"Well, she’s drunk all the time on champagne."

Such is the envy and bile, the gossip and bitchery you must deal with when your are the grandest Diva in the entire known world. Oh, you can talk about your Judy Garland, your Maria Callas and even — poor thing, if you are so bereft of queer references — Madonna, but two of those are dead and the other, while increasingly pathetic, is not yet fabulouslY, self-destructively insane. No, on the earthquake scale of Diva-locity, Shirley Bassey is a full-tilt 27.9 (more…)

Fuck this Aging Gracefully shit!

Exhibit A: Joan Collins, who at 72, still looks good enough to eat and recently took the 40-something hottie at right to husband.

Exhibit B: Shirley Bassey, 68, (below), who was awarded Damehood in 2000, probably because she’s the High Priestess of drag queens everywhere, thanks to her big, bossy renditions of such affirmations of identity as This is My Life ("and I don’t give a DAMN for lost emotion!") and I Am What I Am.

Not only do these old gals look great, they continue to create sparks with their unending critique of everyone and every- thing that crosses their path. Just the sort of Diva Trash Talk that makes our hearts go pitter-pat.

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Dead actresses — can we ever get enough of them? No, frankly, we can’t. (more…)

In the great Gay Book of Beloved Monster Women, the name of one little girl is inscribed right up there with Mommie Dearest, Neely O’Hara and the Wicked Witch of the West. (more…)

Back in the early ’60’s when all there was was Playboy, and gay guys had to make due with "physique" magazines, the closest anyone got to cock were photos of men in Speedos, strategically lit to show off right-slung outlines.

You had to flip to the back of the mag to find the good stuff — the ads from the Athletic Model Guild. For a few bucks you could send away for these photo sets of "sailors" in posing straps or hard-knock kids in nothing but motorcycle caps or musclemen in "art studies" of Greco-Roman statuary.

It all came from the fertile mind and itchy camera-finger of Bob Mizer. He ran the entire operation from his home, placed — also strategically — a block or two from the Rough Trade Heaven that was Hollywood Boulevard.

In the coffee shops or hanging out at the magazine stands or just idling on bus benches waiting for something to break, the street trade that Mizer scouted out were often down on their luck, low on their cash and totally for sale. It just took money — though not much. Mizer usually gave them a good meal as well, and a place to crash. He had a rep on the Boulevard for having a big heart and being an easy touch. (more…)

Though over 30 years have passed, certain movies from the free-for-all Sixties remain fresh and full of surprises. Fellini Satyricon is one of them, a truly homo-drenched version of Nero’s Rome. (more…)

This Easter Sunday marks the third anniversary of Helen Lawson’s death. She planted her own tree and she made it grow! I think we were all saddened by the shoddy treatment Hollywood gave her when she was portrayed by Susan Hayward in Valley of the Dolls. Hayward had apparently been told to soft-pedal the fiery dynamics of this much bigger star and so phoned in a pale, restrained performance. A disgrace, really. But then Hollywood never forgave Helen for dislocating Joey Heatherton’s neck during the staircase-slapping scene in How Very Veda, the Ross Hunter remake of Mildred Pierce. (more…)

Funny what ages well. And what doesn’t.

Take Diana Ross, she of the one too many wine-coolers.

Her first movie was a moist Billie Holiday biop, and Diana, whose sizzle was being compared to the young Marilyn’s, was actually nominated for an Oscar. Today, you couldn’t pay Jeff Gannon to sit through the leaden Lady Sings the Blues.

It’s Mahogany, her second film, the one denounced as a vanity production and a bomb, that remains The Ultra-Sonic Diana Ross Experience. (more…)