Who's That Queer? [Del Marquis]

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Del Marquis (born Derek Gruen in New York) is the lead guitarist for the group Scissor Sisters - and one of three gay band members.



Unlike the outrageously flamboyant stage image of Jake Shears and Ana Matronic, his fellow band members, Del possesses a slightly more subdued image on stage, although still has a recognisable style of his own. He has a keen interest in graphic design and film, is known as an advocate for civil rights and 'liberation concepts', and possesses an unofficial fan group who call themselves the Deltoids, with whom he has a relatively good relationship.

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Who's That Queer [Jasper Johns]

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Jasper Johns is a contemporary American artist best known for painting and printmaking and associated with the Pop Art and Neo-Dada movements.


Born in Augusta, Georgia, Jasper Johns grew up in Allendale, South Carolina. Johns studied at the University of South Carolina from 1947 to 1948. He then moved to New York City and studied briefly at Parsons School of Design in 1949. While in New York, Johns met Robert Rauschenberg, with whom he had a artistic and sexual relationship, as well as Merce Cunningham and John Cage. Working together they explored the contemporary art scene, and began developing their ideas on art. United by friendship and shared homosexuality they were to have a profound effect on the creative arts in 1950s New York - helping to define post-modernism.

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Who's That Queer [Fred Schneider]

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Fred Schneider, born in Newark, New Jersey, is best known as the frontman of the rock band The B-52's, of which he is a founding member.


The B-52's were formed by Cindy Wilson and Kate Pierson with drummer Keith Strickland, guitarist Ricky Wilson (Cindy's older brother) and vocalist Fred Schneider after a drunken night at a Chinese restaurant and played their first gig in 1977 at a St Valentine's Day party for friends. Their sound is marked by the vocals and lush harmonies of Wilson and Pierson, and the generally monotone or spoken-word vocals of Schneider.

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Who's that Queer? [Raymond Burr]

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American actor Raymond Burr will probably be forever associated with two successful TV roles - Perry Mason (1957-66 & 1985-93) and Ironside (1967-1975). Although he notably appeared in A Place In the Sun (1951) and as the murderer in Hitchcock`s Rear Window (1954).

An intensely private man, it would appear that Burr created a smokescreen to conceal his homosexuality by inventing two wives and a son. One of his fictional wives died in a plane crash, one from cancer, his son from leukemia aged 10. He was actually briefly married, but that marriage was annulled.

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Who's That Queer [Leonard Matlovich]

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Technical Sergeant Leonard Matlovich was a Vietnam War veteran, race relations instructor, and recipient of the Purple Heart and the Bronze Star. He fought the US military in 1975 for the right to serve as an openly gay man.

Not long after he enlisted, the United States increased military action in Vietnam. Matlovich volunteered for service in Vietnam and served three tours of duty. He was seriously wounded when he stepped on a land mine in Da Nang.

While stationed in Florida near Fort Walton Beach, he began frequenting gay bars in nearby Pensacola. He came out to his friends, but continued to conceal the fact from his commanding officer. Matlovich gradually came to believe that the discrimination faced by African Americans was similar to the persecution that homosexuals endured; it became a civil rights issue. When he was 30, Matlovich slept with another man for the first time. Unwilling to put his career on the line in the early 1970s, he would sometimes refer to himself as a 'minority' hinting at his new lifestyle.

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Who's That Queer [Tom of Finland]

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Tom of Finland (born Touko Laaksonen in Kaarina, Finland) was a fetish artist notable for his stylised homoerotic art and his influence on late twentieth century gay culture.


Touko Laaksonen made his first erotic drawings in his youth, but none of them are known to exist; Laaksonen said that he had at first kept his drawings hidden, but then destroyed them 'at least by the time I went to serve the army'. His drawings were based on images of masculine Finnish laborers he had seen from an early age. Finland, however, soon became embroiled in the Winter War with the USSR, and then formally involved in World War 2, and Laaksonen was conscripted into the Finnish Army. He served as an anti-aircraft officer, holding the rank of a second lieutenant. He later attributed his fetishistic interest in uniformed men to encounters with men in army uniform at this time. After the war, Laaksonen returned to civilian life and worked in the advertising industry as a commercial graphic artist, continuing to create erotic drawings for his own pleasure on the side.



In 1956, Laaksonen submitted some of his homoerotic drawings to the influential American magazine Physique Pictorial for publication under the pseudonym Tom. The editor of the magazine changed the name to Tom of Finland.

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Who's That Queer [ Edward II]

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Edward II of Caernarfon, was King of England from 1307 until deposed in January 1327. His tendency to ignore his nobility in favor of low-born favorites led to constant political unrest and his eventual deposition.


Edward II was the first monarch to establish colleges in the universities of Oxford and Cambridge; he founded Cambridge's King's Hall in 1317 and gave Oxford's Oriel College its royal charter in 1326.

