Bruce LaBruce

A thrill to be invited back to Chicago to present a 10-film retrospective of my movies at the illustrious @facetschicago.bsky.social. With curator Raphael Martinez & Jennifer Murray, director of FACETS, & legendary Chicago director Joe Swanberg, who generously conducted one of my lively Q&A's

A thrill to be invited back to Chicago for a 10-film retrospective of my movies at the illustrious @facetschicago.bsky.social including a screening at the great @musicboxtheatre.bsky.social. Curated by Raphael Martinez, the event was thoughtfully curated, creatively promoted & very well attended!

Warhol trans-superstar Holly Woodlawn was BOTD in 1946 & died in 2015 at 69. George Cukor said she should've been nominated for an Oscar 4 her turn in Warhol/Morrissey's "Trash" (1970). She also starred w/ Jackie Curtis & Candy Darling in my fave W/M film "Women in Revolt" (1971)

Warhol trans-superstar Holly Woodlawn was BOTD in 1946 & died in 2015 at 69. I had the pleasure of meeting her 2x, once when I visited her at her WeHo apt on a visit to L.A. & once when I interviewed her onstage at the legendary event "Camp/Anti-Camp" at the HAU Theater in Berlin

Italian-American actor Anthony Franciosa was BOTD in 1928 & died in 2006 at 77. A Method actor from NY's Little Italy, he received an Oscar nom 4 Zinnemann's "A Hatful of Rain" (1957) & appeared in Kazan's "A Face in the Crowd" (1957). Married 4x incl volatilely 2 Shelley Winters

The twincesty and sexy gay Kray Twins, Ronnie & Reggie, English gangsters prominent from the late 1950s until their arrest in 1968, were BOTD in 1933. The former died in 1995 at 61, the latter in 2000 at the age of 66. Their gang, known as the Firm, was based in Bethnal Green

Playwright, screenwriter, director, & bitchy queen Moss Hart was BOTD in 1904 & died in 1961 at 57. Known for his collabs w/ George S. Kaufman, he wrote Cukor's "A Star Is Born" (1954) & directed "My Fair Lady" (1956) & "Camelot" (1960) on B'way. Can't get much gayer than that!

HBD USA director Philip Kaufman, BOTD in 1936, turning 90 today! He made the masterpieces "The White Dawn" (1974) & "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" (1978). "Henry & June" (1990), with lesbian sex scenes between Uma Thurman & Maria de Medeiros, became the first NC-17 rated film

Promiscuous gay USA contemporary & classical music composer & writer Ned Rorem was BOTD in 1923 & died in 2022 at 99. Dedicated diarist Rorem wrote candidly about his sexuality, estimating his total romantic & sexual relationships at 3K, including the likes of Tennessee Williams

Fab lesbian Hollywood actress & platinum blond fashion plate Lilyan Tashman was BOTD in 1896 & died in 1934 at 37. A former Ziegfeld Follies girl, husky-voiced Tashman played bitchy other women, vamps & wisecracking sophisticates pre-Code & famously had a 4 yr. affair with Garbo

HBD French ice queen Catherine Deneuve, BOTD in 1943, turning 83 today. She had a taste for the perverse, playing a sexually repressed housewife who secretly works in a brothel in Buñuel's "Belle de Jour" (1967). She was devastated by the death of her sister Françoise Dorléac

HBD Black Panther Party co-founder Bobby Seale, Chicago 8 member, BOTD in 1936, turning 90 today. He founded the Panthers with Huey P. Newton in 1966. He publicly endorsed gay lib in 1970, urging revolutionaries to overcome their homophobia & embrace it as part of the struggle

Gay painting legend & Kennedy collage queen Robert Rauschenberg was BOTD in 1925 & died in 2008 at the age of 82. After a brief straight marriage, he was famously in gay love relationships with gay painting legends Cy Twombly and Jasper Johns, with whom he twinned in that gay way

Amazing lyricist, singer-songwriter & poet Dory Previn was BOTD in 1925 & died in 2012 at 86. Her brill lyrics grace films like "Two for the Seesaw," "Goodbye Charlie," "Inside Daisy Clover," "Valley of the Dolls" & "The Sterile Cuckoo." Her ex-friend Mia stole her husband Andre

HBD hot Irish gay actor Andrew Scott, BOTD in 1976, turning 50 today. Although he'd been around for a while, he broke through as the amorous priest/love interest of Phoebe Waller-Bridge in her show "Fleabag" in 2019 & as the gay ghost in Andrew Haig's "All of Us Strangers" (2023)

