Tom Ford Hates Yves Saint Laurent, and the Word Marriage

Tom Ford lets go in an interview with Kevin Sessums at The Advocate, discussing A Single Man, the first blowjob he ever gave, his partner Richard Buckley, his use of cosmetic fillers for the face, and his life in the fashion world.

Ford unleashes on Yves Saint Laurent:

"I don’t even remember much about my time at Yves Saint Laurent, though I do think some of my best collections were [there]—other than that black-and-white initial one. That one wasn’t very successful and wasn’t very good. But being at Yves Saint Laurent was such a negative experience for me even though the business boomed while I was there. Yves and his partner, Pierre Bergé, were so difficult and so evil and made my life such misery. I’d lived in France off and on and had always loved it. I went to college in France. It wasn’t until I started working in France that I began to dislike it. They would call the fiscal police, and they would show up at our offices. You are not able to work an employee more than 35 hours a week. They’re like Nazis, those police. They’d come marching in, and you had to let them in and they’d interview my secretary. And they can fine you and shut you down. Pierre was the one calling them. I’ve never talked about this on the record before, but it was an awful time for me. Pierre and Yves were just evil. So Yves Saint Laurent doesn’t exist for me."

Ford also says he's in favor of civil partnerships and not marriage, for everyone.

"A few weeks ago Richard had to go into the hospital for something, and I had to carry around all these legal documents saying I could make medical decisions for him. It was insane. The fact that we are not married in the federal sense means that if I were to die, he’d have to pay all these taxes on my estate and receive but a fraction of it and he’d have to alter his life —whereas if we were married, he wouldn’t have to face that burden. That’s disgusting. It’s wrong. But that said, I think I am in favor of terming what I’m talking about as a civil partnership. We all get so caught up with this word marriage. For me, the word marriage is something that a religion should decide. Just give me all the same rights. A civil partnership is what I’d like for everyone—heterosexual as well as homosexual. Call it what you like—it’s the rights that are important. Getting hung up with the semantics derails the cause we’re all fighting for."

More at the Advocate. Check out the one-sheet and trailer for A Single Man, HERE.

On the Stage: Let Me Down Easy, Wishful Drinking, A Steady Rain, and Hamlet

KEVIN SESSUMS

Kevin Sessums is back in the theatre for Towleroad this season. Kevin is also a contributing editor at Parade and The Daily Beast. His memoir, Mississippi Sissy, won a Lambda Literary Award last year.

There have been an awful lot of openings on Broadway and off-Broadway these past few weeks - and mostly it’s been a rather awful lot. But there have been some surprises as well. The shows I most wanted to see disappointed and the ones I had to drag myself to ended up moving me in unexpected ways. First up for my thoughts this season are the ones I have grouped into the “presentational” category. Each of them to varying degrees is imbued with a proffered theatricality rather than an innate one.

Let’s start with the best of the bunch, Anna Deavere Smith’s Let Me Down Easy at the estimable Second Stage. This was one of the shows I had to drag myself to. I have admired Ms. Smith in the past more than I have been moved or entertained by her. She can seem indulgent and even cloying from time to time when performing in work other than her own - Nurse Jackie on Showtime, for example, or in the film Rachel Getting Married. And yet a kind of astringent stridency - the exact opposite of cloying - has been the hallmark of her two past well-received one-woman shows I have seen - Fires in the Mirror, about the Crown Heights riots, and Twilight: Los Angeles, which concerned the even more infamous riots that erupted after the Rodney King verdict.

In the past I have considered Smith’s singular talent — she received a MacArthur “Genius” Grant in 1996 - to be the one she employs leading up to the performance aspect of her work, which is to interview an array of people regarding a subject and then to edit these interviews with a searing precision into a chorus of voices and characters that are channeled through her in the productions that are subsequently staged. It is her ability to listen and elicit that has always struck me, not that ultimate channeling. It is a kind of heightened form of journalism she practices which is then raised, at its best, to art. Let Me Down Easy is an example of such a raising. It is, to me, her first true work of art. It is a stunning achievement.

