Angel Maree Jones
Rushie Perera
Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje
Ant
Beenie Man
Cindy Williams
David Chase
Debbi Peterson
Giada De Laurentiis
Howie Dorough
James Corden
Kristen Wiig
Richard Armitage
Rick Yune
Rodrigo Santoro
Tori Amos
Ty Burrell
Valerie Harper
The post August 22nd: It’s YOUR Birthday, Bitch! appeared first on The WOW Report.
August 22, 1893– Dorothy Parker:
“Three highballs and I am St. Francis of Assisi.”
As a screenwriter in Hollywood in the 1930s, Dorothy Parker irritated studio head Samuel Goldwyn with her stream of caustic remarks. Goldwyn complained:
“Wisecracks, I told you there’s no money in wisecracks. People want a happy ending.”
Parker’s retort:
“I know this will come as a shock to you, Mr. Goldwyn, but in all history, which has held billions and billions of human beings, not a single one ever had a happy ending.”
Long ago, in a galaxy far, far away, I played a wonderful character named Banjo, inspired by Harpo Marx, in the terrific play The Man Who Came To Dinner based on a real life incident in the life of Algonquin Round Table Group regular Alexander Woollcott. The group took its name from its hangout, the Algonquin Hotel in Manhattan’s theatre district, and they were also known as The Vicious Circle because of the number of cutting remarks made by its members with their sharp-tongued banter.
I used to over-research my character work as an actor and I was sent on an Algonquin Round Table reading rabbit hole that lasted for decades. I read everything I could about and by these interesting, talented, witty friends during one of NYC’s richest periods. I have books about or by Woollcott, Edna Ferber, Robert Benchley, Ira Gershwin, George S. Kauffman, Herbert Ross and S.J. Perelman, but Parker is the personality that engaged me the most. She was the sharpest of the sharp.
Parker worked as a pianist at a dance studio until she sold her first poem to Vanity Fair Magazine in 1914; four years later, at just 24 years old, she took over from P.G. Wodehouse as Vanity Fair’s Theatre critic.
“I don’t want to be classed as a humorist. It makes me feel guilty.”
In the 1920s, Parker’s fame came from writing a weekly column titled The Constant Reader which contained observations, book reviews, poetry, and short fiction for a fledgling little magazine called The New Yorker. Her review of A. A. Milne‘s The House At Pooh Corner read:
“Tonstant Weader fwowed up.”
I believe I had read everything by Parker by the time I was 21 years old. A selection of her reviews was published in 1970 as The Constant Reader, the title of that column. My copy traveled with me from Spokane to Boston to LA to Seattle to Portland. It is dog-eared and stained, but sitting smartly on the bookcase as I write this.
“If you want to know what God thinks of money, just look at the people he gave it to.”
She married Alan Campbell in 1934. Campbell was a failed actor who hoped to become a screenwriter. Just like Parker, he was half-Jewish, half-Scottish. Campbell was her second gay husband and she married him twice. Parker claimed in public that he was “queer as a billy goat”. The couple was under contract at Paramount Pictures, with Campbell making $250 per week and Parker earning $1,000 per week, so much for pay equity. They eventually both made more than $20,000 a month as freelancers when they got out of their contract.
“I require three things in a man: He must be handsome, ruthless, and stupid.”
Parker and Campbell were good and they worked together on more than 15 films including the first A Star Is Born (1937), the one with Janet Gaynor and Fredric March, not Streisand in an afro, and Alfred Hitchcock’s Saboteur (1942). Her success during this period brought her two Academy Award nominations, but her career as a screenwriter was thwarted by the Hollywood Blacklist after an investigation by The House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) because her involvement in left-wing politics. Parker was staunchly anti-fascist in the 1930s and was a strong advocate for liberal causes all of her life.
“You can’t teach an old dogma new tricks.”
When I lived in NYC in the 1970s, my handsome, sexy, neurotic, born in NYC boyfriend treated me to a Dorothy Parker’s Manhattan Tour one autumn day, with stops at her girlhood home on the Upper West Side, the Algonquin Hotel, Alexander Woollcott’s home Wits End, the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, the old offices of The New Yorker, and the restaurant- 21.
