Transcript of interview with Kenny Kerr by Dennis McBride, May 29 & 30, 2001

Las Vegas Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Archives Oral History Project Interview with Kenny Kerr 2001 i Table of Contents 1. preface……………………………………………..……………………………………………ii 2. photographs…………………………………………………………………………………....iii 3. transcript………………………………………………………………………………………..1 5. notes………………………………………………………………………………………….155 6. index………………………………………………………………………………………….175 * * * ii Preface In the years following this interview, Kerr continued entertaining, although he never returned to the Las Vegas Strip. Kerr performed at OUTfest Phoenix, at Palm Springs’ Awesome August celebrations, Las Vegas’ National Coming Out Day event, and for the Gay and Lesbian Community Center’s Youth Service’s Division. Kerr also gave shows at small bars and restaurants such as Café Nicolle and DeStefano’s in Las Vegas, the Wilde Goose in Cathedral City, California, and the Plush Room in San Francisco. There were rumors that Kerr was set to replace emcee Joey Arias in Cirque du Soliel [2004] and Frank Marino in La Cage [2005], but neither turned out to be true. Instead, Kerr performed in such local gay nightclubs as Flex, Sasha’s, Krave, Suede, and, on July 31, 2012, at the Onyx Theatre in Commercial Center. In 2006, Kerr made peace with his former rival, Frank Marino. Kerr’s son, Kristin Vidal, made Kenny a grandfather with his own son, Alexander. It was clear during his July 2012 performance at the Onyx Theatre that Kerr’s health had declined precipitously. As I noted in my journal on August 8, 2012: “[Kenny’s] had such a bad time. His husband—the last of three in the last 5 years—died the Wednesday before July 31 [and] Kenny himself is just recovering from pneumonia [pneumocystis?]. Perhaps all this is what affected his performance. Kenny spent most of his time seated in an easy chair on stage with a table and vase of flowers á la Quentin Crisp. Kenny is deathly thin—concentration camp thin: his cheeks hollow, his eyes sunken. He had sores on his cheek makeup barely covered as well as on his back clearly visible when he left the stage. A good many of his teeth were gone. He mumbled most of the time, barely audible or intelligible. His singing was passable but not what I remember. The theatre was full—all older people who remember Kenny from the old days.” Kerr died just 8½ months later on April 28, 2013. The crowd that attended Kenny’s memorial service on May 28, 2013 was larger than the audiences that attended any of his last performances. * * * iii Photographs 1. Kenny Kerr out of drag, ca. 1970s……………………………………………………..title page 2. Kenny Kerr in drag, ca. 1980s………………………………...……………………….title page 3. Kenny with his mother, Ruth, ca. 1980s-90s………………………………………………..….3 4. Blue Anchor, New Jersey street scene………………………………………………………….8 5. Kenny’s high school graduation portrait, ca. 1970……………………………………………..9 6. Dewey’s restaurant at 208 South 13th Street, Philadelphia, PA, 1972……..………………….18 7. Kenny as Barbra Streisand, March 1981……………………………………………………...20 8-9. The “female” Kenny Kerr, ca. early 1970s……………………………………………...25-26 10. advertisement fort an Irving Charnoff-represented female impersonation show, ca. early 1970s……………………………………………………………………………………..…..27 11-12. advertisement for Bernie Brandall’s Guys will be Dolls, 1972……………………….28-29 13. Kenny as Cher singing “Take Me Home” in Boylesque in the Gaiety Theatre of the Silver Slipper Gambling Hall and Saloon in Las Vegas, March 1981……………………………...37 14. Stonewall Inn Riots, June 28 – July 1, 1969…………………………………………………43 15. Pussycat-a-Go-Go, Las Vegas, NV, ca. late 1960s…………………………………………..46 16. advertisement for] Viva Le Boys at Maxine’s, with Joey Skilbred as Joshelyn Summers, 1974…………………………………………………………………………………………..49 17. Boylesque marquee, ca. 19981-82…………………………………………………………...54 18. advertisement for Boylesque, July 1977……………………………………………………..55 19. Kenny in Boylesque, August 1977…………………………………………………………..56 20. Kenny as a Las Vegas showgirl in Boylesque, 1982 edition……………………………...…57 21. Showgirl Kenny with his mother, Ruth, ca. 1982……………………………………………57 22. Jay North as Carol Channing in Boylesque, 1982 edition…………………………………...58 23. L’il Lil [Howard Benway] in the 1982 edition of Boylesque………………………………..60 24. Forrest Duke review of Boylesque, May 20, 1977…………………………………………...63 25. Panorama magazine article about Kenny Kerr and Boylesque, September 28, 1978……….64 26. Boylesque opening night, 1982 [l-r: Herb Kaufmann; Kenny Kerr]………………………...67 27. news article about Kenny Kerr, February 4, 1979…………………………………………...69 28. Dick Maurice, ca. 1970s……………………………………………………………………..71 29. Kenny and friend at the Sahara Hotel and Casino, 1989…………………………………….78 30. schedule for Boylesque performances, 1990…………………………………………………79 31. opening night announcement fort Boylesque at the Stardust Hotel and Casino, March 10, 1991…………………………………………………………………………………………..80 32. Boylesque advertising card from the [Union] Plaza Hotel and Casino, September 1991………………………………………………………………………………………......82 33. advertising flier for Boylesque at the Debbie Reynolds Hotel and Casino, 1996…………....86 34. Debbie Reynolds and Kenny Kerr, ca. 1996-97………………………….