As the Oscars approach, it’s fun to take a look at previous awards, especially the 1974 broadcast in which David Niven’s speech was interrupted by a naked man.
This man, known in San Francisco as Robert Opel, a gay gallerist, nudist activist and freelance photographer whose life and death are now the subject of an extensive essay by Michael Schulman in the Feb. 6 issue of The New Yorker magazine.
An excerpt: “The scratcher not yet taken the government to the press room, where he gave the impression in a blue jumpsuit unbuttoned to the waist and posed next to a giant Oscar. He knew himself as Robert Opel, a publicist. What he did ‘I didn’t say I worked for the Los Angeles school formula and that I was gay. “I thought this might be something educational,” he said. Plus, it’s a great way to launch a race. “
The famous Opel series is a brief media sensation, as Schulman writes:
“Six years after Andy Warhol made his fifteen-minute prophecy of fame, and decades before ‘going viral’ entered the lexicon, Opel embodied both. He was noted for his shamelessness and had discovered the best contrast in Niven, whose impassibility coincided with Opel’s debauchery. Hollywood had tried for years to stick to the counterculture, and now it had crushed the city’s holiest ritual.
“Even though Opel’s fifteen minutes were running out, their quest for exposure was just beginning. The Oscars were not his first or last contact with history, and five years later he would be dead. “
Prolific gay author, photographer and Drummer editor Jack Fritsher was interviewed extensively for the article, and one of his Opel photographs is included in the report.
As Opel was a local celebrity before his assassination, there are many angles of San Francisco in the film. Fritscher’s book, “Mapplethorpe: Assault with a Deadly Camera,” chronicles the Opel and Robert Mapplethorpe reunion.
The article also evocatively describes San Francisco from the 1970s until Opel’s death.
Fritcher says, “Schulman’s article will pay tribute to and quote local San Francisco Opel legends Camille O’Grady (interviewed six months before her death from COVID-19), late-back author, photographer, and BAR columnist Jim Stewart, and photographer Dan Nicoletta, with contextual data mentioning Harvey Milk, and a special appearance of Robert Mapplethorpe living his life in San Francisco. “The Bay Area Reporter is also a source of various facts and quotes.
Read the article (subscription may be required) in www. newyorker. com
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