![]() ![]() The reasons for secrecy go beyond American society’s reluctance to discuss human sexuality. Why all the secrecy for a man who was a major contributor to Alfred Kinsey’s studies of male sexuality, and who lived 14 years beyond the 1969 Stonewall uprising that launched the modern gay liberation movement? Why is it that no one before Spring assembled the myriad pieces of Steward’s life? Were he alive today, Steward would probably chair a university’s queer studies department, but for most of his days Steward’s sexual behavior was not only considered immoral and psychologically perverse, it was also illegal.Īs Spring notes in a skillful afterword that offers insight into the craft of research, Steward’s papers have been “kept under close guard” by the repositories that held parts of them: the Kinsey Institute, Yale’s Beinecke Library, Brown University’s John Hay Collection and Boston University. Most know Chamberlain’s name, but few have heard of Steward, whose life Justin Spring lays bare for the first time in Secret Historian, which was a 2010 National Book Award finalist. In many instances there was also photographic evidence. Modesty was neither man’s strong suit, but unlike Chamberlain, Steward meticulously documented each of his conquests in a private “stud file” that recorded names, places and graphic details. His gay counterpart, Samuel Steward (1909–93), claimed a more modest 4,647 sexual encounters. From the New York World-Telegram and the Sun Newspaper Photograph Collection at the Library of Congress.When basketball legend Wilt Chamberlain declared he had slept with 20,000 women, most observers dismissed his assertion as improbable braggadocio. Here it is, taken July 24, 1926, the day that Valentino was purportedly trysting with Samuel Steward in scenic Columbus, Ohio. Skeptics are invited to inspect the July 25, 1926, New York Times. Umberto Nobile, who was sailing for Italy. ![]() Alas, the Tribune editor declined to have a duel, and Valentino remained in New York, where he had his picture taken July 24, bidding farewell to polar explorer Gen. ![]() He arrived in New York on July 21, spouting a lot of things about challenging a Tribune editor to a duel. It is always a bad move for a total bs-er to give an exact date, especially when it involves someone as prominent as Valentino, one of the most famous men on the planet at the time.īecause we can use online news sources to easily confirm that Valentino was nowhere near Columbus, Ohio.įor the record, thanks to the New York Times, we can state positively that Valentino stopped in Chicago on July 20, 1926, where he was the subject of an editorial in the Chicago Tribune titled “Pink Powder Puffs. Oh dear… we have another Scotty Bowers-like opus, “Secret Historian.” Valentino was supposedly in scenic Columbus, Ohio, where he was visited by Steward.įortunately for the ardent researcher, we have the precise date of the purported tryst, July 24, 1926, the day after Steward turned 17. Nonsense in “Secret Historian.” Doesn’t anybody do real research anymore? The next step is to find this 1989 interview with Carl Maves and in fairly short order we have: Here’s the link in case you care to check my work. So it’s off to Google Books, which has helpfully posted some preview pages, including this: Our next step is to examine the book - and if you think I’m spending a penny on this nonsense, you’re crazy. 23, 1926, and after years of being a fact-checking shark I can already smell blood in the water. Steward was born July 23, 1909, according to records on, which means that he was barely 17 when Valentino died Aug. That would be the claim that one of Steward’s “marquee conquests” (as established by an index card “stud file”) was Rudolph Valentino. The moment I read the review I thought “Oh, Scotty Bowers rides again!”įact-Checking “Full Service”: Part 1| Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5| Part 6| Part 7| Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16| Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20| Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26Īnd in less than an hour, one of the statements in the review can be tossed into the trash. The case in point is today’s review in the New York Times by Jennifer Senior of “Philip Sparrow Tells All,” edited by Jeremy Mulderig. I may have retired, but I haven’t lost any of my annoyance over b.s.
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