Amanda LePore – The WOW Report

August 26, 1904– Christopher Isherwood:

“Life is not so bad if you have plenty of luck, a good physique and not too much imagination.”

In the summer of 1971, I was doing summer stock theatre in Coeur d’ Alene, Idaho. Lucky me, at 17-years-old, I was enjoying my first professional theatre work, plus I was being doted on and delighting in my first hot affair with another male, a fellow actor who was much older than me. Ron was 23 years old. He was an actual college graduate! I had a hard time wrapping my teenage mind around the notion that someone could be finished with college and still have interest in me. Ron lived in San Francisco and I would visit him there several times in the next few years.

The film version of the musical Cabaret was to open the following spring and there was already lots of buzz about the Bob Fosse directed movie. Loving the Original Broadway Cast Album, I became preoccupied with the film version. My summer fling was well aware of my anticipation. Out of the blue, in a gesture of pure sweetness, Ron gave me a gift of the source material The Berlin Stories by Christopher Isherwood. He promised me that I would love this book and that in the spring we would see the film together. He kept that promise. I flew from Spokane to San Francisco for a weekend in February 1972 and saw Cabaret in its first week of release.

One month into my 18th year and I was kicking around San Francisco, delighting in the divine decadence of my new gay life. I listened to music, went to the clubs, drank, drugged and Homosexuelle Erfahrungen Genossen. This is what I think of when I think of Isherwood.

Not celebrated nearly enough, and mostly noted for all the wrong reasons, Isherwood greatly influenced the direction of fiction writing with his “I Am ACamera” approach to narration. Isherwood’s memoir Christopher And His Kind (1976) is surly one of the best gay themed books of all time, equally enthralling with literary revelations and sexual adventures. He tells the tale of his walking away from uptight, upper-class English life, and spending much of his 20s in Berlin between the wars dating young working-class Heiße Junge Männer. In Berlin, Isherwood fell in love with a young German, Heinz Neddermeyer, at a time when rooms for rent are hard to come by. He moved into Heinz’s family’s one bedroom apartment. The parents moved out of their bedroom and slept in the living room so the young men could enjoy a double bed in privacy. It is here that he introduced readers to Jean Ross, the inspiration for Sally Bowles in The Berlin Stories. A section of the book became the play I Am A Camera (1951) adapted by gay playwright John Van Druten. It was made into a film in 1955. Both play and film starred the late, great Julie Harris as Bowles. A decade later came the stage musical Cabaret, and then, of course, Liza Minnelli as Bowles in the film version.

“I am a camera with its shutter open, quite passive, recording, not thinking. Recording the man shaving at the window opposite and the woman in the kimono washing her hair. Someday, all this will have to be developed, carefully printed, fixed.”

Isherwood described their relationship as an adoption, because Neddermeyer was so much younger and not exactly worldly. They traveled Europe and North Africa until May 1937 when Neddermeyer was expelled from Luxembourg and forced to return to Germany. The next day he was arrested by the Gestapo and sentenced to three and half years of hard labor. When he was freed, he married a woman and had a son.

It was not uncommon for gay men at that time to turn away from their former lives after the Nazi’s sentenced them to prison. Although Neddermeyer and Isherwood continued to correspond, they would not see each other again until November 1952 while Isherwood was visiting England and Germany promoting The Berlin Stories.

In November 1956 Isherwood received a letter from Neddermeyer writing that he had been in a political argument at the factory where he worked in East Berlin. Fearing arrest, he fled to Hamburg. Isherwood sent him money. Nothing else is mentioned about him in the Isherwood diaries except fond memories of their travels and a sympathy note from Neddermeyer when Isherwood’s mother died in 1960. Isherwood never had contact with him after the publication of the first volume of Isherwood’s diaries. Neddermeyer wrote that he was absolutely appalled by the candidness of the book.

After Berlin, Isherwood moved to NYC with his BFF, poet W.H. Auden. He found literary success and a friendship with fellow writer Truman Capote. Isherwood eventually settled in LA. When he was 48-years-old he met a teenager, Don Bachardy, on the beach in Santa Monica. They were together more than 30 years, until Isherwood left this world in 1986.