The subject she tackles in Let Me Down Easy is the most universal she has ever broached: how we all must face our own mortality. An offshoot of such a subject is the more topical one of the health care system with which many of us must deal before facing our impending deaths. But such topicality does not diminish the depth of Let Me Down Easy. She gracefully weaves both subjects into an evening filled with insight and laughter and, in the truest sense, soul.

Let Me Down Easy had its premiere back in January 2008 at New Haven’s Long Wharf Theatre. Since then the show has changed directors and its current one, Leonard Foglia, has no doubt aided Smith in streamlining it into its now intermissionless 90 minutes by jettisoning some of the initial people she had interviewed and channeled. Yet even now the evening’s one drawback is that it seems to have several endings until it reaches its final grace note as Smith so simply and profoundly lets the play itself come to rest in the words and actions of Buddhist monk Matthew Ricard. Indeed grace itself seems to have been Smith’s guidepost as she put this production together.

Other standout monologues are culled from the interviews she conducted with Ann Richards, former governor of Texas; Trudy Howell, the director of Chance Orphanage in Johannesburg, South Africa; Kiersta Kurtz-Burke, a physician a Charity Hospital in New Orleans; Susan Youens, a musicologist from the University of Notre Dame; and even Lance Armstrong, the Tour de France victor, and Michael Bentt, Heavyweight Champion boxer. There are 20 monologues in all. The subjects are as diverse as their own takes on death. But it is Anna Deavere Smith herself who remains in the memory, her own brave voice somehow revealed in the humility of subsuming it so that others can speak through her. It is a kind of alchemy that cannot really be described. One must witness it just as she serves as a witness for the men and women who put so much trust in her. And trust me on this: if you see one show this season, see this one. It has already been extended for an extra month until December 6th.

T T T T (out of 4 possible T's)

Let Me Down Easy, Second Stage Theatre, 305 W. 43rd Street, New York. Ticket information here.

***WISHFUL DRINKING

The other one-woman show currently on the boards is Carrie Fisher’s Wishful Drinking, at the Roundabout’s theatrical redoubt at Studio 54. Based on her bestseller of the same name, this evening could not be further from the kind of theatre Anna Deavere Smith is conjuring at Second Stage. Fisher does not so much conjure as con — and yet there is nothing more charming or enjoyable than a really great con when they are on their game and Fisher is certainly on hers. Just don’t go to Wishful Drinking thinking you are doing to be deeply moved. You are, however, going to laugh a lot — which is the way Fisher herself has always deemed to deal with her demons of drug addiction and bipolar disorder. And yet, those are the two issues in her life that get short shift in the evening. The show is much more about the pitfalls of fame and is padded, as she prattles on about it with that keen combination of cynicism and sentimentality honed in the hills and psychiatrist offices of Hollywood, with her special kind of one-liners — the most engaging of zingers that, even as they expertly land and elicit the expected laughter, result in an emotional disengagement that therefore serve as a gauge themselves to the underlying sadness to the evening and her life. I found the whole thing oddly wanting so, by the end, wanted it to.

T T (out of 4 possible T's)

Wishful Drinking, Studio 54, 254 W. 54th Street, New York. Ticket information here.

Reviews of Hugh Jackman and Daniel Craig in A Steady Rain, and Jude Law in Hamlet,
AFTER THE JUMP...

News: Donal Og Cusack, Ecuador, Magic Johnson, HPV, Jared Polis

Here Media chairman Stephen Jarchow on Gay.com purchase and expanding "empire": "As the result of this deal, we have become a unique company that straddles traditional distribution and digital distribution. We own pretty much the entire media for the gay marketing space."

Irish hurler Donal Óg Cusack gives his first public interview since coming out.

Michael Jackson wears Tom Ford cologne and speaks to LaToya from beyond the grave.

Matt Foreman: TV ads not the answer in Maine.

