1950 - 1959
Under construction1950
Lord Berners dies leaving his vast fortune to “Boy” Percy.
Thomas Mann is seen by Carlos Fuentes in Zurich transfixed by a 20-year-old youth, playing
tennis.)
Disgraced tennis player William Tilden is unanimously voted the outstanding tennis player of
the first half of the century.
F.O. Matthiesen (48) commits suicide by jumping out of a hotel window because of increas-
ing homophobia & his loneliness since the death of his long-time lover Russell
Cheney.
Francis Poulenc has a new partner in his private life: Lucien Roubert, a travelling salesman.
Danish writer Christian Houmark dies. 2 autobiographies detailing his homosexual life are
published shortly afterwards.
Jens Dahl resigns from the Danish government for making homosexual advances to a young
diplomat.
March. Karl-Erik Kejne, the principal of a boy’s home wrote an article describing boy prost-
itution as a social plague. This led to allegations of high-ranking officials trying to
sideline Kejne’s work & parliamentary commissions allegedly infiltrated by homo-
sexuals.
A Voice through a Cloud by Denton Welch – autobiographical posthumous novel.
Such Darling Dodos, short stories by Angus Wilson – some homosexual characters.
Tennessee Williams writes The Rose Tattoo influenced by his love for Frank Merlo.
Kulturebund zer demokratischen Erneurung Deutschlands is formed. Richard Schultz
becomes a leading force, organizing dinners and other activities for homosexuals
attracted to the organisation.
A Joyous/Gay and Scandalous Chronicle by Maurice Sachs is published posthumously.
Rudi Gernreich (28), fashion designer, meets and becomes the lover of Harry Hay (38) gay
activist.
Thomas Mann becomes infatuated with a waiter, Franz Westermeier (17), the waiter was
oblivious.
Pier Paolo Pasolini is cleared of an indecency charge.
Hardy Amies (41) fashion designer met Ken Fleetwood, who became lovers & lifelong
partners. They maintain a very discreet relationship.
Senator McCarthy raises the case of Alfred Redl [1913] at the beginning of the Lavender
Scare, arguing that “the pervert is easy prey to the blackmailer.” Known homosexuals
were sacked from the State department.
Gore Vidal (25) meets Howard Austen (21) at Everard Baths, New York. The sex was a
disaster, but they become lifelong companions for 53 years.
Pavel Tchelitchev & Charles Henri Ford leave America for Grotta Ferrata, near Rome.
1951 Forbidden Colours by Yukio Mishima. It explores the spectrum of same-sex desires through
the troubled relationship of an older and younger gay man. At this time Yukio Mishima
started a relationship with the writer Jiro Fukushima.
Summer – death of Joe Leyendecker, bring to an end the 50-year-old relationship of Leyen
-decker & Charles Beach.
Tennessee Williams confides to his diary that he had his most exciting lay in London.
Mémoires d’Hadrien by Marguerite Yourcenar.
The City whose Prince is a Child, a play by Henry de Montherlant – male adolescence is a
paradise. Montherlant refused permission for the Comédie-Française to perform it.
World Within World by Stephen Spender – autobiography, includes his former lover Tony
Hyndman under the pseudonym Jimmy Younger. He is frank about his tentative
experimentation with bronzed German youth.
Roberta Cowell, a former British racing driver & WW2 fighter pilot, transitions to female.
Dr. Alfred Kinsey invites Glenway Westcott to Indiana to be filmed masturbating. They
become sexual partners & close friends, but Kinsey’s project funding is endangered.
Bernard Berenson, a closeted gay critic, suggests Caravaggio may have been homosexual.
Berenson was then attacked by fellow closeted gay critic Roberto Longhi
Joe Orton (18) attends RADA, meets and moves in with Kenneth Halliwell (25).
Frank O’Hara, gay poet, meets Joe leSueur, and they have a relationship for 15 years.
Alan Turing’s house is burgled, bringing to light his homosexuality, and resulting in his arrest
for gross indecency.
1952 The Price of Salt by ‘Claire Morgan’ ie Patricia Highsmith – her only lesbian novel.
May. The Sunday Pictorial has a full-page feature on how to recognise sexual criminals.
The Deep Blue Sea by Terence Rattigan – inspired by his affair with Kenneth Morgan.
