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Two new books celebrate Old Hollywood glory

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Liz Taylor and Montgomery Clift, who was gay, had a long, close friendship. (Photo courtesy Kensington)
‘Elizabeth and Monty: The Untold Story of Their Intimate Friendship’
By Charles Casillo
c.2021, Kensington
$27.00/389 pages

‘The Twelve Lives of Alfred Hitchcock’
By Edward White
c.2021, W. W. Norton & Company
$28.95/379 pages

If you’re queer, especially if you’re of a certain age, old Hollywood is embedded in your DNA.

For those of us besotted by classic movies — there can never be too many books about Tinseltown.

Two new books — “Elizabeth and Monty” by Charles Casillo and “The Twelve Lives of Alfred Hitchcock” by Edward White — will satisfy your old Hollywood jones.

“Elizabeth and Monty” is the riveting story of the intimate friendship of Elizabeth Taylor and Montgomery Clift.

Few people are loved more by the LGBTQ community than Elizabeth Taylor. Who will ever forget Taylor as Martha in “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf” or as Maggie in “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof?”

Taylor raised millions for AIDS research long before any celeb or politico even said the word “AIDS.” People with AIDS weren’t objects of charity to Taylor. She had many queer friends and hung out at gay bars.

Montgomery Clift, who lived from 1920 to 1966, was a talented actor. Because of the time in which he lived, he had to be closeted about his sexuality. Because of the homophobia in the society and Hollywood then, the support of friends was crucial to Clift and other LGBTQ people of that era.

For much of his life, Clift had health problems that caused him pain. Partly as a result of pain, he had issues with drinking and drug addiction. His behavior could be erratic and uncouth.  (He had a penchant for eating food off of other people’s plates.)

Despite Clift’s troubles, you become transfixed by his brooding intensity – whether you’re watching him in “The Heiress,” “From Here to Eternity” or “Red River.”  

If you have a heartbeat, you’ll feel the chemistry between Clift and Taylor when they’re on screen together in “A Place in the Sun.”

Though Clift was queer and Taylor was hetero, they were the closest of friends.

From the prologue onward, Casillo draws you into their friendship. The book opens on the evening when Clift, driving home from a party, was in a terrible car accident. He’d crashed into a telephone pole. 

Taylor went to Clift who was lying bleeding on the road. “Realizing he was choking on his teeth,” Casillo adds, “she instinctively stuck her fingers down his throat and pulled out two broken teeth, clearing the passageway.”

Taylor stuck by Clift when many of his friends distanced themselves from him.  

Taylor insisted that Clift be cast in “Reflections in a Golden Eye.” She put up her own salary as insurance for Clift when no one would insure him (because of his health and substance abuse issues).

It’s clear from “Elizabeth and Monty” that Clift was as important to Taylor as she was to him. Their relationship wasn’t sexual, writes Casillo, author of “Marilyn Monroe: The Private Life of a Public Icon” and “Outlaw The Lives and Careers of John Rechy.” Yet, there was an emotional intensity – a romantic quality – in their friendship.

Clift nurtured Taylor. He coached Taylor, who he called Bessie Mae, on her acting. He thought Taylor was beautiful, yet understood what it was like for Taylor when people only saw her for her beauty.

“Monty, Elizabeth likes me, but she loves you,” Richard Burton is reported to have said to Clift.

There are good biographies of Taylor – such as William Mann’s “How To Be A Movie Star: Elizabeth Taylor in Hollywood” and of Clift – most notably Patricia Bosworth’s “Montgomery Clift: A Biography.”

Even so, “Elizabeth and Monty” sheds new light on the intense friendship of two queer icons. Check it out. It will imbue you with renewed love and respect not only for Taylor and Clift but for your own friends.

Without Alfred Hitchcock, I’d never make it through the pandemic.

The COVID vaccines are wonderful! But, I’d never get out of my sweatpants without the suspense and glam of Hitchcock’s movies.

