Herbert Spiers: November 8, 1945-March 2, 2011

Obituary of Herbert Spiers under construction, along with a list of representative photographs (dated, if possible), and an alphabetical bibliography of works about and by Spiers, and a Timeline of his life.

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Obituary

To be written

Basic Info:

Born: November 8, 1945, Columbus, Ohio

Died: March 2, 2011, 11:35 pm, Mount Sinai Hospital, New York City

Surviving Partner: Joe Daniel

Surviving Relatives:

Memorial service?

Donations to?

Bibliography, Alphabetical

Acting, dancing classes as youth: HS: "my mother had this notion that I should be an actor or a dancer, so instead of after school playing basketball and things like that with the boys, I had to go off to acting classes and dancing classes, and so I had the label of being a sissy." "I did a play, A Winter’s Tale, and [in forth grade] I played the prince, and it was a production of Ohio State University. . . ." (Schulman interview, page 3.)

Body Politic, The. HS: Toronto Gay Action led to forming of. Schulman interview, p. 6) "I was at the first, the collecting [sic -- collective] meeting that organized it, and I’ve been involved in it for many, many years afterwards until I moved here down to New York. Women and men? HS on. Chris Bearchell and Pat Murphy mentioned, and Pat's girlfriend. (Schulman interview p. 14) PB and intergenerational sex issue; done in by financial pressures. (Schulman, p. 15)

Catholic Church. HS: mentioned by HS as attending. (Schulman interview, page 2.)

Catholic seminary preparatory school. HS: "I went to an all-boys’ school, too, which was a Catholic seminary preparatory. . . ." (Schulman interview, page 3.)

CBC Digital Archives: "Drag queens on Halloween". Broadcast Date: Oct. 30, 1973

Spiers interviewed. CBC description: "Exuberant cross-dressers, gay-baiting hecklers and glamorous female impersonators: they're all part of the scene at Toronto's Club Manatee on Halloween night in the early 1970s. The unlicensed gay dance club hosts a popular drag show every Halloween, attracting both friendly and hostile crowds. In this CBC-TV film from 1973, vignettes from the street outside are interspersed with scenes of three men and a woman dressing up for the evening – the men in women's clothes and makeup, the woman with a man's hat and pencil moustache. Warning: This item contains offensive language."

Columbus, Ohio: Birth place and youth of HS.

Community Homophile Association of Toronto. HS: "it was meeting at a place called Trinity Church" (1969 or 1970).

Friends (Ohio) mentioned by HS: Patty Ryan (Schulman interview, p. 3?) Tom Rossetti and his wife Carol. (Schulman interview, p. 4.)

Gay Liberation Front (London). HS: (early 1970s) "we’d have people from GLF of London come over, and they’d stay at various houses and stay with people and talk with people and urge us on." (Schulman interview, p. 11)

gay liberation ideology vs. present ideology: HS and SS on. (Schulman, p. 16)

Graduate school. Ohio State, first. University of Toronto, second. Studied philosophy. HS mentions. (Schulman interview, page 4, 5)

High school, Columbus, Ohio. Mentioned. (Schulman interview, page 2._

Intimate relationships. HS mentions Grant in Toronto, and break up.

Hannon, Gerald. HS on article on intergenerational sex in PB. "Men Loving Boys Loving Men". (Schulman, p. 15) Supreme Court of Canada found PB innocent of breaking law. Second BP article on intergenerational sex and police raid on PB office. (Schulman, p. 16)

MacDonald, Paul. HS mentions influence on Toronto gay lib of "Paul Macdonald, who lived in London for a while, and the Gay Liberation Front in London was very, very active and took direct action." (Schulman interview, p. 11)

newspaper in Toronto, leftist, underground. HS: had the name "Guerilla" in its title. HS: "they had one column or editorial that I thought was very backward in terms of its understanding gay liberation. I wrote them a letter, and I got back to me that this had created a great stir . . . . (Schulman interview, p 13)

New York City. HS moved to from Toronto. (Schulman interview, p. 18-20.) Jim Steakly preceded her in move from Toronto. HS's great aunt inspired his interest in NYC and invited him as a youth to visit her. Bars and clubs mentioned by name.

Pink Triangle Press: HS on (Schulman, p. 15). Bought out Body Politic and Extra.

