Ithaca College

Stephen Tropiano, director of the Ithaca College James B. Pendleton Center in Los Angeles, is co-curating a new exhibit titled “Gay Hollywood” at the Hollywood Entertainment Museum. The exhibit is opening September 15 and will be on view until December 4. Tropiano worked on the project with Hollywood Entertainment Museum curator Jan-Christopher Horak.


The goal of this major exhibition is to analyze the phenomenon of being gay and lesbian on screen in Tinseltown, beginning with the gay stereotypes and transvestism of American silent comedy, through the years of repression to the post-Stonewall liberation. The exhibition includes over 120 objects, including photographs, film and television clips, posters, and other publicity materials, as well as costumes and props. Among the rarest images are the first known gay bar scene from 1933’s Call Her Savage, the censored gay bath scene from Spartacus (1960), and William Powell cross-dressing in Love Crazy (1941).

The exhibit has been funded in part by the Los Angeles County Arts Commission. For more information, visit www.hollywoodmuseum.com.