I have loved this movie from the first moment I saw it as a very young man. I’ve watched it more times than I can say. When Andrew Reach and I moved back to New York, I began working at two places. First Carnegie Deli and then McBells Pub on 6th Avenue. I remember waiting on Madeleine Sherwwood, the great actress and teacher. She often came into McBells to eat lunch. As I told you about myself, I never miss and opportunity to ask a question. After I waited on her a few times, I got the courage to tell her that I was a true fan and love her Mother Superior on the Flying Nun television series starring Sally Fields and Alejandro Ray. She smiled. Then I said nothing compares to you in Cat On A Hot Tin Roof and unexpectedly I blurted out “SISTER WOMAN”, my favorite line in the movie. I told her I have used that line more times than I can remember. I hope you enjoy my tribute to the movie and the actors that have given me such joy. Always remember, know your wonder!
Bruce Baumwoll
Movie Tie-In Paper Back Book
Cast: Paul Newman, Elizabeth Taylor, Burl Ives, Dame Judith Anderson, Jack Carson & Madeleine Sherwood
The very existence of Andrew’s art requires the intersection of time, circumstance and events beyond normal understanding. Add the needed advances in personal technology, previous education, an overwhelming medical disability, the determination of Andrew to fight and create, and the love of Bruce determined to help, that is the story of these works. And with all that, the art still overwhelms the story. Full disclosure requires stating that Andrew and Bruce are my Nephews, and that I love them
By James Grossman about Andrew Reach and Bruce Baumwoll
Bruce Baumwoll & Andrew Reach 1991 Thousands of demonstrators, chanting ″Recall Pete″ and ″We won’t go away,″ marched on “National Coming Out Day” in 1991 at the California state Capitol to protest Gov. Pete Wilson’s veto of a gay rights bill AB 101.
Andrew Reach 1981 photo taken on Cumberland Island, Georgia during a field trip to the Island for a design class while studying architecture at the University of Florida
Our Story Begins I walked away from my career 20 years ago to take care of Andrew and help him pursue his life and career. Little did we both know that the career would be lost to a very rare genetic disease that put us on the path of trying to keep him alive and live with crushing pain. The disease is progressive Scheuermann’s disease. By the time he was 40 years old the curvature was at 87 degrees. Your dead at 92 degrees. His back was breaking apart like tectonic plates. A normal spine is at 45 degrees. The first surgery occurred in January 2003 and we thought he was saved and then again in the summer of 2004 we were told in layman terms, his head is dislodging from his spine. Another massive surgery was needed. Those two surgeries would send him on a spiral of other parts of the body trying to fight off the initial disease, resulting in multiple additional complications. We’re still fighting. Through all of that we were able to refocus his energy with the pain he lives with every moment into art which we’re still shocked and amazed is traveling around the world. I humbly ask you to look at his art to look at this man’s beautiful soul and all the light that is coming out of him. He’s surely a product of god.
I have now begun to write our story to be left with the art. I am 67 this month. We have been together 38 years and are now married. I tell you all this, not to feel sad for us. Understand that one must always have hope. As my friend and teacher Joseph Campbell told me all those years ago, “Bruce, there’s something about you that keeps you going on”. I hope you can find some value in our journey of what love and respect means in sickness and in health, whether your rich or poor. Andrew and I have lived openly gay since we fell in love all those years ago. Our love gave us the courage to live openly and take what ever would come at us in the times we have lived as gay men. Its been quite a journey.
Here is the gallery 1 of the Postcards from the Rockaway’s, I hope you enjoy. I have saved for over 25 years every photograph that any one has put up of the Rockaway’s . Now is the time for me to begin to share them all with you. I have saved all your photographs, So to all of you who wished for The Rockaway’s to be remember. You all have made it so.
This Film was made in 1985 It is directed by Paul Aaron and stars , Glenn Close, Patinkin, Valerie Curtin, Barnard Hughes and the one and only Ruth Gordon
When husband and wife Nick and Jan move into an old house in San Francisco , they uncover a message under layers of wallpaper left by a previous tenant. (“Maxie lived here! Read it and weep!”).
The daft landlady from upstairs is overwhelmed when she sees the message and tells them about a girl who lived there in the 1920s. Maxie was a brash young party girl who died in a car crash the morning before her big audition for a Hollywood studio. Her only movie legacy, mere minutes on film, is dug up by Nick who watches it with his wife.
Just after Jan goes to bed, Maxie’s ghost appears. She has never seen herself on film. She laments never having a shot at stardom and then vanishes. Nick can’t figure out if the house is really haunted or if he is hallucinating. He also has his hands full with Miss Scheffer, his boss, who has romantic designs on him.
Maxie eventually takes over Jan’s body, first to experience life, then to try out for a television commercial and ultimately to go to Hollywood for a movie audition she is offered after the commercial. Finally she can fulfill her destiny. Her misadventures mess up Jan’s and Nick’s lives, to the point that Jan is pursued by her boss, Bishop Campbell, who wants to exorcise her. Nick remains utterly fascinated by this woman, who looks exactly like the wife he still loves.
Bruce Baumwoll & Andrew Reach 1981
“Marriage For All” by Andrew Reach 2009
Bruce Baumwoll & Andrew Reach 1991
Andrew Reach 1981
