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Public
Scandals Part 3 is the final installment in a three-part series. Use these
links to view Part 1 or
Part 2. |
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A
portrait of Oscar Wilde
by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec |
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George Michael
(b. 1963) is a popular singer/songwriter who began his musical career
in 1980 as half of the pop duo Wham! Michael's sexual orientation
remained elusively undefined until his 1998 arrest for "lewd behavior"
in a restroom in Beverly Hills, California made headlines. |
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Joe Orton (1933-1967), an
openly gay British playwright, may have been the twentieth century's
greatest writer of farce. His shocking death--the result of hammer
blows inflicted by his lover in a murder-suicide--occurred as Orton
was about to achieve worldwide fame. |
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Johnnie Ray
(1927-1990), a teen heartthrob in the 1950s, was dubbed the "Prince of
Wails" because of his emotional on-stage musical style. His career was
severely damaged by arrests for solicitation and gossip about his
sexuality. |
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 Alfred Redl
(1864-1913) was an Austro-Hungarian Army Chief of Counterintelligence
who was blackmailed into spying for Russia in the years before World
War I. Many historians believe that tens of thousands of
Austro-Hungarian soldiers died as a result of Redl's sales of
information to the Russians. |
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Ernst Röhm
(1887-1934), both an avid supporter of Hitler and the national
socialist movement in Germany and a homosexual, was assassinated in
1934, when the German leader "cleansed" the party of homosexuals. |
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Clay Shaw (1913-1974)
is known as the only person ever tried for the assassination of
President John F. Kennedy. Because of his vulnerability as a
homosexual, Shaw was falsely accused and tried by New Orleans district
attorney Jim Garrison to further the latter's political ambitions. |
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 Simeon Solomon
(1840-1905) was an artist associated with the English Aesthetic
Movement who was remarkable for choosing to live openly as a homosexual
at a time when it was dangerous to do so. After arrests in England and
France, friends shunned him and he was reduced to poverty. |
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 Gerry
Studds (1937-2006) was the first member of the United States
Congress to come out publicly. First elected in 1973, Studds
faced controversy when a former page revealed that he had had a sexual
relationship with
the congressman ten years earlier. Though he was censured by the House,
Studds was re-elected and continued to serve until 1997. |
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 William "Big Bill"
Tilden (1893-1953) was one of the greatest tennis players of
all time. His spectacular success on the courts was followed by an
equally spectacular fall when his homosexuality and penchant for
teenaged boys became known. |
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 The Vere Street Coterie
was a group of men associated with a male brothel in London. Their convictions for homosexual
offenses in 1810 led to the most brutal public punishment of homosexuals in British history. |
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 Oscar Wilde
(1854-1900) was one of Britain's most accomplished and visible writers
at the end of the nineteenth century. His spectacular public trial
and subsequent imprisonment for "gross indecency" have established him
as an iconic gay martyr. |
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