6 September. Gertrude Lawrence goes into a coma and dies. Daphne du Maurier is floored
and takes to her bed for several days.
Hemlock and After by Angus Wilson – a gay author attempts to found a writers’ centre.
October. A copy of Maurice by E.M. Forster passes carefully from trusted hand-to-hand
from Cambridge to Isherwood in Los Angeles.
Poet Thom Gunn meets his American lover Mike Kitay in Cambridge.
John F. Nash, maths genius, meets Donald Newman and Jack Bricker at MIT, and has affairs
with both.
Charles Henry Ford, novelist & poet, moves to Europe with his life-long partner Pavel
Tchelitchew.
Xuân Diêu, Vietnamese poet was subject to rectification by the Communist Party. It was
alleged his bourgeois thinking was the problem, but he was sure it was his homo-
sexuality.
Robert Duncan, poet, begins a life-long relationship with artist, Jess Collins.
Del Martin (31) & Phyllis Lyon (34), future lesbian activists become lovers.
Bayard Rustin, future Civil Rights protestor, was arrested in Pasadena for performing oral
sex on two young white men.
Alan Turing (40) has sex with a youth (19), who steals from him. Reporting of the crime
leads to chemical castration and suicide.
Lucien Happersberger gets a woman pregnant and marries her, causing anguish for James
Baldwin. They part for a couple of years.
Christine Jorgensen, a US former soldier, transitions to female.
George Jamieson (17) before transitioning to April Ashley was raped by a patient in
Ormskirk hospital.
Homosexual short stories like ‘Servants with Torches’ by Donald Windham were still not
permitted to be published in the Listener.
Cyril Connolly stayed at Long Crichel for a weekend with Raymond Mortimer & Desmond
Shawe-Taylor & told Lys Lubbock he wished he could stay there forever & become
King of the Queers. Evelyn Waugh referred to it “the buggery house at Crichel.”
Pier Paolo Pasolini is cleared of another indecency charge.
November. Christopher Isherwood returns to Germany for a production of his Berlin Stories,
and meets the now-married Heinz Neddermeyer once more.
Rudi Gerrreich & Harry Hay split up, and the latter becomes the long-time lover of Jorn
Kamgren, a Danish hat-maker.
The Physiology of Sex by Kenneth Walker appears under the Pelican imprint. He noted that
homosexuals often regain their ‘self-respect’ by “devoting themselves with enthusiasm
to various forms of social and philanthropic work.”
1953 The Charioteer by Mary Renault.
Shortly after being knighted John Gielgud is arrested for importuning in a lavatory at Chelsea
tube station.
Labour MP Bill Field was arrested for importuning in West End lavatories. He resigns his seat
of Paddington North.
Gore Vidal (28) meets a drunk Jack Kerouac (31) in a San Remo bar, and they have sex in the
Chelsea Hotel.
Go Tell it to the Mountain by James Baldwin. The protagonist (14) struggles to come to terms
with his sexuality.
Camino Real by Tennessee Williams – the homosexual Baron de Charlus appears in an anti-
realistic play.
William S. Burroughs works on his novel Queer, which was originally a continuation of Junkie.
Rupert Croft-Cooke spends 6 months in prison for gross indecencies.
William Tilden dies a virtual pauper after being jailed twice for molesting teenagers.
Isherwood (49) meets Don Bachardy (16) on a beach in Santa Monica.
Alair Gomes, Brazilian photographer of male nudes, begins keeping an erotic diary.
Dr Bowman & Ms Engle advised therapeutic castration in ‘The Problem of Homosexuality’ in
the Journal of Social Hygiene.
1953-7 William Burroughs has an affair with Kiki, a youth, while in Tangier.
1953-69 Witold Gobrowicz’s Argentine diaries from this time describe his experiences with the Buenos
Aires homosexual underworld.
1954 Lord Montague, Peter Wildeblood & Michael Pitt-Rivers were prosecuted for acts of gross
indecency with two young airmen and received prison sentences of 8 months.
Arcadie founded in France by André Baudry. The dominant political & social organisation for
French homosexuals until mid-1970s.
Alan Turing commits suicide as a result of the chemical castration he was undergoing.
Separate Tables by Terence Rattigan – the original version had a homosexual flasher.
The World in the Evening by Christopher Isherwood – the plight of the homosexual in a
homophobic world.
