Passions : Sexuality : Gay

Jess Collins (August 6, 1923 – January 2, 2004), simply known today as Jess, was an American visual artist.

Bruno Balz (6 October 1902, in Berlin – 14 March 1988, in Bad Wiessee) was a German songwriter and schlager writer.
From the time he wrote the music for the first German sound film until his retirement in the 1960s, Balz was responsible for the lyrics to over a thousand popular hits. Much of his output was in conjunction with the composer Michael Jary; their songs helped make the singer Zarah Leander popular.
Balz was arrested several times for homosexuality. In 1936, he spent several months in prison, and was released under an agreement that mandated that his name was no longer to appear in public. To maintain the appearance of propriety, he entered a "lavender marriage" with a woman named Selma. He was rearrested in 1941 by the Gestapo and was kept in the Gestapo headquarters in Prinz-Albrecht-Straße. He was released from imprisonment by the intervention of Jary, who persuaded officials that he could produce songs that would aid the war effort. Within a day of his release, they had written two of their greatest successes, "Davon geht die Welt nicht unter" ("This Will Not End the World") and "Ich weiß, es wird einmal ein Wunder gescheh'n" ("I Know Some Day a Miracle Will Happen"). His film songs for Leander, a star of UFA musicals which were later criticised as having helped public and armed forces morale during the war, became anthems for homosexuals imprisoned in concentration camps.
The fall of the Nazi regime did not spell an end to the persecution of Balz, as Paragraph 175, the law against homosexuality, continued in force. Thus his name is considerably less well-known than if he had been properly credited for his lyrics.
Balz's companion was painter and actor Jürgen Draeger, who was enjoined by a clause in Balz's will from talking about their relations for ten years following Balz's death.
The Bruno Balz Theatre in Berlin is named for him.

Sebastian Droste (born Willÿ Knobloch; 2 February 1898 – 27 June 1927) was a German poet, actor, and dancer associated with the underground art subculture of the Weimar Republic in the 1920s.
Droste relocated from his hometown of Hamburg to Berlin in 1919. He earned a living as a naked dancer, choreographer and expressionist poet. His first poem appeared in April edition of Der Sturm that same year, titled 'Tanz' (Dance). A further 15 poems and ‘grotesques’ appeared across 12 editions of the journal alongside other artists and poets such as Kurt Schwitters and Paul Klee. He alternated between publishing under the name Willy or Willi Knobloch. Also in 1919 he published a drama in the Dresden based expressionist journal Menschen.In 1922, Droste married expressionist exotic dancer and actress in silent movies of the Berlin scene, Anita Berber. She and Droste performed fantasias with titles such as "Suicide," "Morphium," and "Mad House". Droste appeared as a dancer in the silent movie Algol.
In 1923, Droste and Berber jointly published a book of poetry, photographs, and drawings called Die Tänze des Lasters, des Grauens und der Ekstase (Dances of Vice, Horror, and Ecstasy), based on their performance of the same name. Full of expressionist imagery, the book offered a glimpse into the angst and cynicism shadowing their artistic and personal existences. Their marriage ended in 1923.
In 1925, Droste met with photographer Francis Bruguière in New York City where he styled himself as Baron Willy Sebastian Knobloch Droste. Together they composed over 60 photographs for a proposed expressionist film starring Drost tentatively titled The Way. UFA GmbH rejected the proposal and the photographs were instead published as part of a photographic journal in Die Dame in July 1925.
Droste was diagnosed with tuberculosis in early 1927. He returned to his parents' home in Hamburg, where he died on June 27 of the same year.

Daniel James Negley Farson (8 January 1927 – 27 November 1997) was a British writer and broadcaster, strongly identified with the early days of commercial television in the UK, when his sharp, investigative style contrasted with the BBC's more deferential culture.
Farson was a prolific biographer and autobiographer, chronicling the bohemian life of Soho and his own experiences of running a music-hall pub on east London's Isle of Dogs. His memoirs were titled Never a Normal Man.

Alexander Cañedo (December 26, 1902 – February 1, 1978) was a Mexican-American artist who was part of the surrealism and magic realism art movements of the mid-20th century.

John Cabell "Bunny" Breckinridge (August 6, 1903 – November 5, 1996) was an American actor and drag queen, best known for his role as "The Ruler" in Ed Wood's film Plan 9 from Outer Space, his only film appearance.

Emilio Carballido (Córdoba, Veracruz, 22 May 1925 – Xalapa, Veracruz, 11 February 2008) was a Mexican writer who earned particular renown as a playwright.
Carballido belonged to the group of writers known as the Generación de los 50, alongside such figures as Sergio Magaña, Luisa Josefina Hernández, Rosario Castellanos, Jaime Sabines, and Sergio Galindo. He studied English literature and earned a master's degree in literature from the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM).
As a playwright his first work was Rosalba y los Llaveros, which premiered at Palacio de Bellas Artes in 1950, directed by well-known poet and stage director Salvador Novo. This was followed by a huge number of plays, including Un pequeño día de ira (1961), which earned him the Casa de las Américas Prize, ¡Silencio Pollos pelones, ya les van a echar su maíz! (1963), Te juro Juana que tengo ganas (1965), Yo también hablo de la rosa (1965), Acapulco los lunes (1969), Las cartas de Mozart (1974), and the box office hit Rosa de dos aromas (1986).
Some of his works as a playwright were filmed for the screen, such as Rosalba y los llaveros (1954), Felicidad (1956), La danza que sueña la tortuga (1975), El censo (1977), Orinoco (1984), and Rosa de dos aromas (1989). In addition to more than a hundred plays and scripts, he also wrote two volumes of short stories and nine novels, and worked randomly as a stage director.
His career in the Mexican film industry began with the script for La torre de marfil, written in collaboration with Luisa Josefina Hernández in 1957. In 1972 he received two Ariels for the storyline and script of Alfonso Arau's El Águila Descalza. On 27 May 2002 he was given the Ariel de Oro for his lifetime achievements which include more than 50 films, remarkably his collaboration in Luis Buñuel's Nazarín (1959).
On 16 March 2007, Carballido and his partner of 20 years, Héctor Herrera, were among the first couples to apply for a civil union following the enactment of the Federal District's 2006 Ley de Sociedad de Convivencia.
Carballido died of a heart attack on 11 February 2008 in Xalapa. Two days later, Governor of Veracruz Fidel Herrera Beltrán ordered a day of mourning in the state and announced that the Theatre of the State and one of the state literary prizes would be renamed after him.