Alla Nazimova

01 SEP 26
Today's star is:
Alla Nazimova
3rd June 1879 - 13th July 1945

She is known for her part in the 1922 film SALOME, in which she plays the title character. This movie is an adaptation of Oscar Wilde's play.

There's a number of actresses that, according to rumours of the time, she had relationships with. Which makes her the first Queer Star of my art challenge.

Knowing that many people who lived in the spotlight, had to hide their sexuality and/or sexual identity, maybe some of the others that I have introduced so far, were too. You never know.

Her house was known as the Garden of Alla, which hosted great and wild parties. She would turn it into a hotel in 1926-27, but ended up selling it.

In 1946, a year after her death, a gay cabaret opened in Seattle, and was named in her honour the Garden of Alla.

Even though it closed in 1956, due to financial reasons and years of harassment for their drag performances, that name still lives in the books An Evening at the Garden of Alla & Return to the Garden of Alla.

[I messed up my handwritten text. It is a book and the play inspired by it.]