Brad Pitt in motorcycle fender-bender.

Rep. Jared Polis holds LGBT town hall in Denver.

"All of us old junkies just turn into dowagers." Carrie Fisher gives a candid interview to Kevin Sessums at The Daily Beast.

NYT: Timing key in Olson-Boies Prop 8 challenge: "Mr. Olson’s problem, then, is that he may reach the Supreme Court too soon. Public support for same-sex marriage is gaining ground, particularly among younger people. But a majority of Americans remains opposed to the practice."

Charlize Theron kisses woman for $140,000 at San Francisco auction benefit.

Beckham embracing the werewolf trend.

Diocese of South Carolina distances itself from Episcopal Church over gays and same-sex unions: "Eighty-seven clergy members voted to pass the resolution after a nearly hour-long debate during a special convention in Mount Pleasant, Canon Kendall Harmon said, with 17 voting no. The vote allows leaders of the diocese to reduce its participation in the national church without severing ties completely, as some dioceses and parishes have."

NYPD cars retrofitted with "rumble" technology.

Roadblocks to HPV vaccine for men continue...

Nude coffee maker Eric Williamson defends himself after incident: "I looked straight at the cops and said, 'You're telling me that none of you guys have ever walked across your kitchen or run to the laundry room to get some pants?' I was treated like an animal. If there was something offensive, would not a knock on the door and heads-up suffice?"

First look: Lady Gaga on Gossip Girl.

Male model fix: Andre Ziehe.

Food critic slammed by animal rights groups for shooting "inedible" baboon for sport: "Writing in yesterday's Sunday Times Style section, Gill said he was driven by the urge to be a 'recreational primate killer' while on a trip to Tanzania. 'I know perfectly well there is absolutely no excuse for this,' he wrote. 'Baboon isn't good to eat, unless you're a leopard. The feeble argument for cull and control is much the same as for foxes: a veil of naughty fun.'"

Gay Iowa couples reflect on six months of marriage.

Transgender makeovers offered on busy Quito, Ecuador street.

College of William and Mary names transgender homecoming queen: “We figured it would be something different for the school to go through, something that hasn’t happened too often. I was kind of surprised that I won because I knew the other girls running. I know that they’re really friendly; they’re wonderful people, so I was unsure.”

Book: Magic Johnson blames Isiah Thomas for gay rumors.

Morrissey discharged from hospital following weekend stage collapse.

Washington man gets 18 months in prison for gay immigration fraud: "Steven Mahoney touted himself as an expert in immigration affairs and ran Mahoney and Associates in Kent, which advised immigrants on how to stay in the U.S. He pleaded guilty in April, acknowledging that between 1998 and 2007 he filed as many as 99 false immigration documents and was paid between $1,000 and $4,000 for each."

On the Stage: What to See on Broadway Right Now

KEVIN SESSUMS

Kevin Sessums recently interviewed Jane Fonda and Moises Kaufman about the new play '33 Variations' for Towleroad, and recently reviewed the plays Our Town, The American Plan, and Ruined. You can also catch up with Kevin online at his own blog at MississippiSissy.com.

I have been remiss lately writing my theatre reviews. I’ve been quite busy with other work as well as planning a five-week trek in northern Spain. Before I leave today for the trek, I thought I’d let you know about some of the great performances I’ve seen lately. I can’t remember a theatre season in which there have been so many stunningly good performances, both individual ones as well as those given by a play’s or musical’s ensemble.

First off, ensembles to catch:

There is no more ... well .. blissful time to be had on Broadway than the “happening” going on at the Al Hirschfeld Theatre where the revival of Hair is playing to packed houses. As a kid I listened to the original cast album over and over and over and I realized, while smiling through this revival, that I still know every lyric in the score. Sexy and moving and great fun, it will send you home dancing in the streets. It will bring back your own memories of listening to the score, I’m sure, or create new ones for you by seeing this wonderful revival. My sweetest one involved my grandmother, who raised me, always complaining about how dirty the lyrics were as I blasted them from the stereo in our country home back in Mississippi and asking me to turn off the record every time I played it. But then — quietly, unhurriedly — I’d hear her humming the Hair score to herself when she was shelling peas from our garden or reading her daily Bible passage. Go to the Hirshfeld and — quietly? unhurriedly? — let your own sun shine in. And just for the record: I adore Gavin Creel who plays Claude.

