How Gay Palm Sprgs Came Out of the Closet

Contents:

• REMEMBERG OUR GAY PALM SPRGS HISTORY
• IN GAY-IENDLY PALM SPRGS, AMERI'S FIRST ALL-LGBT ERNMENT IS NO SURPRISE
• GAY MUNY HAS SHAPED AND FLUENCED PALM SPRGS FOR S
• WHY PALM SPRGS IS THE GAYT TOWN AMERI
• ‘WE’RE STILL HERE’: HISTORIC GAY BARS PALM SPRGS SEE LIGHT AT THE END OF THE TUNNEL
• GAY PALM SPRGS

REMEMBERG OUR GAY PALM SPRGS HISTORY

We want to do a jot project wh the Palm Sprgs Chamber of Commerce to intify all the gay and lbian people on the Walk Of Stars, so that on their app, when gay people e, they uld go and see this people and fd out who they are.

IN GAY-IENDLY PALM SPRGS, AMERI'S FIRST ALL-LGBT ERNMENT IS NO SURPRISE

Three Des of Sex, Golf, and Rock ‘n’ Roll” 2005, and David Wallace’s “A Cy Com Out: How Celebri Ma Palm Sprgs a Gay and Lbian Paradise” 2008, but not any ncise historil perspectiv or -pth historil archiv. William Pter, AIDS and moreAs Palm Sprgs beme a rort town the early 1900s, Gray said the first person to be nsired LGBTQ moved to Palm Sprgs, addg “the word ‘homosexual’ existed, but people didn’t e that much. “Nobody ever acknowledged he was gay and to fd the facts, and to prove the facts I thk is important, ” Gray said.

” He end up openg to AIDS patients, but Hardt's operatn was short-lived, as he wasn't able to secure fundg to make necsary upgras orr to pletely nvert the years later, the first gay pri event took place Palm Sprgs June 1986 and was observed wh an eveng variety show at the former Palm Sprgs Hilton Riviera, now the Margaraville Rort Palm Sprgs.

GAY MUNY HAS SHAPED AND FLUENCED PALM SPRGS FOR S

Liberace spent his last days cuddlg his dogs and watchg rens of The Goln Girls, acrdg to thor David Wallace, whose book, A Cy Com Out, tails the gay and lbian history of Palm Sprgs and s nnectns to Hollywood.

WHY PALM SPRGS IS THE GAYT TOWN AMERI

“Establishments tried to outdo each other wh special events, ” rells Jim Suguan, former owner and edor of The Bottom Le, a ee newspaper that vered the lol gay nightlife scene.

‘WE’RE STILL HERE’: HISTORIC GAY BARS PALM SPRGS SEE LIGHT AT THE END OF THE TUNNEL

Yet jt a few blocks away, hotel owner Fred Hardt created a lol stir that ma natnal news when he announced he was nvertg his clothg-optnal P Wt Rort to a hospice for gay men afflicted wh HIV.

Mayor Frank Bogert, whose wboy persona chafed agast the creasgly vol gay muny, feared the publicy would hurt the town’s image, claimg “The whole world has got the ia that this is the place to e get AIDS, ” acrdg to a UPI report.

GAY PALM SPRGS

Throughout the natn “culture wars” were heatg up, wh hard-le fundamentalist Christians pted agast gays and lbians termed to live more hont and open liv. He was, after all, a Hollywood guy, a hippie (or at least he played one on TV), and the ex-hband of a gay in.

He rells stg the ont row at a cy uncil meetg when Mary Bono sat down next to him and privately whispered, “Sonny won’t adm , but if there is gog to be a renaissance Palm Sprgs, will be bee of the gays.

New learship Palm Sprgs fally allowed gay and lbian bars to operate openly (spurred on by the succs of the Whe Party and Dah weekends). Barbara Boxer, Cal Willis, and Greg Pettis (Founr of Dert Bs Associatn, now cy uncilman and Mayor Pro Tem of Cathedral Cy) at the GLAAD Humanarian Awards Dner Green, whose Cathedral Cy supper club “His & Hers” had been a h among the sert’s mi-mon, opened the first gay bar on Arenas Road 1991. Gays and lbians began buyg and fixg up abandoned properti, formg muny associatns, and breathg new life to neglected neighborhoods.

” Havg vted Palm Sprgs, the gay muny began to get more volved ernment, electg the natn’s first “out” Ain-Amerin mayor, Ron On, 2003.

Numero gay and lbian officials have sce served openly on the Cy Council and the mayor’s office (cludg current Mayor Rob Moon).

