WHEN L. FRANK BAUM began writing his tales of Oz at the end of the 19th century, he could not have foreseen their endurance in popular culture well into the 21st. In addition to The Wizard of Oz and Wicked on screen and on stage, Baum’s characters have been re-imagined into many literary works, including those of an obscure author and publisher named Marsh “March” Laumer.
Laumer (1923–2000) edited, translated, and wrote more than twenty stories and novels set in the Land of Oz. His most famous—and infamous—rendering is The Green Dolphin of Oz (1978), which some call pornographic for its “adult” take on the children’s tale (the character Shaggy Man, for example, has a thing for young Dorothy). Unbeknownst to most Ozmologists, Laumer was a gay man who had an adventurous and sometimes artistic erotic life. A University of Missouri graduate and World War II veteran, Laumer traveled to 49 states and throughout the world. He was a devoted philatelist, fluent in Swedish and Russian, conversant in French and German, and fond of opera, good food, nudism, and sex.
At the Browne Popular Culture Library of Bowling Green State University in Ohio, I pulled back the curtains of the March Laumer Collection. Comprising sixteen linear feet of manuscript materials, the archive is a rather overwhelming accumulation of his diaries from age twelve onward, plus correspondence and published writings. After desperately trying to find a commercial publisher for his work, Laumer resorted to self-publishing as Opium Books, under his own name and several pseudonyms, including Felix Severance, Sylvia Argentier, and Xavier Xanthus. In a 1985 letter to his mother he wrote: “thank heavens Baum invented oz! otherwise I would have nobody buying my books.”
Intermixed with his writings and business dealings are revelations about his sexuality. The book by “Xavier Xanthus,” which was titled Purple Pianos and Violet Violins, amounts to an autobiographical confession: “I had known all my life that my psychological orientation was predominately homosexual.” He also wrote about his sex life in letters to friends dated November 1978: “dear joe … glad you discovered the club baths. nobody told me; i discovered them purely by accident in wash d.c. last dec. they’ve changed my life! no more do i sit & pine for the true love of my life; I just go to the c.b. & have it off with 4-5 different guys a night. glorious.” He then wrote: “i can only lay claim to average looks—but think i rather make up for it by excellent health, a smooth physique, & the size of charms normally concealed!”
Laumer taught English and journalism from 1965 to ’67 at Ying Wa College in Hong Kong, where he launched Opium Books in low print runs (500 or 1,000 copies). His diaries from this period are written on the backs of graded student
papers, as he often found himself “totally out of pocket.” Seeking “poseurs” for art portraits, he placed ads in The Star newspaper. If models proved appealing, he then asked if they would pose nude, which often led to sex.
Laumer’s diary entries, like his other writings, often ramble. One entry details a sexual escapade, and the very next sentence shares his recipe for pineapple upside-down cake. Two autumn 1965 entries describe visits from models: “Yee finally arrived. Pleasant Amer. Chin. Boy. … Did 1 portrait, he declined to pose more & is thin so wouldn’t be much good anyway.” And: “Mr. Wood arrived @ 8, with bottle of scotch. … stayed on 2 in the morning. … then to my surprise he said we’d go to bed together. … Long passionate kisses mostly from his side & it was very exciting. … He played with me a long time after, marveling at my continued hardness. He was too drunk, it seemed, to get erect himself.” Evidently, Laumer kept busy in the British colony; one day he had three separate modeling appointments, and during those sessions he received phone calls to arrange sittings with three more men.
He traveled widely, teaching in Portugal and Turkey before settling in Lund, Sweden, where he continued publishing as the Vanitas Press. As his writing-publishing career waned, he returned to America, moving in with his parents at their manse in Belleair, Florida. His sexual life, however, did not wane, as he began taking out personal ads in two erotic magazines, Inches and Honcho, and the gay nudist newsletter The Nude Exchange.
His March 1985 Inches ad reads: “Ex-Marine 60, slim, fit, potent, seeks friendships, not sex merely.” In some ads he gave out his phone number, and his 83-year-old mother would sometimes answer the phone. A letter he received in 1985 complains: “Ever Erect! We have been trying without success, to reach you by phone. … An elderly lady answers the phone when we call. … ‘You are gone for the weekend’ or ‘You are out for the evening.’” In that same year, Laumer’s mother wrote him: “you had some rather odd characters show up here—in answer to your ‘travel’ adv—I suppose.”
Laumer’s Inches ad resulted in at least one extended love interest. To Gerald (or Gerold), “a brick layer by tread [sic],” he wrote in April 1985: “I’m glad you came into my life & showed me love like I never knew before. … I’m yours and I want to be with you and share everything with you.”
Today, apart from the Oz books, Laumer remains unknown and unread. He joins a long list of authors who hid their sexuality from the public but lived full, exuberant gay lives. He avoided politics and, he wrote in 1978: “[I] certainly never took an activist role in their [gay rights]demonstrations but i do support all their efforts for more acceptance. The anti-gay successes in this country are most depressing.”
Frank Serafino lectures on LGBTQ history at the College of DuPage in Glen Ellyn, Illinois.
