Weekend Reading

This weekend, I am mostly dressing casual...

...like the remarkable mezzo-soprano Risë Stevens, whose singing career spanned four decades from 1938 until she retired in 1961 [yet she lived on a further fifty-two years, till she was 99!], and encompassed twenty years at the New York Metropolitan Opera and stage and screen appearances opposite the likes of Ezio Pinza, Licia Albanese, Richard Tucker, Eleanor Steber, Nelson Eddy and - ahem - Bing Crosby!

He's not in this clip...

Risë Stevens - Séguedille [from Bizet's Carmen, 1947]

Sublime.

It is merely a variation

From Summers in Hollywood blog:

Different From the Others (Anders als die Andern), 1919

Starring Conrad Veidt, Different From the Others is a landmark German film which marks the first time a gay character is portrayed on film that we know of. In 1918 the German Revolution resulted in the formation of the Weimar Republic, and a new Social Democratic government was put into place which eliminated all national censorship for film. A lot of filmmakers in Germany then began tackling subjects which previously had been taboo, with sexual politics being discussed openly like they hadn’t been before.

The film was co-written by sexologist Magnus Hirschfeld, a famous pioneer of gay rights in the Weimar Republic. The film’s original title was Paragraph 175, which referred to the paragraph in the German Criminal Code that outlawed homosexuality. Although the film was quite successful, it led to huge controversy. Its argument that same-sex relationships were as normal and natural as heterosexual relationships was a controversial stance at the time. This film in particular was one of the reasons why censorship was then reinstated by the National Congress of Germany in the summer of 1920. There is only one known copy of the film to have survived, as the Nazis destroyed the majority of the prints after they came into power in 1933.Below are quotes from the film which highlight how progressive its message really was:

“You must not condemn your son because he is a homosexual, he is not to blame for his orientation. It is not wrong, nor should it be a crime. Indeed, it is not even an illness, merely a variation, and one that is common to all of nature.”

“Love for one of the same sex is no less pure or noble than for one of the opposite. This orientation can be found in all levels of society, and among respected people. Those that say otherwise come only from ignorance and bigotry”

Gay Pride, indeed. It just happens to be 102 years ago...

Different From the Others (Anders als die Andern) on IMDB.

The most familiar name you never knew

She was one of the most recognisable of British character actresses, and was seemingly in just about every classic comedy series on our screens - including Steptoe and Son, Beggar My Neighbour, The Liver Birds, Doctor At Large, On The Buses, And Mother Makes Three, Love Thy Neighbour, Hancock, Mind Your Language, Happy Ever After, Duty Free, One Foot In The Grave and even the saucy film Confessions Of A Driving Instructor! - from 1962 to the mid-90s. Yet how many people would even know her name?

Miss Dolores Hayman (for it is she), who has departed for Fabulon just short of her 92nd birthday, was described by the aptly-named Familiar Unknown blog thus:

The epitome of the eminently respectable horsey lady, Ms Hayman was cast strictly to type, having been born in Kensington and educated at Cheltenham Ladies' College. She was memorably eccentric in the classic Jon Pertwee-era Doctor Who story The Daemons [watch a snippet of an interview with her about that], and had a number of appearances on TV, in The Sweeney, The Double Deckers, Wodehouse Playhouse and, perhaps less predictably, The Young Ones and Filthy Rich & Catflap.

Apparently, she was a close friend of the redoubtable Margaret Rutherford. Can you imagine a pair of eccentrics like that in a room together?

RIP, Damaris Hayman (16th June 1929 – 3rd June 2021)

The legend

The one and only Norma Jeane Mortenson, aka Marilyn Monroe, would have been 95 years old today...

The only article I can find that mentions this milestone anniversary is this one in Deutsche Welle (DW), which despite its trendy use of the word "woke" [how much do I loathe that word?!], is worth a read.

You will obey

Many happy returns, Alexis Carrington Colby Dexter Rowan Morell Dame Joan Henrietta Collins (born 23rd May 1933).

All hail!

Perennial pansy, hardiest of blooms

The Playboy of the Demi-World
by William Plomer

Aloft in Heavenly Mansions, Doubleyou One -
Just Mayfair flats, but certainly sublime -
You'll find the abode of D'Arcy Honeybunn,
A rose-red sissy half as old as time.

Peace cannot age him, and no war could kill
The genial tenant of those cosy rooms,
He's lived there always and he lives there still,
Perennial pansy, hardiest of blooms.

There you'll encounter aunts of either sex,
Their jokes equivocal or over-ripe,
Ambiguous couples wearing slacks and specs
And the stout Lesbian knocking out her pipe.

The rooms are crammed with flowers and objets d'art,
A Ganymede still hands the drinks - and plenty!
D'Arcy still keeps a rakish-looking car
And still behaves the way he did at twenty.

A ruby pin is fastened in his tie,
The scent he uses is Adieu Sagesse ,
His shoes are suede, and as the years go by
His tailor's bill's not getting any less.

He cannot whistle, always rises late,
Is good at indoor sports and parlour tricks,
Mauve is his favourite colour, and his gait
Suggests a peahen walking on hot bricks.

He prances forward with his hands outspread
And folds all comers in a gay embrace,
A wavy toupee on his hairless head,
A fixed smile on his often-lifted face.

"My dear!" he lisps, to whom all men are dear,
"How perfectly enchanting of you!"; turns
Towards his guests and twitters, "Look who's here!
Do come and help us fiddle while Rome burns!"

"The kindest man alive," so people say,
"Perpetual youth!" But have you seen his eyes?
The eyes of some old saurian in decay,
That asks no questions and is told no lies.

Under the fribble lurks a worn-out sage
Heavy with disillusion, and alone;
So never say to D'Arcy, "Be your age!" -
He'd shrivel up at once or turn to stone.

Acidly observant; we "perennial pansies" recognise this scenario immediately...

[Thanks, Dinahmow!]

The above poem was, remarkably, published in 1938 - an era when homosexuality in Britain was still very much illegal, yet is surprisingly candid in its description of such an illicit lifestyle. It's a sobering thought that despite the "fight for freedom" against Nazism that was to follow a year after its publication, life for such "perennial pansies" actually got much worse in the post-War period than it evidently was before it, and that it took a further three decades to achieve (partial) decriminalisation of homosexuality ...

On the subject of repression, today is the International Day Against Homophobia - see my regular blog Give 'em the old Razzle Dazzle for more on that.