The Greatest Gay Icons of All Time

Gay icon

"These deeply personal, campy, and insightful essays illuminate the eternal bond between gay men and their fabulous diva icons," says the blurb on the back of a new book called My Diva. And you know it's true because that blurb was written by yours fucking truly!

The book has 65 gay men beating off about the women who inspire them, like:

Marlene Dietrich. "She never lost sight of her roots, her working class beginnings," says that chapter, "and the basic dignity of the studio workers around her. She saw Hollywood and Paramount as a factory of dreams and, in typical cynical Berlin fashion, she saw herself its gossamer product."

Bette Davis. "She insisted on her own integity as an actress...But she was always mugging for that third Oscar. Everything got too big, too loud: the waving of the cigarette, the downing of the martini, the tossing of the hair."

Karen Black. "Even in her best work, she's always one degree off-center, always hinting at the imminent derangement that cements her diva status."

Julia Child. "She outpaced Mary Poppins, in the same humble couture, with a startling polymorphism. For here was the glamour of La Belle France, a table of impractical refinement prepared in the solid, unaffordable cookwear of the elite."

And on and on, from Evita to Endora to Bjork to Helen Reddy! God, gay men are...interesting.