Ramon Novarro

I'm not one to collect autographed pictures of actors, but I was scrolling through EBay, 99cents, free shipping, click and it was mine.

So, who was Ramon Novarro? He was born Jose Ramon Gil Samaniego, in 1899, the son of a successful Mexican dentist. In 1916, fleeing the Mexican revolution, Ramon and his family ended up in Los Angeles. A year latter, in 1917, Ramon was earning money as a dancer, singing waiter, piano teacher, and movie extra. For five years he struggled in his career, the occasional small part, but mostly background. And then he was cast as the lead in The Prisoner of Zenda. Three years latter, in 1925, now renamed Ramon Novarro, he had the biggest success of his career. The lead in Ben Hur: A Tale of Christ. His film career continued into the sound era, getting the romantic lead opposite Greta Garbo in Mata Hari, in 1931. That was it, the peak. After that, it was a slow slide into smaller and smaller parts. Eventually his work was mostly in episodic television.

In 1968, Ramon Novarro, a gay man who often picked up street hustlers. was murdered in his North Hollywood home by two of those hustlers, who thought that, because he had once been a movie star, he must be rich.

Girl Friends at the Cabin

I once asked a friend of mine, who happens to be gay, why gays were always reading a sexual context into things when none was apparent. He told me that gays have historically been in the shadows, so they took what they could get. The probability is that these four women are nothing more than friends, but who really knows after all these years.

Fete Eve, A Lesbian Wedding

France in the twenties? Life without men? This is a great snapshot of a group of women, some dressed as men, at a wedding ceremony.

Girl Friends

I've always thought it both silly and shallow when people try and read sexuality into old photos. Just because two people, whether of the opposite, or same sex, are pictured together it doesn't follow that there is some sort of relationship between the two. With these pictures, however, it's difficult to ignore the obvious affection that these two women have for each other. If it wasn't for all the hand holding, I might have guessed sisters, but all things considered, it's not unreasonable to think of these two ladies as a couple, back when that could get you sent to prison.

The Wild Party

People my age seem to think that they invented recreational sex, that somehow people from past ages only did it to reproduce the species. These four small photographs, probably from the thirties or forties, show otherwise. But, were these two ladies paid entertainers or bored neighborhood housewives?