Secret Historian: The Life and Times of Samuel Steward, Professor, Tattoo Artist, and Sexual Renegade (64 page)

Souhami, Diana.
Gertrude and Alice
. London: Pandora, 1991.

Spoto, Donald.
The Kindness of Strangers: The Life of Tennessee Williams
. Boston: Little, Brown, 1985.

Steegmuller, Francis.
Cocteau: A Biography
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Stein, Gertrude.
The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas
. New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1933.

_______.
A Stein Reader
(Ulla E. Dydo, ed.). Evanston, Ill.: Northwestern University Press, 1993.

Stein, Gertrude, and Thornton Wilder.
The Letters of Gertrude Stein and Thornton Wilder
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Black Sheets
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Thompson, Mark, ed.
Leatherfolk: Radical Sex, People, Politics and Practice
. Boston: Alyson, 1991.

Thompson, William R. “Sex, Lies and Photographs: Letters from George Platt Lynes.” Master’s thesis, Rice University, 1997.

Toklas, Alice.
The Alice B. Toklas Cook Book
. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1954.

_______.
Staying On Alone: The Letters of Alice B. Toklas
(Edward Burns, ed.). New York: Liveright, 1973.

_______.
What Is Remembered
. San Francisco: North Point, 1985.

Townsend, Larry.
The Leatherman’s Handbook
. San Francisco: Le Salon, 1973.

_______. “Plight of Gay Novelists: Who Gauges Market Correctly, Publishers or Writers?”
The Advocate
, August 19, 1970, p. 19.

Tripp, C.A.
The Homosexual Matrix
. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1975.

Vickers, Hugo.
Cecil Beaton: A Biography
. Boston: Little, Brown, 1985.

Vidal, Gore.
Palimpsest: A Memoir
. New York: Random House, 1995.

Waugh, Thomas.
Hard to Imagine: Gay Male Eroticism in Photography and Film from Their Beginnings to Stonewall
. New York: Columbia University Press, 1996.

_______.
Out/Lines: Underground Gay Graphics from Before Stonewall
. Vancouver: Arsenal Pulp Press, 2002.

Webb, Spider, with Marco Vassi.
Spider Webb’s Pushing Ink: The Fine Art of Tattooing
. New York: Fireside, 1979.

Weinberg, Martin S., and Colin J. Williams.
Male Homosexuals: Their Problems and Adaptations
. New York: Oxford University Press, 1974.

Welch, Paul. “Homosexuality in America,”
Life
, June 26, 1964, pp. 66–78.

Welham, M. G., and J. A. Welham.
Frogman Spy: The Mysterious Disappearance of Commander “Buster” Crabb
. London: W. H. Allen, 1990.

Werth, Barry.
The Scarlet Professor Newton Arvin, a Literary Life Shattered by Scandal
. New York: Nan A. Talese, 2001.

White, Edmund.
Genet: A Biography
. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1993.

_______.
States of Desire: Travels in Gay America
. New York: Dutton, 1980.

Wilde, Oscar.
De Profundis and Other Writings
. New York: Penguin, 1986.

Williams, Tennessee.
Memoirs
. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1975.

Wilson, Colin.
The Occult
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Woody, Jack.
George Platt Lynes: Photographs, 1931–1955
. Los Angeles: Twelvetrees Press, 1980.

Young, Ian.
The Male Homosexual in Literature: A Bibliography
. Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow Press, 1975.

6. VISUAL RECORDINGS OF STEWARD

International Tattoo Art. An interview with Samuel Steward by Michael O. Stearns, Metamorphosis Productions, 542 Chetwood Street, Oakland, California. Date of taping: August 23, 1983. A copy of this interview remains in the Steward archive.

Advocate Men Live!
Fred Bissones, director. Los Angeles: Advocate Men, 1986. Color. The most significant visual interview of Samuel M. Steward. A copy of this tape remains in the Steward Archive, gift of Douglas Martin.

Olaf Odergaard interview with Samuel Steward on behalf of the International Gay and Lesbian Archives, Natalie Barney, Edward Carpenter Library, Hollywood, California. Interview taped in December 1986. A copy of this interview remains in the Steward archive.

