February 26th

02-26-1935 Jane Wagner – Born in Morristown, Tennessee. She is an American writer, director, and producer. Best known as Lily Tomlin’s comedy writer, collaborator, and wife. She has been nominated for Grammy Awards, with Tomlin, for Comic’s Recorded Albums, has won three Emmy Awards, and a Writers Guild of America award, also with Tomlin, for Comic’s Television Specials. She wrote and directed Moment by Moment, staring Tomlin and John Travolta, and wrote the Incredible Shrinking Woman, which starred Tomlin. The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe won Wagner a Special Award from the New York Drama Critics’ Circle and a New York Drama Desk Award. The film adaptation of the play brought her a Cable ACE Award. On March 16, 2012, Wagner and Tomlin received the 345th star on the Walk of Stars in Palm Springs, California.

02-26-1564 – 05-30-1593 Christopher Marlowe – Born in Canterbury, United Kingdom. He was an English playwright, poet, and translator of the Elizabethan era. He greatly influenced William Shakespeare, who was born the same year as Marlowe. Marlow’s plays are known for the use of blank verse. There were rumors of his homosexuality and some scholars point out Marlow’s homosexual themes in his writing. He was reported as saying; “All they that love not Tobacco and Boys are fools.” In Hero and Leander, Marlow writes of the male youth Leander, “in his looks were all that men desire.” There is also a passage in Edward the Second that supports homosexual relationships: “The mightiest kings have had they minions; Great Alexander loved Hephaestion, the conquering Hercules for Hylas wept; And for Patroclus, stern Achilles drooped. And not kings only, but the wisest men: The roman Tully loved Octavius, Grave Socrates, wild Alcibiades.”

02-26-1879 – 08-13-1962 Mabel Dodge Luhan – Born in Buffalo, New York. She was a wealthy American patron of the arts. She is especially associated with the Taos art colony. Mabel became a nationally syndicated columnist for the Hearst organization. She was married many times and was actively bisexual during her early life and details of her passionate physical encounters with women are in her autobiography Intimate Memories (1933). In 1919, she, her husband, and Elsie Clews Parsons moved to Taos, New Mexico and started a literary colony there. They hosted a number of influential artists and poets including Marsden Hartley, Arnold Ronnebeck, Louise Emerson Ronnebeck, Ansel Adams, Willa Cather, Robinson Jeffers, Georgia O’Keeffe, Mary Hunter Austin, Frank Waters, Jaime de Angulo, and others. She died at her home in Taos in 1962. The Mabel Dodge Luhan House has been designated a National Historic Landmark and is now a historic inn and conference center. Dennis Hopper bought the house after seeing it while filming Easy Rider.

02-26-1955   Reverend August Gold – Place of birth unknown. She is a licensed and ordained Interfaith Minister since 1990. Gold has served as a spiritual founder and director of Sacred Center New York. For twenty five years she was a teacher, counselor, and spiritual mentor in New York City and a volunteer at the Manhattan Center for Living, Gay Men’s Health Crisis, and the Samaritans Suicide Hotline. Her award-winning book, Where Does God Live?, is considered one of the best introductions to ideas about God and oneself for children. Her books, with co-author Joel Fotinos, have been translated into 15 languages. October, 20, 2011, Huffington Post listed her as one of ninety inspiring LGBT  religious leaders.

02-26-1974 Jenna Wolfe – Born in Kingston, Jamaica, and grew up in Pétionville, Haiti. Both her parents were Jewish, her father from Puerto Rico and her mother from New Jersey. She came out March 27, 2013 with the announcement of her pregnancy. Her partner is Stephanie Gosk. Wolfe was correspondent for NBC’s Today Show, and the news anchor of their Weekend edition. Her wife, Stephanie Gosk, also works for NBC. Wolfe’s final day as news anchor was September 21, 2014.