalie, whose sisters Norma and Constance were big stars, decided that the new house was too small. So Keaton built a bigger house, with 20 rooms, including a screening room and a billiards room, and a massive outdoor staircase that lead to a gigantic swimming pool. Keaton called it the Italian Villa. It cost him $300,000. It sold last summer for $17 million.

In 1928, on the advice of his producer, Keaton signed with MGM for $33,000 a week and a percentage of the gross. In a week, he made twice what the average American made in a year. Keaton was one of the first great indie filmmakers, but his way of making films was not a good fit at the new studio. Keaton usually wrote a beginning and ending for his stories and improvised everything in the middle. He hated the films he made at MGM, they earned money, but they made him doubt his own talent and taste. That’s when he started drinking. Later, he would say that signing with MGM was the biggest mistake of his career, even titling a chapter in his memoir: The Worst Mistake of My Life.

MGM billed itself as the home to the greatest stars, but most of the actors had no power over their work, public personas, or their look. Chaplin had warned Keaton:

“They’ll ruin you helping you.”

MGM was paying Keaton the big bucks and yet seemed afraid to let him open his mouth. Talking pictures began and Keaton dropped out of sight. After 11 years of marriage, and two sons, he and Talmadge divorced in 1932. A second marriage ended in divorce in 1935. Keaton lost everything: his house, his kids, and his contract at MGM. He drank a lot. He filed for bankruptcy. The great comic star of the silent era became a wash-up.

British television rescued him from obscurity in the early 1950’s. It brought him new younger fans. He appeared on British shows and was paid handsomely.

In 1956, Paramount Pictures paid him $50,000 for the rights to The Keaton Story, a film tracing his rise from Vaudeville to Hollywood stardom, with Donald O’Connor playing the title role. He was also making $100,000 a year from doing television commercials.

Keaton used the money to buy a ranch in the San Fernando Valley. He started to get work on television series. But, it was his old silent films that put him back on top. Keaton had had his own producing company in the 1920s and he retained ownership of his old movies. He oversaw the films restoration and added musical soundtracks, but kept the original subtitles.

Keaton’s renaissance reached an artistic peak in 1966 when Film, a 22 minute silent movie he made in 1964, received a five minute standing ovation at The Venice Film Festival. An emotional Keaton wept. Film was Samuel Beckett‘s first screenplay, a story of an old, obsessed man who shuts himself up in a room to thwart fate.

Keaton left this world a few months later, taken by that damn cancer at his ranch. He was 70-years-old.

“I can’t feel sorry for myself. It all goes to show that if you stay on the merry-go-round long enough you’ll get another chance at the brass ring. Luckily, I stayed on.”

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