………………….86 35. news article about Boylesque’s move to the New Frontier Hotel and Casino, February 23, 2001…………………………………………………………………………………………..93 36. flier for the grand opening of Kenny Kerr’s Fantasy nightclub, October 31, 1983………...102 37. Kenny with his adopted son, Kristin Vidal, ca. 1992-93…………………………………...117 38. Frank Marino and the cast of An Evening at La Cage, November 29, 2002……………….118 iv 39. Frank Marino and Kenny Kerr bowling, ca. 1995………………………………………….120 40. James “Gypsy” Haake on the opening night of An Evening at La Cage at the Riviera Hotel and Casino, September 18, 1985……………………………………………………………122 41. Frank Marino and Kenny celebrate their birthdays together at Gipsy nightclub November 24, 1996…………………………………………………………………………123 42. Kenny and Jan [Jones] Blackhurst, ca. 1980s………………………………………………125 43. Kenny with Sammy Davis, Jr. at the Beaux Arts Ball, 1977……………………………….128 44. The Prophet, by Kahlil Gibran …………………………………………………………..…131 45. Jim Bailey…………………………………………………………………………………..135 46. Lynne Carter………………………………………………………………………………..137 47. Hedy Jo Star and Tony Midnite, 1950s…………………………………………………….138 48. advertising card for Vive les Boys at Bogie’s Niteclub, ca. 1984-85………………….……141 49. cast of Vive les Boys at Bogie’s Niteclub, 1984…………………………………………….142 50. Mr. Carlotta, ca. 1984………………………………………………………………………143 51. Joey Skilbred, ca. 1980s………………………………………………………………….…147 52. Craig Russell as Judy Garland……………………………………………………………...149 53. Toby Lear in the Lavender Follies in the Fiesta Showroom at the Fremont Hotel and Casino, April 28, 1983………………………………………………………………....151 54. Jimmy James as Marilyn Monroe, ca. 1970s-80s…………………………………………..152 * * * 1 Las Vegas Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Archives Oral History Project Interview with Kenny Kerr conducted by Dennis McBride May 29-30, 2001 This is Dennis McBride, and I'm sitting with Kenny Kerr in his kitchen, in his home in Las Vegas, and today is Tuesday, May 29. We're going to begin an oral history interview with him that's going to be very interesting because he's one of the more interesting people I know, and certainly one of the more interesting people in the gay community as well. What I like to do when I start out is to establish a background for the rest of the interview. Sure. Can you tell me when and where you were born? I was born in Camden, New Jersey, November 24, 1952. [grins] How big was your family? 2 I had two sisters. Marlena is my oldest, who works with me here in Vegas. And my other sister, Gerri. Gerri's deceased. She passed last year. I had a small family. What did your father do? My father was a police officer. And then he went to work for Dupont. He was in management or something with Dupont. [My parents] were divorced when I was very young. I guess I was about 7. So I lost a lot of contact with my father. Up until my late teens, I had very little contact with him, even though they only lived, like, 10 miles from my mother. Did he have another family? He never had another family, but he did remarry. He left my mother for another woman. And was still with her when he passed last year. But he never had any [more] children. She had children. Well, she had a daughter. It's almost like he made a new family and forgot about [us]. He kept a lot of contact with my sister, my one sister. My first sister, Marlena, came from my mother's first marriage. And me and my sister, Gerri, came from the second marriage. [My father] kept in contact with my sister, but ... . Even when we were little kids, it was always Daddy's Little Girl, Daddy's Little Girl. And then Kenny. I was Mama's boy. Was the relationship after the divorce between your parents cordial or angry? No. They didn't speak. My father kidnapped me and my sister once and my mother had to take 'im to court to get us back. Why did he kidnap you? 