In an Algonquin Round Table game, when asked to use the word ‘horticulture” in a sentence, Parker famously quipped:
“You can lead a horticulture, but you can’t make her think.”
Parker led an interesting, but difficult life, with a troubled childhood, three failed marriages, several suicide attempts, and lots and lots of booze. Her caustic wit, talent, wisecracks and sharp eye for urban sophisticates and their foibles endures to this day
“Heterosexuality is not normal, it’s just common.”
Parker has been portrayed on film and on stage many times including by Dolores Sutto in Hollywood (1976), Rosemary Murphy in Julia (1977), Bebe Neuwirth in Dash And Lilly (1999) and most interestingly by Jennifer Jason Leigh in Alan Rudolph’s terrific Mrs. Parker And The Vicious Circle (1994). Neuwirth was nominated for an Emmy Award for her performance and Leigh received a number of awards and nominations, including a Golden Globe nomination.
“Tell him I was too fucking busy… or vice versa.”
Parker loved animals, especially canines and she had at least one dog all of her adult life, and she was noted for finding homes for strays. She was an early defender of human and civil rights. Her 1927 The New Yorker story Arrangement In Black And White deftly mocks people who claim not to be racist but act with incredible condescension and prejudice.
When Parker checked out for good in 1967, taken by a heart attack at 73 years old, she left her entire estate to Martin Luther King, Jr. After King’s murder, the estate was passed to the NAACP. Her estate executor, playwright Lillian Hellman, bitterly, yet unsuccessfully, contested Parker’s wishes. Parker’s ashes remained unclaimed and knocked around various locations, including her lawyer’s filing cabinet, for two decades. She was finally placed beneath a brick circle at NAACP’s headquarters in Baltimore. Her epitaph reads:
“Excuse My Dust”
The post #BornThisDay: Writer, Dorothy Parker appeared first on The WOW Report.
Perkin’s flooded home
As I reported on Saturday, Perkins himself was directly affected by the floods and there is more than a little irony in this fact. Perkins has previously blamed gay people for bringing God’s wrath in the form of natural disasters before. He is also the guy that blamed the Boston marathon bombing on “sexual liberalism” in Massachusetts.
At the invitation of Perkins, Trump visited the Baton Rouge church as well as making other stops in the area. The church is affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention, the nation’s largest Protestant denomination, which believes that being LGBT is a sin. The Greenwell Springs church’s website includes a “Statement on Marriage and Sexuality,” which reads in part,
“We believe that any form of sexual immorality, such as adultery, fornication, homosexuality, bisexual conduct, bestiality, incest, pornography or any attempt to change one’s sex, or disagreement with one’s biological sex, is sinful and offensive to God.”
Three quarters of the church’s members were affected in some way by the flooding.
In October of last year, a minister named Jonathan Cahn appeared on Perkins’s radio show and said Hurricane Joaquin, which hit the Bahamas and threatened the East Coast of the U.S., was a sign of God’s dissatisfaction with the Supreme Court’s marriage equality ruling. Perkins commented on Cahn’s claim by saying that perhaps God was
“trying to send us a message.”
Perkins was a Louisiana delegate to this year’s Republican National Convention and took credit for helping to create what even the Log Cabin Republicans, a gay conservative group, termed the most anti-LGBT platform in party history. He and the GOP continue to oppose marriage equality, denounces the Obama administration’s call for transgender students’ access to gendered facilities of their choice, and contends that parents have a right to enroll their children in any kind of therapy.
(via The Advocate)
The post Anti-Gay Pastor (Who Says Natural Disasters Punish Gays) Gets $100K Flood Donation From Trump appeared first on The WOW Report.
Madonna celebrated her 58th birthday last week by flying her kids and a handful of close friends to Cuba. She partied for three days with stylist B Akerlund, actress Debi Mazar, hairstylist Andy Lecompte and a dozen others in what looks to be like a good time had by all. Check out the video at the end with her son David, as the entourage drives through the streets of Havana.