His very best novel, A Single Man (1964), is in my Top 10 All-Time Favorite Works Of Fiction. A Single Man is loosely based on the period when Isherwood and Bachardy attempted to live separate lives, although the couple had always enjoyed one of those modern “open relationships”. It was made into a gorgeous, faithful film in 2010, by first time director, openly gay designer Tom Ford. It is a stylish, stunning, skilled look at love and loss, anchored by an elegant, nuanced, sophisticated performance by Colin Firth, whose English reticence is perfect for the story of the discreetly gay English expatriate George. Firth’s handsome bespectacled English Lit college professor is withdrawn, pained, yet sensual, with whiffs of wit, irony, and self-depreciation. Firth was robbed of an Academy Award that year. Jeff Bridges won for Crazy Heart, having lost the previous year for True Grit to Firth for The King’s Speech. Got that? The right actors always win for the wrong film.

Through the decades, I would read many books by and about Isherwood, including his three volumes of diaries: Diaries: 1939-1960, Diaries: The 1960s, Liberation: 1970-1983. I even purchased a new annotated re-issue of The Berlin Stories.

I have always been in awe and fascinated by Isherwood’s long life together with artist Bachardy. That story is told in an excellent documentary Chris & Don: A Love Story (2007). Their tale is told using Bachardy’s recorded reminiscences filmed in the bungalow in Santa Monica that they shared for three decades, with artfully inserted archival footage and home movies, including glimpses of pals Auden, Igor Stravinsky and Tennessee Williams. Reenactments and whimsical animated sequences based on cartoons the couple used in their personal correspondence give the film an original touch. With a close-up look at Bachardy’s long sought artistic success away from the considerable shadow of his great love, Chris & Don: A Love Story is a special celebration of an extraordinary couple.

Also on your must-see list should be the BBC’s adaptation of Christopher And His Kind (2011), adapted from that Isherwood’s autobiography with the same title. It has Isherwood played by The Crown’s Matt Smith, along with Toby Jones, Douglas Booth, and Imogen Poots in the Sally Bowles spot. It perfectly captures the essence of Isherwood and company and the atmosphere of pre-war Berlin. All of the production elements are top drawer. It is a glorious film. Find it, and also read everything by and about Christopher and his kind; you won’t be sorry.

Bachardy (R) painting Isherwood, film still from Chris & Don: A Love Story, Jack Shear for Asphalt Stars Productions

During Isherwood’s final illness in 1986, Bachardy drew or painted him almost every day, even after Isherwood’s death. These portraits are among Bachardy’s finest work. They are gathered together and published as Last Drawings Of Christopher Isherwood (1990). Bachardy has gone on to be as famous as an artist as Isherwood is as a writer. He has produced over 10,000 portraits. His celebrity portraits were collected along with selections from his diaries in the fabulous Stars In My Eyes (2000). His work is in collections at the Smithsonian Museum and the National Portrait Gallery in London. He oversees the posthumous publication of Isherwood’s diaries, novels and travel books. He continues to paint or draw.

From A Single Man:

“What’s so phony nowadays is all this familiarity. Pretending there isn’t any difference between people. If you and I are no different, what do we have to give each other? How can we ever be friends?”

Betty Friedan (C), From the New York Historical Society Archives, Photograph by Eugene Gordon

August 26, 1970– The Women’s Strike For Equality

Betty Friedan:

“Don’t Iron While the Strike is Hot!”

The Women’s Strike For Equality was a nationwide demonstration for Women’s Rights that was held on the 50th anniversary of the 19^th Amendment and women’s right to vote. It was the first big demonstration of the Women’s Liberation Movement, and the largest gathering of women protesters in history, until January 21, 2017. The leadership for the strike called the focus to be “The Unfinished Business Of Equality”.

The Women’s Strike For Equality was organized by the National Organization for Women (NOW) and its president Betty Friedan.

At a NOW convention in March 1970, Friedan rallied women to stop working for a day to draw attention to the prevalent problem of unequal pay for women’s work. She then formed and led the National Women’s Strike Coalition to organize the protest, which used “Don’t Iron While The Strike Is Hot!” as its slogan. She asked American women to abandon their husbands, their desks and typewriters, and their service jobs, to march in the streets of American cities demanding Equal Rights.

From the New York Historical Society Archives

The Equal Rights Amendment was being debated in Congress that summer, and women warned politicians to pay attention or risk losing their seats in the next election.

Friedan initially proposed the strike to NOW, but its members were afraid that the protest would be a bust, and that they would be mocked. She continued to develop a strategy despite the negative reaction from the organization she had helped form. The first planning meeting was small and chaotic; discussing possible strategies without any formal organization. As plans progressed, so did the controversy. In the final month leading up to the event, the group was significantly divided into two factions: the young radicals and the “bourgeoisie” founders.

