Out Spotlight LXXX

Today's Out Spotlight is Christopher Isherwood and Don Bachardy.

Author Christopher Isherwood was born in Northwest England in 1904, and was a major figure in the gay rights movement. His writing has served as a unifying cause for gay rights in the twentieth century. His novels and biographies sympathetically portray the intimate lives of gay characters to demonstrate their normalcy, and he
attempts to fit his writing in with the work of other gay authors, creating an identity out of a new tradition. Consequently, the majority of criticism has focused on the various ways in which hechampioned gay causes in his writing.

He maybe best known by OMG readers for what his writings inspired. Isherwood left England to visit friend and mentor W.H.Auden in Germany in 1928 for several weeks, but decided to stay in Berlin,the capital of the young Weimar Republic, drawn by its deserved reputation for sexual freedom. During that time he met his inspiration for Sally Bowles and Mr.Norris. And while working as a private tutor in Berlin and elsewhere he wrote the novel Mr Norris Changes Trains (1935) and a series of short stories collected under the title Goodbye to Berlin (1939). These provided the inspiration for the play I Am a Camera, the subsequent musical Cabaret and the film of the same name.

Artist Don Bachardy was born in Los Angeles on May 18, 1934, he began drawing as a child. By his early teenage years, he was specializing in portraits rendered in ink and acrylics. Bachardy attributes his interest in looking at people to his childhood obsession with movies, a passion carried into his adult life.

Isherwood immigrated to the U.S. in 1939, with long time friend W.H. Auden. Having established himself in the U.S., Isherwood found himself in California by the start of the 1950's. In 1952, the 48-year old Isherwood met the 18-year-old Don Bachardy at Will Rogers State Beach in October and by early the following year, the two had begun an life long love story and partnership that lasted until Isherwood's death. "They were a high-profile, openly gay couple whose meeting coincided with one of the most homophobic decades in American history, the era of McCarthyism, when homosexuals were being driven out of the State Department."

Yet to the gay community at large, as well as those who were casually acquainted with the couple, Isherwood and Bachardy seemed to live an enviably idyllic existence in their hillside Santa Monica home, where they entertained the leading figures of the world of arts and letters, and the movie stars that a young Bachardy once sought out for autographs growing up in Los Angeles.

Their relationship was a challenge not only a openly gay relationship in 1950's America, but the age difference. Barchardy was 30 years Isherwood's junior and was boyishly handsome making him look underage.

Bachardy was subjected to considerable homophobia in Hollywood, it was directed pointedly at him rather than Isherwood, who was protected by his celebrity status. Evelyn Hooker, the psychologist whose 1950s research showing that homosexuality is not a mental illness helped launch gay liberation, asked Isherwood to leave the guest cottage he rented from her when Bachardy moved in with him.

Isherwood established and with mentors and contempories such as W.H.Auden, E.M. Forester, and others in literary, arts and film circles sometimes overwhelmed the young Bachardy who was also sometimes disregarded by Isherwood's famous friends. But Isherwood encouraged Bachardy's talent for drawing and, in a relatively short time, Bachardy became an internationally acclaimed artist in his own right.

While Isherwood would go on to write about his life long love, Bachardy drew and painted about his. Isherwood was the subject of countless portraits painted by Bachardy. After Isherwood was diagnosis with prostate cancer in 1981, Bachardy devoted himself to nursing his partner and painting portraits of him everyday. Even after his death Barchardy spent hours drawing Isherwood's corpse.

Isherwood wrote of Barchardy and their relationship:

"I myself didn't feel guilty about it, but I did feel awed by the emotional intensity of our relationship, right from its beginning; the strange sense of a fated, mutual discovery. I knew that, this time, I had really committed myself."
My Guru and His Disciple (1980)

And about Barchardy "the ideal companion to whom you can reveal yourself totally and yet be loved for what you are, not what you pretend to be."
Christopher and His Kind (1976)

Isherwood and Barchardy were together for 43 years until Isherwood's death in 1986. Their extraordinary love story has been chronicled in the documentary, Chris & Don. A Love Story.

Chris & Don. A Love Story

Chris & Don. A Love Story (IMDB)