November 11th

11-11-1872 – 07-17-1953 Maude Adams – Born in Salt Lake City, Utah. She was an American actress. Adams began performing as a child while accompanying her actress mother on tour. At the age of 16, she made her Broadway debut. Beginning in 1897, Adams starred in plays by J. M. Barrie, including The Little Minister, Quality Street, What Every Woman Knows and Peter Pan. In 1905, she achieved her greatest success playing the character of Peter Pan on Broadway. She became the most popular actress in New York and became the highest-paid performer of her day, earning more than one million dollars a year. It was known that she sometimes supplemented the salaries of other actors out of her own pay. Once while touring, a theater owner doubled the price of tickets knowing Adams’s name meant a sold-out house. Adams made the owner refund the difference before she would appear on stage. When she retired, she became the head of the drama department at Stephens College in Missouri, from 1937 to 1943. Adams, a lesbian, had two long-term relationships, from the early 1890s until 1901 with Lillie Florence and with Louise Boynton from 1905 until 1951. She died at the age of 80. Louise Boynton is buried alongside her.

11-11-1872 – 06-11-1947 David I. Walsh – Born in Leominster, Massachusetts. He was a politician from Massachusetts. Walsh served in the U.S. Senate from 1926 to 1947. At the 1924 Democratic National Convention, he spoke in favor of condemning the Ku Klux Klan by name in the party platform. On May 7, 1942, the New York Post implicated Walsh in a sensational sex and spy scandal uncovered at a Brooklyn male brothel (or bathhouse) for U.S. Navy personnel that had been infiltrated by Nazi spies. The charges went unreported by the rest of the press, but word of mouth made it, according to Time, “one of the worst scandals that ever affected a member of the Senate.” The brothel’s owner and several others arrested in a police raid identified Walsh to the police as “Doc,” a regular client. President Roosevelt believed the charge that Walsh was homosexual was true. He told Vice President Henry Wallace that “everyone knew” about Walsh’s homosexuality.” Basically, the charge against Walsh was covered up.

11-11-1979 Courtnay Semel – Born in Beverly Hills, California. Her father is Terry Semel, the former Yahoo CEO. She was known as the “lesbian Don Juan.” As a Beverly Hills socialite and heiress, she was sent to rehab eight times for drug addiction and depression. In 2009, she was financially cut off from her family, spiraled out of control, and entered rehab for exhaustion. A year later, her ex-girlfriend, Casey Johnson (Johnson & Johnson heiress) died from complications of diabetes. In a 2014 interview, she talked about her addiction to the Hollywood fast lane, using drugs and alcohol. Semel has now earned her master’s degree in clinical psychology. “I’m a therapist now,” said Semel, who has plans to open a private practice and raising funds for a treatment center in Los Angeles, where she’ll head up the young adult program. “My motto is I’m dying for people to be addicted to living,” said Semel. She is an advocate for LGBT rights.