Picture it: New York City, 1953. President Eisenhower is in the White House, the Korean War is just coming to an end. I Love Lucy dominates the airwaves as the most popular show on television, and an 18-year-old Elvis Presley just recorded his first song. American life is as picturesque and pleasing as a Norman Rockwell painting.
While life seemed so “carefree and gay” for most, there were many who couldn’t be as carefree and gay as they wanted to be. Being a gay American in that era meant hiding your sexual orientation from your family and your employer. It was in 1953 that President Eisenhower signed Executive Order 10450 which mandated “sexual perverts” be fired from federal jobs. At that time, homosexuality was defined a disease, and gays were portrayed in public service films (one was titled Boys Beware) as having a “sickness that was not visible, like smallpox, but no less dangerous and contagious.” It would be another 20 years before the American Psychiatric Association declassified homosexuality as a mental disorder. Regardless of the discrimination and openly accepted condemnation, gays and lesbians persevered, living their lives in the underground and somehow managing to get by.
At age 24, John Kiley left his hometown of Adelaide, Australia, and came to the United States, settling in New York City. He secured a job with the Australian government as a writer with the news and information bureau, a precursor to the current Australian tourism department.
One warm evening in June 1953 John was having drinks with a friend at Lenny’s Hideaway, a basement bar on 10th Street between Seventh and Eighth avenues in the West Village when he struck up a conversation with a young, dark-complexioned man named Gene Silbert. A friendship commenced, and soon grew to be more than friendship. Neither could have imagined the future they’d have together.
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