Steven Gaines (born 1946) is an American author, journalist, and radio show host. His 13 books include ''Philistines at the Hedgerow: Passion and Property in the Hamptons''; ''The Sky’s the Limit: Passion and Property in Manhattan''; ''
The Love You Make: An Insider's Story of The Beatles''; ''
Heroes and Villains: The True Story of the Beach Boys''; ''Marjoe'', the biography of evangelist
Marjoe Gortner
Hugh Marjoe Ross Gortner (born January 14, 1944) is a former evangelist preacher and actor. He first gained public attention during the late 1940s when his parents arranged for him to be ordained as a preacher at age four, due to his extraordi ...
; ''Fool's Paradise: Players, Poseurs and the Culture of Excess in
South Beach''; and ''One of These Things First'', a memoir. His 1991 biography of the fashion designer
Halston
Roy Halston Frowick (April 23, 1932 – March 26, 1990), known mononymously as Halston, was an American fashion designer who rose to international fame in the 1970s.
His minimalist, clean designs, often made of cashmere or ultrasuede, were ...
(''Simply Halston'') was the basis for
Ryan Murphy's 2021
Netflix
Netflix, Inc. is an American subscription video on-demand over-the-top streaming service and production company based in Los Gatos, California. Founded in 1997 by Reed Hastings and Marc Randolph in Scotts Valley, California, it offers a fi ...
series, for which Ewan McGregor won the Best Actor Emmy Award.
Gaines was a contributing editor at
New York Magazine
''New York'' is an American biweekly magazine concerned with life, culture, politics, and style generally, and with a particular emphasis on New York City. Founded by Milton Glaser and Clay Felker in 1968 as a competitor to ''The New Yorker' ...
and his journalism has appeared in ''
Vanity Fair'', the ''
New York Observer'', the ''
New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'', ''Los Angeles'', ''
Worth'', and'' Connoisseur''.
From 2003 to 2010 Gaines hosted a weekly, live roundtable radio interview show from the Hamptons called "Sunday Brunch Live from the American Hotel in Sag Harbor," that aired from Memorial Weekend to Labor Day on a local
National Public Radio
National Public Radio (NPR, stylized in all lowercase) is an American privately and state funded nonprofit media organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., with its NPR West headquarters in Culver City, California. It differs from other ...
affiliate.
Life
Gaines was born and brought up in the
Borough Park section of
Brooklyn, New York
Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...
and attended
Erasmus Hall High School
Erasmus Hall High School was a four-year public high school located at 899–925 Flatbush Avenue between Church and Snyder Avenues in the Flatbush neighborhood of the New York City borough of Brooklyn. It was founded in 1786 as Erasmus Hall Ac ...
and
New York University
New York University (NYU) is a private research university in New York City. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded by a group of New Yorkers led by then- Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin.
In 1832, th ...
, where he studied with film director
Martin Scorsese
Martin Charles Scorsese ( , ; born November 17, 1942) is an American film director, producer, screenwriter and actor. Scorsese emerged as one of the major figures of the New Hollywood era. He is the recipient of many major accolades, inclu ...
.
His father was a school teacher and child guidance counselor, and his mother a bookkeeper. When he was 15 years old, after a suicide attempt because he was gay, he was voluntarily hospitalized at the Payne Whitney Psychiatric Clinic in Manhattan, which is the subject of his memoir, "One Of These Things First."
He graduated near the bottom of his class at Erasmus Hall, and flunked out of
Temple University
Temple University (Temple or TU) is a public state-related research university in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It was founded in 1884 by the Baptist minister Russell Conwell and his congregation Grace Baptist Church of Philadelphia then calle ...
, in
Philadelphia
Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania#Municipalities, largest city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the List of United States cities by population, sixth-largest city i ...
, Pennsylvania. It was in Philadelphia that he met children's TV star
Gene London who encouraged him to write.