Nothing is more comforting than watching serial killer Uncle Charlie in “Shadow of a Doubt” or, with Grace Kelly, James Stewart and Thelma Ritter, observing the murderer in “Rear Window.”

What is more pleasurable than ogling the gorgeous mid-century apartment where a murder has been committed in “Rope?”

Of course, I’m far from alone in loving Hitchcock. Hetero and queer viewers are Hitchcock fans.

Everyone from your straight, straitlaced granny to your bar-hopping queer grandson has had nightmares about the shower scene in “Psycho.” Or had a crush on Cary Grant or Eva Marie Saint in “North by Northwest.”

From the glam in “Rear Window” to Bruno and Guy in “Strangers on a Train,” it’s clear that Hitchcock’s movies have a queer quotient and a special appeal to LGBTQ viewers.

There are more biographies and studies of Hitchcock’s life and work than you could count. Or would want to read.

Yet, “The Twelve Lives of Alfred Hitchcock” by Edward White is a good read.

In elegant, precise writing, White illuminates Hitchcock’s life and work by examining 12 aspects of his complex personality. As with all of us, the whole of Hitchcock’s self was more than the components of his personality. Any life, despite the most assiduous biographer’s investigations, remains somewhat of a mystery.

White explores how “Hitchcock” the phenomenon was invented as well as what made Hitchcock the person tick. He carries out this exploration by writing about Hitchcock as everything from “The Fat Man” to “The Murderer” to “The Dandy” to “The Voyeur” to “The Londoner” to “The Family Man” to “The Man of God.”

Hitchcock was a family man who loved his wife, yet, at times, gazed in, to put it mildly an unsavory manner, at some of the actresses such as Tippi Hedren, in his films.  

Impeccably dressed in a Victorian-era suite, he plotted films about murder and rape with his wife (and frequent uncredited collaborator) Alma at his side.

For a half century, “Hitchcock’s persona was the active ingredient in the most celebrated of his 53 films,” White writes, “the way Oscar Wilde’s was in his plays, and Andy Warhol’s was in his art.”

Hitchcock stands alone in the Hollywood canon, White writes, “a director whose mythology eclipses the brilliance of his myriad classic movies.”

The span of Hitchcock’s career was immense — from the time of silent films to the 3-D era. His work, White, a “Paris Review” contributor, writes, runs the gamut from thrillers to screwball comedy to horror to film noir to social realism.

Read “The Twelve Lives of Alfred Hitchcock.”  It’ll take you inside the mosaic of the fab filmmaker’s life and work. Then, break out the popcorn and “Dial M for Murder.”  

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Books

A boy-meets-boy, family-mess story with heat

New book offers a stunning, satisfying love story

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(Book cover image courtesy of Random House)

‘When the Harvest Comes’
By Denne Michele Norris
c.2025, Random House
$28/304 pages

Happy is the bride the sun shines on.

Of all the clichés that exist about weddings, that’s the one that seems to make you smile the most. Just invoking good weather and bright sunshine feels like a cosmic blessing on the newlyweds and their future. It’s a happy omen for bride and groom or, as in the new book “When the Harvest Comes” by Denne Michele Norris, for groom and groom.

Davis Freeman never thought he could love or be loved like this.

He was wildly, wholeheartedly, mind-and-soul smitten with Everett Caldwell, and life was everything that Davis ever wanted. He was a successful symphony musician in New York. They had an apartment they enjoyed and friends they cherished. Now it was their wedding day, a day Davis had planned with the man he adored, the details almost down to the stitches in their attire. He’d even purchased a gorgeous wedding gown that he’d never risk wearing.

He knew that Everett’s family loved him a lot, but Davis didn’t dare tickle the fates with a white dress on their big day. Everett’s dad, just like Davis’s own father, had considerable reservations about his son marrying another man – although Everett’s father seemed to have come to terms with his son’s bisexuality. Davis’s father, whom Davis called the Reverend, never would. Years ago, father and son had a falling-out that destroyed any chance of peace between Davis and his dad; in fact, the door slammed shut to any reconciliation.

