Born July 1: Fortune Feimster, Paul Russell, Farley Granger

Any girl named Fortune is going to be a bit funny. The 32 year-old Groundlings comedian and Chelsea Lately regular couldn't even realize she's a lesbian in a normal way. She swears her big revelation came when she was 25, watching an old Stockard Channing movie called The Truth About Jane. Her stand-up act relies on similar personal mishaps, like her first girl date, and on other people's mistakes, like thinking she is Jonah Hill. As with most improv players, she's best at high-energy, situational humor rather than polished cleverness. She's been invited to audition for SNL at least twice and the second time she imitated Richard Simmons. Fortune hasn't yet had her lucky breakout to comic stardom but she does at least already have 73,267 followers on twitter and a fairly full calendar.

Often told from multiple viewpoints, Paul Russell's books thrive on the friction of opposites. Class, cultural, and economic differences complicate his characters' desires, and in many of his six novels the core relationship is an intergenerational gay romance. (He wanted to title one work The Pederast; his agent and editor didn't.) If only Russell's complex and nuanced achievements could be summarized as neatly as the numbers: In order his novels, are The Salt Point, hairdresser Anatole falls for 18 year-old hustler Leigh who then gets with Anatole's friend Lydia; Boys of Life, ten years later Tony looks back at being plucked from rural obscurity at 16 by gay art filmmaker Carlos Reichart; Sea of Tranquillity, two decades in an astronaut's family moving from Houston to Tennessee to Turkey whose very frisky son Jonathan loves the shy Stayton, son of a tv preacher; The Coming Storm [Kindle] married headmaster's crush on new 25 year-old teacher Tracy who in turn is having an affair with his 15 year-old student Noah; and the War Against the Animals [Kindle] 19 year-old (or early 20s?) upstate "redneck" Jesse who comes to love the ailing 49 year-old Manhattan escapee Cameron whom his homophobic brother Kyle is plotting to exploit. Russell's dazzling sixth novel The Unreal Life of Sergey Nabokov [Kindle] won the Ferro-Grumley and an IPPY, took silver at the ForeWord awards, and was a finalist for the Lammy. Read him.

According to his autobiography, Include Me Out, midcentury movie star Farley Granger joined the Navy at 19 and on his first voyage, from San Francisco to Honolulu, was seasick the whole way losing 23 pounds and needing to be hospitalized when they reached land. Thus it was that the almost too pretty Granger spent the war onshore in Hawaii, working the enlisted men's club on Waikiki Beach or helping entertain the troops under the command of the never-married Shakespearean actor Maurice Evans best known as Samantha's campy warlock father on Bewitched. Granger claims that while in Honolulu, in one memorable night, he had his first sexual experiences with a woman (a "hostess" a private club) then with a man (an enlisted officer who picked him up at that club). Obviously a star, within four years he had a lead role in Alfred Hitchcock's gay film Rope, based on the Leopold - Loeb murder and written by awesome Arthur Laurents, whom he dated for the year during filming and after. Later Granger had affairs with Jerome Robbins and Leonard Bernstein, and filmed his biggest hit, again with Hitchcock, Strangers on a Train, from the novel by Patricia Highsmith, the lesbian author of the Mr. Ripley novels.

Granger's career faltered through the 50s, including a disastrous Broadway musical version of Pride & Prejudice in which he played Mr. Darcy. Early in the 60s he joined the National Repertory Theatre

According to his autobiography, Include Me Out, midcentury movie star Farley Granger joined the Navy at 19 and on his first voyage, from San Francisco to Honolulu, was seasick the whole way losing 23 pounds and needing to be hospitalized when they reached land. Thus it was that the almost too pretty Granger spent the war onshore in Hawaii, working the enlisted men's club on Waikiki Beach or helping entertain the troops under the command of the never-married Shakespearean actor Maurice Evans best known as Samantha's campy warlock father on Bewitched. Granger claims that while in Honolulu, in one memorable night, he had his first sexual experiences with a woman (a "hostess" a private club) then with a man (an enlisted officer who picked him up at that club). Obviously a star, within four years he had a lead role in Alfred Hitchcock's gay film Rope, based on the Leopold - Loeb murder and written by awesome Arthur Laurents, whom he dated for the year during filming and after. Later Granger had affairs with Jerome Robbins and Leonard Bernstein, and filmed his biggest hit, again with Hitchcock, Strangers on a Train, from the novel by Patricia Highsmith, the lesbian author of the Mr. Ripley novels.

and fell in love with its production manager, Robert Calhoun. They were together 45 years and wrote Granger's memoir together. Granger discussed Rope in the documentary based on Vito Russo's stunning book, The Celluloid Closet, but please don't call him a gay hero. Speaking with Granger in a bizarre 2007 interview, Calhoun said, “And ‘gay’ — in itself, destruction of a perfectly good word — is just another way of saying faggot.” During the same exchange, Granger confirmed the interviewer's ludicrous statement that "you’ve never actually been in the closet" with, “No, I never was.” For another look at that era, you might consider Arthur Laurents' excellent memoir, Original Story By.

Comments

[Tim]

I'm in the middle of The Coming Storm right now. I finished Sergey Federov last week. I had never heard of Paul Russell before this blog, and now I'm a huge fan. Thanks for the recommendation. Happy Birthday to the man.

[Kergan Edwards-Stout]

Fortune is incredibly funny. One of my favorite's is her "Darlene Witherspoon," the Hooters waitress: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nS8fitqIgSc

[Tim]

Ha. I said Sergey Federov. I meant Nabokov, of course. Finished The Coming Storm last night. What a great book.