Harold Lang & Gore Vidal

[Ray]

From the book Eminent Outlaws: The Gay Writers Who Changed America by Christopher Bram (Hachette, 2012):

"In 1946, shortly after he started ballet lessons for the rheumatoid arthritis he'd developed in the Aleutians during the war, Gore Vidal became involved with handsome dancer Harold Lang" (p. 3).

[Paul Parish]

To think it was once sexy to wear bathing suits at your waist line, and minimize the basket!

[carbro]

During the Balanchine Centennial at what was still legally known as the New York State Theater, one of the photos displayed in the bay of the east elevator on the orchestra level was a photo of Vidal and others, including Jerome Robbins and an especially radiant Tanaquil LeClercq, at a picnic table. I don't remember whether Laing was among them.

[Paul Parish]

Wonderful photo, saw it in some context -- probably the Tanny novel -- recently. i don't think Laing was in it, either.

He WOULD have been associated with City Center Ballet, probably, when Tudor did his brief stint with them....

[atm711]

Ah. yes....Gore (we knew him as Gene) Vidal was a member of my ballet class with George Chaffee around that time...he wore white tennis shorts to class.....

[dirac]

Vidal has written about his brief affair with Lang. The latter was apparently chasing (and catching) anything that wasn't red hot or nailed down and there are limits to the open-relationship thing, one gathered.

The "picnic table" photo is well known and widely reproduced, most recently I think when Donald Windham died.

[sandik]

The "picnic table" photo is well known and widely reproduced, most recently I think when Donald Windham died.

Thanks so much for this link -- I hadn't heard of Flair magazine, and now am going to go look around!