Edward is perhaps best remembered for his murder - the details of which are unsubstantiated by contemporary accounts - and his 'alleged' homosexuality and relationship with his 'favorite', a Gascon knight named Piers Gaveston. Edward also managed to produce an heir - Edward III - another son and two daughters with his wife, Isabella of France, and even produced an illegitimate son.

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Who's That Queer [James Beard]

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James Beard was an American chef and food writer. Although little known outside the US, James Beard is recognized by many as the father of American gastronomy.


He trained initially as a singer and actor, and moved to New York City in 1937. Not having much luck in the theater, he and his friend, Bill Rhodes, capitalized on the cocktail party craze by opening a catering company, Hors D'Oeuvre, Inc. which led the publication of Beard's first cookbook, Hors D'Oeuvre and Canapés, a compilation of his catering recipes. Rationing difficulties in World War 2 brought his catering business to a halt. In 1946 he appeared on an early televised cooking show, I Love to Eat on NBC, and thus began his rise as an eminent American food authority.

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Who's That Queer [Luther Vandross]

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Luther Ronzoni Vandross, Jr was probably the greatest male R&B singer of his generation. During his career, Vandross sold 25 million albums and won eight Grammys including Best Male R&B Vocal Performance four times. He won four Grammy awards in 2004 including the Grammy for Song of the Year for the track Dance With My Father.


His breakthrough to major chart success came as lead singer with Change, and he went on to have a string of million selling hit solo albums, and successful collaborations with other artists, throughout the 80s and 90s.

During Vandross' entire career he was 'dogged' by questions regarding his sexuality. He never married, his name was never romantically linked in the media with women. Although Vandross never explicitly denied being gay, he never publicly acknowledged it either. He generally fielded questions by saying that his 'busy lifestyle' made marriage difficult and indicated that, in any case, 'it was not what he wanted.' Many gay publications have stated that Vandross' gayness was an 'open secret' in the music business, but even now it is rarely spoken of.

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Who's That Queer [Malcom Forbes]

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Malcolm Stevenson Forbes was publisher of Forbes magazine, founded by his father B C Forbes and today run by his son, Steve Forbes.


After dabbling in politics, including a term in the state legislature and candidacy for Governor of New Jersey, he committed to the magazine full time by 1957, three years after his father's death, and after the death of his brother in 1964 acquired sole control of the company.

Malcolm Forbes was legendary for his lavish lifestyle, his private jet, ever larger Highlander yachts, huge art collection, substantial collection of Harley-Davidson motorbikes, his French Chateau (in Balleroy, Normandy), his collections of special shape hot air balloons and historical documents, as well as his opulent birthday parties.

In March 1990, soon after his death, OutWeek magazine published a cover story, 'The Secret Life of Malcolm Forbes', by Michelangelo Signorile, which outed Forbes as a gay man. Forbes was known to many in his social circles as gay, but his homosexuality was never reported on in the media. When Forbes died, he was held up by many conservatives as a great American capitalist. Signorile felt that the historical record also needed to show that he was homosexual; he interviewed many people who knew Forbes as gay, some of them men who’d been intimately involved with Forbes.

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Who's That Queer [Prince George]

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The Prince George, Duke of Kent (George Edward Alexander Edmund) was a member of the British Royal Family, the fourth son of King George V. He held the title of Duke of Kent from 1934 to his death in 1942.


Prince George is remembered for having had a rather more interesting personal life than is the norm in the twentieth century Royal Family, as well as the circumstances of his death at the height of World War II.

Handsome and glamorous, the Duke of Kent was unarguably the most interesting, intelligent and cultivated member of his generation of the Royal Family. He took a strong interest in the arts, theatre, and in interior decoration, an interest he shared with Queen Mary but no other member of the family. He had a long string of affairs with men and women before and during his marriage. The better known of his partners were cabaret singer Florence Mills, banking heiress Poppy Baring, Ethel Margaret Whigham (later Duchess of Argyll), musical star Jessie Matthews and actor Noel Coward, with whom he carried on a 19-year affair. Love letters from the Duke to Coward are believed to have been stolen from Coward's house in 1942.

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Who's That Queer [Langston Hughes]

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Langston Hughes was an American poet, novelist, playwright, short story writer and newspaper columnist. Hughes is best known for his work during the Harlem Renaissance.

James Langston Hughes was born in Joplin, Missouri. His parents divorced when he was a small child, and his father moved to Mexico. He was raised by his grandmother until he was thirteen, when he moved to Lincoln, Illinois, to live with his mother and her husband, before the family eventually settled in Cleveland, Ohio. It was in Lincoln, Illinois, that Hughes began writing poetry.

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Who's That Queer [Klaus Nomi]

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Klaus Nomi was a German countertenor noted for remarkable vocal performances and an unusual, elfin stage persona. Nomi is remembered for bizarrely theatrical live performances, heavy make-up, unusual costumes, and a highly stylised signature hairdo which flaunted a receding hairline. His songs were equally unusual, ranging from synthesiser-laden interpretations of classic opera to covers of 1960s pop standards like Chubby Checker's The Twist and Lou Christie's Lightning Strikes.
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