Description
Clippings of articles, columns, and reviews regarding
LGBT actors, motion pictures, and film festivals. The files were culled from a variety of mainstream and LBGT magazines and newspapers,
1966-2011. Mechtley began collecting
LGBT film clippings in the 1970s. Vito Russo introduced Metchly to other columnists and film festival directors.
Background
While living in Hollywood, California in the early 1970s, Rick Mechtly discover Vito Russo's column in the New York gay newspaper,
GAY. Enthralled by Russo's pithy remarks, Mechtly started to assemble a collection of
LGBT film related articles, columns, and reviews. Soon after GAY folded, Russo began touring the country with his lecture and
film clip presentation, Celluloid Closet. With no other contact information, Mechtly decided to write to Jack Nichols, editor
of GAY, in hopes of him forwarding a letter to Russo. It worked, Russo contacted him in 1978 and they briefly chatted about
Mechtly’s preservation of Russo’s columns. Russo insisted that Mechtly had the beginnings of a collection and suggested he
make himself the “community’s clipper” of such materials. For more obscure clippings, Russo put him in touch with Peter Lowry,
founder of the New York City Gay Film Festival, and Brenda Webb, founder of the Chicago Gay Film Festival. In 1981, Russo
suggested that Mechtly share some of his oldest clippings with Larry Horne. Horne and others at the University of California,
Los Angeles (UCLA) were planning the first Los Angeles International Gay & Lesbian Film & Video Festival, which later became
known as Outfest. After exchanging letters about once a year, in 1987 Mechtly and Horne were finally able to meet at the festival.
In early 1988, Mechtly contacted Russo, inquiring about his inspiration for gay film writing. As he suspected, Russo was greatly
influenced by Jack Babuscio, a writer for London’s Gay Times. Mechtly offered to collect the (recently deceased) Babuscio’s
columns, in their entirety, for Russo. Of the nearly ninety columns, Mechtly already possessed three dozen. From there, he
sought help from ONE National Gay & Lesbian Archives, where another three dozen columns were uncovered. And at the recommendation
of Horne, he contacted Stephen Bourne from the British Film Institute in London. Bourne assisted Mechtly in recovering the
remaining columns. Upon receiving this gift, Russo called Mechtly to express his gratitude for the Babuscio collection.
Restrictions
All requests for permission to publish or quote from manuscripts must be submitted in writing to the ONE Archivist. Permission
for publication is given on behalf of ONE National Gay and Lesbian Archives at USC Libraries as the owner of the physical
items and is not intended to include or imply permission of the copyright holder, which must also be obtained.