'Sometimes he would show up at my apartment, when I was playing the Palladium, dressed as a woman. Very elegant, and Kathleen [ his wife ] would talk about how she had put on his lashes and made him up. He'd say, 'I am basically a lesbian.'' — Shirley MacLaine on Kenneth Tynan, circa 1976, as quoted in the April 2006 issue of Vanity Fair.
'And Garbo? She made a pass at me, but I told her I wasn't interested.' — Silent star Louise Brooks [ who became a lesbian icon after her appearance as Lulu in G. W. Pabst's 1929 classic Pandora's Box ] to Tynan, as quoted in the April 2006 issue of Vanity Fair.
'He was the woman and she was the man.' — MacLaine on the affair between the fiftysomething Tynan and 71-year-old Brooks, as quoted in the April 2006 issue of Vanity Fair.
'I'd say it's about a third as many people [ as usual ] , but we only have 25 percent of our hotel rooms. Also, most people usually crash with their friends and 80 percent of the houses are gone, so their friends aren't here either. So, I think this is actually very promising. People are going to get here one way or another. I have more people staying with me this year than ever. I pretty much serve as a hotel right now.' — Mardi Gras partier Volney Hill outside a Bourbon Street gay bar in New Orleans, to this column, Feb. 28.
'We wouldn't have missed this year for the world. This is the second-best Mardi Gras I've been to. The spirit, the attitudes, the blue-tarp theme, the Katrina theme, the FEMA theme, the costumes are more elaborate. The last good one was when Jerry Falwell did the Tinky Winky thing. The street was covered in purple Tinky Winkys. So there's a theme this year, something to poke fun at. People felt a need to come down and help and just be here. Being here helps.' — Mardi Gras partier Paul Landry of Houston outside a Bourbon Street gay bar in New Orleans, to this column, Feb. 28.
'I will not permit such parades. My philosophy is my negative attitude to these phenomena, as I believe them to be unnatural to the human nature, though I try to be tolerant to whatever develops in human society.' — Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov in Berlin Feb. 22 reiterating his promise to ban Moscow's first gay-pride parade, which is planned for May, as quoted by Interfax. Luzhkov was speaking at a press conference with the mayors of Paris, London and Berlin. Paris Mayor Bertrand Delanoë and Berlin Mayor Klaus Wowereit are openly gay.
'We should all have our own [ TV ] network—gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transsexuals—instead of being grouped together [ on a single network ] . I watch Spike TV, because the men on there are hot. I don't need a network to tell me people's coming out stories—I've got friends. If I wanted to hear coming out stories, I'd throw a dinner party. It's so segregated and it's preaching to the choir. Why watch movies we already own on DVD?' — Gay singer Jinx Titanic, of the band of the same name, to Chicago's Windy City Times, March 1.
As reported in Newsweek March 20, 2006 issue Perspectives page 25: 'If people didn't want me to be king, they wouldn't have nominated me and voted for me ... People just like me.' — Jennifer Jones, 21, an openly gay student at Hood College in Frederick, Md., who was named homecoming king after beating out three men in the school's second annual homecoming competition, as quoted in the March 20 issue of Newsweek.