Rick X Talks to Sam Steward
, July 10, 1991, Berkeley, California. A sit-down interview by Rick X/Rick Shur, the New York–based producer of
The Closet Case Show
, a public access television show screened on New York cable television. A copy of this interview remains in the Steward archive.

Paris Was a Woman
(1995). Greta Schiller, director. Los Angeles: Cicada Films/Jezebel Productions. This widely released 75-minute documentary describing women artists and writers of Paris features a substantial late-life interview of Samuel Steward about his friendship with Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas.

Many people helped me with the researching and publishing of this book. The most important financial assistance came from a Guggenheim Fellowship, which helped me to begin my research; and the most important personal encouragment came to me from Paul Cadmus, who at the end of his life, even as he declined to be the subject of a biography, convinced me that his generation of writers and artists needed to be better understood.

At Brown University, I’d like to thank the John Nicholas Brown American Studies Center and the Kirk Collection, both of which helped to fund my library research in Providence. I’d also like to thank the staff of the John Hay Library and the Rockefeller Library, particularly Joyce Botelho, Rosemarie Cullen, Ron Fark, Mary Jo Kline, and Sam Streit. Tovah Reis was also most helpful. At Yale University, Tim Young proved indispensable in helping me to find my way through the Beinecke Collections and in locating letters that had otherwise been invisible to all previous researchers. He was an early and enthusiastic supporter of Sam Steward’s life story. Patricia Willis was also gently encouraging. A Beinecke research grant form Yale, meanwhile, helped offset my travel and lodging costs in New Haven.

Joseph Bean, the founder and organizer of the Leather Archives and Museum in Chicago, helped me immeasurably over my many years of research and in doing so became both an adviser and good friend. His successor at the Leather Archives, Rick Storer, also contributed his goodwill and expertise; so, too, did Charles “Chuck” Renslow. I would particularly like to thank Mr. Renslow for making himself available to me for interviews about his friendship with Sam Steward, and for sharing with me the extensive documentation of his life. The author Jack Rinella, a longtime associate of the Leather Archives, hosted me for a memorable evening and provided me with information about the leather community I would have found nowhere else. Douglas Martin, Steward’s former pupil at DePaul, was exceptionally warm and welcoming to me during my Chicago visits. Martin was the only person to read through the manuscript in all its many drafts. He was also kind enough to offer me a place to stay during my visit to the International Mr. Leather convention in Chicago, and in so doing he shared his lifelong knowledge of Chicago with me, as well as his firsthand accounts of life at DePaul and his later-life friendship with Steward. Both Loyola and DePaul universities, meanwhile, granted me access to their special collections archives in order to research Sam Steward’s career.

In San Francisco, Michael Williams was remarkably generous in sharing Sam’s life story and papers with me. He was an equally generous host and guide, and over the course of nearly a decade he has become a dear and valued friend. Donald Allen shared his memories of Sam Steward with me, and gave me full access to the archives of his Gray Fox Press. In Berkeley, the manuscript dealer Burton Weiss generously shared information and gave me access to his unique collections. At UC Berkeley, Bancroft special collections librarian Peter Hanff was equally welcoming. The surviving friends and acquaintances of Sam Steward in San Francisco who were kind enough to share their memories of him included Jack Fritscher, Don Ed Hardy, Kevin Killian, Bob McHenry, Paul Padgette, and Burton Weiss. Fritscher in particular helped to expand my knowledge of gay San Francisco and the unique world of
Drummer
magazine. Various other members of the GLBTQ and kink and leather communities have explaining so many things that I would otherwise never have understood; they include Guy Baldwin, Jeanne Barney, Chad Heap, Mark Hemry, Jack Frischer, Gayle Rubin, and Bill Thompson.

In Bloomington, the Kinsey Institute gave me a warm welcome. I would particularly like to thank Catherine Johnson-Roehr, Shawn Wilson, and Liana Zhou for their patience with my project. A very special thanks goes as well to Alfred Kinsey’s close associate of many years, Paul Gebhard, who candidly shared with me so many of his memories of Sam Steward and the early, pioneering years of sex research. I’d like also to thank Brenda Marston at Cornell University Library for directing me to the papers of H. Lynn Womack, and the Archives of American Art for providing information on Gertrude Abercrombie and her circle in Chicago. While I was doing my research at Boston University, George Shackel-ford kept me in good cheer and kindly gave me a place to sleep. George Platt Lynes II has graciously allowed me to quote extensively from the letters of George Platt Lynes to Samuel Steward; likewise, Tappan Wilder has kindly allowed me to quote from the unpublished letters of Thornton Wilder to Samuel Steward. In New York, Jennifer Milne provided indispensable copyediting and editorial help in the seemingly endless editing-down and revision of the manuscript, a process that lasted for more than a year.