'Cause he wanted us. At that time, I guess, he wanted us. He went to our grammar school and took us out of school. The school didn't know that he didn't have permission, so he took us and my mother had to go to court to get us back, to get custody of us. Full custody. But we weren't very close. Couple of times he came and took me deep sea fishing or something like that. But basically, my mother raised both of us. Struggled hard to raise both of us. She worked at a mental institution that was in our town. She was like a house mother at a mental institution. She couldn't afford ... . The television broke or the car broke, she'd fix it herself. I mean, she couldn't afford to go out and get anyone to come and fix it. My mother never bad-mouthed my father, never tried to turn us against him. 'Cause I guess she knew that he would do that on his own. He 3 was very abusive to my mother. Very abusive to my mother. Physically abusive. Mentally abusive. I guess she went through it long enough that, finally ... . He did leave her for another woman. Kenny with his mother, Ruth, ca. 1980s-90s As you were growing up, did you feel that you missed having a father around? Or your father? 4 I really didn't miss it because I never knew what it was like to have one. And I guess about a year or two after my mother divorced, my mother had a boyfriend. They've been together ever since and it's been, like, 42 years they've been together. So he was like a father to me. He was the only dad I ever knew. As far as I looked at my father, he was just biological. So I really didn't know what it was like to have a father, and my mother was all I needed. She worked very hard and we had to do without certain things. We did without big things, but, you know, we never really wanted for anything that she didn't try to get for us. If you look back and describe yourself as a child, how would you characterize yourself? Were you outgoing and friendly or were you introverted? No, I was outgoing and friendly. I had my best friends in town, played football, baseball. It's weird, because I started writing a book, and when I go back to my younger years, I have periods of a year to two years, sometimes, in my life that I can't remember anything. And I get very frustrated when I'm writing because I'm trying to think what happened here, or certain things, and I can't remember certain parts of my life. I don't know if I blacked them out for certain reasons, or what. But as a child, I loved fishing. My sister's [Marlena] first grandparents had a home down on the [sea] shore, that sat right on the water. We used to go down there every weekend and stay there weekends in the summer. You'd be out there a couple of weeks and just go out on the boat and fish. And crab. I used to love to go crabbing. I was quite ... . I was in baseball. We played football with the neighbors. My mother had 14 acres of land so we always had a lot of land to play on. Then you didn't live in town. Oh, no. I lived in a little country town. Small little town. We had one little corner store. My mother was very routine. And she's a good mother. She was strict, but only strict about certain things. Like, you had to be in the house at 4:30 for dinner. We always sat and had dinner together. She didn't believe in one person come in [and eat]. I had to be in the house by 4:30 for dinner. So if I went fishing after school, or if I went to play games or anything, I knew to be home at 4:30. I had chores as a child, just like any other kid—take out the trash, mow the lawn. You know. Stuff like that. I had a good childhood. I had my grandmother and I had my aunts and cousins that were very close. We were very family-oriented. I still am very family-oriented. And holidays, always 5 together. I had great memories as a child. The bad memories as a child, I've almost blacked them out because I don't wanna think of them. I was introduced to a book called The Prophet. Kahlil Gibran.1 Yeah, Kahlil Gibran. And read the book. I basically live my life by that book. So the bad things that have happened in my life, I try not to dwell on 'em. I actually try to black them out. And I've got things that have happened in the past 10 years that I don't even remember 'cause I've tried to black them out. I like to see the good in people and not the bad. And so if I find someone that's been that bad to me or that evil, I just block them out. Nothing they can do to me surprises me or bothers me. If you dwell on it, it makes you a bitter person. So I try not to dwell on those kinds of things. In general, you had a pretty ordinary, Baby-Boom kind of childhood. Basically, yeah. I had a girlfriend for many years. I started out in the entertainment field when I was, like, 11 years old. I was singing in local shows, and a play called The Wedding. I always did shows for the Jaycees—Junior Chamber of Commerce. I used to be on Tony Grant's Stars of Tomorrow on