The sketchy past of Ronald Wright
Celebrity portrait artist, international gay magazine illustrator, top nude model for the London art world, early blue-movie star, writer, soldier, convict and psychic; Ronald Wright has lived a varied and unconventional life.
Now in his 80s his story has been recorded for posterity in a newly updated autobiography, SIR GAY. It’s the extraordinary tale of the gentle Grandfather of the British gay physique scene whose exploits of youth would put most of today’s twenty year olds to shame.
Ronald Wright grew up in Hertfordshire and recalls his 1930s childhood when trams where the most popular form of transport in London and you could still buy a two-bedroom house for £100.
After national conscription Ron went to work in the military drawing rooms and, through connections he made in the army, met and drew portraits of major movie stars of the day, including Marlene Dietrich and Mae West. The stories he has about these old-time stars are fascinating and loaded with charming details such as hanging out sketching in the dressing room of Gone With the Wind star Vivien Leigh as she leisurely petted her Siamese cat, Mr. Jones.
Queer ‘although he didn’t know it’ Wright made tentative first steps into London’s 1950s gay scene (dress code: scarlet shirt, black neckerchief and trousers ‘too tight to breathe in’) and eventually turned his graphic skills to the burgeoning ‘Physique’ and ‘Men’s Interest’ magazine industry.
Wright’s artwork featured in many of the transatlantic publications including Fizeek, Adonis, Sir Gay, Male Classics, Modern Man and Body Beautiful, appearing alongside that of Tom of Finland and George Quaintance. He knew all the pioneers of British physique photography such as John Barrington and the luminaries of London counter-culture including John Stephen, the King of Carnaby Street.
“His story is the story of early gay culture, of living your life in less enlightened times”
But – in a familiar turn of the tale – Ron fell for a bad boy who got him into trouble. Jim was half-Italian, half-Irish with a volatile temper and two kids to feed. For a while they lived in the flats above what is now Waterstones Gower Street where they threw some pretty wild parties.
With an eye on the money, Jim ‘encouraged’ Wright into the more pornographic gay blue movie scene and before long there was a knock at the door from two plain clothes police officers.
The net result was a one year sentence for Gross Indecency in Wormwood Scrubs. The stories of life in this infamous prison are fascinating – the five murderers he knew, the brief but intense jail love affairs – the need for a protector – surviving.
When he got out, no one respectable would touch Wright because of his criminal record. So that’s when he got involved in the British art scene because ‘they didn’t care’. Ronald’s career as a live art model lasted almost ten years and in that time he posed for every major art school in London including the Royal Academy Schools and the Royal College of Art.
Sculptures and painting of Ronald appeared in galleries all over the World and he was even chosen by Rudolph Nureyev to pose as the body model for his waxwork in Madame Tussaud’s.
Today Ron – now a healer and psychic – cuts a charming and remarkably energetic figure with still more than a glint of mischief in his eyes. His story is the story of early gay culture, of living your life in less enlightened times, of creating your own fortune and blazing an unorthodox trail for those of us who followed in his path.
• SIR GAY by Ronald Wright is available from Gay’s the Word and other disreputable bookshops.
