THE NEWS came as a shock. Only two days after legendary German filmmaker Rosa von Praunheim had shared photographs of his wedding to longtime partner Oliver Sechting—images full of celebrity guests from the film world, a cake topped with a giant penis, and Rosa himself looking radiant in pink despite being in a wheelchair—his husband announced that Rosa had died on December 17th at age 83.
MoreIN KEEPING with tradition, we take time to remember a few of the notable LGBT people who died during the previous year.
MoreMY FAVORITE ED WHITE STORY took place in Yale’s beautiful Beinecke Library, where I was doing research for a book on the Violet Quill. Yale had purchased Ed’s papers, and I was the first person to open the boxes in which he had unceremoniously dumped the contents of his drawers; …
MoreI’ve kept thousands of emails that Ed sent me through the years. Whenever I need a lift and a laugh, I pull one up and feel much better. Ed’s company, whether in person or on the page, made of life something sparkling, something special. The thought that this reservoir of creativity has left us forever is shocking.
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As time went on, I asked if I could take his picture to capture a few more cherished memories. He gladly agreed. But when I picked up my camera for our final meeting, a kind of melancholy came over me. I didn’t feel capable of capturing anything truly evocative. Still, I took a few photos—ones that may some day have value, but only as documents.
MoreA DEAR FRIEND and mentor to me and many others, Jack Sansolo departed our world last October at age 81. The inimitable “Dr. Jack” had been living in L.A. in recent years with his husband Dean. He was diagnosed last year with Stage 4 prostate cancer.
MoreIN KEEPING WITH TRADITION, we take time to remember of few of the notable LGBT people who died during the previous year. Here are three figures of national stature who left a lasting legacy.
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PLAYWRIGHT CHRISTOPHER DURANG, who passed away on April 2, 2024, at the age of 75, was one of the American theater’s most celebrated satirists. His plays could be hysterically funny and deeply disturbing, in a style he described as “absurdist comedy married to real feelings.” Among the targets of his Obie Award-winning works were religious dogma, psychoanalysis, and dysfunctional families, all critiqued from a distinctly queer perspective.
MoreObituaries for Ned Rorem, Minnie Bruce Pratt, and Charles Silverstein.
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Amber always managed in her activism to “say out loud what everyone had agreed not to notice.” She constantly called for a “new revolution” that included the sexual desires that so many experience with shame and feel forced to keep secret. She insisted that we embrace “our most dangerous desires” and “fight for a world that values human sexual possibility without extracting a terrible human price.” She strove “to create a movement willing to live the politics of sexual danger in order to create a culture of human hope.”
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The Gay & Lesbian Review