Gaines was working in a small auction gallery in 1971 when he met former child evangelist
Marjoe Gortner
Hugh Marjoe Ross Gortner (born January 14, 1944) is a former evangelist preacher and actor. He first gained public attention during the late 1940s when his parents arranged for him to be ordained as a preacher at age four, due to his extraordi ...
at
Max's Kansas City
Max's Kansas City was a nightclub and restaurant at 213 Park Avenue South in New York City, which became a gathering spot for musicians, poets, artists and politicians in the 1960s and 1970s. It was opened by Mickey Ruskin (1933–1983) in Decembe ...
, a New York restaurant and club. Although Gaines had never published anything before he convinced Gortner to allow him to write his biography, which was published by Harper & Row (now
HarperCollins
HarperCollins Publishers LLC is one of the Big Five English-language publishing companies, alongside Penguin Random House, Simon & Schuster, Hachette, and Macmillan. The company is headquartered in New York City and is a subsidiary of News ...
) in 1973.
The
movie of "Marjoe" won the
1972 Academy Award for Best Documentary, and although the film was not based on Gaines' biography, the attention brought by the
Academy Award
The Academy Awards, better known as the Oscars, are awards for artistic and technical merit for the American and international film industry. The awards are regarded by many as the most prestigious, significant awards in the entertainment ind ...
helped promote the book "Marjoe" into a religion bestseller and establish Gaines' career as a writer.
The same year ''Marjoe'' was published, Gaines became editor of ''
Circus
A circus is a company of performers who put on diverse entertainment shows that may include clowns, acrobats, trained animals, trapeze acts, musicians, dancers, hoopers, tightrope walkers, jugglers, magicians, ventriloquists, and unicyclis ...
'', a national teeny-bopper rock and roll magazine, and he also began a six-year run as the "Top of the Pop" columnist for the
New York Sunday News, on alternate Sundays, dual positions that gave him a catbird seat in the fast lane of the rock and roll business during the golden era of the seventies.
Gaines spent a year on the road living with Alice Cooper, and in 1976 he published "Me, Alice," by Alice Cooper with Steven Gaines, the first autobiography of a rock star. Published only in hardcover, the book has since become a collectors' item and sells for up to $2500 a copy.
In 1980 Gaines met Robert Jon Cohen, a 21-year-old Studio 54 bartender, with whom he collaborated on a book called ''The Club'', a thinly-veiled ''roman a clef'' about Studio 54. The book raised the ire of nightclub owner
Steve Rubell, designer Halston, and singer
Liza Minnelli, among others. Fodder for the gossip columns, the book caused a sensation and got advances in the six-figures, but won Gaines ignominy. Soon after the publication of ''The Club'', Gaines moved to
Laguna Beach, California
Laguna Beach (; ''Laguna'', Spanish for "Lagoon") is a seaside resort city located in southern Orange County, California, in the United States. It is known for its mild year-round climate, scenic coves, environmental preservation efforts, and a ...
, then to London, and finally to
East Hampton, New York
The Town of East Hampton is located in southeastern Suffolk County, New York, at the eastern end of the South Shore of Long Island. It is the easternmost town in the state of New York. At the time of the 2020 United States census, it had a tot ...
, where he wrote the international best-seller ''The Love You Make: An Insiders Story of the Beatles'', with Beatle insider
Peter Brown. Published in 1983, ''The Love You Make'' was on the
New York Times Hardcover bestseller list for 16 weeks.
Career
Gaines began his journalism career as the "Top of the Pop" columnist for the
New York Daily Newsbr>
In the early part of his career he wrote several books about the music business, including
Alice Cooper
Alice Cooper (born Vincent Damon Furnier, February 4, 1948) is an American rock singer whose career spans over five decades. With a raspy voice and a stage show that features numerous props and stage illusions, including pyrotechnics, guillot ...
's autobiography, "Me, Alice"; "The Love You Make," a biography of the
Beatles; and "Heroes and Villains," a biography of the
Beach Boys
A beach is a landform alongside a body of water which consists of loose particles. The particles composing a beach are typically made from rock, such as sand, gravel, shingle, pebbles, etc., or biological sources, such as mollusc shell ...
