Secret Historian: The Life and Times of Samuel Steward, Professor, Tattoo Artist, and Sexual Renegade (56 page)

“Francis had been screwing”
: Steward,
Gay Sunshine
interview (Leland), original manuscript, pp. 27–28. (The passage does not appear in the printed interview.) Samuel M. Steward Papers.

Apparently Rose now hoped
: See Steward,
Dear Sammy
, footnote to pp. 200–201 and elsewhere, for Steward’s account, which is also supported by a letter (Rose to Steward, Toulon, Jan. 20, 1953) that remains in the Samuel M. Steward Papers.

“had apparently convinced himself”
: Michael DeCossart,
George Melhuish: Artist, Philosopher
, p. 123.

Steward subsequently received
: The letter, along with nearly all of Rose’s correspondence with Steward, was sold at auction by Steward in 1975, at a moment when he was convinced he had only a month to live. Summaries of their contents are, however, carefully documented in the sales catalog: California Book Auction Galleries, sale no. 113, Saturday, Oct. 18, 1975 (lots 331 and 332).

Frederica, Lady Rose, would
: “Of Dorothy Carrington, Rose’s second wife (although she herself claimed to have no knowledge of a first wife), Sir Francis left a cryptic—and perhaps not altogether reliable—account in his memoirs,
Saying Life
.” “Obituary: Frederica, Lady Rose,”
Daily Telegraph
, Jan. 29, 2002, p. 27.

“The tale of Francis”
: Lynes to Steward, Oct. 30, 1952 (from 229 East Forty-seventh Street), Samuel M. Steward Papers.

“I’m delighted you like”
: Steward to Lynes, Nov. 3, 1952, Samuel M. Steward Papers.

“I wish I could’ve been”
: Steward to Lynes, Nov. 16, 1952, Samuel M. Steward Papers.

“I wish I could”
: Lynes to Steward, Nov. 18, 1952, Samuel M. Steward Papers.

“You flatter me”
: Steward to Lynes, Nov. 22, 1952, Samuel M. Steward Papers.

“Something lovely happened last”
: Steward to Lynes, Dec. 7, 1952, Samuel M. Steward Papers.

“The combined efforts of”
: Steward to Lynes, Dec. 22 [nd, 1952], Samuel M. Steward Papers.

“About Francis—the story”
: Toklas to Steward, Dec. 29, 1952;
Dear Sammy
, pp. 201–202.

“I’ve developed quite a”
: Steward to Kinsey, dated Jan. 11, 1952 [but actually 1953], Kinsey Institute.

By coincidence, even as
: Rose to Steward, Jan. 20, 1953. Samuel M. Steward Papers.

“I wish I had”
: Lynes to Steward, Feb. 4, 1953, Samuel M. Steward Papers.

“I have to catch”
: Steward to Lynes, March 1, 1953, Samuel M. Steward Papers.

“Now it’s your turn”
: Steward to Lynes, April 25, 1953, Samuel M. Steward Papers.

“[It’s] not a very”
: Steward to Kinsey, May 5, 1953, Kinsey Institute.

“I’m glad you came”
: Lynes to Steward, May 12, 1953, noting in its address heading, “Also—157 East 61 Street.” Samuel M. Steward Papers.

“That damned novel has”
: Steward to Lynes, June 16, 1953, Samuel M. Steward Papers.

“and to the equally”
: Toklas to Steward, June 28, 1953;
Dear Sammy
, pp. 203–204.

“I started a rumor”
: Steward to Kinsey, July 21, 1953, Kinsey Institute.

“May I save you”
: Kinsey to Steward, July 28, 1953, Kinsey Institute.

9: “A KIND OF OBSCENE DIARY, ACTUALLY”

“My novel is [now]”
: Steward to Lynes, Oct. 18, 1953, Samuel M. Steward Papers.

“an old-fashioned doctor got”
: Steward to August Becker, Aug. 24, 1977, Samuel M. Steward Papers, Boston University.

“dear old poor old Sam”
: Lynes to Steward, Nov. 19, 1953, Samuel M. Steward Papers.