HBD great & sexy actor Viggo Mortensen, BOTD in 1958, turning 68 today! He certainly fulfilled his full-frontal promise in Cronenberg's "Eastern Promises" (2007) in a spectacularly naked bathhouse knife fight & generously shared his feet in Sean Penn's "The Indian Runner" (1991)

HBD Dolores Hart, the Hollywood starlet who gave up Elvis Presley for Jesus, becoming a nun, BOTD in 1938, turning 88 today. The beautiful blonde actress made her screen debut opposite Elvis in Hal Kanter's "Loving You" (1957), becoming the first actress to kiss him on screen

Great dwarf actor Michael Dunn was BOTD in 1934 & died in 1973 at 38. He had a number of impressive big-screen roles such as Stanley Kramer's "Ship of Fools" (1965), nominated for a Supporting Actor Oscar, & Joseph Losey's "Boom!" (1968), as LIz Taylor's fascistic bodyguard Rudi.

Arthur Rimbaud, French poet known for his transgressive themes & profound influence on modern literature, prefiguring surrealism, was BOTD in 1854 & died in 1891 at 37. He's generally considered a gay primarily due to his passionate & violent affair with fellow poet Paul Verlaine

My movie "Gerontophilia", a reverse Lolita, is on the @criterionchannel.bsky.social this month! “[LaBruce’s] best film yet!” - SF Chronicle, 2014 “Bold!” - The Village Voice, 2015 “Winningly light comedy.” - RogerEbert.com, 2015 www.search-criteria.com/films/8255?f... @criterionchannl.bsky.social

My queer zombie movie "Otto; or, Up with Dead People" is on @criterionchannl.bsky.social this month just in time for Halloween! www.search-criteria.com/films/8268?f... “Otto deliriously intermingles sex & entrails but is also imaginative and witty.” - LA Times, 2008 @criterionchannl.bsky.social

The divine Divine (Harris Glenn Milstead), muse of John Waters, was BOTD in 1945 & died in 1988 at 42. "Multiple Maniacs" (1970) is my fave Waters film (it's also Waters' fave film of his own), along w/ "Mondo Trash" (1969), but all his movies starring Divine are masterpieces!

Gay Robert Reed, squeaky-clean Dad on "The Brady Bunch", was BOTD in 1932 & died in 1992 at 59 of complications from AIDS. As if to purge himself of the bromidic Brady image, a year after the show ended he played a surgeon who has "gender reassignment surgery" on Medical Center

Charm Offensive! Get my charming new charm bracelet by @jonathanjohnson.bsky.social at www.brucelabrucejewelry.com

"LaBruce leaves no taboo unshattered in his outrageously subversive, unabashedly kinky film provocations" My @criterion.bsky.social closet picks: MOUCHETTE SORCERER SIMON OF THE DESERT 3 WOMEN A TASTE OF HONEY DON'T LOOK NOW criterionchannel.com/collections/... @criterionchannl.bsky.social

George C. Scott was BOTD in 1927 & died in 1999 at 71. One of the great faces of cinema, he gave many fine performances such as his sexy surgeons in Richard Lester's "Petulia" (1968) opposite mod Julie Christie & in Arthur Hiller's "The Hospital" (1971) opposite hippy Diana Rigg

Klaus Kinski was BOTD in 1926 & died in 1991 at 65. Best known for starring in 5 films by Werner Herzog between 1972 & 1987, his oldest daughter, Pola, Nastassja's half-sister, declared in 2013 that the actor repeatedly raped her over a 14-yr period. Nastassja supported her claim

Effervescent yet arch Miriam Hopkins was BOTD in 1902 & died in 1972 at 69. It wasn't Crawford with whom Bette Davis had her most major feud, but Hopkins (her nickname for her was "Hoppy"). They co-starred in Goulding's "The Old Maid" (1939) & Sherman's "Old Acquaintance" (1943)

Great Cannuck actor Margot Kidder was BOTD in 1948 & died in 2018 at 69. She struggled w/ her mental health, suffering a very public breakdown in 1996 when she disappeared for some days and was eventually found houseless in LA. She later became an outspoken mental-health advocate

Sapphic Traffic! Hollywood star Jean Arthur was BOTD in 1900 & died in 1991 at 90. The husky-voiced screwball comedy queen's sexuality was famously ambiguous. She co-starred with sexually ambiguous Marlene Dietrich in Wilder's "A Foreign Affair" (1948) and they loathed each other