Steel Pier2 in Atlantic City. Used to work the Garden Pier3 in Atlantic City. I had a good childhood, I have to say that. You know, Friday nights—my mother's boyfriend ... . I've never been able to call him Dad. And I almost regret it now 'cause he's really been the only father that I've ever known. He's there for me now, and if I call him right now, he'd be there for me. He used to refurbish Model A and Model T cars. Beautiful! When his father died, the funeral procession was all Model As and Model Ts. But my mother and him used to refurbish cars. I mean, they would take every nut, screw, bolt off and my mother would clean them and they'd put the car back together again. They were just beautiful. But he had one with a rumble seat. We'd get in that and go up to the custard stand, which was like a Dairy Queen-type of thing. Every Friday night we'd go up and get ice cream and come home. Every Saturday night we'd watch [Walt Disney's] Wonderful World of Color.4 Or International Circus.5 Sundays. We had our same TV shows we watched. We had a housekeeper, Mr. Orr, he was a man, and he was with us when my father was there. He used to clean house and cook. When my mother and father divorced, my mother kept 'im. His name was Lehman, but we called 'im Mr. Orr. The kids called 'im Mr. Orr. So, my mother would go grocery shopping every other Friday. And on Friday there used to be a show ... . Don Ameche did it—International Circus. Well, [Mr. Orr] would bake cookies and candies and ice cream, and on the coffee table he'd have everything set out for us 6 while we watched International Circus. It was a routine-type thing. So I had kind of a neat childhood. I had my best friend, Charlie Riley. He was at my house for the weekend, or I was at his house every weekend. We always were together. What was your father's name? Floyd Kenneth Kerr. You're named for him, then. Thank God they didn't name me Floyd! His name was Floyd. Very ... . Very materialistic. My mother worked very, very hard just to keep us going. And my father had a beautiful new home. A home down the shore. A cabin cruiser boat. A Streamline6 trailer to take trips. He was very well-to-do. He never gave us anything. I can still remember ... . One thing as a child that I remember. It was Christmas morning and him and his wife came to see us and he bought me and my sister each a box of Whitman chocolates. And you know he picked it up on his way there. So, as a child, that really hurt. To see your father not bring you any Christmas gift or anything like that. I can still remember when I was about 10 or 11, all the boys were wearing leather jackets. They were like waist jackets and all the kids wore 'em to school. My mother couldn't afford to get me one. So I was washing dishes in a diner after school. Didn't make no money, you know. So I called my father and I told him I wanted to borrow $50 to get this leather jacket. So he said, "OK." So my mother took me over, waited in the car. I walked in and he took $50 out of his pocket. And he looked at me and he says, "You see where this came from?" I said, "Yeah." He goes, "Well, if it's not back there, it won't come out again." I made sure I got 'im back the $50, but my whole life, I never asked 'im for anything [again]. Never asked 'im for a thing. But things like that you remember as a child. There's a lot of things that I don't remember, but those kind of stick in your mind. 'Cause I never asked 'im for anything [again]. The one thing I asked, to come up with a comment like that ... . What's your mother's name? Ruth.7 And her boyfriend? 7 John. Was he living with your family all those years? Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. After they were together awhile, he moved in, and they've been together over 40 years now. But he's like my dad. They're just amazing to watch because they just bicker back and forth. Little stuff. It's funny. It shows love. It does! They really do love each other. They really do. They're good for each other. His last name? Hamilton. Where did you go to school? I went to grammar school in Blue Anchor Elementary School, which is a four-room school. I went there through sixth grade. And then I went to Edgewood Regional High. And then I went to Glassboro State College. 