“A man walking alone”
: The clipping, undated, features the headline “Judge Sees Captain, Charges Two Policemen Abused Him.” Steward later donated the clipping and the letter he then sent to the judge to the Kinsey Archive. Kinsey Institute.

Professor Art Lennon
: Douglas Martin, who studied with both Lennon and Steward at DePaul, recalled that Lennon was “the only cute prof[essor] at the university,” but had no idea of his sexual orientation. Martin to author, August 2006.

“[Art] had cruised”
: Steward, Len Evans interview, tapes one and two.

“Francis has done some”
: Toklas to Steward, Jan. 28, 1954;
Dear Sammy
, p. 206.

“Without any unfaithfulness to”
: Toklas to Steward, Jan. 28, 1954;
Dear Sammy
, p. 207.

“[Berbich] stopped in briefly”
: Steward, Journal, Friday, Feb. 4 [1954], Kinsey Institute.

“It was a lot”
: Steward to Lynes, Feb. 19 [54?], Samuel M. Steward Papers.

“Ask me what I”
: Steward to Lynes, March 7, 1954, Samuel M. Steward Papers.

“I simply must have”
: Steward, Journal, Thursday, March 10 [1954], Kinsey Institute.

“The [motorcyclist] story you”
: Lynes to Steward, April 5, 1954, Samuel M. Steward Papers.

“[Tattooed] Larry…said”
: Steward, Journal, April 18 [1954], Easter, Kinsey Institute.

“Without too much alarm”
: Steward, Journal, May 1, 1954, Kinsey Institute.

“[I have been suffering from]”
: Steward to Lynes, May 25, 1954, Samuel M. Steward Papers.

“Do you do the tattooing”
: Lynes to Steward, June 30, 1954, Samuel M. Steward Papers.

“Sam Steward…was”
: Wescott, as told to Gerry Roscoe,
Glenway Wescott Personally
, pp. 142–43.

“I go out to Great Lakes”
: Steward to Kinsey, May 25, 1954, Kinsey Institute.

“entre nous
I have”
: Toklas to Steward, Aug. 2, 1954;
Dear Sammy
, p. 208.

10: “MR. CHIPS OF THE TATTOO WORLD”

“hie me to a seaport”
: Steward to Lynes, Dec. 19, 1953. This extraordinary letter, typewritten on a sheet of clear acetate, was found inserted into Steward’s 1954 tattoo journal (most probably by Steward); it remains at the Kinsey Institute, its author and recipient now identified as a result of this research.

“It was not until”
: Steward,
Bad Boys
, p. 12.

“It took [me] a week”
: Steward,
Bad Boys
, pp. 15–16.

“Could I have seen”
: Ibid., p. 17.

“And why should it”
: Ibid., p. 32.

“subject to both Post Office”
: Kinsey to Steward, Aug. 3, 1954, Kinsey Institute.

“in the past 7”
: Steward, Journal, Sept. 12, 1954, Kinsey Institute.

“Heated by the sight”
: Steward, Journal, Oct. 1, 1954, Kinsey Institute.

“In the past few”
: Steward, Journal, Oct. 3, 1954 (p. 59), Kinsey Institute.

“The passion overcame me”
: Steward, Journal, Sunday, Oct. 10 [1954] (p. 60), Kinsey Institute.

“I have just gone”
: Kinsey to Steward, Oct. 18, 1954, Kinsey Institute.

“A New Thing that”
: Steward, Journal, Sunday, Oct. 24 (p. 71, Chicago Journal), Kinsey Institute.

“Jimmy and Lonnie”
: Steward, Journal, Saturday, Oct. 23, Kinsey Institute.

“[An executive I know]”
: Steward, Journal, Oct. 26, Kinsey Institute.

“[Webb was] a [toothless]”
: Steward,
Bad Boys
, p. 27.

At first Steward occupied
: Ibid., pp. 34–35.

“In those days”
: Ibid., p. 23.

Steward eventually hired a lawyer
: Ibid., p. 31.

“The street’s miasma”
: Ibid., p. 14.

“[My] secret embarrassment over”
: Ibid., p. 19.

