The English painter Michael Wishart was introduced to Fouts, “ an opium addict (described by Cocteau, no less, “as a bad influence”) who in turn introduced a besotted Wishart to the habit.
The character Paul in Down There on a Visit is written about Fouts. Denny moved in with him in the summer of 1941 to unwind from his hard lifestyle and lead a life of meditation. (see Michael Dirda, Bound To Please: Essays on Great Writers and Their Books). A further connection was made with British novelist Christopher Isherwood.
#Harold halma photograph of capote series
American writer Gore Vidal built A Thirsty Evil on Fouts, a subtle yet shocking series about social behaviours and intricacies of gay subculture at the time. The life of Fouts provided a rich creative source for his illustrious suitors. He famously considered him the “Best-Kept Boy in the World” in his book Answered Prayers, a seedy tale of the various social classes mixing, inspired by Fouts stories of his rich female lovers and their husbands, especially the first chapter Unspoiled Monsters. The way he picked his clients was something of a legend after becoming besotted with Harold Halma’s photograph of Truman Capote on the cover of Other Voices, Other Rooms, Fouts is meant to have sent a blank check to the writer with one word only: “Come”. (A very well-informed story of his life can be read in Richard Wall’s Folio Weekly article). His dangerous side was offset by his charm and he lived off his wealthy lovers, both men and women, receiving gifts such as a Picasso painting and a Dali decorated suitcase. He was known as a volatile drunk, a moody eccentric, a cocaine and sex addict, who even got arrested in Portugal for practising his favourite vice – sex in the outdoors he claimed that he liked such forceful sex that he actually popped blood vessels while in the act. (Christopher Sawyer-Lauçanno, An Invisible Spectator: A Biography of Paul Bowles, 1999). So, his legend goes that Nazi loving Lord Tredegar took him to China, where he discovered opium he was pictured in Time Magazine with an aristocratic lover hunting lions in Africa in 1938, Fouts notoriously shocked the Bowles by “shooting flaming arrows from his hotel window onto the busy Champs Élysées below”, having spent some time in Tibet, learning archery. If people didn’t know his background he would make it up.”īits of his life can be recovered from biographies, novels, stories and hearsay with lots of pieces of the puzzle still missing. thin as a hieroglyph, he had dark hair, light brown eyes and a cleft chin and ‘was about the most beautiful boy anybody had ever seen,’ said Jimmy Daniels, who sang at a Harlem nightclub Denny frequented.” John B. (…) His extraordinary good looks brought stares wherever he went.
His family thought of itself as part of the Southern aristocracy it was upright, conservative and intolerant of all those who did not accept its ossified codes (…) One of those people whose only ambition was to attract other people, Denny was superb at his job, affording it no more thought or effort than a flower gives to enticing the bees that buzz before its fragrant blossoms, or than a tropical fish gives to those who admire its peacock fins from other sides of the aquarium glass: he was a male whore from Jacksonville, Florida. When he was growing up, Jacksonville still considered itself part of the reconstructed South. In an excerpt from Capote: A Biography (2005), Gerald Clarke wrote that, “Unlike many in his profession, Denny chose his career. To highlight the fascination which his seductive character, Truman Capote overstressed that, “had Denham Fouts yielded to Hitler’s advances, there would have been no World War Two.” He was also linked to numerous actors (Jean Marais), international millionaires and even royalty (Paul, the future king of Greece). Williams and the painter Michael Wishart.
In the 1930s and ‘40s, he became notorious as America’s luxury gigolo, socialite and muse to literary greats such as Capote, Vidal, Isherwood, Lambert, Brecht, Huxley, T.
On the 16 th of December 1948, Louis Denham Fouts died in Rome of a heart attack at the young age of 35 after years of excess – drugs, cigarettes, alcohol and a wild and promiscuous lifestyle.
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