A totally different evening is Neil LaBute’s slightly kinder version of his off-Broadway hit, Reasons to be Pretty. The cast has been reconfigured since its off-Broadway run but it’s even better than before. Marin Ireland and Thomas Sadoski are particularly funny and surprisingly touching as the woman who isn’t pretty enough because the man she loves says so. It been beautifully directed by Terry Kinny.

God of Carnage, Yasmina Reza’s latest French boulevard comedy (translated by Christopher Hampton) may be the play with the best ensemble on Broadway. Jeff Daniels, Hope Davis, James Gandolfini, and especially the great Marcia Gay Harden are giving an acting lesson in comic timing in this rather slight play. Indeed, I think Reza is the empress-with-no-clothes. Without these actors and the expert direction of Matthew Warchus, the play would be quite tiresome and a chore to sit through, much like her Art and Life x 3. The cast, however, is sublime. I’ve never laughed out loud so much at such hoary setups. It’s the hit of the season. Ninety intermissionless minutes of urbane savagery.

The emperor who majestically wore the clothes - playwright August Wilson - is receiving a production of his greatest play, Joe Turner’s Come and Gone, at the Belasco that again is an acting lesson as we watch the play’s ensemble do its work. I might give the God of Carnage crew a bit more credit since they have to deal with overcoming the play. The ensemble at Joe Turner have to rise to their play’s level and are able to ride its greatness which, at first blush, is found in its language. Whereas, the cast of God of Carnage is giving us a jazzlike fugue of marital mayhem, the cast of Joe Turner is a symphonic orchestra of history and religion and some August region past heartbreak that seers the soul.

Another master, Eugene O’Neill, is represented on Broadway in a literally stripped-down version of his Desire Under the Elms. Director Robert Falls has trimmed it to a carnal 100 minutes. The three leads - Brian Dennehy, Carla Gugino, and Pablo Schreiber — are giving volcanic performances. They have to in order to fill the St. James Theatre’s vastness. The set would look at home on the Met’s stage as would those performances. It’s basically a play about greed but in this production the physical desire is amped up. And Pablo Schreiber — for those of you who, like me, find him incredibly sexy — keeps his shirt off most of the time and his nude scene got me in touch with my own greedy desires. It’s the kind of production that takes the time — though it’s set in the 1920s — to pipe in a whole Bob Dylan song as the cast goes about its expert business on stage. As odd as it is, it’s a better use of Dylan than anything Twyla Tharp came up with in her disastrous musical a few seasons back based on his music.

Much more, AFTER THE JUMP...

Larry Kramer Slams Gay Orgs: 'Lazy, Torpid, Unimaginative, Useless'

In a follow-up to his interview with actor Rupert Everett, in which Everett spewed a vitriolic rant about gays who want to be surrogate parents ("It is utterly hideous. I think it’s egocentric and vain.") and get married, Kevin Sessums talks to AIDS activist Peter Staley, comedienne Kate Clinton, and longtime activist and playwright Larry Kramer on those topics.

Here's part of Kramer's reaction on marriage and the state of the LGBT movement:

“I don’t think we are going to win anything federal—which is really the only important place where it counts—until a few of these Supreme Court justices expire (including that homophobe Anthony Scalia) and Obama replaces them with people sympathetic to our side. This, of course, is by no means a sure thing. I have high hopes for Obama, but I do not feel all warm and fuzzy that he is going to be enough of a friend when push comes to shove. I hope I am wrong. I have never believed in patience, but I do not see that we have either the leaders or the troops enough—a la ACT UP—to go out there and fight. We continue to be a passive population. It drives me nuts. It has always driven me nuts. I do not think the gay population has been all that rabid for gay marriage. Note that I do not use the words ‘gay community.’ Expunge that expression from your vocabulary. We are not a community. There are too many of us to qualify for that word, which connotes something much smaller and more intimate than the huge multipeopled grab bag of our rainbow coalition...

