Previously in the Femslash Friday series: Frenchy and Rizzo, Grease’s butch-femme pairing for the ages.
I’m in Hollywood this week for the Turner Classic Film Festival, as is my yearly custom, and for reasons of both convenience and thematic what’s-the-word-I-want-it-isn’t-congruence-it’s-something-else, I have decided to honor classic Hollywood with this week’s entry. Let us step back to an era where every Friday was Femslash Friday, when only women were sailors, when every bungalow off of McCadden Place had at least fourteen lesbians per square feet, when having sex with Mercedes de Acosta and Alla Nazimova were as mandatory for 1930s-era starlets as having sex with Wilmer Valderrama is today.
Also, after the jump there will be a picture of Greta Garbo hiking topless.
Sometimes it can be very frustrating (frustrating being a relative term, of course, this is not a real problem in the same way that “a raven has stolen my dinner” or “I have hepatitis” is a problem) if one wishes to engage in gay gossip, because there is also the possibility that you will be heterosexually stonewalled. How can you tell if you are being heterosexually stonewalled? Listen carefully for any variations of the following sentences:
“She just liked to wear pants.”
“You think everybody‘s gay.”
“No, they weren’t.”
“You can’t prove that.”
“I’ve never heard that.”
“They were just friends! Men did stuff like that back then!”
And the unassailable “Oh, come on.”
You will almost never hear these phrases about straight rumors — no one dismisses the Hepburn/Tracy myth with “Oh, you think everybody‘s waiting for their alcoholic Catholic lover to finally divorce his long-suffering wife.” It’s giving me a serious case of the Prove It On Me Blues.
All of which is to say, of course, that there will be no room for that here. Today we will only discuss glorious lesbian subterfuge that has been lost to time. Your bibles include The Girls: Sappho Goes To Hollywood (which is SUPER FLAWED and has a massive axe to grind but is also delicious and mostly true) and Scotty Bowers’ impeccable Full Service, which all of you must purchase immediately so that we can talk about it in greater detail.
Here is a picture Mercedes de Acosta took of Greta Garbo hiking topless when the two of them took a six-week mountain retreat together.
To live in such a world. I give you Hepburn in her truest form — as “Jimmy,” her male alter ego (which she displayed briefly in Sylvia Scarlett), a hot dirtbag teen. (Should you care to read more about Hepburn’s complicated gender identity, I recommend this Advocate article as a place to start.)
Look me in the eye and tell me that smoldering, lanky, lithe hunk of butch sat on her hands for thirty years waiting for Spencer Tracy to get it up. Go ahead. Tell me. I’ll wait. In the meantime, why don’t we read this nice little excerpt from a review of Full Service?
Hepburn approached [me] at a party.
“I know your reputation, Scotty. When you get a chance, do you think you can find a nice, young dark-haired girl for me? Someone that’s not too heavily made-up.”
They were friends for the next 50 years, and he now claims he fixed her up with more than 150 women, including one she saw on and off for 49 years.
Now close your eyes and sink gently and gratefully into the past, into a Hollywood swimming with hats and mink coats and strong-shouldered, steel-jawed dykes roaming the magnificently gay landscape. There was such a land once, and mayhap will be such a land again.
Tags: dykes is a great word, femslash fridays, greta garbo, hollywood, katharine hepburn, lgbt, marlene dietrich, queer history
We still live in a world where any hint of same-sex attraction between women is dismissed as ‘they’re just friiiiieeeeeeends!’, too.
less-angry-bi-feminsit, more objectifying:
Great Garbo had some nice tits.
I like you. Let’s be friends.
There’s a plaque in Krutch park in Knoxville that refers to Charles Krutch’s sister Lou (red flag, there) as an “eccentric pants-wearing feminist.” I was there with a friend once and remarked, “that’s obviously code for lesbian.” She responded furiously, “WHY DO ALL THE COOL STRONG WOMEN HAVE TO BE LESBIANS???” she came out two years later. (I love happy endings)
Lou, heck yeah! Blazing the trails for lady pants and cool androgynous names.
Side note: the music you sing with your sister is fantastic!
(thank you! Ironically, I didn’t really appreciate Knoxville’s incredible music scene ’til I left. Sure is nice to come back, though)
How did I not know this obscure fact about Tennessee Homo History, which would literally be my life’s work to study if it paid a single dime/anyone cared at all?! Next you’ll be telling me you went to Wilma Burgess’ Hitchin’ Post every Friday night…
i mean, I don’t KNOW she was a lesbian, but the description says she wandered the Appalachian trail by herself; it’s at least implied that she was a misandrist.
And that’s good enough!
I agree with tjdubya, your music is great!
*blushing* thank you kindly, oboe!
Oh my fuck, my bestie does this ALL THE FUCKING TIME most notably recently about K.Stew and it DRIVES ME FUCKING BANANAS.
Wait, did I do that, or was it someone else?
IT WAS THE OTHER ONE. check your messages.
Greta Garbo is thoroughly awesome BUT I feel like hiking topless is a recipe for a disaster?
