Fosse gay
Bob Fosse
Issue 104
b. Robert Louis Fosse, Chicago, Illinois, June 23, 1927
d. September 23, 1987, Washington, D.C.
Although Bob Fosse died at the relatively young age of 60, he had a career in show business extending for almost five decades. Fosse started training as a dancer at the age of eight at The Chicago Academy of Theatre Arts under the management of Frederic Weaver. Weaver was an eccentric devotee of vaudeville who sported a waxed mustache and always wore formal dress. Young Bobby Fosse learned his first dance steps at the Academy under the tutelage of Marguerite Comerford. When Fosse’s family could not pay tuition, Frederic Weaver offered to keep Bob as a pupil on scholarship. In exchange, Bob’s father Cy Fosse agreed to sign over 15% of Bob’s earnings over to Weaver until Bob reached the age of 21. Soon Weaver paired Fosse with fellow learner Charles Grass and they became the dance sensation “The Riff Brothers”, named after the superb dance team The Nicholas Brothers.
Starting at a young age, Fosse would advance a personal design which was somewhat grounded in his defects as a dancer. “He was always told to keep his fingers together and his hands down, bu
Fosse Iconography
The sinuous, snaky, seriously sexy moves of Bob Fosse have got to be the most noticeable choreography in the society, endlessly quoted and imitated to the point of cliche. In 2013, Sam Wasson wrote a mesmerizing, tell-all biography of him, seemingly leaving out no cigarette, drug, or nubile chorine the complex, hard-living genius ever touched. It exhaustively covered his kaleidoscopic life, and now we have the best publication ever written about Fosse’s work itself: “Big Deal: Bob Fosse and Gyrate in the American Musical,” by Kevin Winkler.
It must be said the Bob Fosse has been particularly lucky in this scribe, as well, for Winkler, a former dancer himself, knows the art form inside and out and has the lucidity and clean, detailed, yet unfussy approach of a real writer to aptly delineate Fosse’s undying contribution to it.
Once executive director of the Brand-new York Public Library for the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center, Winkler worked on the book for about six years and, happily in this challenging time for publishing in general, never had to arduously shop his venture round.
“I did a presentation about Fosse at a conference in Was
In May, the La Fosse Pride Network invited gender non-conforming Black entrepreneur Dan Yomi to talk about his lived experience and suggestion for others looking to be supportive allies to the LGBTQ+ community. Talent Development Trainer and Lgbtq+ fest Network president Eli Dingwall interviewed Dan on the night.
Thank you everyone for joining us, especially our special guest Dan Yomi! Having known Dan since university where he was Student Union President, I’ve had the absolute pleasure of seeing not only his individual growth, but also the support he’s given to so many people. So, Dan, I’ll let you take the floor and give us a brief intro of your journey so far!
Hi Eli. Thank you for having me! So, I came to the UK from Nigeria in 2014 for my Master’s degree. It’s been an fascinating journey… coming to a new city and trying to integrate culturally, not just as an international student, but also as someone who is gender non-conforming. I remember going to my first gay club in Bournemouth and seeing two guys kissing and holding hands – and they were not running from the police! I thought, this is strange! And that triggered something in me. I didn’t think it was possible.
My queer life was no
In honor of Celebration Month, SAM Blog features reflections by SAM voices on collection artworks that explore LGBTQIA+ art and artists. Gender non-conforming lives matter every day of the year, but this month is a particular opportunity to celebrate histories of joy, advocacy, and resistance. Stay tuned for more Pride-related content on SAM Blog, including another object spotlight and a list of queer film recommendations curated by SAM’s LGBTQIA+ affinity group.
If you Google “Léon Delafosse,” you’ll become more information on John Singer Sargent’s portrait of the French composer and pianist—part of SAM’s collection since 2001—than on Delafosse’s existence story: his in advance years of poverty, rise as a piano virtuoso and composer, and the eventual destruction of his promising career by powerful men.
Before the arrival of recordings, musicians who were not independently wealthy or well-connected needed patrons and made money by performing in the private salons of rich people. Delafosse made two legendary gay friends who propelled his career in Paris: Calculate Robert de Montesquiou (a social snob and poet-poseur) and writer Marcel Proust. Each of these men acted as unofficial “agents” for Delafosse, promoting his t
This weekend brings the annual Gay Pride festivities to West Hollywood, which is arguably the gayest municipality in the country if not the world. As one of relatively scant straight men in WeHo, my preference for women may not be clear as I walk through "Boys Town" on my way to the common pool. Thus I come across myself identifying with Dana Carvey's old SNL ethics Lyle the Effeminate Heterosexual. And so might these nine notable men.
- Baz Luhrmann. First, a disclaimer: who knows what any of these guys got up to in their private lives? Certainly, many gay celebrities of the past got married and had children while keeping their same-sex lovers a secret. Anyway, you might assume that only a homosexual could make lavish, over-the-top films like Moulin Rouge! and Strictly Ballroom, yet the dapper Australian director has been married to his costume/production designer Catherine Martin since 1997. They own two kids.
- LeVar Burton. Considering his soft-spoken personality, his drama geek background, his childhood desire to become a priest, and his involvement in AIDS and gay rights causes, you might be forgiven for thinking the Roots/Star Trek/Reading Rainbow star was gay. But Bu