“After a month or two”
: Ibid., p. 39.

Steward’s sex-and-tattooing journal
: Ibid., p. 5.

“I’m sorry, but it”
: Steward, Journal, Tuesday, Dec. 28 [1954], Kinsey Institute.

11: THE KOTHMANN AFFAIR

“Everything [in the journal]”
: Steward,
Bad Boys
, p. 5. The latter part of this quotation deals with the manuscript of
Bad Boys
rather than the journal itself, but the statement is equally applicable to both.

“tattooing furnished me with”
: Ibid., pp. 136–37.

“[I] spent many hours”
: Pomeroy, Introduction,
Bad Boys
.

“He came in”
: Steward, Journal, Jan. 16, 1955, Kinsey Institute.

Popular resentment of Kinsey
: Gathorne-Hardy,
Sex
, p. 395.

In his naïveté, Kinsey
: Jones,
Alfred C. Kinsey: A Public/Private Life
, p. 532.

“crushed with disappointment”
: For more on Kinsey’s death, see Gathorne-Hardy,
Sex
, pp. 430–38.

He was interested in the rose
: Juan Eduardo Cirlot,
A Dictionary of Symbols
(New York: Philosophical Library, 1971).

Originally from Persia
: Maria Leach and Jerome Fried,
Funk & Wagnalls Standard Dictionary of Folklore, Mythology and Legend
(New York: Funk & Wagnalls, 1949).

Moreover, the rose had
: Don Ed Hardy, interview with author.

With his usual craftiness
: Various publications have named Dietzel as one of the leading American tattooists of the twentieth century. In 1965 he was named one of the top ten tattoo artists in the world by the Tattoo Club of America, documentation of which can be found in the Samuel M. Steward Papers.

“The purity and assurance”
: Steward,
Bad Boys
, p. 158.

Moreover, lower-class males
: Robinson,
Modernization of Sex
, p. 94.

“school is…awful”
: Steward, Journal, Friday, May 20, Kinsey Institute.

“The inside walls”
: The
Chicago
magazine article (July 1955) appears without a byline on pp. 20–21. Samuel M. Steward Papers.

“As for having things”
: Steward to Kinsey, Aug. 18, 1955, Kinsey Institute.

12: THE PARTING

“I am now so”
: Steward, Journal, Saturday Oct. 29, 1955, Kinsey Institute.

As a result, reports
: This paragraph has been roughly paraphrased from Jones,
Alfred C. Kinsey
, p. 629.

“I have thought of”
: Kinsey to Steward, Jan. 10, 1956, Kinsey Institute.

“I laughingly pushed it”
: Steward, Journal, Jan. 13, 1956, Kinsey Institute.

In mid-February, Steward
: Steward to Kinsey, Feb. 13, 1956, Kinsey Institute.

“Frankly I was a”
: Kinsey to Steward, Feb. 17, 1956, Kinsey Institute.

“my raise had been”
: This section of the journal is entitled “Crisis at DePaul” and is dated “Feb 23,
et seq.
, 1956.” Kinsey Institute.

“I was cleared on”
: Steward, interviewed by Len Evans on July 23, 1983, as part of Voices: The Oral History Project of the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgendered Historical Society of Northern California. Published in
Journal of the History of Sexuality
, vol. 9, no. 4 (Oct. 2000), pp. 474–93.

Steward had chosen his
: Barry Werth,
The Scarlet Professor: Newton Arvin, a Literary Life Shattered by Scandal
(New York: Nan A. Talese, 2001), p. 166.

“Prok came [down to the cage]”
: Steward, Journal, June 4, 1956, Kinsey Institute.

“this first bleak look”
: Steward, Journal, June 8, 1956, Friday, Kinsey Institute.

“The end of school”
: Steward to Toklas, June 11, 1956, Kinsey Institute.

“The fantastic episodes continue”
: Steward to Martin, May 15, 1978, Samuel M. Steward Papers, gift of Douglas Martin.

“I’ve come closer to”
: Steward,
Bad Boys
, pp. 112–14.

“violent, stupid and crazy”
: Ibid., p. 112.