The Krays: That's Showbusiness!

In 1965, David Bailey, already Britain’s most fashionable photographer, took a portrait of the gangster twins Ronnie and Reggie Kray, who looked fiercely well-groomed in suits and narrow ties... The portrait became gangland’s Mona Lisa: copied, pirated and imitated, it was central to their image and their brand... “Their big mistake was posing for me,” Bailey told the BBC last year. “If you’re a real gangster nobody knows who you are.” The Krays, of course, wanted everyone to know who they were... If Bailey’s photo was the first stage in the construction of the Krays’ enduring image, stage two came in 1967, when the Krays approached John Pearson, and asked him to be their biographer, focusing on their clubs, their celebrity chums and their charitable works. (Truman Capote, who had just published In Cold Blood, had been their first choice, but he declined the commission.)... They felt like they were in the big time, even though the bank robbers of the era looked down on them as mere bullies, called them “thieves’ ponces”, and “Gert and Daisy” behind their backs, claiming that they didn’t steal their own money and attracted too many dodgy hangers-on... George Cornell, a gangster from south London, had called Ron a “fat poof” – Ron used to say “I’m homosexual but I’m not a poof”... on 9 March 1966, when he heard that Cornell was in the Blind Beggar pub, which was on the Krays’ patch, he went round and shot him dead in front of shocked witnesses... In May 1968, Ronnie and Reggie Kray were arrested... Ronnie gave a spectacular but crazed performance in the witness box, name-dropping the boxing champions they knew and portraying himself as an innocent East End philanthropist. They were jailed for life... (At his trial, Ron cheerfully told the judge, “If I wasn’t here, I could be having tea with Judy Garland.”)... I was introduced to Ron by a former inmate who had been a friend in his earlier prison days... [he] talked about where he would go if ever released – “Morocco, for the boys”. He added, “Don’t print I’m mad.” ...

From a brilliant essay by Duncan Campbell, The Selling Of The Krays, on Ronnie and Reggie as rubbish gangsters, but great brand managers - part of Guardian online's The Long Read series.

I bet everyone told Ron he was really good at painting.

Jim Bailey: 1938-2015

Illusionist - and deffo not a drag queen.

Fagburn once had the great pleasure of seeing Mr Bailey doing Judy in Brighton.

Tickets had sold so badly I was phoned and offered some freebies - it's called 'wallpapering' in the biz of show - they had also, quite literally, bussed in groups from old people's homes in Hove.

I think we managed to fill the first three rows.

A truly magical night. x

Justine: Judy!

Gays In The News: There's No Place Like Home...

Watching Dorothy Gale skip down the yellow brick road to the Emerald City was a magical moment in most people's childhood.

But for one man, that moment was the start of an obsession - which has now led to him having one of the world's biggest collections of Wizard Of Oz memorabilia.

Walter Krueger, 28, from near Chicago, Il., became so enchanted with the adventures of Dorothy and her friends that he spent the past two decades filling his house with Oz characters, clothes and artwork - which he says are now worth more than half a million dollars.

The superfan - who says he has watched the film 'thousands and thousands' of times - has spent £120,000 amassing a massive haul of around 10,000 pieces of memorabilia, including a replica of Dorothy's famous ruby slippers...

'When I was younger I was bullied horribly at school for being gay and when I was 16 my mother passed away.

'Oz became a refuge, it was something to cling on to - I can’t imagine going through that without it.'

Mail Online.

Bit of a bombshell/bummer finding out he's a fag, but life goes on.

She's rocking that Munchkin look, though.

Oh, and the Mail neglects to mention today would have been Judy Garland's 92nd birthday - shoddy.

PS Fagburn knows of a gay journalist whose collection of Oz memorabilia is similarly unsettling ...

Thought For The Day: Rufus Wainwright

I can highly recommend growing up surrounded by lots of women. My sisters, mother [the late folk musician Kate McGarrigle], aunts and grandmother were all fascinating to me. I basked in the attention as the only male and I was pretty gay from a young age – into cut-out dolls, Judy Garland, dressing up. They fussed over me a lot.

It's The Observer's turn to get Rufus today.

LGBT History Month: Imagine If They Had An LGBT History Month And No-one Cared...

This really is embarrassingly half-arsed.
Did you even know it was happening?
What is point?

Justin Bieber: Child Star

Judy Garland
Michael Jackson
Britney Spears
and...

Suffer little children...