"The work, as it was done for AIDS, has been done by relatively few warriors. And we are losing sight of the HIV/AIDS battle. What is not being done about HIV/AIDS in the United States is shocking. It is more than shocking. It is tragic. Three percent of the entire population of Washington, D.C., is infected. One in ten of its residents between the ages of 40 and 49 is infected. Seven percent of its male African-American population is infected. Gay politics? What gay politics? I don’t see any gay politics. I see a few lazy, torpid, unimaginative—certainly passionless—‘organizations’ that maintain they fight for us when what they do is relatively useless. It has never been otherwise. I am afraid we have never ever had a decent gay organization, outside of ACT UP, that accomplished what we need to accomplish—which is to free ourselves from the tyranny of THEM!”

'Awful Middle-Class Queens' [the daily beast]

(image source)

Rupert Everett Wonders Why He Sits 'Unf*cked' in His Hotel Room

Our theatre critic Kevin Sessums interviews Rupert Everett for The Daily Beast (he's back on Broadway in a revival of Noel Coward's Blithe Spirit with Angela Lansbury.

Given Everett's recent profile in the NYT and this new one, entitled "Rupert Everett Unleashed", one wonders if Rupert Everett is ever leashed. I don't think so.

Here's what he has to say about gays who want to be parents:

"I think this surrogacy thing is crap. It is utterly hideous. I think it’s egocentric and vain. And these endless IVF treatments people go through. I mean, if you are meant to have babies then great. But this whole idea of two gay guys filling a cocktail shaker with their sperm and impregnating some grim lesbian and then it gets cut out is just really weird. If I did have the impulse to be a parent, I would adopt—or foster. But this whole thing of forcing the idea of parenthood on us gay men is so bogus. Marriage? Babies? Please. I want to be illegal. I want to live outside the mainstream."

Everett believes his wish to be outside of the mainstream puts him "ahead of the curve."

"These awful middle-class queens—which is what the gay movement has become—are so tiresome. It’s all Abercrombie & Fitch and strollers. Everybody has the right to do what they want to do, but still..."

As in his NYT profile, Everett also bemoans the state of being out and gay in Hollywood:

"But the reason my career is so up and down is that I get very little opportunity. There is just very little opportunity for a fag. That’s the reality. There isn’t. But I have no regrets for being out. None. It’s not like I’m missing out on that much. Being an actor in Hollywood is not that great a job anymore. It’s become the sluttiest job on the planet. It’s not remotely serious. It’s not like we’re talking about Hollywood in the 1970s that I’m missing out on. If we were talking about ‘70s Hollywood, then I’d be killing myself because the product back then was so astonishing even though it was still thought of as commercial cinema."

And he wonders why he sits in his room "unfucked" while some "buffoon" like Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter gets all the sex:

"I was once staying at a hotel and I was in the room directly under his. He is an amazing fuck. And you can quote me on this. The screams coming from the woman were some of the purest sounds of pleasure I’d ever heard. And there I was sitting alone in my room unfucked. Suddenly it all made sense. That messy hair of his that I always thought was buffoon hair was buffoon hair hiding a monster cock. The next day I went down to breakfast and Graydon came in and I thought to myself, well, now I understand why you are always acting so entitled and walking on air even though you’re rather fat. It’s because grazing the grass between your legs is this appendage of yours. I did rather politely tell him that morning that I thought he was a very good fuck."

Video interviews with the cast of Blithe Spirit, AFTER THE JUMP...

Rupert Everett Unleashed [the daily beast]
(top image robert j saferstein/broadway world)