It’s good to be the Queen.
The post #LaIslaBonita: Inside Madonna’s Stylish Birthday Celebrations In Cuba appeared first on The WOW Report.
SISTERS ARE DOING IT FOR THEMSELVES! In a look that has me absolutely GAGGED, Jake Thompson waltzed into the WOW offices today in his best Diane Keaton, Goldie Hawn and Bette Midler drag and it is all sorts of amazing. His all white ensemble is the perfect outfit to wear right before labor day…the shade! But in all seriousness, this look is everything. I am currently signing “You Don’t Own Me” to myself and I wouldn’t have it any other way. Check out his look below!
Where to get the look:
The post What Would Jake Wear?: First Wives Club appeared first on The WOW Report.
The queen of literally pulling off ANY look, Rihanna made a special announcement on her infamous Instagram last night. For those that follow the social media and music mogul online, @badgalriri, isn’t shy about showing who she is online.
You’ll never guess what her new single will be (my personal favorite):
LITERALLY. GAGGING.
That’s right. Her next single will be the motown-heartbreak-of-a-song, “Love On The Brain.”
“Anti” continues to surprise listeners and fans with it’s layered, eccentric, and honest portrayal of a superstar dealing with break-ups and make-ups. I personally can’t wait to see the video (which I assume she will start shooting soon!)
This post is approved by Riri herself:
The post Rihanna Announces Next Single Which Means a New Music Video Is On It’s Way appeared first on The WOW Report.
With the premiere of RuPaul’s All Stars Drag Race 2 coming up this Thursday at 8PM on Logo, Daniel Franzese and his Italian mom Denise discuss the show on this week’s episode of Daniel Franzese’s Italian Mom!
The post Daniel Franzese’s Italian Mom on…RuPaul’s Drag Race! appeared first on The WOW Report.
Trixie Mattel
Andrew Rannells
Annie Ilonzeh
Barbara Eden
Bone Crusher
Charles Busch
Jay Mohr
Jeremy Lin
Julian Casablancas
Kobe Bryant
Marian Seldes
Natalie Coughlin
Nicole Bobek
Queen Noor
Ray Park
Rick Springfield
Scott Caan
Shelley Long
Shifty Shellshock
Skyler Gordy
Vera Miles
Wendy Pepper
The post August 23rd: It’s YOUR Birthday, Bitch! appeared first on The WOW Report.
August 23, 1899– Louise Nevelson:
“I think all great innovations are built on rejections.”
Nevelson is famous for having constructed abstract expressionist “crates” grouped together to form new creations. She used found objects and everyday discarded objects in her assemblages, one of which was three stories high. Nevelson:
“When you put together things that other people have thrown out, you’re really bringing them to life- a spiritual life that surpasses the life for which they were originally created.”
I have a keen interest in 20th Century American Art, but beyond that, I still know more than even a dilettante like me should know about Nevelson. I had a friend in the 1980s, who wrote a one-woman show about Nevelson and I helped with most of her research, preparation and pre-production. We no longer speak, or I would give her a plug.
She was born Leah Berliawsky in Ukraine. Her family emigrated to the USA, where they settled in Rockland, Maine. Her father worked as a woodcutter before opening his own junkyard. His work as a lumberjack made wood a strong symbol in her family household. It is a material that figures prominently in Nevelson’s work. She knew from early childhood that she wanted to be a sculptor and that wood would be her medium. It took her more than six decades to finally make her mark in the art world.
Nevelson had a single marriage, and an unhappy marriage it was. When she was 18 years old she wed business man Charles Nevelson, a union that lasted for a decade and produced one child, a son. Nevelson left her marriage in 1931 and devoted herself to her art.
It took her an entire decade before her first exhibit, which was a failure. Nevelson had a second show in 1943 and sold nothing. She took the entire exhibit back to her studio and destroyed every piece. After changing direction, and after years of creating small scale pieces, Nevelson’s breakthrough came from doing large works of wood that were critically hailed by critics and piqued the interest of the public in the late 1950s.
