Born in Seattle to an Afghan father and Italian mother, Adbullah Jaffa Bey Khan had asthma and wore braces on his feet, and, to strengthen his breathing and his legs, began studying dance at twelve. At sixteen he fell in love with a twenty-two year man in the Coast Guard named Gerald Arpino. A few years later they moved to New York together and Joffrey made his debut at "nineteen" with Ballets de Paris. (Probably he was twenty-one; all evidence suggests he lied about being born in 1930.) Becoming a soloist in May O'Donnell's troupe from 1950-3, he realized at 5'4" his prospects as a dancer were limited, and concentrating on choreography and teaching, he longed to start his own company. With Arpino, he did. The Robert Joffrey Ballet won great acclaim for their originality (especially emphasizing male virtuosity in what had traditionally been a ballerina's world) and they struggled financially. In 1963 President Kennedy invited them to perform at the White House and they toured Russia, sponsored by the State Department, to thunderous applause; upon returning to America they lost their funding. When he was forty-five and still living with (though no longer in a sexual relationship with) Arpino who was co-director of the company, Joffrey fell in love with a twenty-six year-old art gallery manager named Aladar Marberger. Both men contracted HIV and died of aids within months of each other in 1988. Arpino became artistic director of the Joffrey that year and in 1995 moved the company to Chicago. He died this past October, still connected with the company he and Joffrey created.
God bless Bob Smith, the first openly gay comedian on The Tonight Show and the author of the funniest sign at New York's Prop 8 protests. Oh, yes, he's also the author of Selfish and Perverse the Publishing Triangle Award nominated first novel covering a few months in the life of Nelson Kunker, a handsome,
endearingly hapless television writer from Los Angeles who falls in
love with Roy, a salmon fisherman, and spends the summer with him in
Alaska. Dylan Fabizak, a hot actor / recovering addict / compulsive
flirt wheedles his way into their lives; quips, sex, and danger ensue,
sometimes simultaneously. Smith said he would cast Seann William Scott as Dylan. He's working on his second novel, which will be mandatory reading when it comes out.
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