Gillian Freeman, the British author who in 1961 wrote the groundbreaking novel The Leather Boys has died aged 89.. The controversial novel which she published under the pseudonym Eliot George, was the a story of a gay relationship between two young working-class men, later turned into a film for which she wrote the screenplay, this time under her own name.
Way ahead of its time, the novel was commissioned by the publisher Anthony Blond, who wanted a story about a “Romeo and Romeo in the South London suburbs
The film made in 1964 starred Rita Tushingham and also Dudley Sutton as Pete who without any sense of irony was described as a ‘gay good time batchelor and Reggie’s best friend ….or his worst one.” Both the book and the movie have since been applauded for the normality of male homosexuality, it portrayed between these working-class characters.”
Freeman also wrote a fictional diary of a woman in Nazi Germany, and screenplays and scenarios for ballets including Kenneth MacMillan’s “Mayerling,” . Her very first novel in 1955 was “The Liberty Man,” and like many of her subsequent books, it dealt with social and sexual distress, in this case a relationship between a middle-class teacher and a sailor of nebulous sexuality. Her non-fiction book The Undergrowth of Literature (1967), was a pioneering study of pornography.
Labels: 2019, Gilluan Freeman, obituary, The Leather Boys
