June 22

...with a side of towel boys:

"Hutch" Hutchinson: Gigolo Par Excellence

When the hit television series Downton Abbey* added Jack Ross, a jazz cabaret singer, to its cast, few viewers on this side of the pond realized that the role of Jack Ross was based on a real-life personage, Leslie “Hutch” Hutchinson (1900-1969), an immensely talented black man who made a fortune as a cabaret singer and pianist, while insinuating himself into the upper echelons of high society in Paris and London. He moved about in a chauffeur-driven Rolls Royce to and from his grand house in Hampstead, exquisitely dressed in custom tailored finery. Equally spectacular was his crash landing after falling out of favor, ending his life on the cusp of penury.

*I must be the last person on earth who has not seen a single episode.

Hutch was a philanderer, seducer, gigolo and a pathological liar, constantly reinventing himself and overstating his credentials. He was also handsome, talented, devastatingly charming and notoriously well endowed – not to mention rabidly bisexual, possessed of a voracious sexual appetite. Among his male lovers were Cole Porter and Ivor Novello; among females he was intimate with Tallulah Bankhead and Merle Oberon, not to mention nobles, royals and the merely rich, but it was his torrid affair with Countess Edwina Mountbatten (wife of bisexual Lord Louis Mounbatten) that brought him down. Afterward, although Edwina’s name was cleared (the plaintiffs wrongly assumed that the Negro with whom she was having sexual relations was Paul Robeson), Buckingham Palace refused to have Hutch participate in Royal Command performances, and Lord Beaverbrook insisted that Hutch's name was never to be mentioned again in any of his newspapers. As a result, Hutch’s professional and social decline was precipitous.

Leslie Hutchinson was born of mixed parentage on the island of Grenada, making him a British citizen. He attended the best schools and was celebrated as a piano prodigy. While in his mid teens his father sent him to study medicine in Nashville, TN, at one of the few schools that allowed black students, but his heart was not in it. He stole away to NYC, settling in Harlem, where he became a successful stride pianist; soon Fats Waller and Duke Ellington were included in his circle of friends, and among his patrons were the Vanderbilts, who hired him to play piano for private functions. One of the reasons he was not well known in the US is that he departed from NYC after a stay of only five years.

Hutch left New York for Paris, where he started his climb to the world of high society, but it was in London that his career reached its peak during the late twenties and thirties. Primarily just a pianist prior to settling into London, he began singing while accompanying himself on the piano. As a cabaret singer, he reigned supreme, much like Bobby Short in NYC a generation later. Hutch became a favorite cabaret singer of the then Prince of Wales (later King Edward VIII) and was regularly heard on BBC radio.


Although Hutch had a wife and child at home, most visitors assumed that the woman of the house was his servant. A black Anglo-Chinese woman, wife Ella was always excluded from Hutch’s professional and social life, which tended toward scandal. Hutch fathered seven more children with six different mothers, all of them white. And that's not counting the many lovers who elected to have abortions.

Few entertainers could blow through money at the pace set by Hutch. Accustomed to being pampered and gifted by legions of high-born women, his finances took a nose dive after his fall from society. After the changes in musical style and tastes that took place after WW II, Hutch eventually had to live on receipts from occasional jobs in small venues, and he often had to borrow money to pay his bills. He let himself go physically, and his trademark slim physique and good looks were forever lost. After Hutch died from pneumonia in 1969, only 42 mourners attended his funeral service. Ironically, it was Lord Mountbatten who offered to pay for the burial costs.

High Society’s Favorite Gigolo, a one-hour documentary on the life of Leslie Hutchinson, was broadcast on British television in 2008, and Hutch, a biography by Charlotte Breese, was published in 1999.

His incomparable rendition of The Way You Look Tonight (music by Jerome Kern with lyrics by Dorothy Fields):

Cole Porter wrote I'm a Gigolo for -- and about -- Hutch Hutchinson:

June 24

Liberace 

Just a few years ago during a visit to Las Vegas I was astonished to learn that a gay twenty-something violinist in our group had never heard of Liberace (pronounced Libber-AH-chee). We hoofed it over to the Liberace museum (since closed), where a fabulous collection of costumes, bejeweled pianos and automobiles, all of dubious taste, was displayed in a strip mall once owned by the pianist. The docents played it straight – no mention was made of the gay scandals and controversies that littered the last years of the entertainer’s life.