But when to the ntributns of gays and lbians to Greater Palm Sprgs, like Liberace always said, “Too much of a good thg is wonrful! Author David Wallace will speak on the history of the gay muny Palm Sprgs January 2018 at the LGBT Communy Center of the Dert. Though the cy may be a gay mec today, for many years a nservative “old guard” led this rort town, sistg the pleasure pursus of “alternative liftyl” (as they were once lled) stay hidn out of sight.

So how did a dty ltle outpost at the base of the San Jacto Mountas bee an ternatnally known statn for gays and lbians? In his book, A Cy Com Out: How Celebri Ma Palm Sprgs a Gay & Lbian Paradise, thor David Wallace tri to separate fact om fictn.

A longtime rint of both New York and Los Angel, he now ris Palm Sprgs, teachg memoir wrg and givg lectur on gay and lbian history at the LGBT Communy Center of the Dert. Even as gay liberatn entered the mastream, the mayor and cy uncil sisted that gay bars and clubs terg to “those people” be relegated to unrporated areas south of town toward Cathedral Cy. He was known lolly for his generosy, and also for his sexual proclivi — an open secret he went so far to fend that he sued a Brish tabloid that claimed he was gay (and he won!

There are valid qutns, and almost all n be answered by readg A Cy Com Out: How Celebri Ma Palm Sprgs a Gay and Lbian Paradise, David Wallace's timate and affable personable examatn of the sert town's gay archects, landspe signers and Hollywood producers who loved the same sex ntributed to Palm Sprgs's rise the early-to-mid Twentieth Century, was movie stars, then a new breed Amerin popular culture, who me to the sert to pe pryg ey provid the real thst for Palm Sprgs's boom. Sce the 1920s, Palm Sprgs has been a playground for Hollywood--both straight and gay--and pe to the sert was fairly easy, rarely more than a two-hour drive on the two-lane blacktops or a ri on the (much missed) tras of the day. Sce the film dtry has always had a relatively high percentage of homosexual talent by s very nature was evable that many of the new arrivals people were gay or lbian, and th by their very prence, they created both a uniquely hip image for the place and, spe ocsnal efforts of reactnary policians and monied terts, an environment of, a few words about the book.

All this appli even more tensely the evolutn of Palm Sprgs to a world-famo gay and lbian paradise, bee many of the people who shaped the place -- even if only by their prence -- were, bee of their Hollywood nnectns, among the bt-known celebri the world their film star William HaPalm Sprgs's early days unfold a time when "gay" was somethg pletely different, and not somethg an uniated Amerin public associated wh Hollywood, where agents and publicists very much forced stars like Rock Hudson to marriag of nvenience. If there existed a glass closet, was fogged, Wallace explas how public sndals, startg wh the gay-flavored ntroversy that brought down famo actor William Ha (pictured wh Ana Page, a woman he fely didn't sire), created Hollywood s and rerced the closet:In much of Ameri, the part that people ocsnally dismiss today as "fly-over" untry--plac like Wicha, Omaha, and other ci, towns, and wi plac the road where the only entertament may have been a weekend screeng of the latt movie--most people had never heard the word "homosexual. " And the term "gay" (rived om the French "gai" meang high-spired or merry) s homosexual meang didn't bee part of the vernacular until the late 1960s, although had been e as self-reference among homosexuals sce the 1920s.

Those lns of ticket buyers Ameri and the rt of the world were the last people that the studs wanted to learn that the latt matee idol preferred men as sexual partners rather than women, and that the hottt leadg lady liked a major gay sndal explod.

In 1933 William Ha, a name unfaiar to most people the days but at that time one of the most popular actors the untry, was ught havg sex wh a man and was immediately was jt the latt of a growg list of Hollywood sndals, cludg the 1923 ath of another leadg man, Wallace Reid, by a dg overdose, the arrt and trials of Rose "Fatty" Arbuckle for brgg about the ath of a popular Hollywood starlet (he was acquted after three trials but his reer was ed), and the 1922 murr of William Dmond Taylor, a famo director mored to be havg a clanste gay relatnship wh his chffr as well as a straight relatnship wh Mary Mil Mter, one of the most famo silent dtry reacted by stallg a self-censor and then, 1934, a productn .

Among the sualti of such censorship was the double was sleepg solo on the silver screen om then on for more than a generatn, and of urse any reference to homosexualy as well as the ridicule of relign was exprsly banned. Privacy, as was noted earlier, was provid by the ubiquo walls surroundg many of the muny's hom and rorts, yet the place was still close enough to the studs that a star uld show up for a movie or televisn productn ll a uple of for the publicly homophobic Liberace (who once sued a Brish newspaper for sayg he was gay while at the same time vortg wh bevi of young male beti behd the walls of a succsn of hom) and hundreds of closeted gay, lbian, and bisexual actors, actrs, and their iends, a trek to the sert was the ial solutn to havg your fame as well as enjoyg .