Finding a publisher for
Secret Historian
took a good deal of effort, so I would particularly like to thank the writer Francine Maroukian for insisting that I continue my work on the book after other advisers suggested I abandon it in favor of something more commercial. I would like to thank Doug Stumpf for recommending the book proposal to Jeff Seroy; Jeff Seroy for recommending the proposal to Jonathan Galassi; and finally, and most important, Jonathan Galassi for daring to sign up what surely must have seemed to him a difficult and hard-to-sell book. Over the years his editorial comments have been invaluable; so, too, have been those of his assistant, Jesse Coleman. Charlotte Sheedy has been a supportive and enthusiastic agent for the book, very wise in the ways of contemporary publishing. David Deiss of Elysium Press offered not only his comments on the manuscript but also, miraculously, to publish the companion volume of Sam Steward’s visual works.

And my deepest thanks, as ever, go to Anthony Korner, who lived patiently with this book for nearly a decade.

The index that appeared in the print version of this title does not match the pages in your eBook . Please use the search function on your eReading device to search for terms of interest. For your reference, the terms that appear in the print index are listed below.

AAU (Amateur Athletic Union)

Abercrombie, Gertrude

Abramson, Ben

absolution

Accu-Jac

“Ace in the Hole” (Andros)

Ackerley, J. R.

Adams, LeRoy

Advocate

African Americans,
see
blacks

Against the Grain
(
A Rebours
; Huysmans)

A-Hunting We Will Go!
(Steward),
see Parisian Lives

AIDS

Alcoholics Anonymous

Algeria

Alice B. Toklas Cook Book
(Toklas)

Allen, Donald

Altamont Raceway

Alyson Publications

American Association of University Professors

American Ballet Theater

Amigo

Amory, Richard (Richard Love)

Anchor Tattoo Shop

“Ancient Art of Professor Phillip Sparrow, The,”

Anderson, Margaret

Anderson, Marie

Anderson, Sherwood

André (hustler); pseudonyms of (Dédé Java)

Andrews, Clarence “Clare,”

Andrews, Scott

Andros, Phil (pseud. of SMS),
see
Phil Andros fiction

Angels on the Bough
(Steward)

Angel That Troubled the Waters, The
(Wilder)

Anger, Kenneth

antiwar protests

Antonio (hustler)

Apartment in Athens
(Wescott)

Apollinaire, Guillaume

Arcadie

A Rebours
(
Against the Grain
; Huysmans)

Argus Bookshop

Aristotle

armed services, U.S., homosexuals in

Arnett, Chuck

“Arrangement in Black and White” (Andros)

Art Institute of Chicago

Arvin, Newton

“As a Wife Has a Cow a Love Story” (Stein)

Athenia
, S.S.

Athletic Model Guild

Atlas, James

Austen, Roger

Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas, The
(Stein)

Autre Sommeil, L’
(Green)

Avery, Dick

“Baby Tiger” (Stames)

Bachir

Bad Boys and Tough Tattoos
(Steward)

Bahnc, Salcia

Baldwin, Guy

Ballets Russes

Ballet Theater,
see
American Ballet Theater

Barber, Samuel

barbiturates

“Bargain Hunters, The” (Steward)

Barger, Elsie

Barger, Ralph “Sonny,”

Barker, George

Barnes, Ike

Barney, Jeanne

Barney, Natalie

Baron, Hal

Barr, James (James Barr Fugate)

Basket II (dog)

Bate, Neel (Blade)

Bates, Bill

Baudelaire, Charles

Baudoin, Mme.

Bauer, Bert

BDSM;
see also
sadomasochism

Beach, Sylvia

Bean, Joseph

Beardsley, Aubrey

Bearers of Evil Tidings, The
(Lecomte de Nuoy)

Beaton, Cecil

Beats

Beausoleil, Bobby

Bell-Bottom Trousers
(Steward)

Bellows, Ruffian, Jr.

