June 10th

06-10-1922 – 06-22-1969 Judy Garland – Born in Grand Rapids, Minnesota. She was an American singer, actress, and vaudevillian. Her career spanned more than forty years as an actress, recording artist and on concert stages. Her portrayal as Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz (1939), still remains a classic. Her album, Live at Carnegie Hall (April 23, 1961), has been called “the greatest night in show business history.” She was married to Vincente Minnelli, a gay man from 1945 to 1951. Garland is one of the biggest gay icons. The LGBT community admired her as a performer and her personal struggles seemed to mirror those of the gay community. It has also been suggested that the rainbow flag may have been inspired in part by Garland’s Over the Rainbow. From the beginning of her Hollywood career, she liked to visit gay bars with openly gay friends Roger Edens and George Cukor. In the 1960s, a reporter asked her how she felt about having a large gay following. She replied, “I couldn’t care less. I sing to people.” She died from an accidental overdose of barbiturates. Her funeral, held in New York City, on June 27, 1969, was one day before the Stonewall riots. Time magazine wrote decades later: “The uprising was inspired by a potent cocktail of pent-up rage (raids of gay bars were brutal and routine), overwrought emotions (hours earlier, thousands had wept at the funeral of Judy Garland) and drugs.” Garland’s daughter Lorna Luft points to the connection with pride, saying that her mother was a “huge, huge advocate of human rights” and that Garland would have found the rioting appropriate.

06-10-1895 – 10-26-1952 Hattie McDaniel – Born in Wichita, Kansas. She was an African-American radio, stage and film actress, singer-songwriter and comedian. Her most famous role was that of Mammy in Gone With the Wind (1939), for which she won the Academy Award to Best Supporting Actress, the first Academy Award won by an African American entertainer. She was also the first black woman to sing on the radio in the United States. Although she received screen credit for 80 films, she appeared in over 300. McDaniel’s had five short term marriages. She was discreetly bisexual. One of her lovers was Tullulah Bankhead. When McDaniel’s and other African-Americans moved into the West Adams Heights neighborhood of Los Angeles, white residents filed a lawsuit against her and the others, because the deeds included a clause forbidding sale to ‘non-Caucasians.’ McDaniel’s organized her black neighbors and they fought back. The suit got to court in 1945 and the judge ruled in favor of McDaniel and the rest of the defendants based on the 14th amendment. As a result, she retained her longtime home at 2203 S. Harvard Blvd. until her death from breast cancer in 1952. Preserving Historic LGBT Sites in California says, “The house still stands and most of the grounds are preserved. The site is one of the most significant in California for the intersectional histories of Hollywood, bisexuality, African-Americans, women and civil rights organizing.”

06-10-1951   Sharon Farmer – Born in Washington, D.C. She is a photojournalist. In 1993, she was hired by the Clinton administration to cover President Bill Clinton and First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton. She was later promoted to Chief Official White House photographer becoming the first African-American and first woman to hold this title. Before working for the White House, she had worked as a photographer for the Smithsonian Institution, The Washington Post, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Her work has been included in multiple exhibits, including: Songs of My People, Art against AIDS, Gospel in the Projects, and Our View of Struggle. In 2010 she was listed in lgbt History Month as a lesbian icon. 

06-10-1899 – 11-10-1928 Anita Berber – Born in Leipzig, Germany. She was a German dancer, actress, and writer. At the age of sixteen, she moved to Berlin and became a cabaret dancer. By 1918 she was working in film. In 1919, she began to dance in the nude. Because of her androgynous looks, she quickly became famous. It was her public appearances that were considered scandalous because of her overt use of drugs and her bisexuality. Berber was addicted to cocaine, opium, and morphine and was a heavy drinker as well. In 1919, she married a man for convenience and later left him for a woman named Susi Wanowski. She became a part of the Berlin lesbian scene. Her second marriage was in 1922 and lasted until 1923. Then in 1925, she married Henri Chatin-Hofmann, a gay American dancer. She died in 1928 from a severe case of tuberculosis.

06-10-1974 Dustin Lance Black – Born in Sacramento, California. He is an American screenwriter, director, film, and television producer and LGBT rights activist. He has won a Writers Guild of America Award and an Academy Award Screenwriter for the 2008 film Milk. Black is a founding board member of the American Foundation for Equal Rights and writer of 8, a staged reenactment of the federal trial that led to a federal court’s overturn of California’s Proposition 8. Black grew up in a Mormon household. Growing up surrounded by Mormon culture and military bases, he worried about his sexuality. When he found himself attracted to a boy in his neighborhood at the age of six or seven, he told himself, “I’m going to hell. And if I ever admit it, I’ll be hurt, and I’ll be brought down.” He said that his “acute awareness” of his sexuality made him dark, shy and at times suicidal. He came out in his senior year of college. Black is in a relationship with British Olympic diver Tom Daley. The two live together in London.

06-10-1963   Petra De Sutter – Born in Oudenaarde, Belgium. She is a Belgian gynecologist and politician, currently serving as federal Deputy Prime Minister. In 2000, she was named Professor in Reproductive Medicine of Gent University Hospital. In 2014, she became the first openly transgender Belgian to be on a party election list. Since her political debut, De Sutter has tackled important issues, including standing up for rights for LGBT people. On October 1, 2020, she was sworn in as one of seven deputy prime ministers in the government of Prime Minister Alexander De Croo, becoming Europe’s first transgender deputy prime minister, and the most senior trans politician in Europe.

06-10-1969 Jane Amanda Hill – Born in Eastbourne, Sussex. England. She one of the main newscasters on the BBC News Channel. and is a relief anchor for the BBC News at One, as well as regularly presenting the BBC Weekend News. In 2014, she appeared as herself in the science fiction action film, Edge of Tomorrow, with Tom Cruise and Emily Blunt. In 2016, Hill appeared in the BBC comedy series, No Such Thing as the News. Hill is openly lesbian and is in a civil partnership with Sara Shepherd, a camera operator. The couple lives in north London.

06-10-1929 – 01-17-2005 Basil Hoskins – Born in Edmonton, London, United Kingdom. He was an English actor in film and on the London stage. His best- known films are Ice Cold in Alex (1958) and North West Frontier (1959). On television, he played the part of Number 14 on The Prisoner television series. He was the long term romantic partner of fellow English actor Harry Andrews.

06-10-1964 Ben Daniels – Born in Nuneaton, Warwickshire, England, UK. He is an English stage and TV actor. Daniels was nominated for Best Actor at the Evening Standard Awards for Best Supporting Actor in the Laurence Olivier Awards for Never the Sinner (1991), 900 Oneonta (1994), Best Actor in the M. E. N. Theatre Awards for Martin Yesterday (1998), and won the Oliver award in 2001 for his performance in the Arthur Miller play All My Sons. Has appeared on popular television series including Cutting It, The Virgin Queen, The Paradise, and House of Cards. He has always been openly gay. His partner is English actor Ian Gelder.

06-10-1979 Assi Azar – Born in Holon, Israel. He is an Israeli television personality, who co-hosts Big Brother – Israel with Erez Tal. In 2005 he came out. Shortly after, he began to write and film his documentary Mom and Dad: I Have Something to Tell You.

06-10-1981 Jonathan Bennett – Born in Rossford, Ohio. He is an American actor best known for playing Aaron Samuels in the 2004 comedy film Mean Girls, and his roles in the television series Veronica Mars and the ABC soap opera All My Children. He has dated actor Matt Dallas.

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