Dotson Rader

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Dotson Rader

Born: 25-Jul-1942
Birthplace: Evanston, IL

Gender: Male
Race or Ethnicity: White
Sexual orientation: Bisexual [1]
Occupation: Author

Nationality: United States
Executive summary: I Ain't Marchin' Anymore!

Sold his apartment in the Dakota to Yoko Ono in 1978.

"Mr. Rader's slapdash but entertaining memoir is a jumble of gossip, self-pitying confessionals ("I, too, had been an involuntary guest at an insane asylum") and strident self-promotion -- now and then punctuated by arbitrarily inserted, perfunctory accounts of Williams's past. When he is not describing his wardrobe or limousine rides, the author is particularly eager to portray himself as a bard and avatar of 1960's political and social radicalism. Mr. Rader reminds us that he knew both Jim Morrison and David Dellinger, that he hung out at Max's Kansas City (including "the night Jean Genet was there") and was tear-gassed while protesting the Vietnam War... Some of Tennessee: Cry of the Heart [...] especially the gratuitous asides about the sexual proclivities of the famous, suggests an East Coast answer to Kenneth Anger's Hollywood Babylon." [2]

[1] "By most accepted accounts, a former male hustler... He is not amused, though, by people who make cracks about his first crude pornographic novel about a homosexual hustler, Gov't Inspected Meat and Other Fun Summer Things. "I wrote it in the first person," he says, "and it was deeply felt. I've never said in print I was a hustler, but of course all books are somewhat autobiographical," he concedes, which is not to say he takes kindly to "people who come up to me at parties and say they bought me for a night 15 years ago... Walt Whitman once said," he reminds, "that all boys should spend a year or two hustling. I think prostitution by all young people is probably healthy. It teaches you so much, brings you into the world and even gives you pocket money... Frankly, I don't think anybody can say to you, I am totally straight or totally homosexual. People pass through phases." Ruth Ford & Dotson Rader: A December Mistress-Muse to May, Jim Watters, People magazine, 24 March 1975.

[2] Half Blanche and Half Stanley, book review by Frank Rich, The New York Times, 21 April 1985.

Girlfriend: Ruth Ford (actress, b. 1915, cohabited 1971-77)

University: BA, Columbia University (1963-68)

Esquire Contributing Editor
Parade Contributing Editor (1982)
Parade National Correspondent (1980)
New Politics Editorial Consultant (1971-80)
Defiance Editor (1969)
Evergreen Review Contributing Editor (1969)
The New Republic Contributor (1967)
Students for a Democratic Society
Suicide Attempt

Author of books:
I Ain't Marchin' Anymore! An Honest Account of Life Among the Disaffected Young -- Their Violence, Politics, and Sex (1969)
Gov't Inspected Meat and Other Fun Summer Things (1970, pornography)
Blood Dues (1973)
The Dream's on Me (1976)
Beau Monde (1980)
Tennessee: Cry of the Heart (1985, biography of Tennessee Williams)

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