But Davis tried not to think about that. Not on his wedding day. Not, unbeknownst to him, as the Reverend was rushing toward the wedding venue, uninvited but not unrepentant. Not when there was an accident and the Reverend was killed, miles away and during the nuptials.

Davis didn’t know that, of course, as he was marrying the love of his life. Neither did Everett, who had familial problems of his own, including homophobic family members who tried (but failed) to pretend otherwise.

Happy is the groom the sun shines on. But when the storm comes, it can be impossible to remain sunny.

What can be said about “When the Harvest Comes?” It’s a romance with a bit of ghost-pepper-like heat that’s not there for the mere sake of titillation. It’s filled with drama, intrigue, hate, characters you want to just slap, and some in bad need of a hug.

In short, this book is quite stunning.

Author Denne Michele Norris offers a love story that’s everything you want in this genre, including partners you genuinely want to get to know, in situations that are real. This is done by putting readers inside the characters’ minds, letting Davis and Everett themselves explain why they acted as they did, mistakes and all. Don’t be surprised if you have to read the last few pages twice to best enjoy how things end. You won’t be sorry.

If you want a complicated, boy-meets-boy, family-mess kind of book with occasional heat, “When the Harvest Comes” is your book. Truly, this novel shines.

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Books

Chronicling disastrous effects of ‘conversion therapy’

New book uncovers horror, unexpected humor of discredited practice

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(Book cover image courtesy of Jessica Kingsley Publishers)

‘Shame-Sex Attraction: Survivors’ Stories of Conversion Therapy’
By Lucas F. W. Wilson
c.2025, Jessica Kingsley Publishers
$21.95/190 pages

You’re a few months in, and it hasn’t gotten any easier.

You made your New Year’s resolutions with forethought, purpose, and determination but after all this time, you still struggle, ugh. You’ve backslid. You’ve cheated because change is hard. It’s sometimes impossible. And in the new book, “Shame-Sex Attraction” by Lucas F. W. Wilson, it can be exceptionally traumatic.

Progress does not come without problems.

While it’s true that the LGBTQ community has been adversely affected by the current administration, there are still things to be happy about when it comes to civil rights and acceptance. Still, says Wilson, one “particularly slow-moving aspect… has been the fight against what is widely known as conversion therapy.”

Such practices, he says, “have numerous damaging, death-dealing, and no doubt disastrous consequences.” The stories he’s collected in this volume reflect that, but they also mirror confidence and strength in the face of detrimental treatment.

Writer Gregory Elsasser-Chavez was told to breathe in something repellent every time he thought about other men. He says, in the end, he decided not to “pray away the gay.” Instead, he quips, he’d “sniff it away.”

D. Apple became her “own conversation therapist” by exhausting herself with service to others as therapy. Peter Nunn’s father took him on a surprise trip, but the surprise was a conversion facility; Nunn’s father said if it didn’t work, he’d “get rid of” his 15-year-old son. Chaim Levin was forced to humiliate himself as part of his therapy.

Lexie Bean struggled to make a therapist understand that they didn’t want to be a man because they were “both.” Jordan Sullivan writes of the years it takes “to re-integrate and become whole” after conversion therapy. Chris Csabs writes that he “tried everything to find the root of my problem” but “nothing so far had worked.”

Says Syre Klenke of a group conversion session, “My heart shattered over and over as people tried to console and encourage each other…. I wonder if each of them is okay and still with us today.”

Here’s a bit of advice for reading “Shame-Sex Attraction”: dip into the first chapter, maybe the second, then go back and read the foreword and introduction, and resume.