8 Blue Anchor, New Jersey What was the name of the small town you say you grew up in? Blue Anchor.8 Is it still there? Oh, yeah. And it's so ... . The same people do the same thing every night, every weekend. Nothing's changed. It's amazing. But when I go back to visit—which isn't that often—I take a walk down the street and I see the boys' houses I used to play with. The little corner store's gone now. But it was pretty cool. 9 Kenny’s high school graduation portrait, ca. 1970 When did you begin to realize that you were gay? Oh, boy, this is gonna take an hour! I think I always knew it. I dated ... . It's funny. When I was at the [Union] Plaza about two years ago, there was a girl sitting down front with an older woman, and I'm lookin' at her and lookin' at her. And she mentioned something about, "Do you remember going to church in Cedar Brook?" And I looked at her and said, "Yeah." And then she said, "Do you remember doing Hello, Dolly9 in high school?" I said, "Yeah." And I looked at her and I went, "Cindy?" It was the first girl I ever kissed! And she lived behind my grandmother's house in Cedar Brook. Where I live in New Jersey, it's all these little towns. And [Cindy] was there [at my show]. I'm talkin', I guess, I was 9 or 10 back then. And then I got to be 11, 12, 13, 14—and I was trying to be straight. I had messed around with other boys in the neighborhood, you know, just jerk-off sessions and rubbing against each other. The usual stuff I think most kids go through. But I didn't look at it as being gay back then. It was 10 just a thing that boys did, I thought. There was nothing, like, "Oh, I'm in love with him." There was no love involved. It was just the good feeling that you got when you did it. I used to wash dishes at this little diner in Hammonton, which was the big town, like, 10 more people. And the diner used to sit here [motions with his hand on the table] ... . And the teenagers and the people in the town, they would cruise town. They'd go up the main street around by the railroad tracks where this diner was, and then around here and back down. That's all they would do on Friday and Saturday nights. Or they'd park along the street and they'd sit there and talk. That's what they did. But the way I came out was, I used to wash dishes at night and when I got done, I'd cross the track and walk up and down the street and wait for my mother or my sister to pick me up to take me home. And on this corner over here there was a restaurant where people went and got pizza all the time, and there was a bar. And there was a corner area, there was a door there, but no one used it. It was blocked off. And so I used to walk up and down the street waiting for my sister or my mother to come. And I walk down and I hear, Psst! Psst! And I look over and there's a guy in the doorway. I pay no attention, and I just walk down. Psst! Psst! So he started grabbing me. How old were you? I guess I was, like, 13. I guess I was about 13. Well, the guy put his arm around me and was groping me and all that stuff. I said, "I can't stay here. My mother's picking me up. I'm waiting for my mother to pick me up." He goes, "Can I meet you tomorrow night?" So, naturally, I was curious. I knew I was gay, but I never had a real experience with a man, like, on a date-type thing. Just messing around with the boys in the neighborhood. I said, "All right. I'll meet you here tomorrow night, this time, about 8 o'clock." He said, "OK." So my mother picked me up and I went home. So the next day I told my mother, "I'm gonna go to my friend Ralph's." I didn't even know a Ralph. And I said, "His brother's gonna drive me home." She said, "All right." So the next night he picked me up and it really wasn't a good experience, 'cause he tried to kiss me and I didn't like it. I had never kissed a guy before so I wasn't used to that. I had never sucked a dick before. Did you meet 'im at the same spot? 11 Yeah. He picked me up there in his car. It was weird, because when he picked me up, I didn't see his car. 'Cause he was in the doorway. After my mother had picked me up [the night before], we had stopped at the bakery down the street. And my mother went into the bakery, and as she went into the bakery, he drove by and tooted the horn and waved. In a big black Cadillac. He was 22. So the next night, I met 'im, he picked me up, and we carried on in the car a little bit. And I told 'im I'd never been with anybody before. So he sucked ... . Am I supposed to be this explicit? [laughs] Yes, please! As explicit as you like. [laughs] He started doing me—and he knew I was nervous. So then he drove me home. He wanted to see me another night, so I gave 'im my phone number. I said, "When you call, just say you're Ralph." So I started dating him. And I started doing things and learning how to do things. See, for the longest time I thought I was the only gay person in the world. We had a sissy in town named Bill Rauch that everybody joked about. When we used to go fishing in this lake, there was a big guy in town named