IN THE MID-20th CENTURY, there was an LGBT network of literary figures whose professional and personal lives were discreetly—and sometimes not so discreetly—intertwined, a roster that included such writers as Truman Capote, Gore Vidal, Tennessee Williams, Christopher Isherwood, John Ashbery, W. H. Auden, and Glenway Wescott. In the midst of that heady configuration was a dashing gay couple whose names are far less familiar to us, but who would have an unexpected literary impact in the 21st century. Donald Windham and Sandy M. Campbell were patrons of the arts whose legacy would eventually become the Windham-Campbell Literature Prizes.
Brimming with charm, elegance, and wit, they became friends not only with leading literary figures of that era but also with notables in the visual and performing arts, including artists Paul Cadmus, Joseph Cornell, Pavel Tchelitchew, Jared French, and George Platt Lynes; actors Alfred Lunt, Lynn Fontanne, and Montgomery Clift; and dance impresario Lincoln Kirstein.
Frank Rizzo is a theater writer and critic for Variety and a freelance journalist based in New York City and New Haven.