But I also realize that “hiking” is not the same everywhere and hiking where Greta Garbo hikes is probably much more pleasant and enjoyable than topless hiking in a vast trackless woods full of black flies and mosquitos and scratchy branches and other things that a topless chest may not enjoy, and also the use of a 60-litre pack would probably negate any enjoyment from the topless hiking itself.
Yeah, that whole get-up, while outstanding, doesn’t seem too practical for actual hiking…
a little-known fact about Greta Garbo is that she naturally radiated bug repellent AND deflected UV rays
This seems perfectly reasonable.
That six-week mountain retreat clearly did not involve any actual hiking. They just labelled the “hanging out topless in a clearing in the woods” picture “hiking”.
I once saw a bare-ass naked man hiking in the Green Mountains on the summer solstice. He did not seem bothered by the insects or thorns.
Nothing like trying to scratch mosquito bites on sunburned boobs! Ah, nature.
D:
I want it to be 100% clear that I agree completely with Mallory on this. Katharine Hepburn would NEVER have waited on that pathetic excuse for a man.
She loved women.
Gotta agree, especially after devouring a long read in Vanity Fair (I think? It’s been a long time since I saw the written article) that blew apart the Hepburn/Tracy myth. The takeaway was Tracy was a self loathing gay man and drank as a way to cope with his homosexuality and Hepburn liked the ladies. Knowing each other’s underground lifestyles, they used each other to secure partners while presenting a public image of “closeness”.
A bit of a sad read, truth be told; I remember feeling quite sympathetic for Tracy because of his particular circumstances (tough guy image, Catholic religion, etc.).
Also, if I used any offensive language in describing this article, my deepest apologies. Seriously, no fooling.
Jimmy Hepburn? I’d hit it.
srsly that picture is making me feel faint
If you want a modern version, check out Erika Linder, who models as both genders. This is her as butch.
holy crap, that’s sexy
So many thoughts. Goosebumps and a bit of a glisten. I think I need to go back to bed.
Mallory, I love you.
Let’s talk about Tallulah Bankhead introducing herself at parties by saying, “Hello, I’m a lesbian. What do you do?”
Also: Patsy Kelly! And Lilyan Tashman, with her gay husband and the most developed high femme esthetic in all of pre-code Hollywood. And Margaret Lindsay and Janet Gaynor!
LILYAN TASHMAN WAS SUCH A BABE. I love the pre-codes where she’s always hanging out in bed with another golddigger plotting the demise of some rich idiot man.
You’ve seen “Millie,” right? The one where she’s clearly coupled with Joan Blondell’s character, and they’re lounging around in bed in one scene and jealousy fighting the next? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EVkkJ_LVfP0 “You know, I’ve given up the idea of marrying for love… Someday I hope to marry a nice, conservative gentleman, just to travel.” Lilyan’s face during that little speech is 24k sassy gay gold.
I HAVE SEEN MILLIE. I LOVE MILLIE SO MUCH. LILYAN/JOAN 4EVER (god how I wish for an alternate reality in which Joan had run away with Lilyan instead of marrying Dick Powell and Mike Todd)
FEMSLASH FRIDAY CONNECTION: Joan Blondell played Vi in Grease!
Nobody deserves Dick Powell! And yet Joan had to be groped by him at work *and* at home, poor, poor lamb. Not that Lilyan didn’t try to grope her, I’m guessing. Someday I will write my “Lilyan Tashman: Femme Top Icon” essay and the world (okay, about 19 people) will rejoice in her new-found recognition.
My friend read Joan’s novel/thinly disguised autobiography and apparently Joan and Dick had the most boring, awkward, unsexy sex of all time, surprising ABSOLUTELY NO ONE WHO IS FAMILIAR WITH DICK POWELL. Joan is one of my favourite ladies of all time and it makes me so sad that she was unfulfilled and exploited by the men in her life. 🙁
Please write your Lilyan article for The Toast? Please?
I would write it on the back of a napkin for a traveling salesman, if given the slightest prompt.
*sorry I just went through gchat records and this info was actually taken from a bio of Joan, just in case anyone wanted to follow up on Dick Powell’s sexual failings (???)
This is reminding me of Joan Fontaine’s memoirs, in which she describes sex with Brian Aherne (Hepburn’s costar in “Sylvia Scarlett”) as akin to getting a shot at the doctor’s office, or something to that effect. So many lives would be improved if women would just sleep with each other…
Obviously the only response to that opener is, “You, if you’d like me to.”
TOAST STANCE: Katharine Hepburn would have taken Cobie Smulders away from Taran Killam.