Liberace (1919-1987) was a classically trained pianist who was bullied while in his early teens growing up in Wisconsin. He had a speech impediment and shunned athletic activity for a fondness for playing the piano and cooking. At the age of twenty he played Liszt’s Second Piano Concerto with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, for which he received strong reviews. However, it was his experience playing popular music during the Depression years that put money in his pocket, and he soon became addicted to the luxuries those gigs afforded. He decided to abandon a career as a serious concert pianist and instead focused on the entertainment aspects of his performances.

He hit his stride in the 1950s, becoming an entertainment phenomenon through wildly popular television appearances, night club performances and recordings. For the next twenty years he was the highest paid entertainer in the world. Throughout the 1970s and early 80s he was earning $300,000 a week in Las Vegas. He typically spoke to the audience and even sang while sporting ever more over-the-top costumes and jewelry. His piano performances, which were highly embellished and shortened versions of classical standards (he called it classical music with the boring parts left out), became secondary to the glitz and outrageous props, and pop tunes became increasingly important elements of his repertoire. Liberace’s signature prop was a candelabra placed atop whatever piano he was playing. Liberace once stated, "I don't give concerts, I put on a show."

His private life was as flamboyant as his stage presence. He collected homes that he furnished in his favored Baroque and Rococo style, with gaudy accessories crowding every horizontal surface.

Liberace denied that he was gay his entire life, even as he was dying of AIDS. A much younger Scott Thorson (above left), who was employed as a “chauffeur/assistant”, was Liberace’s lover for a number of years. Liberace lavished the young man with gifts of luxury cars and costly jewelry. In 1982 24-year-old Thorson sued 63-year-old Liberace for palimony, an act that fueled a tabloid scandal. Thorson, who had undergone plastic surgery to look more like a younger Liberace (is this sick, or what?), had been cast aside for a teenaged male; Thorson himself had been seduced by Liberace when he was sixteen. The suit was ultimately settled out of court for a paltry $95,000 cash payment to Thorson, without Liberace admitting guilt. Thorson later admitted that being dismissed in 1982 may have saved his life, since Liberace was HIV-positive and symptomatic from 1985. In a 2011 interview, actress and close friend Betty White confirmed that Liberace was gay, and that she often served as a beard to counter rumors of his homosexuality.

The melodrama that marked Liberace’s last years is being revived in  HBO Films’ upcoming biopic titled “Behind the Candelabra.” In his first post-cancer role, Michael Douglas will portray the tortured closeted gay entertainer Liberace;  Mr. Douglas received a stage 4 throat cancer diagnosis in 2010. The biopic, which is being scripted by Richard LaGravenese, will be directed by Steven Soderbergh.

Rob Lowe will play Liberace’s plastic surgeon, and Scott Bakula will play the choreographer who introduced Liberace to his much younger longtime partner Scott Thorson, a pivotal role to be played by Matt Damon. They complete a cast that includes Dan Aykroyd as Liberace’s manager and Debbie Reynolds as Liberace’s mother Frances. Cheyenne Jackson has just this week joined the cast, but is not yet at liberty to announce which role he will play. Marvin Hamlish will provide the score.

Production of the film, which is based on Scott Thorson’s 1988 book “Behind the Candelabra: My Life with Liberace,” will begin next month in Los Angeles, Las Vegas and Palm Springs, where Liberace maintained homes.

A typical stage costume for Liberace's flamboyant performances. This sequins and fur trimmed caped number is from a Christmas show.





















But I digress. Back to the tan lines:

July 29

Ivor Novello (1893-1951)

Born in Wales in 1893, Novello was one of the most popular entertainers of the early twentieth century. He was a noted composer, singer, playwright, and actor. Most considered him a rival to Noel Coward, who was six years Novello's junior. Coward later wrote that he was envious of Novello’s handsome appearance and had sought to copy his glamorous style. Coward and Novello went on to become good friends. In fact it was actor Robert (Bobbie) Andrews, Novello's life partner for 35 years, who introduced Novello to the young Noel Coward. Bobby Andrews and Novello were later to appear together in many of Novello's plays and musicals.

Novello’s first success was as a songwriter. At age 21 he wrote the music for Keep the Home Fires Burning, an immensely popular sentimental song of the WW I era that brought Novello money and fame.

In the 2002 film Gosford Park, the guests at a country house are entertained by Novello (played by Jeremy Northam), who performs on the piano. Six Novello songs were used in the soundtrack.

