March 1, 1944: The 1st American Celebrity to "Come Out of the Closet"

March 1, 1944: politics, a monthly magazine founded by writer and former Partisan Review editor Dwight Macdonald, and officially titled with no capital letter, publishes an essay by the young San Francisco poet Robert Duncan. It is titled "The Homosexual in Society."

Duncan wrote from experience, on the internalized repression, thence redirected outward, too often afflicting homosexual men. This made Duncan the 1st American celebrity to publicly reveal himself as such, to "come out of the closet."

The term "gay" had already been used "underground," but didn't catch on with the general public until the 1960s. In past times, the word "closet" meant "bedroom," so one's sexuality was not shown beyond there.

In 1933, actor William Haines had been arrested on what would then have been quaintly called a morals charge, and was told by his studio, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, that he would be fired, and exposed as a homosexual, if he didn't dump his boyfriend, Jimmie Shields. Despite having obviously cheated on Jimmie, Billy Haines chose the person he loved over the job he loved, and his Hollywood friends rallied around him, and continuously hired him in his new career as an interior designer.

This made him the first person in America widely known to be a homosexual. But he did not reveal his sexuality by choice. Robert Duncan did, so he's the first. (The poems that Walt Whitman published in Leaves of Grass in 1855 were ambiguous enough that most of his fans didn't figure it out at the time.) 

Duncan was born on January 7, 1919 in Oakland, California. He attended the University of California in nearby Berkeley, where he developed a reputation as a poet and a bohemian. But he dropped out due to his refusal to participate in mandatory military drills on the eve of World War II. At this time, he developed his 1st gay relationship. He moved to Philadelphia, and to an artists' commune in Woodstock, New York. When he was drafted, he declared his homosexuality to get discharged.

In 1943, he had his first heterosexual relationship, which ended in a short, disastrous marriage. He soon moved on to a relationship with a painter of some renown, Robert De Niro Sr., whose son became one of the greatest actors of all time.

In his essay for politics, Duncan compared the plight of homosexuals with that of African-Americans and Jews. It is considered a pioneering treatise on the experience of homosexuals in American society, given its appearance a full decade before any organized gay rights movement.

Since he was a writer, rather than a considerably more famous person like an actor, a singer, or a politician, his career did not suffer for his revelation. Or, perhaps, with World War II going on, people generally didn't care. Or maybe people who thought that being gay was bad thought that the war was more worthy of their attention. Nor did politics suffer a loss of sales as a result: It lasted until 1949, and, at the time, a run of only 5 years was hardly uncommon for an ambitious magazine. Over the next few years, Gore Vidal, Truman Capote, James Baldwin and Allen Ginsberg would be openly gay and still find their writing careers succeed.

Duncan continued to write, publish and sell. In 1951, he met painter Jess Collins, and they stayed together in San Francisco, until Duncan's death in 1988.

Duncan was a writer, rather than an actor, a singer, or otherwise a public person. He came out during The War, when important things were happening. And, unlike Vidal, Capote, Baldwin and Ginsberg, he didn't regularly appear on television in the years to come. So he has been largely forgotten. In fact, when I decided that the 1st American celebrity to come out was worthy of an entry in this project, I had no idea of who it was. When I found out, I discovered that it was somebody I'd never heard of.

Today, the gay rights movement doesn't acknowledge Duncan the way it does Harvey Milk, the Stonewall rebels, the aforementioned writers, or prominent entertainers. He's been pretty much forgotten, even by those you would expect to honor him.

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March 1, 1944 was a Wednesday. Roger Daltrey, the lead singer of The Who, was born. So was John Breaux, who served Louisiana in the House of Representatives from 1972 to 1987, and in the Senate from then until 2005.

Baseball was in Spring Training. Football was out of season. The NBA hadn't been founded yet. And there were no games scheduled for the NHL. So there were no scores on this historic day.