Below the Belt and Other Stories
(Andros)

Benson, Roger

Benzedrine

Bérard, Christian “Bébé,”

Berbich, Bob

Berkeley, Calif.: Earth People’s Park in; SMS’s bungalow in; violent crime in

Berkeley Free Speech movement

Berkeley Gazette

Berkeley Police Department

Berullo, Bob

Beyond the Pleasure Principle
(Freud)

Bilignin, France

Bingleman, Audrien

Bishop, Donald (pseud. of SMS)

Black Panther Party

blacks: murder of Herman Cartun by; robbery at Anchor Tattoo Shop by; SMS’s friendships with; SMS’s sexual encounters with; SMS’s sympathy for the plight of gay; SMS’s assaults by; SMS’s gang rape by

“Blacks and Mr. Bennett, The” (“Sea Change” Andros)

Blaine, Anne

Blake, William

Blow for Blow
,
see Greek Ways

Blumenthal, Eli

bodybuilding competitions

“Boke of Phyllyp Sparrowe, The” (Skelton)

Boni and Liveright

Boston University, special collections library at

Boudreault, Roland

Bourges, France

Boyd, J. P.

Boys in Blue, The
(
San Francisco Hustler
; Andros)

Boys Town

“Boys Will Be Boys” (Raven)

Bozart: The Bi-Monthly Poetry Review

Bradbury, Bruce

Brando, Dorothy “Dode,”

Brando, Marlon, Sr.

Braque, Georges

Brash, Jeff

Brashin, Jim

Brest, France

Breton, André

Brian, J. (J. Brian Donahue); arrests of; collaboration with Steward; escort and brothel business of; friendship with Steward; photography by; pornographic filmmaking by; provider of hustlers for Steward; publication of work by Steward

Bridge of San Luis Rey, The
(Wilder)

Bronski, Michael

Brooklyn Citizen

brothels, male

Broughton, James

Brown University, John Hay Special Collections Library at

Bulganin, Nikolai

“Bull Market in America, The” (Bishop)

Bunin, Ivan

Buonfiglio, Tab

Burckhardt, Rudolf (Rudolf Jung)

Burns, Edward M.

Burroughs, William S.

Butts, Mary

Cabell, James Branch

Cadmus, Paul

“Calamus” poems (Whitman)

California, University of, at Berkeley, Bancroft Library at

Cammell, Donald

Caplowitz, Bob

Caravaggio Shawl, The
(Steward)

Carlyle, Thomas

Carroll College

Cartun, Herman

Cathedral, The
(Huysmans)

Catholicism; SMS’s conversion to; SMS’s rejection of; of Toklas; of Virginia Harper (sister)

Cavafy, Constantin

Cave, Thomas (pseud. of SMS)

Caves du Vatican, Les
(Gide)

Caxton Publishers

120 Journées de Sodome
(Sade)

Cerf, Bennett

Chance, Ervin

Chandler, Raymond

Chant d’Amour, Un

Chapters from an Autobiography
(Steward)

Charters, Ann

Chevalier, Maurice

Chicago, Ill.: homosexual scene in; Peterson-Schuessler murder panic in; sailors in; SMS’s affection for; SMS’s apartments in; SMS’s tattoo parlors in,
see
Steward, Samuel M., tattooing; SMS’s teaching appointments in; South State Street in; youth gangs in

Chicago, University of

Chicago Daily News

Chicago Gay and Lesbian History Project

Chicago Police Department; shakedowns by

Chicago Tribune

Christenson, Fritz

Churchill, Bob

City and the Pillar, The
(Vidal)

City of Night
(Rechy)

Civic (Lyric) Opera House, Chicago

Clark, Johnny

cocaine

Cocteau, Jean

Cocteau
(Steegmuller)

Cohen, Jacob

“Collar for Achilles, A” (Andros)

Collins, Bill

Color of Darkness
(Purdy)

Columbus, Ohio, boarding house of SMS’s aunts in

Columbus Dispatch

Columbus
Sunday Star

Commonweal

Communists, communism

Comstock Law

confession

Congress, U.S.