Nevelson infused abstract art with her personal story: The epic European Jewish migration to the USA between the 1880s and the 1920s; her life as a woman artist; her involvement in American modernism, which functioned as the source of inspiration for her vast body of work.
From Cubism, she took an interest in collage, fracture and abstraction. From Surrealism she got the use of dreams, the subconscious, the myths and symbols of non-Western cultures. Through Dada, she engaged with found objects and the waste of urban culture. Her fluid, jagged lines have a way of echoing the brushstrokes of Abstract Expressionism too.
In 1959, when Nevelson was 60 years old, she was invited to be part of Sixteen Americans, a now famous pioneering show of emerging contemporary art at MoMA. She was in good company with Robert Rauschenberg, Japer Johns, and Frank Stella who was only 23 years old at the time. She was the only one of the sixteen given an entire room at the show, where she unveiled her work in white for the first time to the public with Dawn’s Wedding Feast a large scale multi-media installation in her signature style. Sixteen Americans cemented her reputation one of the true pioneers of Installation Art.
Nevelson was the entrée for the USA at the Venice Biennale in 1963, but even with the attention she gathered, she was still not able to make a living from the sale of her work. She met the young artist, Diana MacKown, and they soon moved in together. A new period of success and a more concentrated, engaging work was the result of her happiness. About her art, Nevelson wrote:
“You see, I think that we have measurements in our bodies. Measurements in our eyes. We walk on two feet. So we’re vertical. That doesn’t mean the work has to be vertical, but it means there is a weight within ourselves, or this flight. All these things are within the being: weight, measure and color. If the work is good work, it is built on these laws and principles that we have within ourselves. So when you use a vertical line or a horizontal line, or a texture or the way the shadow falls or a thinner piece or a heavier piece, it all kind of satisfies something in the soul. I don’t like the word soul, satisfies something within the deed. You add or subtract until you feel… the form, the principle, that something that makes the house stand, that makes you stand.”
Most biographies and even Nevelson’s NY Times obituary fail to mention her 26 year relationship with MacKown. After Nevelson left this world, her son and heir had a metal door installed at the apartment the two women shared above their studios. He had been estranged from his mother most of his life, but Nevelson had made no provisions for MacKown in her will. MacKown was supported by friends Jasper Johns, Edward Albee, John Cage and Merce Cunningham while she put her life back together and then filed a lawsuit against Myron Nevelson.
Mrs. N’s Palace (1977). Painted wood, mirror. Metropolitan Museum Of Art
I met Nevelson once. It was at an opening of an exhibit at the Pace Gallery in the mid-1970s. She was there in her trademark scarf and gypsy garb. I was there with a contingency of friends of the actor Michael Higgins, with whom I was acquainted, and with whom Nevelson was a pal. She sat in a back room and received selected visitors who came to pay her homage. The amazingly talented actor Tammy Grimes was part of our group and was next in line to pay her respects. Nevelson looked at her blankly. Grimes seemed to have blushed as she said:
“I’m Tammy Grimes, I am an actress.”
Nevelson sat still and looked puzzled, polite, but rather regal as she stated:
“How nice to see you.”
Rarely intimidated, I tried to stay in the moment as it came my turn to meet the artist. I babbled a bit. Nevelson waved me on without a comment.
The post #BornThisDay: Artist, Louise Nevelson appeared first on The WOW Report.
RuPaul’s Drag Race finalist (and apparently a political queen, too) Courtney Act has joined forces with Junkee to queery Donald Trump supporters outside of one of his rallies in Fairfield, Connecticut. What in the hell was Courtney doing? She says,
“My whole goal of going to the rally was to understand people. I didn’t want to belittle or mock them. I really wanted to have conversations and listen in the hope that we could find some common ground. What I found really surprised me.
