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Parting Glances: Queer Today, Gone Tomorrow

Not too long ago while browsing a cluttered, non-LGBT Ann Arbor bookstore, I spent $20 for a used paperback: #3 of Richard Lamparski's 11 volume series "Whatever became of…?" Now collector items.
My purchase originally going for $1.25 is dated 1970. It contains 200 then-and-now, B&W photographs of 100 "big names." Many of whose celeb photos are not very flattering for starstruck LGBT reminiscing.
My back cover asks, "Where Are They Now?" and adds somewhat snidely, "A few have recently made smashing comebacks into the glittering spotlight they knew so well; others have faded into limbo by choice or circumstance…
"Many warm themselves in the winter of their lives by the dying glow of their old press notices; others have made new and gratifying careers out of latent resources." (Indeed! As Detroit's beloved showbiz diva Lady "T" Tempest use to say of those late-blooming, gratifying career choices, "Better latent than never, Mary!")
I googled Lamparski but found nothing about whatever happened to him. From Wikipedia I learn he has lived in California since 2010, born in 1932, making him a few limbo years older than me. (In case there are any PG readers who are into gerontophilia. His or mine.)
Lamparski had been a PR guy for Paramount Television, CBS Radio, the Ice Capades, which, one supposes, affords him proper credentials for gossip mongering, and occasionally skating on thin showbiz ice with fanfare. Others' ice. His fanfare. Sonja Henie, anyone?
Of the 100 listed in Volume 3, I remember some (if you're under 50, skip the next few paragraphs): Tokyo Rose (then exiled in Chicago), Peter Townsend (Queen Elizabeth's sister's star-crossed beau), Andrew Sisters (Patty, Maxene and LaVerne), Arthur Murray (his studio employed many gay fox trotters), Christine Keeler (Big time madam to British MPs).
These I haven't a clue about: Tony Zale (middleweight boxing champ), Anna Q. Nilsson, Ray Dooley, Jack Sharkey (heavyweight champ), John F. Kieran, Cliff Edwards, Hal Le Roy, Arthur Hughes ("Just Plain Bill"), and Bert "the Mad Russian" Gordon. (Putin, take note.)
There are cautious rainbow entries for us. (All photos exceptionally flattering, as might be expected of what the venerable Lady T calls "good gay genes set.") Spring Byington, Alexandra Tolstoy, Robert Taylor, Charles "Buddy" Rogers, Sterling Holloway, smoldering Lizabeth Scott.
Liz Scott, a shoulder-length blond bombshell, popular in five movies during the late-1940s, mid-50s, '60s. She was born in 1922. In 1953, she was emphatically outed by Confidential magazine. Gossips Lamparski, "The tell-all-the-dirt publication had carried an article suggesting Liz had known three call girls intimately.
"The story also repeats that Liz always wore men's cologne and pajamas. Hated frilly clothes. The fact that Miss Scott had spent time in the company of Paris' famous lesbian night club owner and entertainer, Frede, and had been drinking heavily did not weigh in her favor."
To say the least. Old Spice, anyone? Liz died last year. 94! Who knew? Did you? (Just asking.)
By the way. Whatever happened to The Diplomat's Fat Jack? Female impersonator Rae Bourbon (who died in prison)? First openly gay football jock David Kopay? Porn-pole Jeff Stryker (now in his mid-50s) DAG/LC? ASP? Motor City Business Forum? The Cash, er, the Gas Station? Haven't a clue? It beez that way sometimes.

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