GLR January-February 2023

and confirmed in 2009 that Hair was based in part upon his re lationship with Gerome Ragni, whom he’d met in 1964 when they were working in an off-Broadway show. A NTONY S HER , actor, died on December 3, 2021 at age 72. Born in South Africa, he moved to London in the late 1960s to study drama, joining the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1982. Win ner of several Olivier awards, he was knighted in 2000. He acted in an enormous variety of roles, from Richard III to Willy Loman to Arnold Beckoff in the London debut of Torch Song Trilogy. He wrote novels, plays, and memoirs, including Beside Myself: An Actor’s Life (2015) and Year of the Mad King: The Lear Diaries (2018). When he died, Helen Mirren was quoted as saying that “the theater has lost a brilliant light.” He is sur vived by Gregory Doran, artistic director of the Royal Shake speare Company. They were one of the first gay couples in the U.K. to enter into a civil partnership and were married in 2015. S TEPHEN S ONDHEIM , composer and lyricist and winner of eight TonyAwards, died on November 26, 2021, at age 91. He was re membered by Jackson Cooper in the May-June 2022 issue. J EFF W EISS , playwright and actor, died on September 18th at age 82. Born in Reading, PA, he grew up in Allentown and wrote his first play when still a child. He dropped out of high school at age sixteen and made his way to NewYork City, where he cofounded the ten-seat theater Good Medicine and Company in the Lower East Side. The other cofounder was his life part ner Carlos Ricardo Martinez, who predeceased him. Weiss’ plays were produced at Caffe Cino and LaMaMa and were highly unconventional in structure and content. Some plays would last for eight hours; others would contain many scenes presented in no particular order (actors learned the sequence each night an hour before show time). He also appeared on and off Broadway beginning in the late ’80s, joining all-star casts in plays ranging from Macbeth to Present Laughter . J OURNALISTS , E DITORS , P UBLISHERS C HUCK C OLBERT , journalist, died on June 30th at age 67. Orig inally from Pennsylvania, he received an MBA from George town and divinity degrees from Boston College. A freelance writer based in Cambridge, MA, he wrote for many publications, ranging from LGBT newsweeklies to the National Catholic Re porter, for which he reported on the sexual abuse scandal in the Boston archdiocese. He eventually abandoned Catholicism and became a convert to Judaism. He was a member of the board of the NLGJA (National Association of LGBTQ Journalists) and president of the Boston chapter in the 1990s. K IM C ORSARO , publisher, died on January 29th at age 68. Her career at the San Francisco Bay Times began in 1981, when she turned the paper from a bar rag called Coming Up into a robust LGBT newspaper devoted to local politics and in-depth report ing. She made sure that the AIDS crisis was a central focus of the paper and was an unwavering supporter of ACT UP. In 1992, the Bay Times rose to prominence because of a cover story fea turing San Francisco’s police chief, which resulted in his firing. In 2011, Corsaro sold the paper and was hired to work on Obama’s re-election campaign. In this pursuit she suffered life

changing injuries in an accident in Cincinnati. She spent years recuperating and was finally able to return to San Francisco be fore her death. R EBECCA J URO , journalist, Internet radio host, and activist, died on December 17th, 2021, at age 59. Born in New York and raised as a male, she felt “like a girl” from the time she was a teen, though was not able to give a name to her feelings. In 1996, seriously contemplating suicide, she came across Leslie Feinberg’s Transgender Warriors , and believed that the book saved her life. Juro came out as trans the following year at the age of 35. She wrote for a wide range of publications, including The Advocate , Huffington Pos t, and LGBTQ nation.com. She started her own Internet radio show in 2006, which is credited as an early example of how the web could be used to promote a diversity of voices. She was known for her mantra: “The ‘T’ [in LGBT] is not silent.” R ICHARD L ABONTÉ , editor and writer, died on March 20th at age 72. Born in Edmonton, Alberta, he went to Carleton Uni versity in Ottawa, where he was editor of the student newspa per. He then worked at The Ottawa Citizen , where he became one of the first journalists in Canada to come out as gay. Soon thereafter, he and his lover moved to San Francisco, where he helped found and later managed A Different Light Bookstore. He edited over two dozen anthologies for Cleis Press, edited the gay version of the magazine Books to Watch Out For , and re viewed books for a range of publications. He was, in the words one colleague, “a sweet presence [who] exuded a calming em inence.” In his last years, he lived in British Columbia with his husband, Asa Liles, who survives. T HOMAS (T HOM ) S ENZEE , editor, died on March 22nd at age 54. ACalifornia native, he was a graduate of Los Angeles Pierce Col lege with degrees in journalism and English. Editor-in-chief of the San Diego LGBT Weekly , he was also a contributor to many publications, including The Advocate, Out, and The Washington Blade. He was founder and moderator of the national series LGBTs in the News , a live panel discussion. Best known for his investigative reporting, he was described by one colleague as “a talented journalist who respected the truth, a caring and insight ful friend and perhaps the most decent guy I’ve ever met.” A NDRÉ L EON T ALLEY , fashion editor and memoirist, died on January 18th at age 73. Raised by his grandmother in Durham, NC, he began reading the fashion magazines that he found in the public library, attended North Carolina Central University, and

earned a master’s degree in French at Brown. Moving to New York, he held numerous jobs before be coming the Paris bureau chief of Women’s Wear Daily and the edi tor-at-large of Vogue . His memoirs A.L.T. (2003) and The Chiffon Trenches (2020), which was re viewed in these pages, detail vari ous aspects of his life, including his struggles with being a Black man in a very white world. He was

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