I found them all to be likeable. I didn’t feel scared. These people weren’t filled with hate. There weren’t innately bad or wanting to cause harm. It made me feel inspired that we are not fighting an enemy that hates us; they’re just misinformed. They’re not thinking about the world beyond their own immediate needs. They haven’t researched, read several independent news sources and created informed opinions that happen to be diametrically opposed to those on the left. This isn’t about facts, it about fear. Yes, that may make them a bigger threat to the future of the free world, but my perspective was totally shifted.“
The interviews are below and to read more of Courtney’s thoughts on the race for the White House, go here.
Watch.
(via Queerty)
The post What Happens When Courtney Act Interviews Trump Supporters? Not What You Might Think. Watch. appeared first on The WOW Report.
Lot’s of strange things belonging to celebrities have been auctioned off. Driver’s license, empty prescription bottles, even kidney stones. But you usually can’t buy the celebrity themselves.
More than 30 years after Truman Capote’s death, his ashes will be sold next month as part of an auction marketed as a rare “peek inside the lives of some of Hollywood’s most private stars.” Julien’s Auction House C.E.O., Darren Julien, says,
“I am sure people are going to think this is disrespectful. But this is a fact: Truman Capote loved the element of shock. He loved publicity. And I’m sure he’s looking down laughing, and saying, ‘That’s something I would have done.’ He was a larger-than-life character.
Basically, the estate didn’t know what to do with them And yes, before figuring out a conservative estimate of what they might go for—$4,000 to $6,000—the auction house did mull over the ethical implications of selling off Capote’s remains to the highest bidder.
We contemplated doing it, but because they are Truman Capote’s, this is probably what he would have wanted done. I’ve never heard of ashes being sold before, but between us and Christie’s and some other auction houses, we’ve sold some crazy other things. But I think this will be at the top of the list.”
…Christie’s sold Napoleon’s penis years ago. And we sold William Shatner’s kidney stone for $75,000. There’s all kinds of precedents for this. Like I said, if it wasn’t Truman Capote, we would pass because we wouldn’t want to be disrespectful. And the antics he was always up to, and how much he loved press—it’s no question that that is something he would have wanted done.”
As Vanity Fair tells the saga, the ashes themselves have had their own wild life.
Capote died in 1984 while inside Carson’s Bel-Air home, and Capote’s remains were reportedly divided between Carson and the author’s companion Jack Dunphy. According to Page Six, Carson kept the ashes in an urn in the room where he died. The remains were stolen twice, however—once during a 1988 Halloween party (before being mysteriously returned), and again at a party Carson hosted (with the urn in attendance) for a play about Capote. The culprit, however, did not make it out the door with the remains. In 2013, the ashes were even invited to the opening-night gala of Broadway’s Breakfast at Tiffany’s. (“We did try to get him here,” a Breakfast rep confirmed at the time. “Joanne says he always wanted to (see) Holly Golightly open on Broadway, and we thought it would have been poignant for the entire company.”) Alas, Carson did not want to risk another theft.”
The cardboard box—which measures three-by-four-by-four inches—is affixed with a label from Grand View Memorial Park Crematory guaranteeing that the ashes inside are indeed Capote’s. They are estimated to sell for between $4,000 and $6,000. (Multiply x 10, I say.)
The auction will take place at Julien’s September 23 and 24 in Los Angeles. You can find out more here.
Capote and Carson
(T/Y Tad; Photos, Andy Warhol; via Vanity Fair)
The post #LastLaugh: Truman Capote’s Remains To Be Auctioned Off To the Highest Bidder appeared first on The WOW Report.
In 2000, Donald Trump bragged that if he ran for President, he’d figure out a way to make an Oval Office bid profitable.
“It’s very possible that I could be the first presidential candidate to run and make money on it.“
Well, it seems he’s making on good one promise anyway. The GOP nominee jacked up the rent on his OWN presidential campaign, billing it more than four times the previous month for rent in Trump Tower. In March, the campaign shelled out $35,458, but by July, the rent went up to $169,758, according to the Huffington Post.
The reason for difference? In March the mogul was mainly self-funding his primary presidential campaign, but in July, the Trump campaign transitioned to outside money to finance the campaign.
