Harvey Milk, the first openly gay man
to be elected to major public office, often said that he believed the path
to acceptance for gay men and lesbians lay in each one coming out of the
closet and living openly.
His story inspired the movie "Milk," which earned Sean Penn a chance at a
Golden Globe Award tonight for his work in the title role. And yet Milk
spent his childhood on Long Island in the 1930s and '40s as a secret gay in
a straight world. He became a gay rights hero with his 1977 election to the
San Francisco Board of Supervisors and his successful fight there for an
ordinance that protected gays from being fired, then a martyr to many when
assassinated less than a year later. But in Woodmere and Bay Shore,
apparently no one suspected that the lanky boy with the dark eyes and quick
wit was anything other than a "regular guy."
A biography written a few years after his murder recounts stories of his
first adolescent sexual experiences (at Metropolitan Opera matinees where he
watched from a standee section with a reputation for randiness) and an
account of how he was picked up by police, but not arrested, in a roundup of
gays in Central Park the summer after his 1947 graduation from Bay Shore
High School.
But his high school friends say they knew nothing of his love for opera,
much less his sexual orientation. To them, he was an ardent if second-string
athlete, a fun-loving joker and a likable pal who danced with girls around
the jukebox.
"He was funny as heck," said Patrick Vesey, 80, a retired accountant who
still lives in Bay Shore.
A football player in the class of 1948, Vesey was one of a half-dozen
schoolmates who hung out with Milk. "We never dreamt he was gay. ... We'd go
out frequently in a car with a can of beer, driving around, going to parties
and he was right with us, a regular guy."
Perhaps the innocence of that era, when nobody talked about being gay or
casually slept around in high school, protected Milk's privacy, said Peggy
Meyers Stafford, one of the girls in the group of Bay Shore friends.
"I remember a couple of gay guys in the high school but he wasn't one of
them," said Jack Percival, a Bay Shore student in the class behind Milk's,
who said he wasn't a close friend. "If they were known, they were
ostracized. They used to call them fairies; today they call them gay guys."
Indeed, when Milk was named by a committee to the school's alumni Hall of
Fame a few years ago, Percival said, "A majority were in favor, but there
were complaints from others from the class: Why are we electing Harvey Milk,
the guy who turned out to be a gay?"
His yearbook listed his activities as football, basketball, junior variety
show and junior prom committee, his nickname as Glimpy. Under his photo
read: "And they say WOMEN are never at a loss for words!"
Woodmere to Bay Shore
Born in 1930, Milk moved with parents William and Minerva to Bay Shore,
where the family opened a dress shop on Main Street, from Woodmere, where
his grandfather Morris owned Milk's Department Store. Morris Milk also was a
founder of Temple Sons of Israel, where the young Harvey attended Hebrew
school and was bar mitzvahed.
A family photo shows him as a 4-year-old playing cowboys and Indians with
older brother Robert. At 12, a home movie shows him at a party in Queens in
honor of his infant cousin, Michael Salem (who'd he later advise on how to
successfully launch a catalog business, now online, outfitting
transvestites.)
After graduation in 1951 from the New York State College for Teachers in
Albany, and a four-year stint as an officer in the Navy, he taught math at
the George W. Hewlett High School during the 1956-57 school year. His
homeroom student, Andrew Marks of Manhattan, recalled Milk as a "warm,
lovable guy ... a funny, fun-loving, bouncy-type guy."
"I was just crazy for him. ... He had such a kindness to him," said Shelly
Kamer Roth of Phoenix. "He made you feel special."
'Stand-up guy'
Former state Legis. John Cochrane Sr., president of Milk's 1947 high school
class, recalled traits in the young Milk he later showed as a theatrical,
publicity-savvy gay activist and politician on the West Coast.
"Harvey was a very extroverted kind of guy," he said. "I can still remember
him coming up after a meeting, and saying, 'Hey John, why don't we get a
picture on top of the school roof?' He was innovative."
To close friends such as Vesey, Leonardo Piscopo and Artie Schiller, who
went on to own a popular bar in town, he was part of a group who went to
Feistadts pharmacy after school for sodas and the beach in summer.
A "stand-up guy," unafraid of conflict, Vesey said, Milk and Schiller took
his car into the city, where they took off the rear fender of a taxi in an
accident. "I'll take care of this," Milk said, jumping out to confront the
enraged cabbie, who retreated with his fender and drove away.
Another time, Vesey
recalled, the group got lost on the way to a party, and,
after coming across a large home with a party in progress,
Milk jumped out to investigate. Eventually, he appeared at a
window and tipped a drink toward his friends in the car. "He
just went by the window and acted like he belonged there."
Hidden depths
Which may be how he lived his life then - acting as if he
belonged - regardless of his hidden life as a gay man.
Nevertheless, friend Peggy Meyers Stafford saw depths in
Milk that suggested something more.
"It was my intuition about him," said
Stafford, now 77 and living in Florida. "I think that Harvey
was deeper than we were, more mature in his head in a way
... the other guys were always horsing around, everything
was fun and games. There was just something about Harvey
that led me to believe there was more to him than what he
led on, but wasn't about to share with us."
Harvey Milk
BORN: May 22, 1930, raised in Woodmere and Bay Shore.
EDUCATION: Bay Shore High School class of 1947, New York
State College for Teachers 1951. Served in the U.S. Navy
four years.
WORK: Math teacher at George W. Hewlett High School 1956-57.
Worked for financial and insurance companies, then
theatrical production, in New York. Opened camera shop in
San Francisco in 1972.
POLITICS: Won national attention after 1977 election to city
Board of Supervisors after three failed tries at office.
Helped win city gay rights ordinance, defeat anti-gay state
proposition.
DIED: Nov. 27, 1978. He and Mayor George Moscone shot to
death by recently resigned Supervisor Dan White in City
Hall.
LEGACY: Government buildings and plazas named for Milk in
San Francisco, as is a high school for at-risk gay, lesbian,
bisexual and transgender teens in New York City. Included in
Time magazine's 100 Heroes and Icons of 20th Century.