Psychiatrist in Ohio. Positive experience described by HS. (Schulman interview, p. 4)

Relatives. HS: "one relative who was in Jamestown and fought in the Revolutionary War, and they eventually migrated from there to Pittsburgh and then into the Central Ohio area, and this would have been back in the 1800s, early 1800s." [Schulman interview, page 1.)

S.I. Fine Arts. Spier's title?

From the website: "S.I. International was founded three decades ago [c. 1981] in the United States, with the Spanish sister company S.I. Barcelona founded five decades ago. Based in Manhattan and Barcelona, the firm’s S.I. Fine Arts division annually sells millions of dollars in original oil paintings, sculptures, pastels and limited editions.

We represent an innovative and international variety of artists and sell primarily to galleries. S.I. focuses on representational work."

Spiers, Herb. "The Art of Gabriel Picart." 2009?

Spiers, Herb. Facebook.

Spiers, Herb. Interviewed by Sarah Schulman, July 2, 2008. Act Up Oral History Project. Interview Number: 090

Spiers, Herb. "The life below the life : sexuality in the conception and perception of self and other : a philosophical analysis by Herbert Roth Spiers. PhD thesis 1978. (University of Toronto)

Spiers, Herb. Photograph. Cover, The Body Politic (Toronto), <pub data, page?>

Spiers, Herb. Photograph naked. The Body Politic (Toronto) <pub data, inside page? >

Toronto. HS discuses first going to and meeting young man, Grant, and falling in love, in 1969 or 1970.. (Schulman interview page 4, 5.)

Toronto Gay Action. HS calls it "a very radical group" and "I became the convener". That "led to the founding of the first gay liberation newspaper in Canada, one of the earliest in North America, called The Body Politic. (Schulman interview p 6.) HS describes its politics as left, socialist, or communist, Marxist. (Schulman interview, p. 13).

Toronto, commune in Kensington Market. HS: one of the gay liberationists moved in with me, and then we moved into a little commune in a place in Toronto called Kensington Market, and we were all gay liberationists there, and there was one woman with a little baby . . . " (Schulman interview, p. 9)

"We Demand" petition and demo in Ottawa. HS authored with David Newcom. Schulman, p. 18 and see 1971, August 28, below)

Herb Spiers, left, Brian Mossop, long-time Canadian gay activist, right.

Timeline

1945, November 8

Born, Columbus, Ohio

1971. August 28

On August 28, 1971, homosexual men and women rallied on Parliament Hill in Ottawa, in the first large-scale gay demonstration in Canada. Canadian Lesbian and Gay Archives. "We Demand. The August 28th Gay Day Committee. Report in The Body Politic, Issue 1, Nov / Dec 1971. Reprinted in Flaunting It!, 1982. Spiers cited as co-writer with David Newcome of We Demand text.

1972

Loubser, Jan J. Herbert Spiers, Carolyn Moody. The York County Board of Education: A Study in Innovation. Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, 1972. ISBN 0774400722 / 9780774400725 / 0-7744-0072-2.

1973, October 30

CBC Digital Archives: "Drag queens on Halloween". Broadcast Date: Oct. 30, 1973 Spiers interviewed. CBC description: "Exuberant cross-dressers, gay-baiting hecklers and glamorous female impersonators: they're all part of the scene at Toronto's Club Manatee on Halloween night in the early 1970s. The unlicensed gay dance club hosts a popular drag show every Halloween, attracting both friendly and hostile crowds. In this CBC-TV film from 1973, vignettes from the street outside are interspersed with scenes of three men and a woman dressing up for the evening – the men in women's clothes and makeup, the woman with a man's hat and pencil moustache. Warning: This item contains offensive language."

1974, Ocotober

Bebout, Rick. "The Star sells hate." Picket at the home of The Toronto Star's publisher. Photo of Spiers with others. Spiers mentions in history of The Body Politic publication.

2008, July 2

Spiers, Herb. Interviewed by Sarah Schulman, July 2, 2008. Act Up Oral History Project. Interview Number: 090

2009

Spiers, Herb. "The Art of Gabriel Picart." 2009?

2009, April 24-26

Joe Daniel '92 MBA & Herbert Spiers are Gold Hosts of "The First Ever Yale LGBT Reunion.

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