, before briefly switching his focus to fashion designers with biographies on
Halston
Roy Halston Frowick (April 23, 1932 – March 26, 1990), known mononymously as Halston, was an American fashion designer who rose to international fame in the 1970s.
His minimalist, clean designs, often made of cashmere or ultrasuede, were ...
and
Calvin Klein.
In 1978 he wrote the lyrics for two major disco hits, "New York at Night" and "Like An Eagle," composed by Village People creator Jaques Morali.
In 1980 he published a controversial "roman a clef" called ''The Club'' about the nightclub
Studio 54 that he co-wrote with a 21-year-old Studio 54 bartender, Robert Jon Cohen. As Robert Granit, he published ''Another Runner in the Night'' in 1981, a novel about a homosexual film producer married to the daughter of a studio boss. He coined the phrase "
velvet mafia" in his "New York Sunday News" column in reference to the
Robert Stigwood Organization, a British record company and management group, but the term soon began to be used to describe the influential gay crowd who ran Hollywood and the fashion industry.
Gaines is best known for his 1998 social and cultural history of the
East End of
Long Island called ''Philistines at the Hedgerow'': Passion and Property in the Hamptons.
In 1993 he co-founded the
Hamptons International Film Festival
The Hamptons International Film Festival (HIFF) is an international film festival founded in 1992, by Joyce Robinson. The festival has since taken place every year in East Hampton, New York. It is usually an annual five-day event in mid-October ...
.
In 1999 he created one of the first online magazines, iHamptons.com.
In 2021 his book, Simply Halston, The Untold Story, was made into a Netflix TV series starring Ewan McGregor, who won the Emmy Award for best actor for his portrayal of the fashion designer. The Netflix series was also nominated for a Writers Guild Award for best screenplay adapted from a book.
Books
''Marjoe'', the biography of evangelist Marjoe Gortner;
''Me, Alice'', the autobiography of rock star Alice Cooper;
''Discotheque'', a novel;
''The Club'', a novel (with Robert Jon Cohen);
''Another Runner in the Night'', a novel;
''The Love You Make: An Insider’s Story of the Beatles'' (with Peter Brown);
''Heroes and Villains: The True Story of the
Beach Boys
A beach is a landform alongside a body of water which consists of loose particles. The particles composing a beach are typically made from rock, such as sand, gravel, shingle, pebbles, etc., or biological sources, such as mollusc shell ...
'
''Simply
Halston
Roy Halston Frowick (April 23, 1932 – March 26, 1990), known mononymously as Halston, was an American fashion designer who rose to international fame in the 1970s.
His minimalist, clean designs, often made of cashmere or ultrasuede, were ...
: The Untold Story'';
''Obsession: The Lives and Times of
Calvin Klein'' (with Sharon Churcher)
''Philistines at the Hedgerow: Passion and Property in the Hamptons''.
''The Sky’s the Limit: Passion and Property in Manhattan''.
''Fool's Paradise: Players, Poseurs and the Culture of Excess in
South Beach''.
''One of These Things First'', a memoir.
References
http://www.cnn.com/books/dialogue/9808/steven.gaines/
http://www.newnownext.com/halston-designer-tv-miniseries/03/2019/
https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2021/05/halston-victor-hugo-real-life
hittp://https://awards.wga.org/awards/nominees-winners
https://patch.com/new-york/easthampton/author-steven-gaines-opens-new-book-hamptons-life
https://pagesix.com/2019/01/10/halston-biographer-pleased-book-will-get-miniseries-treatment/
https://www.advocate.com/books/2016/8/23/convincing-suicidal-teen-he-can-wish-gay-away
https://www.27east.com/arts/simply-halston-by-steven-gaines-soon-to-be-a-netflix-series-1685706/?highlight=Gaines
https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2021/05/halston-studio-54-real-life
https://www.danspapers.com/2021/05/out-east-end-steven-gaines/
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Gaines, Steven
Living people
1946 births
Writers from Brooklyn
People from Borough Park, Brooklyn
Erasmus Hall High School alumni
American male non-fiction writers
American music journalists
American non-fiction writers
American writers about music