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Joseph Hansen Papers: Finding
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Title: Joseph Hansen Papers
Dates (inclusive): 1880s-2004
Bulk dates: 1940s-2004
Collection Number: mssHansen
Creator:
Hansen, Joseph, 1923-2004
Extent:
92 boxes and 1 oversize folder (approx. 40 linear feet)
Repository:
The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens
Manuscripts Department
The Huntington Library
1151 Oxford Road
San Marino, California 91108
Phone: (626) 405-2203
Fax: (626) 449-5720
Email: reference@huntington.org
URL: http://www.huntington.org
Abstract: This collection contains the papers of Los Angeles writer and gay activist Joseph Hansen (1923-2004), known primarily for
creating the Dave Brandstetter detective series,
which was unique in featuring an openly gay detective as the title character. The papers include drafts of published and
unpublished work; correspondence;
professional papers primarily related to publishing; and personal and family papers.
Language: English.
Open to qualified researchers by prior application through the Reader Services Department. For more information, contact Reader
Services.
The Huntington Library does not require that researchers request permission to quote from or publish images of this material,
nor does it charge fees for such activities. The responsibility for
identifying the copyright holder, if there is one, and obtaining necessary permissions rests with the researcher.
The literary rights for the papers of Joseph Hansen are held by Daniel James Hansen (previously Barbara Hansen).
[Identification of item]. Joseph Hansen Papers, The Huntington Library, San Marino, California.
The majority of the collection was received as the gift of Joseph Hansen in August 1996 and July 1998.
An additional 9 cartons were received as the gift of the estate of Joseph Hansen in April 2013.
Los Angeles author Joseph Hansen (1923-2004) was known primarily for creating the Dave
Brandstetter detective series. The first of the series,
Fadeout published in
1970, was unique in featuring an openly gay detective as the title character. Hansen was
also a noted gay activist, teacher, and poet.
Joseph Hansen was born on July 19, 1923, in Aberdeen, South Dakota, where his father ran a
shoe store. During the Depression, the family relocated to Minneapolis, Minnesota, in 1933,
and three years later, moved to Altadena, California.
After high school in the late 1930s, Hansen became involved with the Pasadena Playhouse, and
appeared in a handful of student productions. It was at this time he met a Playhouse student
named Ben Ali Bobker (later Bobker Ben Ali) and began his first serious homosexual
relationship.
Around 1940 Hansen moved to Los Angeles, near Hollywood Boulevard and Highland Avenue. He worked
nearby at the infamous Pickwick Bookshop, where he encountered many of the actors, writers,
and agents, that would become characters in his novels.
In 1943, he met and married Jane Bancroft, an artist who was running a sheet-metal router at
Lockheed Aircraft at the time. Though both were openly gay, each engaging in homosexual
affairs throughout their marriage, they maintaining a committed companionship. The Hansens had one
daughter, Barbara, in 1944. Barbara was estranged from her parents for twenty years, but
resumed contact after Jane Hansen’s death. At this point she had had sex reassignment
surgery and was going by the name James Hansen (also later known as Daniel James Hansen).
Hansen wrote continuously from an early age including novels, plays, short stories, and
finally saw publication of his poetry in the
New Yorker in the 1950s. He
dabbled in television writing (including uncredited episodes of "Lassie" [see Box 19, Folder 4, for teleplay manuscript]),
and enjoyed a brief success as a folksinger. He hosted a short-lived radio program
called “The Stranger from the Sea” on KFI-AM, and recorded two albums of folk songs
accompanying himself on autoharp.
His first published novels were gay erotica, written for money, under the alias “James
Colton,” including
Known Homosexual and
Strange Marriage.
While Hansen was frustrated in not finding publication for his real creative work, the 1960s
were nevertheless a time of important activity for him. He became involved with
ONE magazine, one of the first and most important publications showcasing
work by gay writers about gay issues.
Hansen wrote several pieces for
ONE under the James Colton pseudonym, and
joined the editorial board in 1962. When
ONE was dissolved amid internal
conflict, Hansen co-founded the new journal
Tangents with the pioneering gay
activist Don Slater. Hansen also helped organize the first Gay Pride Parade in West
Hollywood in 1970.
Around this time Hansen began a weekly poetry workshop at the Bridge bookstore in Hollywood. This
workshop evolved into what would become the Beyond
Baroque Literary and Arts Center. In the coming years, Beyond Baroque would develop into a
focal point for the Los Angeles Literary Renaissance poets of the 1970s.
In the late 1960s Hansen created the character of Dave Brandstetter, a happy, openly gay
insurance investigator in Los Angeles. The first title in the series,
Fadeout, found its way to literary agent Joan Kahn, and the series became
Hansen’s most successful works, often favorably compared to novels by Ross MacDonald and Raymond
Chandler.
Hansen also wrote several non-detective novels, and late in life a biographical trilogy,
Jack of Hearts,
Living Upstairs, and
The Cutback Path featuring his alter-ego
Nathan Reed. The novels trace his years in Hollywood and participation in a closeted, but
vibrant gay world, vividly recounting the bars, characters, and neighborhoods of 1940s Los
Angeles.
In the late 1970s into the mid-1980s he taught extension courses in writing at UCLA.
Hansen and his wife Jane purchased a house near Culver City in 1958 where they lived until
the 1994 Northridge earthquake. Months before the earthquake, Hansen was diagnosed with
cancer concurrent with the decline of his wife’s health. She was admitted to a nursing home
shortly before the earthquake and died there in December 1994.
