The singing Seegar Sisters were gaining popularity, prompting their father Frank to open a hardware store to support their budding career. Miriam was the breakout star of the group and soon found herself heading to Hollywood to try her hand at the motion picture industry.

Miriam made her film debut in 1928’s The Price of Divorce, as “The Other Woman” in an adulterous affair. The film, however, was not released until 1930, when it was adapted for sound and retitled Such is the Law. Over the next six years, Miriam starred in 16 movies in a variety of genres, including mysteries and Westerns. She called it a career in 1933, leaving the spotlight to raise a family.

In the early 1950s, Miriam obtained ASID certification and was soon an in-demand interior decorator. In 2000, she was interviewed for a documentary called I Used to Be in Pictures, in which she spoke glowingly about her brief acting career. She began appearing at film festivals and fan conventions, meeting and mingling with those few who remembered her fleeting stardom.

After a trans-Atlantic cruise, Miriam passed away in 2011 at the age of 103.

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I vaguely remember going to a drive-in movie in 1966. My mom and dad were up in the front seat. My dad, with an omnipresent cigarette dangling from his lips, would adjust the hook on the back of that big, gray, metal speaker so it hung on the driver’s side window to allow for optimum audio fidelity. My mom would make sure my brother and I were plodded with snacks in the back seat. She also made sure I didn’t annoy my brother too much. I recall bits and pieces of the evening’s feature as it flickered in the twilight across that massive screen, It was The Russians are Coming! The Russians are Coming!, a frantic comedy based on America’s fears of the Cold War. My mom and dad were very amused by the antics of the film’s ensemble cast, as evidenced by their peals of laughter. I was more interested in the various cookies that were available in the little bag that my mom packed. It wasn’t until years later when I saw a television broadcast of the movie  that I fully appreciated the humor… especially the earnest and deadpan performance turned in by Alan Arkin, as the somewhat bewildered but militarily-obedient Rozanov.

Nobody played bewildered like Alan Arkin.  His acting style, as displayed in such films as The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, Last of the Red Hot Lovers, Freebie and the Bean, The In-Laws and even as part of the bleak and angry Glengarry Glen Ross, was realistic, poignant and very, very believable. He embodied every character he played. And those characters each included a small part of Alan Arkin. Sure, there were departures from his “established persona,” specifically the vicious Harry Roat in Wait Until Dark. But, for the most part, Alan Arkin brought a true, fully-formed, gentle personality to each character he portrayed — a little confused, a little overwhelmed, but a lot of charm.

In a recent interview with the actor, he revealed that when he wasn’t acting or talking about acting or watching acting, he felt lost. He said acting made his life worth living.

He made good movies and he made bad movies. But, in my opinion, he never gave a bad performance.

Alan Arkin passed away in June 2023. He was 89 years old,

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June is Pride Month.

As an adolescent, Anita Berber was enrolled in traditional ballet classes in her native Berlin. She also learned acrobatics and gymnastics at the behest of her grandmother, by whom she was raised.

Before the age of 20, Anita was performing regularly in Berlin’s burgeoning cabaret scene, often dancing nude. She favored the color red and displayed a particularly bright shade in her hair, which became her trademark. Through social circles, she met and married a wealthy screenwriter only to divorce him when she fell in love with Susi Wanowski, a bar owner who became Anita’s manager and lover. Around this time, Anita was cast in the film Anders als die Andern (Different from the Others). Starring Conrad Veidt, just one year before his star-making turn in The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, Anders als die Andern is acknowledged as the first pro-gay film in history. Though popular in its time, it was later banned by the Nazis.

Anita was a constant subject of controversy in the German press. Her openly defiant bisexuality and gender-bending performances were shocking to the post-World War I public. She had a brief affair with a young Marlene Dietrich and it is speculated that Dietrich’s androgynous look in the 1930 film Morocco was inspired by Anita.

In 1922, Anita married fellow dancer Sebastian Droste. The couple toured in a decidedly risqué revue called Dances of Vice, Horror and Ecstasy. Performed under the influence of drugs and alcohol, the show was a point of public outrage. Anita was jailed for several weeks after her nude dancing offended the visiting King of Yugoslavia. Anita took her incarceration in stride, continuing to go out in public in a sable coat — with nothing on underneath. Droste left Anita, stealing her furs and jewels when he did. Unfettered, Anita moved on, coming to the United States and marrying another dancer just two weeks after meeting him.

In 1928, Anita collapsed on stage during a performance in Beirut. Within a few months, she died from tuberculosis, most likely brought on by years of substance abuse. She was 29 years old. Looking back on her storied career, she may have invented the concept of “performance artist” before the term existed.

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June is Pride Month.

Charles Silverstein was a respected author, lecturer and psychologist. In 1973, his presentation before the American Psychiatric Association led to the declassification and eventual removal of homosexuality as a mental illness from the organization’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual.

In 1977, he and writer Edmund White, co-authored the groundbreaking The Joy of Gay Sex. They set out to create a book, not so much about sex, but more about community and relationships. Their goal was to write a book that they would have appreciated as adolescents. They succeeded, as The Joy of Gay Sex has had worldwide popularity and distribution. It has been translated into five languages.

Charles was the founding director of the Institute for Human Identity and Identity House in New York City. He became a member of the American Psychiatric Association, eventually being named a fellow in 1987.

He passed away in January of 2023 at the age of 87.

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June is Pride Month.

Leelah Alcorn just wanted to be happy.

At 14, Leelah came out to her parent as transgender. Doug and Carla Alcorn, devout followers of the Church of Christ, were mortified. They refused to accept Leelah’s identity. Leelah pressed and stood firm, despite her parent’s denial. At 16, instead of supporting Leelah’s request for transition treatment, they enrolled her in their church’s conversion therapy program. They exacerbated the situation by removing her from public school and revoking her social media privileges. Leelah grew more alienated and lonely. She grew more frustrated with her parents as well as her own dead-end future.

Leelah was enrolled in an online school and at the end of the semester, her parents returned her cellphone. Leelah tried to rekindle friendships, but she found the task difficult. She took to Reddit to vent about her parents’ mental abuse. She explained that they spoke to her in a mocking tone, telling her things like: “You’ll never be a real girl!” and “God hates you and you don’t deserve to be alive.”

Just after Christmas 2014, Leelah used Tumblr’s timing option to publish a suicide note that would automatically “go live” just after Leelah’s plans to take her own life had transpired. She left her house with her computer and began to walk along Interstate 71 in Union Township, Ohio. At 2:30 in the morning, Leelah was stuck and killed by a semi-tractor-trailer, fulfilling her plan of suicide by vehicle.

In the wake of Leelah’s death, her parent’s public statement referred to Leelah by her dead name. They also campaigned to have her suicide note on Tumblr deleted, a request which was granted.

A petition bearing the name “Leelah’s Law,” was created in an effort to ban conversion therapy. By 2018, four cities in Ohio had passed the law, prompting one journalist to write: “the Buckeye State has become an unlikely leader in banning conversion therapy at the local level.”

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