According to one estimate, nearly 10 % of Trump campaign spending ends up in companies owned by the Trump family, with the biggest amount being $5.6 million to pay for the his private jet.
Federal Election Commission records show the Trump campaign made a $423,371 payment in may for “facility rental” and “catering” in the month May.
I’m sorry, if this was any other candidate, this would be a YUUGE scandal, but in this circus side-show, it barely registers. (T/Y Tad; via NY Post)
The post #KaChing!: Trump Just Charged His OWN Campaign $169,000 For a Month’s Rent! appeared first on The WOW Report.
Joan of Arcadia star Amber Tamblyn took to Facebook the other day to Facebook to denounce the anarchist collective INDECLINE for erecting those five naked statues of mushroom-tipped demagogue Donald Trump across the country. She’s not a Trump supporter, she says, but, she’s disappointed in the art pieces, which she believes promote body shaming.
She writes:
Body shaming is never okay, even when it comes to trump. These statues aren’t art: They are a lazy, unoriginal concept, stolen mind you, from Illma Gore’s painting which already made this exact same point earlier this year. This is wholly unoriginal and uncreative.
She has a point. And yet. I feel like this is adequate payback for his years of blistering Rosie O’Donell insults. (Photo: Pacific Coast News)
The post Don’t Worry, Donald, Amber Tamblyn’s Got Your Back Over Those Body-Shaming Statues appeared first on The WOW Report.
Meet Boy With Brushes (or Katana Rei as he is known in drag). This WOWPresents partner uploads videos to his youtube channel monthly and they are pretty fabulous. From makeup tutorials to RuPaul’s Drag Race reactions to update videos on his daily life, his channel is an all access pass to all things Boy With Brushes. Check out some of my favorites below, and don’t forget to subscribe to his channel here!
Reacting to his first drag performance:
Manila Luzon inspired look:
Adore Delano inspired look:
The post It’s Not Just For Girls Anymore: Meet Boy With Brushes! appeared first on The WOW Report.
August 24, 1957– Stephen Fry:
“You are who you are when nobody’s watching.”
Comic, successful novelist, star of the silver screen, television and stage actor, doer of good works, atheist, Gay Rights activist, humanist, excellent friend to The Royals and persons famous and not, raconteur and wit, all are part of the dazzling resume of Stephen Fry.
“An original idea. That can’t be too hard. The library must be full of them.”
Perfectly cast, he played The Cheshire Cat in Tim Burton‘s Alice In Wonderland (2010), & he smartly portrayes Mycroft Holmes in the Sherlock Holmes (2009/2011) films directed by the former Mr. Madonna, Guy Ritchie.
I thought he was most hysterical as King Charles I on BBC’s Blackadder (1983-89). Fry even managed to stay good personal friends with the other Charles, Prince Of Wales and his horsey second wife, even though his performance in Blackadder was a pointed parody of the prince.
“It is a cliché that most clichés are true, but then like most clichés, that cliché is untrue.”
I am a big P.G. Wodehouse booster and a fan of the early 1990s BBC series Jeeves And Wooster, based on the Wodehouse series of stories of Bertram Wooster, smartly played by Hugh Laurie, a well-intentioned, wealthy layabout with a habit of getting himself into trouble, and his brilliant valet, Jeeves, portrayed by Fry, who gets him out of trouble. This series is a true delight. You may have the pleasure of catching it currently on Hulu. The Husband and I were known to recreate scenes from the series for months after it aired.
He has done over 50 films since his debut in Chariots Of Fire (1981). Other favorite Fry performances: Oscar Wilde in Wilde (1997), a role he was destined to play, with Jude Law as his love interest, and two of my all-time favorite films Gosford Park (2001) and Cold Comfort Farm (1995).
“The short answer to that is ‘no.’ The long answer is ‘fuck no.”
I understand that the 6’5” Fry also appears in something referred to as Peter Jackson’s Hobbit series of films, which seems odd because I thought those movies were about little people. Please, don’t make me watch them, as much as I admire Fry.
