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of other things. And I got enough points to get into the Columbia School of Journalism.

Would you like to describe your uncle a little bit--what kind of person he was? He must have had some influence on you. Was he a quiet man?

He was a most amazing man. In the first place, although I loved with him for seven years, I never knew that he was completely homosexual. In those days, nobody talked about this. He was ashamed of it. I never knew it. If I may jump ahead, by the time I was 24, we had gone to Europe together; he had lived in my house for years but the idea that I had an uncle who was homosexual never entered my head. Then one night we were walking up Broadway. By the time we had moved to 75th Street, my Uncle Herbert, it seemed to me, had been talking about nothing but famous homosexuals for a full half hour. Suddenly I stopped and said, “You know, it seems to me that you are becoming obsessed with the question of homosexuality. Did it ever occur to you that there must be some of this in you or you wouldn't be talking about it so much?”

And I can still hear my uncle saying, “Well, you goddamned fool, I've been trying to tell you for five years and you wouldn't listen to me.” I almost went through the sidewalk.

Then the interesting part was my reaction. He had never told a soul. I was the person he loved in this world. And we walked home together, and he was dying to see what my reaction