While Novello continued to write scores to songs, musicals and revues, he developed a career as an actor. His good looks, talent and suave style led to success on both stage and screen; he was considered England’s first great male silent film star, a British “Rudolph Valentino”. Like Coward, Novello enjoyed simultaneous careers in both Great Britain and the U.S. Novello earned enough money to buy a lavish, sprawling country house near Maidenhead in 1927. Named Redroofs, the property was the setting for extravagant, unconventional entertaining, often characterized by untempered homosexual excesses. Novello later bought a house in Jamaica where he and his partner Bobby Andrews went on holiday together.

Novello hit his stride in the 1930s, writing music for Drury Lane shows that blended musical comedy with opera, operetta and modern and classical dance. Novello usually starred in his own shows. Unfortunately, he spent a notorious four weeks in prison during WW II for misuse of petrol rationing coupons (to obtain gasoline for his Rolls-Royce), a serious offense at the time, and the trauma of this incarceration had serious and lasting effects on his life. After his release, the sentimental song We’ll Gather Lilacs (from Perchance to Dream, 1945) became a hit during WW II.

Novello remained the most consistently successful writer of British musicals until Andre Lloyd Webber came onto the scene in the 1970s.

Novello died suddenly of coronary thrombosis in 1951, at the age of 58, at his London flat in the presence of his partner Bobby Andrews. Thousands lined the streets to the funeral service, which was broadcast live on radio. For the past fifty-four years, the British Academy of Composers and Songwriters' annual awards have been nick-named the Ivors, in honor of Novello.

Trivia:
• Novello never allowed his left profile to be photographed or filmed.
• It was Novello who came up with the phrase, “Me Tarzan – You Jane.” Novello developed the dialogue for the 1932 film Tarzan the Ape Man.
• Alfred Hitchcock cast Novello in one of his earliest films, The Lodger (1927).


The web site for the Ivor Novello Appreciation Bureau can be found at this link:
www.ivornovello.com

“We’ll Gather Lilacs” from the WW II era, sung by Marion Grimaldi.

July 20

Shostakovitch Prelude
performed by Croatian cellists Stjepan Hauser (25) and Luka Sulic (23)

Yum. Music doesn’t get any more poignant than this. A simply stupendous interpretation of a Russian classic - the cellists all but make love to each other in this video (it doesn’t hurt that they’re both sexy as f*ck). The “duelling cellists” have become a YouTube sensation. They open for Elton John (on his European tour, Las Vegas gig and Australian tour) and have even appeared on Ellen. Yesterday they released their debut album “2 Cellos.”


Truck on over to YouTube and see what they do with Michael Jackson’s Smooth Criminal. You have no idea what you’re in for.

Hard to tear ourselves away.

June 23

Gay Singer and Media Billionaire

He was a young singer who gladly accepted $500 to sing at high school proms, yet went on to become a media billionaire. In his youth he had a crush on Errol Flynn. For a year and a half his roommate was Montgomery Clift. He lived with Roddy McDowall at the Dakota on Central Park West. He dated Rock Hudson, who encouraged him to keep his homosexuality quiet. As well, he had liaisons with Tom Drake, James Dean, Peter Lawford, Robert Walker, Gordon Scott (Tarzan), not to mention Marlon Brando. He was a regular at Liberace’s all-male orgies.

He neither confirmed nor denied his homosexuality, but Eva Gabor, his long-time beard, provided enough cover that he had access to the Reagan White House (he was particularly close to Nancy, with whom he shared a birthday, July 6), and he was an honorary pallbearer at the funeral of President Ronald Reagan in 2004.

As a teenager he was a church organist and piano prodigy, but at was his smooth singing voice that launched a career as an entertainer. During the 1960s he hosted his own TV talk show, usually crooning a song or two between guests. He created wildly popular TV game shows, such as Jeopardy and Wheel of Fortune. He wrote the theme music used on Jeopardy. He also owned casinos, hotels and resorts. He raised thoroughbred horses. He owned Paradise Island in the Bahamas.

But there was a dark side. Like most high profile gay men of his era, he married, but his severely closeted gay life produced a paranoia that kept his team of lawyers busy shooting down rumors and threatening those who spoke or wrote about his lurid gay life, which often included prostitutes. He was particularly threatened by openly gay men, more often than not firing his own employees who dared live openly and honestly gay lives. Two same-sex palimony and sexual harassment lawsuits in 1991 brought questions about his sexuality to national prominence. He dealt with them by beginning a high profile relationship with actress Eva Gabor, making sure photographs of them as a couple appeared everywhere. Nice try.

The man about whom I’m writing was Merv Griffin, of course. He died in 2007 at the age of 82.

Shown with beard-for-hire Eva Gabor in the early 1990s, at the height of the media frenzy over the same-sex palimony and sexual harassment lawsuits.