Hollywood's golden age of lesbian 'glam'

Homosexual men get all the credit for being fabulous, campy and gay, whereas the mythos of lesbians seems to involve a bad hair day and comfortable shoes. Evidently the stereotype is that gay men should decorate the house and make it pretty while gay women move the furniture.

Whereas my hair does have Medusa tendencies and I do have a fondness for shoes that don't crimp, there are numerous OTHER lesbians imbued with an excess of creativity and a flair for fashion.

Back in the days when a woman’s place was in the home and a queer’s place was in the closet, lesbians and bisexuals in Hollywood were covertly establishing the precedent for the feminine mystique, while carving their own niche of 'camp,' decadence and flamboyance.

Not only were many of early Hollywood’s most glamorous actresses stirring up hornet’s nests of lesbian drama at the turn of the century, but their brazenness ultimately led to strict codes of moral conduct, enforced when the studio system took over motion pictures.

In her book, The Girls: Sappho Goes to Hollywood, Diana McLellen lifts the veil of secrecy regarding the intimate lives of some of Hollywood's most famous and legendary actresses. McLellen accessed private correspondence and long sealed FBI files to explore the long term lesbian affairs, as well as short lived one night stands, between Hollywood's leading ladies.

The private lives of early film stars Nazimova, Greta Garbo, Marlene Dietrich and Tallulah Bankhead have long been fodder for public speculation and gossip, but there were many others who managed to keep their affairs out of the public spotlight.

The phrase ‘Sewing circles,’ a phrase allegedly coined by actress Alla Nazimova to describe discreet gatherings of Hollywood lesbians, became a common way of referring to lesbian and bisexual actresses of that era. Many actresses of the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s participated in the "sewing circles."

They lived double lives. It was during this time that ‘lavender marriages’ became common. 'Lavender marriages' gave the public appearance of famous people being married, while in private they shared separate lives, having lovers of the same sex as either their significant other or temporary affair. Many were lesbian, including Nazimova, Garbo, Eva Le Gallienne, Pepi Lederer, Patsy Kelly, Jean Acker, Judith Anderson and Katharine Cornell. Others were bisexual, including Tallulah Bankhead, Laurette Taylor, Louise Brooks, Peggy Fears, Marlene Dietrich, Joan Crawford, and Beatrice Lillie.

One of the most brazen was early silent film legend Alla Nazimova. Nazimova was a Russian stage actress who moved to New York City shortly after the turn of the twentieth century to pursue a career in acting. She became one of the most popular movie stars in America. At one point she was Metro's highest paid actress. She later formed her own motion picture company, which produced a famous, albeit financially disastrous, all-gay film version of Oscar Wilde's Salomé (1922).

Nazimova’s bisexuality was common knowledge in the film community despite her long-term involvement with (gay) actor Charles Bryant. In 1918, Nazimova moved to Hollywood, where she bought a large Spanish-style house that would later become known as the “Garden of Alla,” a hotel and apartment house reputed to be a haven for lesbians in the film industry.

Nazimova was notorious for her lavish parties, which were rumored to involve "debauched sexual acts involving women" (no telling what the FBI defined as debauched in those days). Nazimova's relationships with writer Mercedes de Acosta, stage actress Eva Le Gallienne, film director Dorothy Arzner and Oscar Wilde's niece Dolly earned her a reputation as a bit of a 'player.'

Her film career dried up due to the spectacular failure of her production of Salomé as well as the formation of the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America in 1922, which instituted the Hays Code in 1929.

The Hays code was written by General Will H. Hays, former chairman of the Republican National Committee. It decreed that there would be no "immorality" or "impropriety" on screen, only chaste kisses and heterosexual characters would be tolerated. The Code was applied to actors' private lives as well. Drug use, adultery, sexual promiscuity and, particularly, homosexuality were grounds for blacklisting.

Nazimova, with lesbian notoriety, became known as "unsafe" in Hollywood. She was effectively blacklisted. Many lesbian actresses retreated deeply into the closet, dating or marrying men in order to appear heterosexual. Being ‘out’ was career suicide.

Yet several actresses in the decades to follow, such as the seductress Marlene Dietrich and the irrepressible Tallulah Bankhead, appeared unconcerned about the gossip surrounding their sexuality. They encouraged it.

Tallulah Bankhead was was a convent girl, born to a distinguished Alabama political family. She was primarily a stage and film star. Although she was not ‘out’ in the early years of her career, Bankhead consistently made quips alluding to her lesbianism. She had a long term relationship with one of the only openly lesbian actresses of the time, comedienne Patsy Kelly. However, she adored Garbo and pursued her relentlessly, which seems to have worked because she reportedly had affairs with Greta Garbo and Marlene Dietrich.

Tallulah participated in the 'sewing circles.' While in Hollywood, she was often a guest at Nazimova's ‘Garden of Alla.’ Her lesbian partners included Katharine Cornell, Laurette Taylor, also a lover of Nazimova and director Dorothy Arzner, Sybil Thorndyke and Beatrice Lillie. Lillie had affairs Eva Le Gallienne, Cornell and Judith Anderson. It just gets so confusing.

