In 1902, German Steel magnate Friedrich Alfred Krupp was involved in a big gay sex scandal.
Krupp was a politician and a close friend of the Kaiser.
Krupp was accused, in opposition newspapers, of having had sexual relations with various local boys on the island of Capri.
When Krupp was first in Capri, he stayed at the Hotel Quisisana.
In 1897, Oscar Wilde briefly stayed at the Quisisana, with his lover Lord Alfred Douglas.
Wilhelm von Plüschow
Other gay characters who lived on Capri included -
The photographer of male nudes, Wilhelm Pluschow, cousin of gay photographer Baron von Gloeden
The author Norman Douglas, whose most famous novel, South Wind, is set on Capri.
And steel millionaire Jacques d’Adelswärd-Fersen.
Fersen's Villa Lysis is on Capri.
In 1903, Fersen was put on trial in France for arranging tableaux vivants of nude or semi-nude schoolboys.
He was given a very short jail sentence.
The 1903 scandal dashed Fersen's marriage plans.
Fersen moved to Capri with his long-time lover, Nino Cesarini, whom Fersen had met in Rome when Nino was aged 14.
Villa Lysis, Capri.
Fersen became a "character" on the island in the inter-war years, featuring in novels by Compton MacKenzie and others.'
Fersen died after drinking a mixture of cocaine and champagne - in 1923.
The famous German painter Paul Hoecker (1854-1910) stayed with Ferson on Capri after it was reported that Hoecker had used a male prostitute as a model for a painting of the Madonna.
Capri beach by John Singer Sargent.
CAPRI, CATAMITES AND THE COGNOSCENTI
Capri
Young boys were an interest for novelist Graham Greene, who made his home on Capri
Young boys were an interest for Emperor Tiberius, German industrialist Friedrich Alfred Krupp and many others who made their homes on Capri.
This island of satyrs has a licentious reputation.
Graham Greene of MI6
'For occasional homosexual adventures', novelist Graham Greene used to take young Italian boys to Villa Rossaio, his home on the island
(Source: Graham Greene, The Man Within, by Michael Shelden, publ.Heinemann.)
Greene's friend Doctor Elizabeth Moor confided in her friend Gitta Bittorf that the boys used to stay with Greene on Capri for one or two days.
And postman Attilo Scoppa found that Greene often had boys, aged 14-16, staying at Villa Rossaio.
People in the town of Anacapri told Scoppa "the boys came for sex."
Greene was sufficiently well liked by his fellow citizens to be given the title of Honorary Citizen of Anacapri.
Emperor Tiberius's Villa Jovis on Capri
Emperor Tiberius, who retired to Capri around 30 AD, is reported to have indulged in endless orgies with boy concubines.
It is said that the walls of his villa were covered with huge pornographic paintings.
According to some sources he enjoyed having mullet nibble his crumb-coated genitals as he relaxed in rock pools.
And he used to have his organ covered in milk and honey so that babies would suckle his glans.
There were stories, put about by his enemies, that Tiberius had boys flung into the sea from the high cliffs beneath his villa.
One of the hundreds of boys who lived with Tiberius was Vitellius, who after working as catamite for Caligula, Claudius and Nero, became Emperor in 69 AD.
So they can't all have been flung from the cliffs.
Krupp
Multimillionaire German industrialist Friedrich Alfred Krupp (1854-1902) set up a comfortable 'palace' in a grotto on Capri, where he entertained underage Italian boys, mostly the sons of local fishermen.
Sex was performed to the accompaniment of a string quartet, and orgasms were celebrated with bursts of fireworks.
Krupp on Capri
When Krupp's wife heard rumours of what was going on, she went to the Kaiser, who had her put into an insane asylum.
The Krupp military-industrial empire was too vital to Germany.
However, the German press eventually found out about Krupp's activities, and printed the whole story, complete with photographs taken by Krupp himself inside the grotto.
Capri was where Oscar Wilde was reunited with Lord Alfred Douglas after being released from jail.
Noel Coward took the title of his song 'A Bar on the Piccola Marina' from the island's favourite meeting place for 'free spirits'.
Norman Douglas
Capri was home to paedophile Norman Douglas, who was Greene's best friend on the island in the late 1940's and early 1950's.
Norman Douglas was the author of 'South Wind' which captured the air of sensuality associated with Capri and Southern Italy.
Compton Mackenzie of MI6
Famous Scot, Compton Mackenzie, was apparently another boylover who fell for Capri.
He moved there with his wife in 1913 and remained about ten years.
Two of his books were set on Capri: 'Vestal Fire' and 'Extraordinary Women.'
According to biographers, he bought a small villa in the plain of Cetrella, 'where he used to hold his amorous encounters with young boys.'
In 1918, the arrival in Capri of a group of lesbians, gave Mackenzie the inspiration to write 'Extraordinary Women.'
The Famous Swede Axel Munthe wrote:
"I sprang from the Sorrento sailing-boat onto the little beach.
"Swarms of BOYS were playing about among the upturned boats or bathing their shining bronze bodies in the surf....."