"The Love Goddess" Rita Hayworth, who Madonna said "gave good face," was BOTD in 1918 & died in 1987 at 68. Born Margarita Carmen Cansino, she was transformed into a Hollywood sex goddess by dyeing her hair, having painful electrolysis to raise her hairline & Anglicizing her name

Tragic gay Hollywood star Montgomery Clift was BOTD in 1920 & died in 1966 at 45. At his most gorgeous in Howard Hawks' "Red River" (1948) & George Stevens' "A Place in the Sun" (1951) opposite his bestie, Elizabeth Taylor, a bad car crash in 1956 altered his face and his career

Godfather of the queercore movement that challenged respectability politics w/ punk defiance, Bruce LaBruce leaves no taboo unshattered in his outrageously subversive, unabashedly kinky cinematic provocations criterionchannel.com/collections/... @criterionchannl.bsky.social @criterion.bsky.social

"LaBruce says "L.A. Zombie" presents the inverse of an AIDS metaphor, with sex and bodily fluids giving life rather than ending it. Overall the film just looks beautiful w/ skilled monster makeup & prosthetics & sublime cinematography" chicagoreader.com/film-tv/the-... @chicagoreader.com

Nico, Warhol superstar, Velvet Underground singer & actor for Fellini & Garrel was BOTD in 1938 & died in 1988 at 49 of a hemorrhagic stroke after falling from her bike in Ibiza. Born Christa Päffgen in Cologne, she was a striking blonde model who famously rejected her own beauty

The ravishing Linda Darnell, one of Hollywood's most beautiful & underrated actresses, was BOTD in 1923 & died tragically in a fire in 1965 at 41. The sultry, dark-haired Texan was signed by 20th Century Fox as a teen and quickly became one of the studio's reigning sex goddesses

Great Irish poet, playwright, wit & homosexual martyr Oscar Wilde was BOTD in 1854 & died in 1900 at 46, bankrupt, shunned by society, his health broken by imprisonment in Reading Gaol, best remembered for his brilliant epigrams, his novel "The Picture of Dorian Gray" & his plays

HBD great grumpy (not gay) genius director Todd Solondz, BOTD in 1959, turning 67 today. His new feature, "Frappuccino," starts shooting Jan 15 in New York & Colombia starring Kathleen Turner as an 80-yr-old Jewish woman who falls for her much younger Trinidadian aide in Florida

Michel Foucault was BOTD in 1926 & died in 1984 at 57. Today marks his 100th birthday! An enthusiastic participant in San Francisco's gay leather & BDSM scene, Foucault was fascinated by the possibilities of sex as a form of experimentation, pleasure & resistance to social norms

Friedrich Nietzsche was BOTD in 1844 & died in 1900 at 55. Nietzsche was an incel, possibly gay. Explains a lot. You know, the whole Ubermensch thang (from his work "The Gay Science"!). Factor in the cosy historical intersection of homosexuality and fascism, and it spells G-A-Y!

Back in Toronto after my fantastic 10 film retrospective at @facetschicago.bsky.social curated by Raphael Martinez. What a wild ride! Here's @ebertvoices.bsky.social's Clint Worthington's take on the whole lovely, sordid, and very well-attended affair! www.rogerebert.com/features/the...

Baste Mag Issue #4 launch w/ beats brought to you by @brucelabruce, @blkvirgo________, @maximumexposureinc & @venusinfoil - for the hotties who like their revolutionary smut magazines & a sweaty dance floor. Slur @ Buddies, 12 Alexander St., Fri, Oct 16 www.yohomo.ca/event/slur-16

My movie "Gerontophilia" is on the @criterionchannl.bsky.social in October! www.criterionchannel.com/films/fjBS58... @criterion.bsky.social

My movie "Hustler White" is on @criterionchannl.bsky.social in October!! www.criterionchannel.com/films/c31rm2... @criterion.bsky.social

Brilliant queer Pre-Raphaelite painter Simeon Solomon was BOTD in 1840 & died in 1905 at 64. Known 4 painting lovely, androgynous young men, at the height of his career he was arrested 4 attempting 2 have sex w/ another man in a public lavatory in London, leading to his downfall

Starting today! Oct 9th 2026 The Revolution is My Boyfriend: The Films of Bruce LaBruce @facetschicago.bsky.social 1517 W Fullerton Ave, Chicago, IL 60614 On view through Sunday, October 11th Full schedule: thevisualist.org/2026/10/the-...