Harold Leland "Hal" Call (September 1917–December 18, 2000) was an American businessperson,

LGBT ' is an initialism that stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender. In use since the 1990s, the initialism, as well as some of its common variants, functions as an umbrella term for sexuality and gender identity. The LGBT term is a ...

rights activist, and U.S. Army veteran. He served as president of the

Mattachine Society The Mattachine Society (), founded in 1950, was an early national gay rights organization in the United States, perhaps preceded only by Chicago's Society for Human Rights. Communist and labor activist Harry Hay formed the group with a collection ...

and in the 1950s, was one of the first gay activists to speak publicly on television. Call founded printing presses for LGBT publications and later opened gay adult shops and pornographic film screening venues. He received a

Purple Heart The Purple Heart (PH) is a United States military decoration awarded in the name of the President to those wounded or killed while serving, on or after 5 April 1917, with the U.S. military. With its forerunner, the Badge of Military Merit, w ...

for his service in the

Pacific War The Pacific War, sometimes called the Asia–Pacific War, was the theater of World War II that was fought in Asia, the Pacific Ocean, the Indian Ocean, and Oceania. It was geographically the largest theater of the war, including the vast ...

Early life and education

Born and raised in

Grundy County, Missouri Grundy County is a county located in the U.S. state of Missouri. As of the 2020 census, the population was 9,808. Its county seat is Trenton. The county was organized January 2, 1841, from part of Livingston County, Missouri and named after U. ...

, Call enrolled in the

University of Missouri The University of Missouri (Mizzou, MU, or Missouri) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Columbia, Missouri. It is Missouri's largest university and the flagship of the four-campus Universit ...

in 1935 on a scholarship. He studied journalism. Call enlisted in the

United States Army The United States Army (USA) is the land service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army of the United States in the U.S. Constitution.Article II, section 2, cla ...

in June 1941 as a private. He was promoted to sergeant within the year and, after completing

Officer Candidate School An officer candidate school (OCS) is a military school which trains civilians and Enlisted rank, enlisted personnel in order for them to gain a Commission (document), commission as Commissioned officer, officers in the armed forces of a country. ...

, was promoted to lieutenant. He saw combat in the

, where he was wounded and received the

. Returning to the United States in 1945, Call left the army at the rank of captain and returned to the University of Missouri to complete his journalism degree.

Career and activism

After graduating, Call worked for several news outlets, including the ''

Kansas City Star ''The Kansas City Star'' is a newspaper based in Kansas City, Missouri. Published since 1880, the paper is the recipient of eight Pulitzer Prizes. ''The Star'' is most notable for its influence on the career of President Harry S. Truman and as ...

''. In August 1952, while working for the ''Star'', Call was arrested for "lewd conduct" and paid an $800 bribe to have the charges dismissed. Call resigned his job and he and his lover Jack moved to

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...

. With his arrival in the city, Call became involved with the

, the first sustained gay rights group in the United States. Following the resignations of the original leadership in 1953, Call became president of the Society. Call frequently appeared on local television programs in the 1950s, as one of the few openly gay men who spoke about gay issues, and appeared both in ''

The Rejected ''The Rejected'' is a made-for-television documentary film about homosexuality, produced for KQED in San Francisco by John W. Reavis.Kaiser, p. 161 ''The Rejected'' was the first documentary program on homosexuality broadcast on American televis ...

'', the first-ever television documentary on homosexuality, and " CBS Reports: The Homosexuals", the first network broadcast on the subject. In 1955 Call co-founded Pan Graphic Press, which printed ''The Mattachine Review'', ''

The Ladder A ladder is a runged climbing aid. Ladder, The Ladder, or Ladders may also refer to: Art, entertainment and media Film and television * "Ladders" (''Community''), the first episode of the sixth season of the sitcom ''Community'' * ''Ladders'', a ...

