Author, historian, and community activist Stuart Timmons is 57. That's wonderful news. Six years ago this month, in January 2008, he suffered a severe cerebellar stroke that left him basically asleep for two years. When he finally woke up and understood his condition, he was "despondent and suicidal." Eventually, in March 2010, he decided to get better. His long and challenging recovery has been an inspiration. Read his excellent, Lammy-finalist biography, newly revised, The Trouble With Harry Hay
[Kindle
] or his Lammy-winning nonfiction with Lillian Faderman, Gay L. A.: A History of Sexual Outlaws, Power Politics, And Lipstick Lesbians
[Kindle].
Why, for the past fifty-seven years, have the British Academy of Composers and Songwriters' annual awards been named the Ivors? To honor the Welsh star Ivor Novello, a hugely popular composer, singer, playwright, and actor who published his first song at fifteen and, at twenty-one, had his first smash hit, Keep the Home Fires Burning. Among his twenty-three films were starring roles in early Hitchcock movies The Lodger and Downhill. A presence on the London stage for decades, he wrote more than a dozen plays, many of which he performed with Robert Andrews, his partner for thirty-five years until his death at fifty-eight. Charged with misusing gasoline during World War II, Novello was convicted and imprisoned for a month, an experience which permanently tarnished his self-image, even if his fans forgave him. Some believe the judge's homophobia led to the relatively harsh penalty. Played by Jeremy Northam, Novello appears in Robert Altman's sublime Gosford Park, debonair and largely degayed.
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