March 3rd

03-03-1900 – 10-17-1987 Ruby Dandridge – Born in Wichita, Kansas. She was an American actress from the early 1900s to the 1950s. Dandridge is best known for her role on the radio show Amos ’n Andy. She played “Sally” in the 1959 movie A Hole in the Head. For one season (1961-1962), Dandridge played the maid on the TV show Father Knows Best. She was married in 1919 to Cyril Dandridge and divorced in 1922. Her second daughter born in 1922 was the Academy Award-nominated actress Dorothy Dandridge. After her divorce, Ruby became romantically involved with Geneva Williams. She died of a heart attack in 1987.

03-03-1903 – 09-13-1959 Adrian – Born in Naugatuck, Connecticut. He was an American fashion and costume designer. Born as Adrian Adolph Greenberg. His most famous costumes were for The Wizard of Oz and other MGM films of the 1930s and 1940s. During his career, he designed costumes for over 250 films. Adrian was most famous for his evening gown designs for stars like Greta Garbo, Norma Shearer, Jeanette MacDonald, Jean Harlow, Katharine Hepburn, and Joan Crawford. He also designed the ruby slippers for Judy Garland in the 1939 classic, The Wizard of Oz that are now on display at the Smithsonian. Though he was openly gay, he married Janet Gaynor ( who was a lesbian) in 1939, possibly in response to the anti-gay attitudes of the movie studio heads and the sex-negative atmosphere created by the Production Code. They remained married until his death in 1959. Gaynor and Adrian had one son, Robin, born in 1940.

03-03-1926 – 02-06-1995   James Ingram Merrill – Born in New York City, New York. He was an American poet. In 1977 he was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for poetry for Divine Comedies. He also wrote essays, fiction, and plays. His father was one of the founding partners of the Merrill Lynch investment firm, his mother was a society reporter and publisher. Merrill’s partner for three decades was writer and artist, David Jackson. Despite great personal wealth from an unbreakable trust made early in his childhood, Merrill lived modestly. He created the Ingram Merrill Foundation in the 1950s. The private foundation subsidized literature, the arts, and public television. He met filmmaker Maya Deren in 1945 and the poet Elizabeth Bishop a few years later, giving much needed financial assistance to both as well as providing funds to hundreds of other writers, often anonymously. On February 6, 1995, he died of from a heart attack related to AIDS. His ashes and the remains of David Jackson are buried side by side. 

03-03-1756 – 01-15-1815 Françoise Marie Antoinette Saucerotte (called Mlle Raucourt) – Born in Nancy, France. She was a French actress that was with the Comédie Française from 1772 to 1799, where she became famous as a tragedienne. Her beauty and talent made her famous but her love affairs with other women made her notorious. One of her lovers was the opera soprano Sophie Arnould. At the outbreak of the French Revolution she was imprisoned for six months with other royalist members of the Comédie Française. In prison she met her last lover, Hanriette Simonnot-Ponty, with whom she lived with until her death in 1815. 

03-03-1968 Patrick Guerriero – Place of birth unknown. He is a former Massachusetts state legislator, mayor, and advocate for marriage equality. On January 1, 2003, Guerriero succeeded Rich Tafel as leader of the Log Cabin Republicans (gay Republican organization). In early 2004, he earned national recognition for successfully challenging President George W. Bush – launching the first national television ad that helped defeat Bush’s proposed Federal Marriage Amendment. In October 2004, Guerriero filed Log Cabin Republicans v. United States challenging the constitutionality of the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy. On September 1, 2006, he became the first executive director of the Gill Action Fund, an organization working to advance gay and lesbian equality through the legislative, political, and electoral process.

03-03-1972 – 06-25-2009 Yasmine (Hilde Rens) – Born in Antwerp, Belgium. She was a Belgian singer, presenter, and television personality. She came out as a lesbian in 1996, becoming an established LGBT icon for Flemish and Dutch youth. Yasmine further positioned herself as a leading LGBT icon by marrying television personality Marianne Dupon (winner of the reality TV show De Mol) in 2003. The couple divorced in April 2009. On June 25, 2009, Yasmine committed suicide – her suicide reportedly followed a severe depression allegedly over her split with Dupon.

03-03-1973 Xavier Bettel – Born in Luxembourg City, Luxembourg. He is the first openly gay Prime Minister of Luxembourg, December 4, 2013. He is the third openly gay head of government following Iceland’s former Prime Minister, Jóhanna Sigurôadóttir and Belgium’s former Prime Minister, Elio Di Rupo. As of October 2014, he was the only gay world leader. Bettel married his long time partner, Gauthier Destenay. They were married in 2015, when the same-sex marriage laws came into effect.