September 19th

09-19-1934 Brian Epstein – Born in Liverpool, Lancashire, England. He was an English music entrepreneur, best known for managing the Beatles. Epstein first discovered the Beatles in November 1961, during a lunchtime Cavern Club performance. He was instantly impressed and saw great potential in the group. After being rejected by nearly all major recording companies in London, Epstein secured a meeting with George Martin, head of EMI’s Parlophone label. In May 1962, Martin agreed to sign the Beatles, partly because of Epstein’s conviction that the group would become internationally famous. In 1997, Paul McCartney said, “If anyone was the Fifth Beatle, it was Brian.” Epstein’s homosexuality was not publicly known until some years after his death, although it had been an open secret among his friends and business associates. McCartney said that when Epstein started to manage the Beatles they knew that he was homosexual but did not care, because he encouraged them professionally and offered them access to previously off-limits social circles. Epstein died of an overdose of Carbitral, a sleeping pill, on August 27, 1967. At the inquest of his death, it was officially ruled an accident; caused by a gradual buildup of Carbitral in his system, combined with alcohol. He was 32. Epstein had a hard time accepting that he was gay and it probably contributed to his overuse of drugs.

09-19-1930 — 09-19-2012   Bettye Lane – Born in Boston, Massachusetts. She was an American photojournalist known for documenting major events within the Feminist Movement, the Civil Rights Movement, and the Gay Rights Movement in the United States. In 1960 she worked for CBS and from 1962–1964 she was with the Saturday Evening Post. She also worked for the National Observer but left in 1977 and became independent. Because of her dedication to photographing the women’s movement, she became known as the official photographer. Lane was one of the few photographers to document the Stonewall Riots. Lesbian author and activist Sarah Schulman wrote, “her photos from the era are classics, showing women, men, trans people, drag, and the people of color intrinsic to the movement at the time.” Lane’s photographs have been featured in more than 70 documentaries and books about the Stonewall Riots. Her legacy is preserved at the Schlesinger Library at Harvard University, the Library of Congress, the National Museum of Women in the Arts, the New York Public Library, the Lesbian Herstory Archives in Brooklyn, and the Rubenstein Library at Duke University. Lane was mostly private about her own sexuality, becoming more open in her later years. She is listed in LGBT artists from the United States.

09-19-1910 – 05-09-1981   Margaret Lindsay – Born in Dubuque, Iowa. She was an American film actress. She was noted for her supporting work in successful films of the 1930s and 1940s such as Jezebel (1938) and Scarlet Street (1945). Four of the Warner films had her co-starring with Bette Davis. Lindsay had leading roles in the Ellery Queen series at Columbia in the early 1940s. She never married. According to biographer and historian William J. Mann, Lindsay was the life partner of musical theatre, film, and television actress Mary McCarty, who predeceased Lindsay.

09-19-1987   Melissa Reid – Born in Derby, England. She is a professional golfer who plays on the Ladies European Tour. In May 2012 Reid’s mother was killed in an automobile crash near Munich while traveling to see her daughter compete in a Ladies Tour Event. In 2015, Reid told ESPM that her life “was a mess…I wasn’t coping. I was hitting the self-destruct button. I was with a lot of people, but I was lonely.” On December 10, 2018, Reid came out as gay in an interview with Athlete Ally. Asked in an interview who inspires you outside of golf? Reid answered, “Roger Federer. I try to be as much like him as possible in terms of how he conducts himself and how professional he is.”

09-19-1883 – 09-02-1975 Mabel Vernon – Born in Wilmington, Delaware. She was a U.S. suffragist, pacifist, and a national leader in the U.S. suffrage movement. Vernon was one of the principal members of the Congressional Union for Women Suffrage and helped organize the Silent Sentinels protests

that involved daily picketing of Woodrow Wilson’s White House. Vernon was among the first six women who were arrested while picketing the White House, under charges of “obstructing the traffic.” They were tried and found guilty on June 26, 1917, and each was ordered to pay a 25 dollar fine or spend three days in jail. All of the women insisted they were innocent and refused to pay the fine. Following the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment, during the 1920s, Vernon supported women candidates for Congress and lobbied on behalf of the Equal Rights Amendment. From 1951 until her death in 1975, Vernon lived with Consuelo Reyes-Calderon in Washington, DC. The couple used to spend time in the summer at Highmeadow, the country home of biographer Alma Lutz and her partner Marguerite Smith.