I do dig Fry as a writer. I have very much enjoyed his books The Liar (1991), Making History (1997) and The Star’s Tennis Balls (2000). Just three of the ten volumes of novels, essay collections and memoirs he has published, to say nothing of his magazine articles and op-ed pieces.
“My first words, as I was being born, I looked up at my mother and said, ‘that’s the last time I’m going up one of those’.”
Fry, who suffers from bipolar-disorder, revealed he had tried to take his own life. He admitted he still struggles with loneliness and unhappiness. Vitaly Milonov, one of Putin’s boyfriends and the thuggish architect of Russia’s vile anti-gay laws, launched an astonishing campaign against gay people and he accused Fry of being “sick” because of his attempt to commit suicide.
“I am gay. I am a Jew. My mother lost over a dozen of her family to Hitler’s anti-Semitism. In Russia, every time (and it is constantly) a gay teenager is forced into suicide, a lesbian ‘correctively’ raped, gay men and women beaten to death by neo-Nazi thugs while the Russian police stand idly by, the world is diminished and I for one, weep anew at seeing history repeat itself.”
I suppose that suffering from manic-depression, it helps to stay busy, because Fry never seems to stop. Just in this decade he has presented Stephen Fry: Out There (2012), a BBC TV documentary where he explores attitudes of homosexuality and the lives of gay people in different parts of the globe. He had a role on the television series, 24: Die Another Day and he appeared on Broadway in the 2013-14 season as Malvolio in the Old Globe’s traditional stage production of William Shakespeare‘s Twelfth Night. Fry received a Tony nomination for that performance.
“It is the useless things that make life worth living and that make life dangerous too: wine, love, art, beauty. Without them life is safe, but not worth bothering with.”
Fry works steadily in Film, Televison, Radio, Stage, Audio-Books, Video Games, Advertising, and even what they call Football in Europe, as part owner of his local Norfolk team. He has quite the active Twitter feed, where, of late, he has taken to mocking Donald P. Trump, always a fun avocation.
His BFF is Hugh Laurie. They met while both were studying at Cambridge. It is where they first collaborated and they have continued to work together many times over the decades. He was best man at Laurie’s wedding and he is godfather to his children.
Fry famously drives a black TX4 London cab around London and Norfolk, where he has houses.
His sudden, unannounced, January 2015 wedding to cutie pie Elliott Spencer was all the news in Britain. Fry’s new husband is 30 years his junior. The magazine gossip columns and scandal sheets went crazy.
“Oh, Elliott Spencer and I had our marriage vows witnessed by a mini Oscar Wilde. Because one should.”
This autumn, Fry will have a lead role in the new CBS sitcom The Great Indoors. He will portray an outdoor magazine publisher opposite cutie pie Joel McHale.
Going all the way back to 2002, Fry has maintained a really nifty blog that I look at weekly: The Old Friary: Stephen Fry. It is one of my favorite reads and Fry remains one of my favorite people on our pretty spinning blue orb.
“I think I have always linked smoking and sex. Maybe this is where I have been going wrong all my life.”
The post #BornThisDay: Polymath, Stephen Fry appeared first on The WOW Report.
Last Sunday, August 21 in New York City; The weather was crappy, and meanwhile I was upstate suffering from a toothache (root canal, don’t ask) but that didn’t stop the lovers of Wigstock: The Cruise 2. The AC might have not been working, but that made the show even hotter, it seems, as the community came together to drag out the night.
The weather did subside a bit so people could go outside and enjoy the views of the new World Trade Center and downtown Manhattan and Lady Bunny even posed for a pic with another big lady; Liberty.
There were tons of sickening performances (some of which you can see below) by Jimmy James, Michael West, Connie Fleming, Glamamore & Juanita More) John Kelly as Joni Mitchell, Tabboo!, the Dueling Bankheads (David Ilku and Clark Render) and Ebony Jett!