Marlene Dietrich was a German born actress and singer. Her duet with Margo Lion, "Wenn die Beste Freundin," with lesbian overtones, became a hit in Berlin prior to her achieving recognition in the United States. At the peak of her career in the 1930s, Dietrich was the highest paid actress in Hollywood.

Her public image and many of her movies included strong sexual undertones and her many affairs were part of Hollywood lore. Dietrich's persona was often androgynous. She had a fondness for masculine attire: suits, top hats, etc. It created a dimension of sexual ambiguity which made her even more magnetic and spawned a fashion craze. She once said, "I dress for myself. Not for the image, not for the public, not for the fashion, not for men."

Marlene Dietrich Biography

Marlene Dietrich and Greta Garbo had a strange ongoing feud throughout their lives. Whereas both claimed to have never met one another, McLellan claims that the two appeared together in the silent film The Joyless Street in 1925 and had a brief affair that did not end well. Evidently Garbo held grudges long after she could remember what they were about. If legendary screen sirens Garbo and Dietrich were involved romantically with each other, they took the secret to their graves. In fact Garbo took all of her secrets to the grave.

Soon after her career took off, Garbo became known as a recluse. Throughout her lifetime she conducted no interviews, signed no autographs, attended no social functions and answered no fan mail. Today she is often associated with her famous line from Grand Hotel: "I want to be alone." However, Garbo later commented, "I never said, 'I want to be alone.' I only said, 'I want to be let alone.' There is all the difference."

Garbo led a very different life than Dietrich. Dietrich, who had a husband and child in her early 20s, was an extrovert who maintained her notoriously seductive ways with both men and women throughout her long career. Garbo referred to her affairs with women as "exciting secrets." She never married. She completely withdrew from the public eye after her retirement from film at 36.

Garbo and Dietrich also had lovers in common. For example, de Acosta and Le Gallienne, aside from their relationships with each other and Nazimova, both became involved with Garbo at different times; de Acosta also had an affair with Dietrich. Dietrich also had an affair with Claudette Colbert. Much like today's lesbian community, it would seem that everyone seems to have slept with one another at some point. The more things change, the more they remain the same.

British actress Eva Le Gallienne came to the United States at the outbreak of World War I to pursue her acting career. By the age of nineteen she became Nazimova’s lover and became part of the ‘sewing circle.’ Like many of Le Gallienne's relationships, the one with Nazimova did not last long. Le Gallienne returned to New York where she got involved with costume designer Mercedes de Acosta.

Le Gallienne and de Acosta often traveled to Europe, where the social environment was somewhat less homophobic. They visited the salon of Natalie Clifford Barney, described by Axel Madsen as "a sapphic oasis."

Natalie Barney was an American playwright, poet and novelist who lived as an expatriate in Paris. Barney’s held a ‘salon’ in her home on Paris’ Left Bank for more than 60 years. She brought together writers and artists from around the world, including many leading figures in French literature as well as American and British Modernists of the Lost Generation. She worked to promote writing by women and formed a "Women's Academy" in response to the all-male French Academy, while also giving support and inspiration to male writers from Remy de Gourmont to Truman Capote.

Barney was openly lesbian. She published love poems to women under her own name as early as 1900 and considered scandal as "the best way of getting rid of nuisances." In her writings she supported feminism, but she opposed monogamy. She had many overlapping long and short-term relationships, including on-and-off romances with poet Renée Vivien, dancer Armen Ohanian and a 50-year relationship with painter Romaine Brooks. Her life and love affairs served as inspiration for many novels, ranging from the salacious French bestseller Sapphic Idyll to The Well of Loneliness.

Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas also hosted salons on the left bank in Paris throughout the 1920s. Stein’s salon attracted many of the great writers of the time, including Ernest Hemingway, Ezra Pound, Thornton Wilder, and Sherwood Anderson.

Gertrude Stein was extremely charming, eloquent, and cheerful with a large circle of friends. Her judgments in literature and art were highly influential. She was the first to recognize the brilliance of Picasso. Most of his early work was purchased by the gallery Gertrude ran with her brothers. She was Ernest Hemingway's mentor, and upon the birth of his son he asked her to be the godmother of his child.

Aloof from the "sewing circles" were other actresses rumored to be lesbian or bisexual, including Janet Gaynor (A Star is Born - 1937) and her "best friend" Mary Martin (Peter Pan). They were married to a costume designer and an interior decorator respectively.

Character and supporting actresses also went to great lengths to hide their sexual orientation. For example, Agnes Moorehead never publically acknowledged her widely presumed lesbianism. Over her career Moorehead appeared in more than 60 films, including Citizen Kane in 1941. She received several Academy Award nominations for her supporting performances. She is best known for her role as Endora, mother of witch Samantha in the 1960s television series Bewitched. Gay comedian Paul Lynde proclaimed her "classy as hell, but one of the all-time Hollywood dykes."

The network of lesbians and bisexual women in the film industry and arts throughout the first half of the 20th century clearly demonstrates that gay men have not cornered the market on all things gay, glorious and glamorous. Should anyone need additional evidence of lesbian 'glam,' I suggest some popcorn, pajamas and an afternoon of Garbo and Dietrich. In my imagination, they DEFINITELY had an affair.