“Jean Arthur herself had no children, and despite her marriages (the one to Frank Ross and

“Jean Arthur herself had no children, and despite her marriages (the one to Frank Ross and an earlier one-day marriage to Julian Ancker), her sexual tendencies were ambiguous. Fellow actor Patsy Kelly overtly acknowledged (in an interview) Arthur’s lesbianism, while Agnes Moorehead did not contradict an interviewer who grouped Arthur with actresses who ‘have enjoyed lesbian or bi-relationships.’ Moorehead simply said that, like most women, Arthur was 'emotionally intricate’. Arthur was rumored to have been romantically involved with Mary Martin, gossip that seemed validated by a 1966 novel, The Princess and the Goblin, allegedly a roman á clef about their relationship; it was several years before its author, Paul Rosner, acknowledged that the story was wholly imagined, though he did draw on his own impressions of the two women in writing it. Speculation about Arthur’s sexual orientation was revived by Donald Spoto’s biography of Marlene Dietrich, Blue Angel, which cited Arthur and Martin among the 'charter members of America’s creative lesbian community’, while Hadleigh’s book assumed Arthur’s lesbianism or bisexuality 'as a given’.”-From The Gay & Lesbian Theatrical Legacy: A Biographical Dictionary of Major Figures in American Stage History in the Pre-Stonewall Era by Billy J. Harbin, Kimberley Bell Marra, and Robert A. Schanke -- source link

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