Joe Cuccinati. He's, like, 16, 17. But he was a real Italian. He had hair on his face. A big cock. And there was this outhouse there at the lake, and they'd go in there and Bill Rauch'd suck [Joe's] dick. And we're outside goin', "Go get it!" [laughs] We were just kids, we'd do stupid shit! And then he'd come out, another boy'd go in and [Rauch'd] suck him off. That kind of stuff. But I thought I was the only queer in the world. I didn't know what to do. So, anyway, I started dating this guy—the only man I'd ever been with. And there was a couple in a town a couple of towns away called Berlin, New Jersey. They were a gay couple, older couple. So we'd go there. And it got to the point where I was spending weekends. I'd tell my mother I was staying with friends and we'd stay there. And we stayed together for probably about 3 years. And you didn't go through a period where you felt wracked with guilt? Or that what you were doing was wrong? Oh, yeah! I almost had a nervous breakdown. I had a nervous breakdown because I was keeping it from my mother. I was holding so many things inside. I ended up going to a therapist. My mother took me to a therapist. What had happened was, the guy that brought me out, he lived with his mother and father. His bedroom was on the first floor on a porch. We would go there and he would take me in the bedroom window. I'd go in and out that way. 12 What was his name? Nick Tureen. It sounds like nectarine, but it's Nick Tureen. Very Italian. It was a longer name, but they cut it down when they came to this country. I can remember one day he picked me up at the diner. He kissed me good-bye and he was growing a mustache. And the girl that I was seeing, Denise, he took me to her house and my mother picked me up there. So when I got in [the car] I had black all over my face from his mustache. 'Cause he had color on it 'cause it wasn't thick enough. [Mom] said, "What happened to you?" I said it was grease from work. What had happened was, he was driving me home. We would meet somewheres and he was driving me home, and on our way home we got in a car accident. There was a railroad crossing at this place. We went across the railroad and a car cut over and hit us. His car had, like, a metal thing that came over here. It caught [Nick] and choked 'im. I didn't get a scratch on me. I had a couple of bruises. Did it kill 'im? It killed 'im. And he told me, he goes, "Run! Run!" 'Cause his parents didn't know he was gay at all. So I say, "I can't! I can't!" He goes, "Run!" And I just got out of the car and I ran home, which was about a mile and a half, two miles. And I ran home. I knew he was hurt bad. I knew he was hurt bad because there was blood everywhere. I had blood all over my pants. When I got in the house I ran right up to my bedroom and took 'em off. I ended up throwing 'em away. I didn't know what to do, so I called the hospital. I said, "I'm calling to check on Nick." "Are you family?" I said, "No." "Well, you have to call the family. We can't give any information out." I was young. I didn't know. So I called his house. And his brother answered the phone and I just could hear crying and screaming and all this shit. And I knew. I just hung up the phone. I just hung up the phone. I couldn't even go the funeral. Out of respect to him I couldn't go because I didn't want his family to [know Nick was gay]. 13 So, I was like this [shakes] all the time. I would go to school, I would come home from school, sit in my room, and shake. Just sit in the corner by myself. And my sister, Gerri, [would ask], "Kenny, Kenny! What's the matter? What's the matter?" "I don't feel good." My mother took me to a medical doctor. I couldn't tell her I was gay, 'cause I was afraid. My family was very straight. There were no queers in my family. One uncle was gay who I didn't even know about at that time. So my mother took me to this therapist, a psychiatrist. I had, like, three or four sessions with him and openly talked about being gay and everything. I told him what I did on the weekends and all this stuff. And he says, "There's nothing wrong with you." He goes, "And I'm not going to try to change you. What I'm gonna do is teach you how to deal with your sexuality. You have to learn to deal with your sexuality." Because I was ashamed of it. I thought it was the wrong thing. I was more ashamed of it. So, next week, or in two weeks, he goes, "I'm gonna bring your mother in on the session. She has to know. She has to know." I said, "OK." So the night that [Mom and I] were going to the psychiatrist ... . We had an old farm house. My mother calls [up the stairs], "You almost ready?" I said, "I'll