Fighting Terms, poems by Thom Gunn, published while he was still an undergraduate. Gunn
then follows Mike Kitay to America.
The Boy Dresser is written by Joe Orton and Kenneth Halliwell – published 1999.
August. John F. Nash arrested for indecent exposure, and his career never recovered.
The Verdict of You All by Rupert Croft-Cooke, detailing his prison experiences. The author &
his Indian servant, Joseph Alexander, left Britain for Morocco, where they lived until
1968.
Confessions of Felix Krull, Confidence Man by Thomas Mann – inspired by Mann’s infatuation
with Franz Westmeier.
Frank Merlo provides confidence whilst Tennessee Williams is writing Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.
The latter finds he is now less appealing to hustlers in Spain.
James Baldwin & Lucien Happersberger reconnect when the latter arrived in New York without
wife or child. They live together for a short time giving Baldwin the impetus to complete
Giovanni’s Room.
Claude Cahun dies, ending her 40-year same-sex union with Suzanne Malherbe.
Allen Ginsberg (28) meets and has an affair with Peter Orlovsky (21). This is his first affair
with an exclusively homosexual. They remained together 43 years.
In Moscow [William] John Vassall, a clerical officer at the British embassy, was invited to a
party, plied with rink, and photographed with several different men in compromising
positions.
c.1954 Richard Hall, writer, undergoes Freudian analysis to change his sexual orientation.
1955 The Daughters of Bilitis was founded in San Francisco by Del Martin, Phyllis Lyon et al. An
association of lesbians named after an obscure poem by Pierre Louys.
We walk Alone through Lesbos’ Lonely Groves by Ann Aldrich. A pessimistic lesbian novel.
The Ragazzi by Pier Paolo Pasolini – celebrates working-class street-wise masculinity.
January. The Spectator runs an article gave a frank article giving ‘a biological homosexual’s’
view, describing how homosexuals were ‘debarred from a permanent and publicly
esteemed cohabitation with a loving partner.’
October. Vita Sackville-West & Alvilde Lees-Milne become lovers at Sissinghurst.
31 October. The Boise scandal, Idaho. Joe Moore, banker, had been having homosexual
relations for a decade. Gordon Lawson was sent up for 5 years for mutually fellating
Eldon Halverson. Frank Jones, a teenager, admitted sex with his cousin Fred Uranger.
Isherwood (51) and Don Bachardy (18) begin an affair that lasts 30 years.
Confidential magazine threatens to reveal Rock Hudson’s homosexuality, but his manager buys
them off with titbit about Rory Calhoun’s prison term and Tab Hunter’s arrest at a party.
Harvey Milk is forced to resign from the navy because of his homosexuality.
Leif Rovsing, Danish tennis player, is arrested and his home ransacked by police. He was
charged with having sex with a male prostitute under 18.
Frederic Wertham described Batman & Robin’s friendship as “a wish dream of two homo-
sexuals living together.”
Ralph Pomeroy was accepted by Yaddo, but “he scandalized the sedate arts colony by having an
open affair with painter Clifford Wright.”
Francis Poulenc is shaken by the death of his lover, Lucien Roubert (47).
Hans Blüher close to death solemnly requests his followers to fight for “rehabilitation of
homoeroticism.”
December. George Platt Lynes dies of lung cancer with Glenway Westcott at his bedside.
Pier Paolo Pasolini’s first novel Ragazzi di vita [Hustlers] is published, it was charged and
cleared of obscenity, but Pasolini became subject to press insinuations.
1956 4 June. The Last of the Wine by Mary Renault. A novel of two male same-sex Greek lovers in
the circle of Socrates.
8 June. Polish poet Jan Lechoń jumps out a 12th floor New York window. Being “an aging,
impecunious homosexual in America beset by McCarthyism” may have been a factor.
Montgomery Clift rents a house in Ogunquit, Maine and picks up men on the beach.
Tab Hunter meets Anthony Perkins, and they begin a relationship, which lasts 2-4 years.
Harvey Milk falls in love with Joe Campbell after meeting on a beach. They stay together for 6
years.
Giovanni’s Room by James Baldwin. David, an American in Paris, falls in love with an Italian,
but cannot come to terms with his homosexuality.
