![]() The meticulously typed, library catalogue-like cards therein contain such entries as “Dan, Hell’s Angel (address) Decemonly HA I’ve ever had, tho tattooed dozens of ‘em. He carefully documented hundreds of his sexual conquests in a Stud File. He even provided a bondage and S&M film, in which he starred, to Alfred Kinsey for the good doctor’s sexual research. Under the pen name Phil Andros, he authored a line of gay pulp fiction. He became the Hell’s Angels official tattoo artist. Steward moved to California, where he met Christopher Isherwood and his lover, portaitist Don Bachardy, who painted Steward’s picture. Toklas (with whom he corresponded for 20 years) and her partner, Gertrude Stein, were among his famous acquaintances. He was an English professor at various universities, including DePaul and Loyola in Chicago a tattoo artist (learned from legendary Milwaukee master Amund Dietzl) and a connoisseur of social and sexual encounters with everyone from sailors to celebrities. Perhaps Steward invented the encounter, but from his odyssey and exploits are well documented. In his diary, Steward claims Valentino gave him an autograph and, after an intimate moment, awarded him some souvenir pubic hairs. ![]() In a nutshell: Steward, born in Ohio in 1909, began his escapades at 17, when he allegedly met silent movie icon Rudolph Valentino. Spring spent nearly a decade piecing that life together. In Steward, he discovered a biographer’s dream, complete with a detailed life history in a San Francisco attic filled with a enormous collection of Steward’s papers, diaries, artwork, photos and personal effects. He is the author of numerous monographs, catalogs, museum publications and books, including Fairfield Porter: A Life in Art and Paul Cadmus: The Male Nude. Spring specializes in 20th-century American art and culture. Spring will read from his new book at 6 p.m. But he did lead that wild gay life, and biographer Justin Spring chronicled it in Secret Historian, The Life and Times of Samuel Steward, Professor, Tattoo Artist and Sexual Renegade. Samuel Steward led a life so outrageous as to defy belief.
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