A growing number of societies have become more open to accepting gay men and homosexual unions as evidenced by the holding over the weekend of the first Mr. Gay China pageant.
Almost a century ago, gay men had to be more discreet in hiding their relationship with other men. One example is actor Cary Grant who lived in with an Australian an in 1935 in Greenwich Village, reported the New York Post.
More details about Grant’s personal life are contained in a new documentary about costume designer Orry-Kelly, his lover, which was released on Aug. 9 on DVD and video titled “Women He’s Undressed.” Kelly met 20-year-old Grant, then a struggling performer Archibald Leach, in 1925.
At that time, Leach was kicked out from a boarding house for lack of rent money and showed up in Kelly’s studio in West Village where they lived in as a couple. Leach then was sick of an unspecified ailment during their first months together with Kelly paying for his partner’s doctor’s bill.
At that time, Leach just migrated from England to the U.S. where he worked as a carnival barker in Coney Island. Leach helped Kelly’s small business of selling hand-made ties by stenciling designs on the ties and selling it for a profit at the backstage of vaudeville houses.
The couple’s on-and-off relationship ran for 30 years, with Kelly at the receiving end of Grant’s fist. Grant eventually was signed to a weekly contract with Paramount, while Kelly headed the costume department of Warner Bros. Kelly later suggested for Grant to move in with Randolph Scott, another Paramount talent, in a beach house in Malibu.
In the late 1950s, grant re-entered the life of Kelly who died in 1964 of liver cancer. Grant, who was married to four women, served as one of Kelly’s pallbearers. Although Grant did not acknowledge their relationship, Jeremy Kinser, director of the docu, said the pair were probably lovers by the way they helped each other, although Scott was Grant’s greatest love.