Phil Andros
by Terence Kissack, of the GLBT Historical Society
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In the fall, the Journal of the
History of Sexuality will publish an interview with Samuel
Morris Steward, a.k.a. Phil Andros, seven years after his death. In the
interview, Steward discusses the effect of the McCarthy hearings on gay
life, his
relationship with Alfred Kinsey, his career as a tattoo artist, the
sexual culture of Chicago in the 1950s and early
'60s, the development of the "leather scene" among gay men, and his
relationships with male prostitutes.
Steward is among the most fascinating figures of post-World War II queer
culture. During his life he worked as a university
professor, a tattoo artist, a pornographer, a novelist, and an editor of
the World Book Encyclopedia. Born in Ohio in 1909, Steward
earned both undergraduate and graduate degrees at Ohio State University.
The 1936 publication of his first novel, Angels on the
Bough, with its racy portrayal of prostitution, led to his dismissal
from his position at Washington State University. Within a year, Steward
moved to Chicago, where he was employed by Loyola University until
1946 and later by DePaul University. By 1954 Steward had left academia
to pursue his other interests -- writing
and tattooing.
Steward's "respectable" writing never enjoyed great success. He
published a number of nonfiction works, largely
autobiographical in nature. His first work of fiction was a collection
of short stories entitled Pan and the Firebird,
which appeared shortly before he entered college. His novels, which
include Parisian Lives, Murder is Murder is
Murder, and The Caravaggio Shawl, feature a cast of
characters drawn from the circle of Gertrude Stein and Alice
B. Toklas. Steward began corresponding with Stein and Toklas during his
student days at Ohio State and met them on a 1936 trip to Europe. In
1977 Steward published a selection of the letters he had exchanged with
the
famous pair under the title Dear Sammy: Letters From Gertrude Stein
and Alice B. Toklas. Steward's depiction of 1930s Paris offers a
unique perspective on the lives of his more famous literary colleagues.
He also
wrote books, based on his own experiences, that examine the worlds of
the tattoo parlor and male hustling.
Steward's pornographic work, published under the pseudonym Phil Andros
(Greek for "lover of men"), enjoyed
popular success. The titles of Andros's books are revealing:
Stud, Greek Ways, The Boys in
Blue . The Phil Andros series reflects both Steward's
real-life adventures and
his erotic imagination. John Preston, a great fan of Andros and an
author in his own right, wrote that Andros's
works are "true to life travelogues of gay life in America during the
Fifties and early Sixties. While some other
writers of 'porn' were content with one-dimensional characters and
nuts-and-bolts sex, Phil Andros was a pilgrim
reporting on the multi-faceted mysteries and fantasies of a sensual
experience that contradicted the mass-market
concepts of the unhappy, guilt-ridden, tragicomic homosexual."
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