Posted 10 months, 3 weeks ago at 12:17 am. 1 comment
Singer Stephen Gateley has died while on vacation in Majorca with his partner Andrew Coles. No further details about his death are available at this time.
Gateley was one fifth of boyband Boyzone, who scored six number one singles and four number one albums in the U.K. between 1994 and 2000. In 1999, he learned that one of his former security guards might be preparing to sell him out to the tabloids. Rather than trying to suppress the story, Gateley beat him to it, dominating the June 16, 1999 issue of The Sun with the headline “Boyzone Stephen: I’m Gay and in Love.” The man he was in love with was Eloy de Jong (b. 1971) of the Dutch boyband Caught in the Act.
Coming out was a very brave move for a young man whose career depended on the support of hordes of star-struck teenaged girls. He’s continued to enjoy success as a solo artist, as well as in musicals on tour and in the West End. In 2008 he joined the re-formed Boyzone for a tour.
In 2006, Gateley entered into a civil partnership with Internet entrepeneur Andrew Cowles. They had first been introduced three years earlier by Sir Elton John and his partner David Furnish.
Sculptor Emile Norman has died in Monterey, California, at the age of 91. He was well known for his large-scale mosaic and relief work, including the adornment of the Masonic Auditorium in San Francisco. His partner of more than 30 years, Brooks Clement, died of cancer in 1973.
Norman began his career in New York, but moved to Carmel, where he opened a gallery in the early 1960s. He and Brooks, known collectively as “Clemile” were out to the world at a time when most gay couples kept hidden. The house they built together in Big Sur was a never-ending project.
Last year, PBS aired the documentary “Emile Norman: By His Own Design” directed by Will Parrinello.
Posted 1 year, 2 months ago at 12:50 pm. 0 comments
Beijing opera singer and convicted spy Shi Pei Pu, whose story inspired the Broadway play and film M. Butterfly, has died in Paris at age 70.
During the twenty years Shi and his lover, Bernard Boursicot, were together, Boursicot believed Shi to be a woman. As Shi put it, “I used to fascinate both men and women. What I was and what they were didn’t matter.”
When they met in Beijing, Shi was 26 and living as a man. Boursicot, 20, was an apparently gay man determined to go straight. Shi managed to convince him that he was actually a woman forced by his father, who wanted a son, to pretend to be a man. They began a relationship that brought them together on occasions when the well-traveled Boursicot was in China. When Chinese authorities discovered their situation, they blackmailed Boursicot, an accountant at the French embassy, to pass secret documents to them.
During one visit, Shi introduced Boursicot to a 4-year-old boy who he said was their son. Boursicot arranged for Shi and the boy to live with him in Paris. Shi and Boursicot were convicted of espionage in France in 1986. As he was admitted to prison, Shi was discovered to be a man. When Boursicot, already in prison, heard that news, he attempted suicide.
David Henry Hwang wrote M. Butterfly, combining Puccini’s opera Madame Butterfly with the real life story of Shi and Boursicot. The play, starring John Lithgow and B.D. Wong, ran for 777 performances with David Dukes, Anthony Hopkins, Tony Randall, and John Rubinstein taking over for Lithgow through the run.
Boursicot never forgave Shi, but they had occasional contact over the years since their story became famous. When they last spoke a few months ago, Shi told Boursicot he still loved him.
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