Bunny wrapped up the night, in a gravity defying wig, singing I’m Still Here with new lyrics in tribute to the long-gone, but not forgotten, queens who paved the way, like Ethyl Eichelberger, Marsha P. Johnson, Octavia St Laurent, and Willi Ninja, among many others…
“You’ll never extinguish this fire,
because I sure can’t afford to retire/
I am gonna have more farewell tours than Cher,
and I’m gonna do it all in gigantic hair.”
God bless her enlarged heart! Hopefully, there’ll be a next year too – weather be damned!
(Photos, Ande Wyland)
The post #WigstockTheCruise: Queers Cheer as Lady Bunny Sings, “I’m Still Here” appeared first on The WOW Report.
Salt Lake City Mayor Jackie Biskupski just wed partner Betty Iverson. Biskupski made history as the city’s first openly gay mayor and its second female mayor. She said on Facebook,
“Yesterday our family was brought together by marriage. We have always been bonded by love, but now we are joined by law.
Our family and families like ours have come so far to make joyous days like this possible. We truly are stronger together.”
The two have known each other for almost 20 years and they became engaged after she won the race for mayor.
ConDRAGulations, ladies!
(via Gay Times)
The post #LGBTQ: Salt Lake City Mayor Marries Her Longtime Partner appeared first on The WOW Report.
After the Pulse nightclub massacre happened in Orlando, Lauri and Cari Ryding (who have lived in Natick, Massachusetts for 23 years) decided they would put up a Pride flag. They went away on vacation and when they returned, they found that their rainbow flag had been stolen and their house had been egged. Cari told WCVB,
“It really is hard to feel someone hates you.”
But as the Boston Globe reported, their distress was replaced by something kind of magical and served to remind the couple why they loved their neighborhood. This Sunday, kids on bicycles delivered rainbow flags to house after house, more than 40 houses in all, who displayed them on fences, garages, doorways, and decks turning the neighborhood into a declaration of solidarity. Penni Rochwerger, who lives around the corner from the Rydings said,
“It just happened so quickly — the whole neighborhood said, ‘Get me a flag! Get me a flag! Get me a flag!’ If we can stop whatever hate is out there, I think that’s really important.”
More than 2/3 of homes in the neighborhood now fly rainbow-colored Pride flags in solidarity with the Rydings. Their neighbor Maura Gaughan said,
“The first thing when I heard about it. Alright, I’m going to put up a flag. We should all put up flags.”
Watch.
(via Towleroad)
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Kelly Osbourne is lending her voice along with award-winning transgender artist and activist Zackary Drucker to the TransNation Festival. The event’s proceeds will benefit L.A.-based organizations that provide services to transgender people, including the festival’s creator, St. John’s Well Child and Family Center, who have one of the largest transgender health programs in the country. Osbourne said in a video announcement for the festival,
“The transgender movement is making headlines and in the past couple of years, we have seen an increasing number of trans people be the center of pop culture. But despite the surge in attention around the trans community, we’re still not addressing social barriers such as the lack of access to healthcare and employment, discrimination and the growing number of trans-related hate crimes.”
The three-day event, beginning October 20 will not only uplift trans people, but will educate and galvanize the general public to support this under-served segment of the population.
Drucker, an Emmy-nominated producer for the docu-series This Is Me, producer of Amazon’s award-winning Transparent & I Am Cait cast member, is serving as guest curator of the invite-only film portion, which will take place at West Hollywood’s Cinefamily Cinematheque.
Besides the film festival it will include benefit art exhibition and a beauty pageant. The 15th annual Queen USA national transgender beauty pageant, produced by pioneering trans activist Karina Samala, will feature contestants from across the country and Native American nations in competition for cash prizes. Jim Mangia, St. John’s CEO said,
“We are excited about the announcement of TransNation — a festival created by our transgender staff — to celebrate transgender culture and shed light on the barriers this community faces with the hope that stakeholders will begin to better understand this community and make changes to empower them to thrive.”
Proceeds from TransNation will also benefit the Imperial Court of Los Angeles and Hollywood’s Nicole Murray Ramirez Scholarship Fund. (via L.A. Times)
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