Connolly, Cyril

Conrad, Doda

Conrad, Joseph

Contemporary Verse

Cory, Donald Webster (Edward Sagarin)

Corydon
(Gide)

Costello, Charlie

Coulbaut, J. Lambreghts

Count Bruga
(Hecht)

Cowley, Malcolm

Crabb, Lionel Kenneth Philip “Buster,”

Craine, Art

Crane, Hart

Creighton, Bobbie

criminals, sexual appeal of

Crowley, Aleister

Crowley, John W.

Culoz, France

Cummings, E. E.

Curtis, Emmy; illness and death of; SMS’s sexual affair with

Cuttoli, Marie

Dahm, Robert

Dalí, Salvador

Dallas News

Dalven, Rae

Daniel-Rops, Henri (Henri Petiot)

Darwinism

da Silva, Jorge

Davis, Brad

Davis and Elkins College

Dax, Augusta

Dear Sammy: Letters from Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas
(Steward)

“Death and the Black Masseur” (Williams)

“Death and the Tattoo” (Andros)

Decure, Daniel

Delarue, Jacques

Delaunay, Jacques

Dellenback, Bill

Dempsey, John T.

Demuth, Charles

Denneny, Michael

DePaul University; SMS fired from

De Profundis
(Wilde)

Derain, André

“Detachment: A Way of Life” (Steward)

Diaghilev, Sergei

Dieterle, William

Dietzel, Amund

Different Light bookstore, ix-x

Divided Path, The
(Kent)

D.O.C. (pseud. of SMS)

Doll’s House, A
(Ibsen; Wilder, trans.)

Donahue, J. Brian,
see
Brian, J.

Don’t Call Me by My Right Name
(Purdy)

Douglas, Lord Alfred

Douglas, Scott

Down There
(
Là-Bas
; Huysmans)

Doyle, Peter

Drayton, Michael

Drum

Drummer

du Bos, Charles

Duke, Michael

Dunbar, William

Duncan, Isadora

Dunham, Katherine

Earth People’s Park

Echaurren, Roberto Matta

Eddy, Clement John “Pop,”

Egeria

Eiffel Tower

Eisenhower, Dwight D.

Ellis, Havelock

Embarcadero YMCA, San Francisco

Encounter

En Route
(Huysmans)

Eos

escort services

Étienne (artistic pseud. of Orejudos),
see
Orejudos, Domingo Stephan

Etude sur le Langage Populaire
(Nisard)

Everybody’s Autobiography
(Stein)

evolutionary theory

Exile’s Return: A Literary Odyssey of the 1920s
(Cowley)

Fairbanks, Harold

Faithfull, Marianne

Fall of Valor, The
(Jackson)

Fancy Free

Fassbinder, Rainer Werner

FaŸ, Bernard

FBI

Ferguson, Larry

Finale: Stories of Mystery and Suspense
(Nava, ed.)

Fini, Leonor

Finistère
(Peters)

Fireworks

First Time Round

Fitzgerald, Roy (Rock Hudson)

Flanner, Janet

Fokine, Michel

Ford, Charles Henri

Four: More Than Money

France, homosexuals in; SMS’s desire to live in; SMS’s love of

Frechtman, Bernard

Frederik IX, King of Denmark

French, Jared

French, Margaret Hoening

Frenchy’s Gay Line,
see
Gay Parisian Press

Freud, Sigmund

Frisch, Howard

Fritscher, Jack

Fritz (dog)

Fugate, James Barr

Gallup, Donald

Garland, Hamlin

Gay Life: Leisure, Love, and Living for the Contemporary Male
(Rofes, ed.)

Gay Parisian Press

gay rights movement, assimilationist approach in

gays,
see
homosexuals, homosexuality

Gay Sunshine

Gay Sunshine Interviews
(Leyland)

Gaysweek

Gebhard, Paul; SMS correspondence

Genet, Jean

Genteel Pagan: The Double Life of Charles Warren Stoddard
(Austen)

“Gentleman from San Francisco, The” (Bunin)

“George Platt Lynes: The Man” (Steward)

“Gertrude Stein and Painting” (Rose)

Gibran, Khalil

Gide, André SMS’s meeting with

Gimme Shelter

Ginsberg, Allen

Giraud, Robert

Girodias, Maurice

Giselle

Glide Methodist Church

Gold, Michael

Gold Coast

Golden Boys