The Sense of Movement by Thom Gunn, poems in which he allies himself with the leather boy
Kulturebund rebels.
63: Dream Palace, a novel by James Purdy – deals with homosexuality, obsession & urban
alienation,
The Tangerine House by Rupert Croft-Cooke – describes his life in Morocco.
Yannis Tsarouchis paints The Forgotten Guard, depicting a sailor clothed in white looking
towards 2 naked men.
Thin Ice by Compton MacKenzie – an older man & his ‘secretary’ have a relationship.
My Dog Tulip, a memoir by J.R. Ackerley. Although principally about his love for his dog,
Ackerley’s sexual peccadillos are also apparent. Some of the most explicit homosexual
content was removed before publication.
Howl & Other Poems by Allen Ginsberg. His long-term relationship with Peter Orlovsky is
featured. The openly homosexual content led to the book being confiscated by San
Francisco police and by US customs.
A Thirsty Evil: Seven Short Stories by Gore Vidal – some have a homosexual theme.
An article in the Daily Mirror implied that Liberace was homosexual. He sues for libel.
June. Colin Spencer holidays at Cap Ferrat, with Billy, his sugar daddy. He poses for nude
photos, but is asked to keep a low profile when Somerset Maugham visits.
1956-62 Glory and Fame by Jaroslaw Iwasziewicz - a family saga, but homo-eroticism is included.
1957 September. The Wolfenden Report on the partial decriminalisation of homosexuality is
published.
That Awful Mess on Via Merulana by Carlo Gadda. Includes the minor gay character:
Commendatore Angeloni.
‘Swimming’ by Virgilio Pinera.
Poesie, poems written 1927-57, by Sandro Penne, which won the Viareggio Prize. He shared
the prize with Pasolini, which caused an outcry because both were left-wing &
homosexual.
Book of by Memories by Jaroslaw Iwaszkiewicz – his fascination with homoeroticism is
included.
Evelyn Hooker showed that there was no difference between the psychological profiles of
gay and straight people.
Pavel Tchelitchew, longtime partner of Charles Henry Ford, dies in Rome.
City of Spades & Absolute Beginners by Colin MacInnes – shows his fascination with black
immigrant young men.
Joseph Alsop in Moscow to interview Krushchev is photographed in a hotel room with a
young man. Blackmail fails because Alsop explains the situation to the American
Ambassador.
Between Us Girls by Joe Orton & Kenneth Halliwell – published in 1998.
The Death of James Dean, a painting by John Minton is completed. Minton commits suicide
on 20 January.
June. Francis Poulenc begins his lifelong romance with Louis Gautier, a former soldier.
29 May. Director James Whale is found dead in his swimming pool.
The Hungarian refugee Mattei Radev meets Eardley Knollys & Eddy Sackville-West at a
party given by Robert Wellington. Knollys would fall head-over-heels for Radev.
Donald Friend, Australian artist, lives in Sri Lanka for 5 years using young males as models.
Colin Spencer (24) & John Tasker (24) begin a passionate affair.
Jean Sénac, French-Algerian poet meets young Jacques Miel in Paris. They have a brief
affair, but become lifelong friends & Miel becomes Sénac’s adopted son & heir.
Late. Police raid the Mousehole, Swallow Street, Piccadilly.
1958 The Gold-Rimmed Spectacles by Giorgio Bassani. It deals with the trials of a gay doctor
during Italy’s slide into fascism.
The Sergeant by Dennis Murphy. Contains the homosexually repressed bully Sergeant
Callan.
The Strange Story of Dr James Barry by Isobel Rae. The first factual biography of the
subject.
The Zoo Story by Edward Albee is performed off Broadway. The American Dream features
as a beautiful, gay, male, heartless hustler.
Marguerite Yourcenar finally publishes her edition of Cavafy’s poems, prepared in 1939.
James Bridges (22), script writer & director and Jack Larson (30), actor & librettist, become
life partners for 35 years.
The Bell by Iris Murdoch – explores the relationship between a boy who arrives at a religious
community, and an inmate who retreated into religious performance.
We, too, Must Love by Ann Aldrich - a depressing lesbian novel.
Quaint Honour by Roger Gellert, a play is produced in a club, to evade the law. The book
version was reviewed in the Listener by J.R. Ackerley. The play concerned homo-
sexuality in public schools.
