( Read more... )

Samuel M. Steward, also known by the pen name Phil Andros, was a novelist and tattoo artist from Ohio, later based in Oakland. Thornton Wilder was an American playwright and novelist. He won three Pulitzer Prizes-for the novel The Bridge of San Luis Rey and for the two plays Our Town and The Skin of Our Teeth-and a U.S. National Book Award for the ( Read more... )

Orry-Kelly was the professional name of Orry George, a prolific Hollywood costume designer. He studied art in Sydney, and worked as a tailor's apprentice and window dresser. He journeyed to New York to pursue an acting career. He shared an apartment there with Charlie Spangles and Cary Grant. At the time, Cary Grant was Archibald Leach. Kelly and ( Read more... )

A dancer with New York City Opera Ballet, Western Ballet, Netherlands Dance Theater, and Milwaukee Ballet, Jorge Samaniego choreographed for Puerto Rican Dance Theater and the Des Moines Ballet in Iowa. In 1978, the Des Moines Ballet directed their attention towards a more professional presentation and retained Jorge Samaniego as Artistic Director ( Read more... )

Felice Rahel Schragenheim was a Jewish resistance fighter during World War II. She is known for her tragic love story with Lilly Wust and death during a march from Gross-Rosen concentration camp (today Poland) to Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in Germany or, not later than, March 1945 in Bergen-Belsen. Erica Fischer portrays the story of the ( Read more... )

Bessy Marbury was born and raised in the affluent and cultured home of one of 19th century New York's oldest and most prominent "society" families. Elizabeth Arden’s name is a household word; her line of cosmetics are popular in the world. She invented the beauty industry at a time when most women were preparing their own lotions and creams at home ( Read more... )

Peter and Murray Corren are LGBT-rights activists from Vancouver, British Columbia whose complaint before British Columbia's Human Rights Tribunal led to an agreement whereby the provincial Ministry of Education would consult them on how gays are presented in the school curriculum. In 1971 Murray Warren, a Canadian graduate student doing research ( Read more... )

Paul Bowles was an American expatriate composer, author, and translator. Jane Bowles was an American writer and playwright. Jane spent her life examining lesbian identity with an honest and sardonic wit. Jane's adventures in the lesbian and gay bars of Greenwich Village, and her open pursuit of women lovers, caused her mother and her family ( Read more... )

Larry Duplechan's life partner, since 1976, is his college sweetheart Greg Harvey, legally married in 2008. For years, Duplechan struggled in the music business. "I was in a relationship with a man who, while he really admired my talent, really, really wanted me to be home having dinner with him. He said, 'You can continue to do this singing thing ( Read more... )

World War II veteran, Johnnie Phelps was a brave, wonderful, kind and generous woman, who later headed the Los Angeles chapter of the National Organization for Women. In 1947, General Eisenhower told Johnnie Phelps, a member of the Women's Army Corps and a lesbian, "It's come to my attention that there are lesbians in the WACs, we need to ferret ( Read more... )