be right down." So I'm sitting on the sofa like this [hugs himself and rocks back and forth]. And my mother comes in and sits next to me and I'm cryin'. I have no idea whether she's gonna slap me, she's gonna hate me, she's gonna disown me. My mother loved me, don't get me wrong. But something like that, I didn't know how she was gonna take it. She said, "Kenny, what's the matter? Tell me what's the matter." And I just said, "Mom, I'm gay." And we both cried together. We went to the therapist. She didn't try to change me. She didn't accept it. She just didn't talk about it. She just didn't want to talk about it. And we didn't talk about it for many years. She just dealt with it. But it got to the point when I was, like, 15 or 16, when I was dating and had guys pick me up [at home]. The guys I dated were all older, like 22 or 23. She'd want to meet them first. She was always very protective of me. Where did you find guys to date in Blue Anchor? Well, this is what happened. When Nicky died, Gordon and John, who we used to go spend weekends [with] out at Berlin, while I was going to the therapy, they said, "Ken, you gotta get out. You gotta meet people. That's your problem. You cannot be alone. You gotta put this behind you." And they were very close with Nicky for a long time before I met them. Did you love Nicky? 14 Very much. [quieter] Very much. Very much. [He was] the only man I'd ever been with. The only person I'd ever loved. So [Gordon and John] gave me money. They gave me, like, $50. And they said, "You're gonna take a bus to Philadelphia." And they sent me to a place called the Peyton Place. And they said, "You're gonna ask for Tom." Tom's a doorman who was a friend of theirs. And so I said, "OK." And they said, "After you get done there and everything, there's a place called Dewey's [on] 13th Street." Everything was the end of the block. There was, like, a coffee shop, Dewey's 13th Street,10 we'd go there. Just to meet people. Remember, I guess I was, like, 14. So I must have been, like, 12, [when I met Nicky]. So I took a bus to Philadelphia, they gave me money to get a room. I got a room for Friday night—I didn't get it for Saturday, I just got it for Friday, I remember that. I went to this Peyton Place11—it was a bar. It was like the old row houses, it had three floors. There wasn't disco back then, it was juke box. And there was romance in the gay life, people slow danced and I miss that so much. So I met this guy Tommy. Huge guy! Beautiful. We remained friends for many years. I went there, I met some people, I started going every weekend, and that's how I started meeting guys. And then I felt, like, "I'm normal. There's nothing wrong with being gay." When I saw a bar with 50, 60 [gay] people in it, I said, "Well, this is great! People do live together. They're not ashamed. They're dancing." I never saw two men dance before. I mean it was a wonderful feeling! And I blended right in. One thing I regret about my coming out is that I came out so young that I saw everything so early in my life, so that by the time I was 18, 19, 20, nothing shocked me, nothing surprised me. Do you know what I mean? It was, like, I was so young and I had experienced so much. Were you still going to high school at the same time you were doing all this? Yeah. How did you deal with it at school? Did it become an issue or known? Not until I was, like, 15, almost 16, when I started doing the shows. It got a little difficult. I had done the Merv Griffin Show.12 I had done some local shows, so the kids knew what I was doing. The kids in my school thought it was cool. Not the gay-wise, but because I had been on television. I mean, I was making, like, $50 a night doing my show, which some kids' parents never made as much as I made working three or four nights a week. So that was, like, a big thing for them. I never had problems in school. I loved school. I did well in school until I was, like, a 15 freshman. When I got to my freshman year, I was doing the shows and I hated school. I had one gay friend who went to school. He was a year behind me, but he was who I hung around with. And then I found out later, after I graduated, that everybody thought we were lovers. We were just best friends, but everybody thought me and [him] were lovers because we always hung together. And they never said anything? Um-hm. I had one boy in school that gave me [trouble]. His name was George Wiseniak, that gave me a problem. I was dating this guy, George Phillips. He used to pick me up every weekend and take me somewhere. He wouldn't tell me where, he'd just tell me what to pack. And we'd go to New York one weekend.