'' and other

homophile Terms used to describe homosexuality have gone through many changes since the emergence of the first terms in the mid-19th century. In English, some terms in widespread use have been sodomite, Achillean, Sapphic, Uranian, homophile, lesbian, g ...

publications. He also founded Dorian Book Service, a gay and lesbian literature clearinghouse. With the liberalization of obscenity laws beginning in the late 1950s and early 1960s, Call began in 1967 to market gay erotica through the Adonis Bookstore, the first gay adult shop in the United States. The next year he established Grand Prix Photo Arts, a film and photograph production business. In 1973 he added the Cinemattachine theater (associated with Mattachine Society, Inc. and the Seven Committee) as a back room to Adonis. He expanded the business to include

peep shows A peep show or peepshow is a presentation of a live sex show or pornographic film which is viewed through a viewing slot. Several historical media provided voyeuristic entertainment through hidden erotic imagery. Before the development of the ci ...

, also adding the Rooster Room for

chicken The chicken (''Gallus gallus domesticus'') is a domesticated junglefowl species, with attributes of wild species such as the grey and the Ceylon junglefowl that are originally from Southeastern Asia. Rooster or cock is a term for an adult m ...

films which was later renamed to the Circle J club (which had no references to Mattachine) in the 1980s. Circle J continued as a venue for screening pornographic films and hosting "

circle jerk A circle jerk, also sometimes spelled circlejerk, is a Human sexual activity, sexual practice in which a group of men or boys form a circle and masturbate themselves or each other. In the metaphorical sense, the term is used to refer to Echo chamb ...

" parties until 2005. Call also began filming pornographic " loops" of men masturbating on a gold couch in his office. These ''Gold Couch Capers'' became collector's items. The June 1964 Paul Welch ''

Life Life is a quality that distinguishes matter that has biological processes, such as signaling and self-sustaining processes, from that which does not, and is defined by the capacity for growth, reaction to stimuli, metabolism, energ ...

'' article entitled "Homosexuality In America" was the first time a national publication reported on gay issues; ''Life''s photographer was referred to the gay

leather Leather is a strong, flexible and durable material obtained from the tanning, or chemical treatment, of animal skins and hides to prevent decay. The most common leathers come from cattle, sheep, goats, equine animals, buffalo, pigs and hogs, ...

bar in San Francisco called the Tool Box for the article by Call, who had long worked to dispel the myth that all homosexual men were effeminate. The article opened with a two-page spread of the mural of life size leathermen in the bar, which had been painted by

Chuck Arnett Charles "Chuck" Arnett (February 15, 1928 in Bogalusa, Louisiana – March 2, 1988 in San Francisco, San Francisco, California) was an American artist and dancer. His best known work is the Tool Box mural (1962). History Arnett grew up in Boga ...

in 1962. The article described San Francisco as "The Gay Capital of America" and inspired many gay leathermen to move there. Call died of congestive heart failure in San Francisco on December 18, 2000, at the age of 83. He was survived by three brothers who did not approve of him. They visited Call a few months before his death to say goodbye. At Call's request, he was cremated and did not have a funeral.

Legacy

Season 2, episode 3 of the

podcast A podcast is a program made available in digital format for download over the Internet. For example, an episodic series of digital audio or video files that a user can download to a personal device to listen to at a time of their choosing ...

“

Making Gay History ''Making Gay History'' is an oral history podcast on the subject of LGBT history, featuring trailblazers, activists, and allies. Most episodes draw on the three-decade-old audio archive of rare interviews that the podcast's founder and host Eric ...

” is about Call.

References

Citations

Bibliography

* Bullough, Vern L. (2002). ''Before

Stonewall Stonewall or Stone wall may refer to: * Stone wall, a kind of masonry construction * Stonewalling, engaging in uncooperative or delaying tactics * Stonewall riots, a 1969 turning point for the modern LGBTQ rights movement in Greenwich Village, Ne ...

: Activists for Gay and Lesbian Rights in Historical Context''. Routledge. . * Castañeda, Laura, and Campbell, Shannon B. (2005). ''News and Sexuality: Media Portraits of Diversity''. SAGE. . * Loughery, John (1998). ''The Other Side of Silence – Men's Lives and Gay Identities: A Twentieth-Century History''. New York, Henry Holt and Company. . * Sears, James Thomas (2006). ''Behind the Mask of the Mattachine: The Hal Call Chronicles and the Early Movement for Homosexual Emancipation.''