Munthe's autobiographical "The History of S. Michele" was published for the first time in English in 1929.
Since then this book about Capri has been translated into many languages and is now among the most read books after the Bible.
It was in 1887 that Munthe decided to settle on Capri and work as the municipal doctor.
Munthe's first visit to Capri had been in 1884 at the time of a cholera outbreak in Naples.
As soon as he had landed on the island, he had fallen in love with the ruins of a little medieval chapel dedicated to S. Michele, surrounded by a large vineyard hiding the ruins of a Roman villa.
He decided to create his dream villa called San Michele and bought a whole mountain to make this possible. "My house must be open to the sun, to the wind, to the sea, like a Greek temple, and light, light everywhere".
Munthe was a lover of the arts, a philanthropist, and a great lover of animals.
Fersen
Baron Fersen of Adeswarde, born in Paris in 1880 of a family of steel industrialists, was another lover of Capri.
On 10 June 1903, the day of Fersen's engagement to the Viscount of Moupeou's daughter, he was arrested on charges of gross indecency and corruption of young boys.
After that event he decided to take up permanent residence on his favourite island of Capri.
Here he rented Villa Certosella.
Just what are the attractions of Capri to the rich, the famous and the cognoscenti?
Gay names associated with Capri include Ezra Pound, Tennessee Williams, Jean Cocteau, Andre Gide...
Visitors to the island have included Leonardo DiCaprio, Lenin,Tom Cruise, Tommy Hilfiger and Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen
"They Call Me Babu', Dutch original title 'Ze noemen me Baboe', from 2019.
About a young Javanese girl from late 1930s to the end of the 1940s, a real work of the heart by a female director, Sandra Beerends.
Wonderful scenes of an older Indonesia and its people.
It is brilliantly done as a faux 'documentary', black and white, imperfect scratched film frames, woven with real films of that past era, so that the whole film looks as if largely made from old amateur movies.
The story centres on Alima, who loses her mother very young - she becomes a nanny to a Dutch family, goes to Holland a while, and then back to Indonesia to live through Japanese occupation and the war for independence from the deceiving Dutch.
But the focus is on the purely human, personal level amidst all these historical events, just the life of one young woman, warm and caring and gentle, but with boldness when it counts.
The moral points are made lightly but movingly ... The radio says Nazis invaded Holland ... 'But the Dutch have invaded us for 350 years', says one Indonesian.
As a reviewer on IMDB says of the film, "It has the same 'energy' of calm and softness that is typical of the Javanese culture, so refined and delicate." Film trailer https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=flSkgW_UjY4
"The 'COVID peak' results from an accelerated mass homicide of immune-vulnerable individuals, and individuals made more immune-vulnerable, by government and institutional actions, rather than being an epidemiological signature of a novel virus, irrespective of the degree to which the virus is novel from the perspective of viral speciation."
Gia Gunn has thoughts on the coronavirus pandemic.
On Instagram, the 30-year-old former RuPaul’s Drag Race contestant says that the pandemic is a “hoax.”
"I think the whole mask thing is f–king ridiculous," Gia said in a video. "I honestly think this whole COVID-19 thing is a hoax."
He did NOT get tested.
But they said he tested positive.
In the UK, shops have spent up to £75 million on signs encouraging customers to remain two metres apart – which have now been rendered redundant after the rule was relaxed.
Now they face having to pay tens of millions more to replace them.
Non-essential stores in England were allowed to open on June 15 with the two-metre rule, but from next Saturday customers can be one metre apart...
"On March 17th Sir Simon Stevens, Chief Executive of the UK's National Health Service, sent out this letter to the chairs of every NHS trust, as well as GP surgeries and other NHS providers that explains how billions will be spent. Including:
"Nationally we are now in the process of block-buying capacity in independent hospitals.
"Which means paying private hospitals to keep beds empty.
From 2004 to 2014 Sir Simon Stevens (above) was a senior executive at UnitedHealth Group. Initially appointed president of UnitedHealth Europe, he became CEO of UnitedHealthcare's $30 billion Medicare business, and then corporate Executive Vice President and president of its global health businesses spanning the Americas, Europe, Asia, and Africa. He also was a director of Brazil's largest hospital group AMIL.
Sir Simon Stevens continued - "Additional funding to cover your extra costs of responding to the coronavirus emergency … financial constraints must not and will not stand in the way of taking immediate and necessary action
"Which means that the more a hospital 'responds' to the 'emergency' – ie. the more tests they run, the more non-Covid patients they discharge to make room for the 'surge', and the more operations they cancel – the more money they get. Cash4Covid – How hospitals are making money
"Wasting millions of pounds 'bulk buying' bed space in private hospitals and contracting emergency 'Nightingale' hospitals to do nothing but stand empty – as well as a host of 'estimated expenditures' and other 'reimbursements' – well, that starts to reak of corruption, perhaps even embezzling.
Denver airport.
"Congressman Eliot Engel, chair of the USA's House Foreign Affairs Committee, has bragged that he sits down with the rightwing pro-Israel organization AIPAC on 'every piece of legislation coming out of the Foreign Affairs Committee.'"
