Untreed Reads discussion

Filmmaker cum author Dan Bessie stopped by The Untreed Reads Blog to bring some family history to light in honor of Gay History Month.

At age fourteen, I’d never heard the term “gay.” It wasn’t used during my formative years, from the mid-1940s into the 50s. My pals bandied about, “queer” then, or “fruit,” fairy,” or perhaps, “homo” Sure, I laughed at and even passed on the same disparaging jokes my contemporaries rattled off—until I heard my father refer to my mom’s younger brother, my favorite uncle, Harry Burnett, as “Uncle Fairy.”

“It’s not a term I use,” said Mom when I questioned her. “It’s derogatory. It makes fun of men or women who love those of the same sex. And so not many people born that way are going to talk about it openly.”

What? It seemed so damn unfair for anyone to have to hide their feelings for another, no matter what their sex. So I made a promise not to use those terms again, and if I ever got the chance, find some way to help educate others about this huge injustice; though at fourteen, what that might amount to I had no idea.

***

Flashback: to Michigan, 1920. Harry’s cousin Forman Brown has arrived in Ann Arbor to lodge with the Burnett family while both attend the university. They quickly discover, in an awkward, Midwestern teenage way, a mutual attraction, and are soon lovers.

Harry and Forman also share an artistic sensitivity, and after taking in a performance by traveling puppeteers, a dazzled Harry retreats to his basement workshop, fashions a crude marionette, strings it to a tennis racket and trots it around to wow the neighbors. Within two summers, Harry and Forman are bundling puppets and props into a clunking Ford, touring resort hotels along Michigan’s upper peninsula, and passing the hat for gas money and sandwiches. Forman writes songs and sketches, while Harry generates marionettes by the bushel.

After graduation, Forman is off to teach at a southern girl’s college: “Be sure when you have a girl for a conference to keep your door open,” cautions the dean. Forman can barely keep from laughing. Harry enrolls in theater courses at Yale. When Forman arrives for a visit he meets Roddy Brandon, Harry’s new puppeteering partner, who will become Forman’s life long companion. Now they are three, and for the next several years they barnstorm the east coast with their puppets, perform across America—and in 1930 land on Los Angeles’s Olvera Street, where they open their first marionette theater.

In 1933, Forman, as “Richard Meeker,” authors Better Angel, a now classic novel about growing up gay; the first of its genre with a happy instead of a tragic ending, Then, after theaters in New York and a failed New England summer during the Depression, the trio are in California again, opening their soon to be world famous Turnabout Theater. With a puppet stage at one end and a live stage at the other (the seat backs swing over after the puppet show), if you were in the first row for the marionettes you were in the last for the revue—Turnabout is fair play. Along with star attractions Elsa Lanchester (The Bride of Frankenstein) and folksinger Odetta (a Turnabout protégée), Forman’s witty and sometimes risqué songs and sketches, and with Harry’s marvelous marionettes, from 1941 until 1956 they captivate a multitude of fans—including myself and friends—plus almost every Hollywood luminary, each of whom eagerly autographes their walls.

Long after Turnabout closes for good (TV is keeping audiences home), Harry, Roddy and Forman keep receiving honors and awards, and entertain long-time fans on a small stage in their Hollywood home. When Forman’s poignant novel Better Angel is republished in 1987 by Alyson Publications, and he is identified as the author “Richard Meeker,” Forman chuckles and says, “There’s nothing like coming out of the closet at 86, is there?”

Somehow, that promise at age fourteen was also honored: I wrote a family memoir that includes chapters on both Forman and on my impish uncle Harry. And I turned out a documentary film that explores the three Turnabouters lives as entertainers and as gay men; a film that was featured at San Francisco’s Gay and Lesbian Film Festival, and at which Forman, by then Turnabout’s soul surviving partner appeared—and where an audience of 500 plus (on a Wednesday at 5 p.m.) honored him with a standing ovation.

My only regret was that my dear, prodigious Uncle Harry hadn’t lived to be there.

Dan Bessie’s, Rare Birds, an American Family, will be released by Untreed Reads during the winter of 2011. His hour-long documentary, Turnabout the Story of the Yale Puppeteers, can be ordered by emailing him: danbes@volcano.net.

About Author Dan Bessie:

Dan Bessie is an award-winning filmmaker who cut his teeth in cartoon animation then went on to write, produce and direct more than 125 films, both live and animated, from shorts for schools to features to TV specials.

About Reeling Through Hollywood And How to Purchase:

Reeling Through Hollywood isn’t going to help you find an agent, sell a screenplay or get you a starring role in the next Quentin Tarantino flick. Nor will it tell you which actor beat up his lover or what stars are snorting coke.

What this always lighthearted and sometimes poignant memoir will do, however, is offer fresh insight into a wonderful but crazy industry, detail an insider’s look at how movie making actually works, and provide a great read.

Reeling Through Hollywood has a retail price of $4.99, and is available from The Untreed Reads Store in EPUB, MOBI (Kindle), LIT (Microsoft Reader), PDB (Palm Reader) and PDF formats.

You’ll also find the title at Amazon, Barnes & Noble and OmniLit and wherever ebooks are sold.