The reason: author Lucas F. W. Wilson’s intro is deep and steep, full of footnotes and statistics, and if you’re not prepared or you didn’t come for the education, it might scare you away. No, the subtitle of this book is likely why you’d pick the book up so because that’s what you really wanted, indulge before backtracking.

You won’t be sorry; the first stories are bracing and they’ll steel you for the rest, for the emotion and the tears, the horror and the unexpected humor.

Be aware that there are triggers all over this book, especially if you’ve been subjected to anything like conversion therapy yourself. Remember, though, that the survivors are just that: survivors, and their strength is what makes this book worthwhile. Even so, though “Shame-Sex Attraction” is an essential read, that doesn’t make it any easier.

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Books

How one gay Catholic helped change the world

‘A Prince of a Boy,’ falls short of author’s previous work

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(Book cover image via Amazon)

Brian McNaught, the pioneering gay activist and author of 1986’s “On Being Gay” and 1993’s “Gay Issues in the Workplace,” has written a personal account about his Catholic faith and homosexuality. It is a memoir without much substance.  

“A Prince of a Boy: How One Gay Catholic Helped Change the World” (Cascade Books) is a strong personal statement by McNaught. He helped change family relationships. He helped change attitudes about homosexuality. He helped change workplaces, but the world?

In January 2023, the Catholic News Service reported that Pope Francis announced that, “being homosexual is not a crime.” In December 2023, NPR reported that Pope Francis approved “Catholic blessings for same-sex couples, but not for marriage.” Francis died Monday at age 88. Although Catholics may not see homosexuality as a crime, they see sex outside of marriage as a sin. They see same-sex marriage as a sin.

In 2021, Gallup reported that membership in the Catholic Church had declined 20 percent since 2000. In 2025, the Pew Research Center’s Religious Landscape Study found that nearly 40 percent of Americans identified as Protestant, while the same study found that only 19 percent identified as Catholic.

McNaught devotes much of his book to his life as a gay Catholic. It is challenging to read about his personal struggle. Some readers may find it interesting. Others might find it boring. Catholic readers may find it more compelling than Protestant readers.

As the above statistics prove, McNaught has much more work to do to change the Catholic Church’s views about homosexuality. We should be glad for his contribution to the debate within the Catholic Church. We should pray for full acceptance of gays in the Catholic Church.

“A Prince of a Boy” becomes more interesting when McNaught describes his work as an educator on LGBTQ issues. He has had an impact on workplace policies, academic programs, and public education, and his lectures, books, and other materials are widely used. 

Based on my experience in the federal government and volunteering with LGBTQ organizations from the Bay Area to Washington, D.C., I believe McNaught’s work as an educator has improved LGBTQ lives, careers, and families. During the Clinton administration, I gave many copies of “Gay Issues in the Workplace” to personnel directors. I felt their staff could benefit from reading it. I thought it would help the lives and careers of my federal LGBTQ colleagues.

McNaught’s “A Prince of a Boy” was released in December 2024. Anti-gay crusader Anita Bryant died the same month. Bryant campaigned against a gay rights law in Florida. She began a national campaign against gays.

When Bryant successfully reversed a gay rights ordinance in Dade County, Florida, McNaught wrote the important essay “Dear Anita, Late Night Thoughts of an Irish Catholic Homosexual.” The essay is not in “A Prince of a Boy”; however, McNaught mentions Bryant.

In his training programs, McNaught describes homosexuals as journeying from confusion to denial to acceptance to pride. “Anita Bryant and AIDS brought Gay people to identity pride very quickly,” McNaught writes. San Francisco Supervisor Harvey Milk (1930-1978) and other activists reached similar conclusions about Bryant’s vicious anti-gay campaign.

McNaught helped change the LGBTQ world and brought pride to many people’s lives. McNaught walks in pride, works in pride, and educates others in pride. 

“A Prince of a Boy” is a disappointing book. It provides small details about Brian McNaught’s large, proud life. A meaningful biography about this great gay leader is long overdue.

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