In 2001, a court declared that Tom Cruise "is not, and never has been, homosexual and has never had a homosexual affair". Cruise then dropped a $100 million defamation suit against the publisher of Bold Magazine for claiming to have a picture of Cruise having sex with another man.
In 1956, Liberace sued a London columnist for suggesting he was gay. Liberace swore he was not.
Hollywood does not like its stars to be known as bisexual or gay.
Rudolf Valentino's career suffered after he was called gay.
Singer Johnny Ray suffered as the result of an article in Confidential Magazine that suggested he had attempted a drunken pass on a man.
On the other hand, it has been reported that Errol Flynn did not seem to mind being labeled bisexual.
Tab Hunter.
Tab Hunter was reportedly arrested at a gay drag party, but survived.
Laurence Olivier, rumoured to be bisexual, became a Lord.
Cary Grant's career blossomed while living openly with Randolph Scott.
Rock Hudson was widely known to cruise gay bars, but continued to make films.
In his autobiography, Marlon Brando related that he had had homosexual affairs.
John Wayne.
Tyrone Power, Gary Cooper, John Wayne and Clark Gable were said to be bisexual, but contined to be big stars.
Barbara Walters asked Ricky Martin whether or not he is gay. Martin replied that his sexuality is private.
Ben Affleck and Matt Damon have allowed themselves to be photographed on the same bed.
James Dean, Errol Flynn, Cary Grant, Rock Hudson, Charles Laughton, Danny Kay, Luchino Visconti, Montgomery Clift, Rudolph Valentino, Richard Burton....
James Dean and Marlon Brando
Among those who have acknowledged having had a same-sex experience
'Open Secret: Gay Hollywood' by David Ehrenstein refers to a number of 'bisexual' stars such as Richard Chamberlain. It also refers to alleged star couples:
Fatty Arbuckle's career 'was wrecked when it was revealed that he had buggered all twelve Keystone Cops.'
'Raymond Burr was well known for his homosexual liaisons with rent-boys.'
There are allegedly tales of John Wayne wearing women's clothes, the young Clarke Gable being being involved with William Haines and John Wayne having an affair with Gable.
Wayne and Clarke Gable reportedly 'became lovers in 1936.'
Film historian Kevin Brownwing, author of 'The Golden Grope - A History of Hollywood Harassment' writes about John Wayne's use of casting sessions to seduce young males.
"During the 1940s the outwardly conservative and heterosexual Wayne would regularly attend screen tests with director John Ford, in order to size up potential conquests. He'd get Ford to order the young hopefuls to take off their shirts and enact scenes which required them to lift heavy objects or bend over a lot."
Wayne's conquests reportedly included Randolph Scott, Joel McCrea and Montgomery Clift, 'with whom he had a torrid affair during the making of Red River in 1948'.
Gay Tony Curtis (left)
Tony Curtis eventually told the truth.
Tony Curtis took part in the documentary The Celluloid Closet. (Cached)
He admitting to having gay affairs in a 2004 interview with Attitude Magazine.
Other reportedly gay entertainers include (Cached):
ROBERT WAGNER LEE MAJORS LIBERACE FABIAN JOHNNY WEISMULLER MARLON BRANDO RICHARD GERE JOE DALLESANDRO JOHNNY CRAWFORD
PETER FONDA JAMES DEAN JOHN TRAVOLTA CHRISTOPHER ATKINS TYRONE POWER ERROL FLYNN KEITH CARRADINE BOBBY CARRADINE ROCK HUDSON YUL BRYNNER
DAVID CASSIDY (DAVID CASSIDY) BURT REYNOLDS SHAUN CASSIDY MARTIN SHEEN ROBBIE BENSON MATT DILLON GARY GRIMES ALAIN DELON TOM JONES ROBERT MORLEY RICHARD CHAMBERLAIN HARDY KRUGER PAUL NEWMAN VALENTINO RORY CALHOUN
TOM RETTIG DAVID BOWIE MICK JAGGER CHUCK CONNORS TERRY THOMAS KEITH RICHARDS GEORGE HAMILTON TAB HUNTER RAMON NOVARRO TOMMY KIRK RODDY McDOWALL TOM BERRINGER DENNIS HOPPER HARRY BELAFONTE CHARLES BRONSON MONTGOMERY CLIFT FRANKIE AVALON JACK BENNY BURT LANCASTER BRODERICK CRAWFORD VAN JOHNSON CLIFTON WEBB JAN-MICHAEL VINCENT AUDIE MURPHY VINCENT PRICE MIKHAIL BARYSHNIKOV
BOBBY DRISCOLL BRANDON de WILDE PETER USTINOV ELTON JOHN BURT BACHARACH GLENN CAMPBELL RICK NELSON CHARLES LAUGHTON MALCOLM McDOWALL SYLVESTER STALLONE ROD McKUEN DAVID ESSEX DEAN STOCKWELL CESAR ROMERO ELVIS WALT DISNEY VIC MORROW AL PACINO JEFF BRIDGES STEVE MCQUEEN TERENCE STAMP