Friedan avoided deep divisions by diversifying, recruiting women and men, liberals and conservatives. She sought a permit from NYC to close Fifth Avenue for the protest. The city refused. They marched anyway.

NYC had the largest protest. 50,000 people marched down Fifth Avenue; others demonstrated at the Statue Of Liberty and another group stopped the stock ticker on Wall Street. The city proclaimed it declaring Equality Day. Police directed them to one lane of traffic, but the protesters filled the street and sidewalks.

Los Angeles had a smaller protest of about 1000. In Washington D.C., women marched down Connecticut Avenue with a banner that read “We Demand Equality” and lobbied for the Equal Rights Amendment. Petitions with more than 1,500 names were presented to the Senate Majority Leader Mike Mansfield, a Democrat from Montana.

Women who worked at the Detroit Free Press kicked men out of one of their restrooms, protesting the fact that men had two bathrooms while women had one.

Women who worked for a New Orleans’ The Times-Picayune newspaper ran pictures of the grooms instead of the brides in engagement announcements.

Women marched in Paris, and Dutch women marched at the U.S. embassy in Amsterdam.

Critics, including many women, called the demonstrators anti-feminine and Communists. The Women’s Strike For Equality made the front page of the failing NY Times, L.A. Times, and Chicago Tribune. It was also the leading story for the three broadcast networks, ABC, CBS, and NBC. This was before Fox, MSNBC or CNN, and unbelievably, there was no Internet.

The failing NY Times ran a feature titled: “Liberation Yesterday: The Roots Of The Feminist Movement” . Under a photograph of early 20^th century suffragettes marching down Fifth Avenue, the paper also asked: “Fifty years ago, they won the vote. Did they throw victory away?” The article pointed out that the earlier and the then-current Feminist Movements were rooted in work for Civil Rights, Peace and Radical politics, and noted that the Women’s Movement in both eras were intent on recognizing that both black people and women were being treated as second-class citizens.

The article went on to note that “Traditional Groups Prefer to Ignore Women’s Lib“. NY Times:

“The problem for such groups as the Daughters Of The AmericanRevolution (DAR) the Women’s Christian Temperance Union, the League OfWomen Voters, The Junior League and the Young Women’s ChristianAssociation (YWCA) is what attitude to take toward the militant women’s liberation movement with its ridiculous exhibitionists and bands of wild lesbians.”

Bands of wild lesbians! Oh, my!

The article quoted the National Council Of Women:

“There’s no discrimination against women like they say there is. Women themselves are just self-limiting. It’s in their nature and they shouldn’t blame it on society or men.”

The NY Times also noted that Friedan was 20 minutes late for her speech at the Women’s Strike For Equality, with a headline: “Leading Feminist Puts Hairdo Before Strike”. The article also noted what she wore and where she’d purchased it, and that he had her hair done at the Vidal Sassoon Salon. Friedan’s retort:

“I don’t want people to think Women’s Lib girls don’t care about how they look. We should try to be as pretty as we can. It’s good for our self-image and it’s good politics.”

The article noted:

“The vast majority of women interviewed strongly endorsed the traditional concept of woman as a mother and a homemaker who can, and sometimes even should, supplement these activities with a career or with volunteer work.”

60 women showed up at the reception area of the Katherine Gibbs School to confront the president of the secretarial school, with charges that the school was exploiting a system that kept women in subservient roles in business. They moved on to six advertising agencies to present awards that ironically congratulated them for using degrading images of women and for under-employing women. Among the businesses they visited was that darn NY Times itself.

From the New York Historical Society Archives, Photograph by Eugene Gordon

Friedan, who wrote groundbreaking The Feminine Mystique (1963), said the movement needed “Something big, something so big it will make national headlines”.

The Women’s Strike For Equality made headlines as people marched not just for Gender Equality, but also for the Anti-Vietnam War Movement, the Gay Rights Movement, and the Civil Rights Movement.

In 1971, Congress passed a resolution declaring August 26 to be Women’s Equality Day. One of my earliest heroes, Representative Bella Abzug of NY was so inspired by the Women’s Strike For Equality, she introduced a bill to make Women’s Equality Day a national holiday.

Friedan left this world in 2006 on her 85th birthday. The Feminine Mystique is now considered rather quaint.