Earlier in this thread we discussed Wakefield Poole’s breakthrough gay erotic film, “Boys in the Sand” starring Casey Donavan in December 1971. As a lifelong New York City resident, I remember the little newspaper ads for it playing at the 55th Street Playhouse for years thereafter. I read that Wakefield Poole passed away at age 85, this past October. Here is an obituary that appeared in the Bay Area Reporter.
https://www.ebar.com/arts_&_culture/movies//310203
Arts & Culture » Movies
Wakefield Poole (February 24, 1936 — October 27, 2021) Remembering a visionary
by Michael Flanagan
Monday Nov 1, 2021
It is a rare person who changes the visual imagination of the world, but Wakefield Poole was such a person. Before Boys In The Sand, gay male adult films had been consigned to the world of short loops, films that were considered seamy and degrading, best described as "dirty pictures." Poole's vision changed that permanently.
Born Walter Wakefield Poole in Jacksonville, Florida, there are hints from his background that show where that vision may have come from. He studied dance in his youth and toured with the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo from 1957 to 1958 and went on to work as a dancer and a choreographer, and director in New York in the 1960s.
He both appeared in and wrote for Dance Magazine. As part of Rod Alexander's Dance Jubilee, from October 1959 to March 1960 he was part of a tour in many countries, including Greece, Afghanistan, India, Thailand, Taiwan and the Philippines. In 1960, Poole first appeared on Broadway as a dancer in Finian's Rainbow and later, in 1965, he was an associate choreographer for Richard Rogers and Stephen Sondheim's Do I Hear A Waltz.
As described in the website for Poole's book, Dirty Poole: A Sensual Memoir, "Poole was a member of the corps de ballet in the waning years of the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo, and then went on to a successful career as a dancer, choreographer, and director on TV, Broadway, and the West End, working with theater legends Stephen Sondheim, Richard Rodgers, Noel Coward, Jerome Robbins, Ethel Merman, Gwen Verdon, and many more."
https://www.indiewire.com/2014/07/who-is-wakefield-poole-and-why-havent-you-heard-of-him-216218/
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