Hansen would live another ten years, eventually settling in Laguna Beach. He kept a
voluminous correspondence, in some cases for decades with writer friends, fans, and former
students. He died of heart failure on November 24, 2004.
This collection contains the papers of Los Angeles author and gay activist Joseph Hansen and includes drafts of published
and unpublished work; correspondence;
manuscripts of works by some of Hansen's friends, family, and students; professional papers primarily related to publishing;
and personal and family papers. The bulk of the material
dates from the 1940s through the early 2000s.
Works by Hansen
The collection includes works by Joseph Hansen, which consists of chiefly typescript drafts for most of Hansen's novels (including
those published under the pseudonyms
Rose Brock and James Colton), poetry, essays and articles, and television and play scripts. While there are some handwritten
edits and corrections among the drafts and proofs, the majority do not have annotations. There
are also two boxes with copies of various publications, primarily literary magazines and newspapers, containing Hansen's published
work.
Note: Some drafts of manuscripts are also located on computer disks (Box 81), which are unavailable for paging until reformatted.
Works by others
There
are two boxes with various manuscripts of work by friends and family of Hansen including poems by FrancEyE, and drafts of
novels:
In Search of Truth by Chris Gugas and
People Talking to Themselves by Armine D. Mackenzie.
There is also a ledger and manuscript by Belle Race from the early 1900s, who presumably was a relative
of Hansen's wife Jane Bancroft Hansen.
Correspondence
The correspondence includes both personal and professional letters sent and received by Hansen.
There is a sizable amount of correspondence
between Hansen and his publishers and agents including Collier Associates, Countryman Press; Holt, Rinehart & Winston; Harper
& Row; the John Johnson Agency; Joan Kahn; and Penguin Books.
Note that some contracts, agreements, and royalty statements are filed separately in the Professional and Personal Materials
series, while others are filed with the correspondence.
In addition, there are
also five folders of rejection letters sent to Hansen.
Within Hansen's personal correspondence,
notable correspondents include: British author Beryl Bainbridge, who befriended Hansen in the 1970s while Hansen was living
in London; English composer and musician Richard Rodney Bennett;
the publisher Brandon House, who put out Hansen's Colton books; gay filmmaker Arch Brown, who collaborated with Hansen on
a playscript of Hansen's novel
Backtrack, which was not
produced; American crime fiction writer Dorothy Salisbury Davis, with whom Hansen corresponded regularly; poet, and girlfriend
of Charles Bukowski, FrancEyE (aka Frances Dean Smith);
American author Philip Gambone who published a profile of Hansen in
Something Inside: Conversations with Gay Fiction Writers; poet and literary critic Diana Gioia;
gay activist William "Billy" Glover, who worked at
One magazine and after helped form the Homosexual Information Center in 1968; poet and literary critic William Harry Harding;
gay activist Ross Ingersoll; poet Bill Mohr; critic Terry Teachout, who reviewed some of Hansen's novels; and crime writer
Charles Ray Willeford. There are also insignificant pieces of correspondence from
well-known individuals: James Blish, James Broughton, Sue Grafton, Tony Hillerman, George Plimpton, Julian Symons, and Andrew
Vachss.
Professional and personal materials
This series includes a variety of materials related to many different parts of Hansen's life, including business, publishing,
and financial documents; miscellaneous ephemera, research materials;
family papers, with writings and papers by Jane Bancroft Hansen as well as the Hansen's only child Barbara Hansen; press features
on Hansen and reviews of his publications;
materials related to Hansen's KFI radio program "Stranger from the Sea"; documents related to Hansen's teaching, chiefly at
the UCLA extension school; miscellaneous materials related to Hansen's involvement with the gay community
such as the Gay Community Services Center and the homosexual Information Center;
and some materials related to his work on a 1970 issue of the literary magazine
Beyond Baroque.
Photographs
The collection contains one box of photographs with images of Hansen throughout his life, as well as
family members including Jane Bancroft Hansen and Barbara Hansen, and some friends and residences.
Oversize drawings
This series contains approximately 70 drawings on paper presumably by Jane Hansen from the 1960s, of which many may have been
created as part of art class.
The collection is organized in 6 series:
- Works by Hansen
- Manuscripts
- Publications
- Works by others
- Correspondence
- Professional and personal materials
- Photographs
- Computer disks and audio cassettes
- Oversize materials and index cards
- Oversize artwork
The following terms have been used to index the description of this collection in the
Huntington Library's Online Catalog.
Hansen, Joseph, 1923-2004 -- Archives.
Bancroft, Jane, -1994 -- Archives.
Authors -- United States -- Archives.
Gay authors -- United States -- Archives.
Gays -- United States -- 20th century.
Detective and mystery fiction -- United States -- 20th century.
Letters (correspondence) -- United States -- 20th century.
Personal papers -- United States -- 20th century.
Photographs -- United States -- 20th century.
Bainbridge, Beryl, 1932-2010, correspondent.
Bancroft, Jane, -1994, correspondent.
Bennett, Richard Rodney, correspondent.
Brown, Arch, correspondent.
Davis, Dorothy Salisbury, correspondent.
FrancEyE, 1922- author.
FrancEyE, 1922- correspondent.
Gambone, Philip, correspondent.
Gioia, Dana, correspondent.
Glover, William, 1932- correspondent.
Harding, William Harry, correspondent.
Ingersoll, Ross, correspondent.
Mackenzie, Armine D., author.
Mohr, Bill, correspondent.
Teachout, Terry, correspondent.
Willeford, Charles Ray, 1919-1988, correspondent.