09-19-1906 — 08-21-1987 Glesca Marshall – Place of birth unknown. She was an actress and is primarily known as the most enduring lover of silent screen actress, Alla Nazimova. Marshall lived with Nazimova at the Garden of Allah Hotel on Sunset Boulevard near the Sunset Strip in Hollywood. In the silent film era, the hotel had been an estate that was Nazimova’s home. Marshall lived there until Nazimova’s death in 1945. Marshall was also the longtime companion of Emily Woodruff, theatrical benefactor and main patron of the Springer Opera House in Columbus, Georgia. Marshall and Woodruff are buried together at Parkhill Cemetery, Columbus, Georgia.

09-19-1876 – 1959 Ethel Mars – Born in Springfield, Illinois. She was an American painter and printmaker. Her work was exhibited regularly as part of the avant-garde art world of Paris in the early twentieth century and with Provincetown, Massachusetts artists during WWII. She studied at the Cincinnati Art Academy where she met fellow student, Maud Hunt Squire, whom she would live and travel with for the rest of her life. By 1906, Mars and Squire had moved to Paris where they were invited to attend the salons of Gertrude Stein and her partner Alice B. Toklas. In 1907, Gertrude Stein immortalized Mars and Squire in her early word portrait, Miss Furr and Miss Skeene. During WWI, the couple returned to the United States and settled in Provincetown, Massachusetts. After the war, the pair returned to Vence, France. With the start of WWII, the couple hid in Grenoble, France. After WWII, they returned to their home in Vence, France. Squire died in 1955; Mars in 1956. The women are buried together in Vence.

09-19- (year unknown) Jim Colucci – Born in Jersey City, New Jersey. He is an American writer and actor. He is known in such films as Strip Poker (1999), The Confirmed Bachelors: The Case of the Botox Bandit (2009), and Betty White Lines (2010). He is the author of The Q Guide to the Golden Girls (2006) and Will & Grace: Fabulously Uncensored (2004). He has been married to Frank DeCaro since August 16, 2011.

09-19-1980 Tegan and Sara (Quin) – Born in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. They are an award-winning Canadian rock bank, Plunk, formed in 1995 in Calgary. Both musicians are songwriters, play guitar, and keyboard. At the age of 15, they used their schools’ recording studio to record two demo albums: Who’s in Your Band? and Play Day. In 1998, they won Calgary’s “Garage Warz” competition. They are identical twins and both openly gay. Their seventh studio album, Heartthrob, was released on January 29, 2013, and debuted on the Billboard top 200 at number 3, the band’s highest charting record to date, selling 49,000 copies in its first week. In March 2014, Tegan and Sara won three Juno Awards for Song of the Year, Pop Album of the Year and Group of the Year. In July 2014, the pop duo opened for Lady Gaga’s 2014 concert tour in Quebec, Canada in front of a crowd of 80,000. In 2015 the sisters took time off from touring to write and record their eighth studio album. The album, Love You to Death, was released on June 3, 2016.

09-19-1985 Maartje Paumen – Born in Geleen, Netherlands. She is a Dutch field hockey player. She was part of the Gold Medal team at the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing and the 2012 Olympic Games in London. She scored a total of 14 goals at the Olympics and became the highest scorer ever. She was also the Top Scorer of the 2010 Women’s Hockey World Cup as well as the 2014 Women’s Hockey World Cup. Paumen was selected as FIH Player of the Year in 2011 and 2012. She is openly lesbian.