As someone who’s read just about every book on Katharine Hepburn, I definitely think Hepburn was bisexual, or at the very, very least, biromantic. She had a lot of daddy issues, and Tracy was a carbon copy of her father in many ways–emotionally unavailable, rejecting, controlling–so I absolutely believe she was legitimately drawn to him. One of her closest friends, Irene Selznick, said that to her knowledge, Hepburn and Tracy had an intense sexual relationship for the first couple of years they were together, in the early 40s–apparently they had trouble keeping the noise down–but that it was largely platonic for the 20+ years after that (Selznick also testified to Hepburn’s sexual interest in women, for what it’s worth, so I don’t think she was trying to provide a cover for her friend). Hepburn tended to idolize and romanticize the men in her life to an extreme, often in ways they didn’t deserve, but she also surrounded herself with a group of women with whom she had consistently intimate relationships.
tl;dr: I think Hepburn’s sexuality was as non-binary and complicated as her gender identity.
I have decided every Golden Age Of Hollywood figure was queer unless EXPRESSLY proven otherwise.
and even then there’s room.
MARLENE. Smoochin’ a lady in MOROCCO! (Says my mom, “This movie was pretty hotsy-totsy for being made in the 30s!!”
I’ve always suspected that the 30’s were an awesome time to be a woman in Hollywood. Then the post-war 50’s sucked all the life out of it.
The champagne coupe makes a weirdly appropriate Dirtbag Teen accessory.
So I have this blog about homo history, and the NUMBER ONE search term that redirects you to my site is “katharine hepburn laura harding,” which delights me to no end. Viva the forgotten “assistants,” “secretaries” and “best friends” (“Miss Harding is more than a best friend- she is guide, philosopher, impresario and accountant for the erratic, wayward star.” “She has a New York debut in her past and a Rumson, New Jersey house in her present- a retreat to which Katharine Hepburn often repairs in a carpet-slipper mood.”) that fill lesbian history, standing quietly beside the women they loved, holding their sensible handbags and frowning at paparazzi… (single tear/flying eagle motif here)
WHAT IS YOUR BLOG? The Toast must know.
For all your Laura Harding needs: http://deviatesinc.tumblr.com/tagged/laura-hardin…
:’)
Related: Last year I found Mercedes de Acosta’s ultra-rare autobiography online and liveblogged my reading of it. http://deviatesinc.tumblr.com/tagged/mercedes-de-… Sometimes I think about what I could accomplish with my time on this earth if I wasn’t spending so much of it reading about queers of yore.
But only sometimes.
Who’s to say anything else you could accomplish wouldn’t be better than reading/blogging about queers of yore??
That photo of Hepburn is, I think, the single most attractive image I’ve ever laid eyes on. helppp meeee
Aww. Katharine Hepburn in Victor, Victoria was always code for “I know you’re gay and I’m okay with it, but please find yourself a nice beard for the pictures.” Mum still has a quote from her on the fridge. ROLE MODELS.
If by Katharine Hepburn you mean Julie Andrews in Victor, Victoria, sure.
I’ll be in my bunk.
“Here is a picture Mercedes de Acosta took of Greta Garbo hiking topless when the two of them took a six-week mountain retreat together.”
You must be right, because this might be the most sapphic sentence I have ever read in my entire life.
Can we talk about the picture though? What is that on her head? Is she wearing a scarf? Is she chilly? Is that a cape or what? What are you looking at over there Greta
heeellllppppp meeeeeeeee………
Can we talk about the picture though? What is that on her head? Is she wearing a scarf? Is she chilly? Is that a cape or what? What are you looking at over there Greta
HELLO
Uuuuh, in that story about “when you have a minute,” was Hepburn paying for it? Because, What? Why?
Uuuuh, in that story about "when you have a minute," was Hepburn paying for it? Because, What? Why?
omg
This is fabulous, and now I’m having sympathetic what-was-that-word pangs. Was it synergy?
Ma Rainey!!! YESSSS. Everything about this post: YESSSSS.
I feel so sad that I’ve been too busy with work to visit this post until today.
Because do you KNOW how much femslash is apparent in so many 30s’ films with the women friends, especially the earlier part of the decade? it’s such a BIG thing missing from modern films, idk why, but modern romcoms just don’t have the same depth of character and quantity of female roles, even though I GUESS they’re less sexist/constrained by a buttoned-up society or whatever. I mean, look at “Gold Diggers of 1933” and A) tell me that Ginger Rogers pre-Fred isn’t one of the sexiest performers ever with that lower class accent I can never identify, and also that B) hers and whatshername’s characters (not Ruby Keeler’s – Ruby’s too naïve and asex most of the time I’ve seen her) aren’t fucking around in between men or shows.
Also one of my all-time faves which isn’t even on DVD yet and it KILLS me is “We’re Rich Again” and if Joan Marsh’s character in that screwball isn’t meant to be a lesbian, I’ll eat her hats. (Also the scene towards the beginning when everyone pets her little sister’s boyfriend’s stomach and hamstrings because he’s so muscular – Buster Crabbe: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buster_Crabbe . How do I love Billie Burke fondling him I can’t say. And I don’t think he wore more than a 30s-style speedo the entire film, which you can see on the thumbnail on the TCM site: http://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/title/850/We-re-Rich-Aga…)
Wandered into the archives after FINALLY watching The Desk Set to see if there was a Bunny Watson/Peg Costello femslash entry that I had initially missed, because man, they have the best chemistry of any couple in that movie.