PS His last album Believe (Acoustic) is astonishing. Real heart-breaking stuff, presumably about Selena. There's also a bit on Take You where he sings to "mon cherie", quite funny, but you'd think a Canadian might have a better grasp of your actual French.
God, I love Justin.

*flicks hair - puts on gas mask - storms out*

Gay Icons: GI Blues

Both Garland and Houston, sang songs of sorrow from such great heights, and the meaning willed out. Having fought to be the huge stars they became, and finding themselves locked in a fight to the death with their own celebrity, Garland and Houston invested their material with such devout sincerity that queer ears the world over pricked up. The combination of exploited naivety, mournful foreboding, relentless repression and utterly unique singing voices, gave unprecedented authenticity to their work...

On the first anniversary of her death yesterday, Independent Voices, runs a piece on Whitney Houtson comparing her threat pre-Stonewall gay icon, Judy Garland.
Usually when you see the phrase "gay icon" in print, it's used about people who aren't - maybe a "diva" who had a minor hit in the 80s, or a famous chap who's quite good-looking - and the article tells you nothing apart from the writer is clueless.
Or it'll be some whiny anti-gay snob with nothing more to say than; "Why are the gays still doing this?"
But this piece by performance artist, La JohnJoseph is thoughtful and sympatico.
Brava.

Plug! 'La JohnJoseph will be touring his autobiographical, raucously political and accidentally profound, Boy in a Dress which follows the life story thus far of La JohnJoseph, a third-gendered, fallen Catholic, ex-fashion model from the wrong side of the tracks, from the council estates of Merseyside to the strip clubs of New York. 
'The show will be running in London at the Battersea Arts Centre from the 14-16th March, after a UK tour through Liverpool (26th Feb) Bristol (28th Feb - 2nd March), Manchester (5-6th March), and Brighton (8th March).'

Hit Factory Live: Dead!

And the cancellation had nothing to do with piss-poor ticket sales, obvs.
Every single possible puntastic gag has already been wrung out of this on Twitter.
All I'll say is that so many queens are so angry and upset about this, it could end up like the day they buried Judy Garland - if you know what I mean...

• Thanks to Darren for the poignant photo.

Hugh Martin: 1914-2011

Composer. Best known for his work on Meet Me In St Louis featuring the songs The Boy Next Door, Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas, and The Trolley Song.

"Hugh Martin, who died on March 11, was unmarried" - Obituary, The Daily Telegraph.

"Martin was unmarried" - Obituary, The Times.

"He is survived by his brother, Gordon" - Obituary, The Guardian.

John Grant: Second Life

Pleasing to see John Grant's Queen of Denmark voted album of the year in Mojo.
That and other plaudits mean QOD's being given another push for the new year, with a single Where Dreams Go To Die out at the end of January, and but of course a new round of press interviews.
Fagburn gets the impression that many journalists are rather titillated by the gay sex and drugs and religious upbringing narrative of Grant's Judy Garland life.
His biography is often retold as a parable - a warning; but hallelujah now he's saved!
It's the same allure Rufus Wainwright clearly holds for some - though Fagburn has interviewed Rufus and found his tales of excess about as convincing as Jay from The Inbetweeners.
Have a read of Andy Gill's rather good interview with Mr Grant in today's Independent by way of bad example.
"It's a miracle I don't have Aids. Because a lot of people haven't been spared. But that's what made me want to commit suicide last year. It was this horrible feeling of being less capable of intimacy than ever before. The older you get, all you can do is sexualise a relationship, because that's what affection means to you. And you become obsessed with age, because you become less sexually viable, less attractive to the younger ones, so you see all these 60-year-olds walking round wearing what the 20-year-olds are wearing, and it's just so sad. I have visions of that in my head – I'm, like, walking round a college campus with a hard-on at the age of 70, with a gun in my pocket, y'know, so that if I don't get laid I can blow my head off."
Yes, dear.

Ann Widdecombe: A Friend Of Dorothy?

I'm not sure what to say.

Out 100: Out Demons Out!

A royal wedding in the offing, The Beatles on iTunes and Children On Need on Friday - truly these are wonderful times to be a fuckwit.
The rest of us must somehow struggle on.
I haven't found anything to write about in today's papers yet, so here's a photo I like of Chris Colfer from the new Out 100; the US magazine's annual list of the top 100 gaylebrities who they wanted to take photos of who returned their calls.
Enjoy!

• The photograph above is part of a Stonewall riots themed session. Mr Colfer's own views on Judy Garland are not known.