The change began when he answered an apparently yawning demand among regular guys for shirts cut just so, so that they can be worn with the tails flapping freely over the pants — a look that has become almost universal for the bruhs of the Red Bull generation.
|
|
Bruhs Mero and Gean Harwood The lives of Bruhs Mero (February 15, 1911 - August 10, 1995) and L. Eugene "Gean" Harwood (1909-2006) are recounted in the book by Harwood, The Oldest Gay Couple in America: A Seventy-Year Journey Through Same-Sex America.
|
|
Bruhs Mero and Gean Harwood are profiled in Silent Pioneers, a 1984 documentary by Lucy Winter, Harvey Marks, Paula de Koenigsberg, and Patricia G. Snyder, and For Better or for Worse, the musical chronicling their love affair, was nominated for an Academy Award in 1993. A second musical, Sixty Years with Bruhs & Gean, written by Tom Wilson Weinberg and directed by Jim Vivyan, was produced in 2008. The musical was commissioned by the New York City Gay Men's Chorus and originally performed at Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center and featured on In The Life on PBS. Bruhs Mero and Gean Harwood are profiled in Family: a portrait of gay and lesbian America, by Nancy Andrews (1994) and in Living happily ever after: couples talk about lasting love (1996).
|
|
Bruh examines dating, careers, and friendship in contemporary society for a group of college friends in their 30s. This group of "Bruhs" will examine the stereotypes of African American men and maintain their brother-like relationships, while finding love and fulfilling careers.
|
|
Harwood never came out to his family, and Mero did it only in 1979. They kept their relationship private until 1985 when they came out on The Phil Donahue Show. Bruhs Mero died from Alzheimer’s disease on August 10, 1995. Harwood died in 2006.
|
|
In 1939 Mero and Harwood opened the Dance Gallery. In 1943 Mero had his first solo performance at Broadway with Harwood playing piano, but a heart attack interrupted his dance career. After that Mero worked as a writer for a trade publication. On June 30, 1985, during the New York Pride celebration, Gean Harwood and Bruhs Mero were named "Grand Marshals".
|
|
Harwood worked for Paramount Pictures in New York City for twenty years; he made transportation arrangements for actors and executives. Harwood later became administrative assistant for the New York City's building department, retiring in 1971. Bruhs at first worked in advertising and later became a professional dancer, working on and off Broadway. He also taught dance and choreographed modern dance performances using the music of Harwood.
|
|
Bruhs Mero and Gean Harwood were partners in life and music. They wrote their first composition, "Come and Take My Hand", in 1933. The text was a poem by Mero, who lived alone in Florida for a period due to the lack of jobs in New York City; loneliness pushed him to wrote the poem and he sent it to Harwood who put it in music. More than 50 other songs would follow.
|
|