The Counterfeit Sex by Edward Bergler claimed: “There are no happy homosexuals; and
there would not be, even if the outer world left them in peace.”
Breakfast at Tiffany’s by Truman Capote betrays a homosexual sensibility.
July. The King Must Die by Mary Renault is published in America.
Report on the Life of the Male Homosexual by Gordon Westwood. One participant reports
his doctor was still giving the advice at this late stage: “He told me to pull up my socks,
find myself a nice girl and get married.”
Bruce Chatwin starts working at Sotheby’s and soon realises he is being used as “live bait.”
Reşat Ekrem Kocu publishes his first Istanbul encyclopedia. Young men are often described
in terms praising their physical beauty.
Brian Howard commits after his lover Sam is asphyxiated by a faulty heater.
14 July. Death of Abd al-Ilah is killed in the Iraq revolution. Intimate letters from Alan
Lennox-Boyd are discovered.
12 August. Sonia Orwell married Michael Pitt-Rivers, one of the homosexuals in the Lord
Montague case. The marriage is a disaster.
The Homosexual Law Reform Society is established with main backing from David Astor.
The Middle Age of Mrs Eliot by Angus Wilson – a woman living with her younger gay
brother and his companion, is trying to come to terms with her husband’s death.
Yves Saint-Laurent (22) met Pierre Bergé (28), they become lovers and Bergé takes over the
running of the fashion business.
The Secret Gospel of Mark is discovered in which a there is a young man “with a linen robe
thrown over his naked body.”
c.1958 In Lincoln Cathedral’s Russell Chantry, Duncan Grant paints a mural version of The Good
Shepherd, which is promptly covered up in the 1960s.
1959 Jewel in the Lotus by Allen Edwardes. [more info?]
Walter W. Jenkins, future chief aide to Lyndon B. Johnson, is arrested in a YMCA lavatory.
Donald Richie, US writer, spends the remainder of his life in Japan, because of their
tolerance of bisexuality.
Arabian Sands by Wilfred Thesiger. It includes a paean of praise for the physical beauty of
Bin Ghabaisha, a very beautiful boy.
L’Exile Capri by Roger Peyrefitte – the life of Jacques d’Adelswärd-Fersen. [1903].
Compulsion by Richard Fleischer is released. Based on the Leopold/Loeb murders with the
names altered.
Colin Turnbull becomes curator of African Ethnology at the Museum of Natural History of
New York. He falls in love with Joseph Towles (22), an African-American
anthropology student. They live together for 30 years.
James Ivory meets Ismail Merchant in New York for the first time.
Sam Langford dies of natural causes in the bath and his lover, Brian Howard, killed himself
with an overdose of sedatives.
Joe Orton and Kenneth Halliwell move to Islington.
Summer. Frank O’Hara meets longtime partner, Vincent Warren, ballet dancer, who inspires
several poems.
Una vita violenta by Pier Paolo Pasolini – celebrates working-class masculinity.
E.M. Forster writes to the Times protesting about the treatment of a Consett youth (17),
suspected of homosexual offences, who was denied bail, though his family raised the
money. He committed suicide as he waited his trial.
Liberace wins £8000 in his libel case against the Daily Mirror. He lied in court.
Colin Spencer marries a woman, thereby ending his relationship with John Tasker. Tasker
moves to Australia and becomes a successful theatre director. Spencer later regrets
what he did to Tasker.
Bibliography
Ackroyd, Peter, Queer City: Gay London From the Romans to the Present Day, London: Chatto & Windus, 2017.
Aldrich, Robert, Gay Life Stories, London: Thames & Hudson, 2023.
Aldrich, Robert & Garry Wotherspoon (eds.), Who’s Who in Gay & Lesbian History: From Antiquity to World War II: London,
Routledge, 2001.
Bray, Alan, The Friend, University of Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 2003.
Griffin, Gabriele, (ed.), Who’s Who in Lesbian & Gay Writing, Routledge: London, 2002.
Norton, Rictor, My Dear Boy: Gay Love Letters through the Centuries, San Francisco: Leyland Publications: 1998.
Rowse, A.L., Homosexuals in History, London: Wiedenfeld & Nicholson, 1977.
Spencer, Colin, Homosexuality, a History, London: Fourth Estate, 1995.
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