Phil Andros

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Samuel Morris Steward (1909-December 31, 1993), also known by the pen name Phil Andros, was a novelist and tattoo artist based in Oakland, California. He was born in Woodsfield, Ohio and attended the Ohio State University. He began teaching English as a university professor in 1934. In 1936 he was dismissed from a position at Washington State University at Pullman due to the portrayal of prostitution in his novel Angels on the Bough. He moved to Chicago, teaching at Loyola until 1946 and then at DePaul University.^[1] In 1954 he left teaching and began tattooing in Chicago under the Trade Name name Phil Sparrow.

Steward met famed sex researcher Alfred Kinsey around 1949 and became an unofficial collaborator, helping Kinsey find new contacts. In 1949, he participated in a BDSM scene for Kinsey to film, with a sadist that Kinsey flew in from New York. He said Kinsey was "as approachable as a park bench" and described him as a liberating influence.^[2]

In the early 1950s he made pornographic drawings, many of them based on his own Polaroid photographs. Some of his art was published in the trilingual Swiss homosexual journal Der Kreis (The Circle).^[2]

Steward maintained friendships with Gertrude Stein, Alice B. Toklas, and Lord Alfred Douglas (the lover of Oscar Wilde). His 1981 memoir Chapters from an Autobiography detailed these relationships, as well as other experiences. He also edited the book Dear Sammy: Letters from Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas (Houghton Mifflin, 1977), and wrote two "Gertrude Stein-Alice B. Toklas Mysteries" featuring the famous couple as detectives.^[3]

In the 1960s Steward began writing gay erotica under the name Phil Andros. His works dealt with rough trade and sadomasochistic sex. Since the legality of gay erotica was still questionable, its authors and publishers had little recourse against piracy; Steward's own San Francicso Hustler was published without permission by Cameo Library as Gay in San Francisco by "Biff Thomas".^[4] The name Phil Andros, which he used both as a pen name and the name of his protagonist, comes from the Greek words for love and man.^[5]

As a tattooist and man of letters he drew the attention of Clifford Ingram, AKA Cliff Raven, and from his Oakland studio, Don Ed Hardy. He mentored both into the profession. Cliff Raven became famous as a tattooist in Chicago, and by mentoring others, generated a line of noted tattooist (Tatt's Thomas, Robert Benedetti, Bob Roberts, Pat Fish, and Thomas Raven among others).

Steward died at age 84 of chronic pulmonary disease in Berkeley, California.^[6]

[edit] Bibliography

As Phil Andros:

The Joy Spot (1969)
$tud (1969)
My Brother, the Hustler (1970; later published as My Brother, My Self)
San Francisco Hustler (1970)
When in Rome (1971; later published as Roman Conquests)
Renegade Hustler (1972; later published as Shuttlecock)
Below the Belt and Other Stories (1975)
The Greek Way (1975; later published as Greek Ways)
The Boys in Blue (1984)
Different Strokes: Stories (1984)

As Samuel M. Steward:

Pan and the fire-bird (1930; short stories)
Angels on the Bough (1936)
Dear Sammy: Letters from Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas (1977, ed.)
Parisian Lives (1984; novel)
Chapters from an autobiography (1981; memoir)
Murder Is Murder Is Murder (1985; Gertrude Stein-Alice B. Toklas Mystery)
The Caravaggio Shawl (1989; Gertrude Stein-Alice B. Toklas Mystery)
Bad Boys and Tough Tattoos : a Social History of the Tattoo with Gangs, Sailors, and Street-Corner Punks, 1950-1965 (1990)
Understanding the Male Hustler (1991)
Pair of Roses (1993)

[edit] External links

A Very Magical Life: Talking with Samuel Steward—Interview by Owen Keehnen in GLBTQ

[edit] References

^ Terence Kissack, PlanetOut History: Phil Andros
^ ^a ^b Kissack, Terence (2000). "Alfred Kinsey and homosexuality in the '50s : The recollections of Samuel Morris Steward as told to Len Evans". Journal of the History of Sexuality 9 (4): 474-491.
^ Ted-Larry Pebworth, "Mystery Fiction: Gay Male", GLBTQ: An encyclopedia of gay, lesbian, transgender and queer culture.
^ Young, Ian. "How Gay Paperbacks Changed America", The Gay & Lesbian Review Worldwide, November, 2001, pp. 14-17. (free online version)
^ Keehnen, Owen (1993). A Very Magical Life: Talking with Samuel Steward. glbtq: An Encyclopedia of Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer Culture. Retrieved on 2006-01-17.
^ Steward, Samuel. "Samuel Steward, 84, a writer about Stein (Obituary)", New York Times, 1994-01-20, pp. B8.