The Beauty of Men Never Dies: An Autobiographical Novel

Role Models

9 Role Models There are no role models for gay men as they enter their seventies. Cecil Beaton perhaps. Although he was awfully swish, and I could never handle those big tip-tilted hats he affected. No, gay men as they age seem to remain forever attracted to the young. Their escaping youth? It’s not pretty. The sour ones who feel life disappointed them turn to alcohol to soften their sorrow. You see them everywhere. Then there are the aging gay couples who occupy the standard marital position of being with someone you don’t particularly care about, which makes it impossible for you to meet someone you might really care about. That’s another possible destiny. And there are the wealthier ones with the much younger lover whom they blissfully believe love them for themselves. Perhaps. But I always point out to my wealthy friends that you never see one of those youths falling in love with an older man who has no money. None of these possibilities look very attractive to me. How could they? I have had to find role models among women. I have Chanel and Elsie de Wolfe, also known as Lady Mendl. Coco Chanel returned to her career as a coutouriére after World War II at seventy and prospered for almost two more decades. I often quote her saying, “I never designed a good dress until I didn’t care anymore.” I understand that perfectly and had to in my long years in advertising. You knew what a good job was and you did it. What others thought was not a deciding factor. That is being professional. 10 Role Models Continuing on doing something you know how to do seems a viable activity in your seventies. What is it people wish to retire to do? I am not tired. Perhaps someday when I realize I am tired to a point where I will never feel rested again I will stop and sit down. Then my Zen studies will save me. I will sit on a cushion in the corner staring at the wall, and no one will know that I am actually senile. They’ll just say, “He’s meditating.” A number of the highly placed Zen masters whom I knew were alcoholic. They just sat there completely stewed and stared into space. As good an example for aspiring Zen students as any. One told me, “I just couldn’t do it any other way.” Those endless days and nights stretching into weeks just sitting there. Plunk. Elsie, Lady Mendl, is my other role model. She had been the actress Elsie de Wolfe living with Bessie Marbury, a major theater producer at the turn of the twentieth century. Elsie was a society girl with no money but good taste. Every year she went to Paris and bought a wardrobe that she then displayed in a new play, produced by Bessie. They lived together but perhaps Elsie never delivered her slender body to ponderousness . Bessie was big and fat. Women were fond of cuddling and hugging a lot in those days. Mark Twain said he didn’t want to go to heaven because everyone was going there to “hug and hug and hug and hug.” I used to turn my nose up at this, but lately I don’t know. When Elsie was in early middle age she abandoned her theater career, which was primarily designed to sell tickets to dressmakers who would come and feverishly sketch her outfits. In this way fashion came to New York from Paris. But Elsie was getting too old. So she turned her taste into a whole new kind of career as an interior decorator. It hadn’t really existed before. She was a big hit. She introduced painted woodwork in light colors, did away with heavy draperies, lightened things up overall, and made a lot of money with commissions from wealthy women. Then during World War I, she went to France as head of a volunteer nurses’ unit. She was awarded a medal by the French government and met and married Lord Mendl, who was attached to the British Embassy in Paris. He was quoted as saying, “The old girl could still be a virgin for all I know.” 11 Role Models Elsie blazed on, now as Lady Mendl, through the twenties and thirties. She did not lose money in the crash. All her...