This book tells the story of perkins harnly, a cross-dressing, self-taught artist from the windswept plains of Nebraska. In the 1920s and 1930s, Harnly knocked around Los Angeles, Mexico, and New York before settling in Hollywood, where he toiled for decades at an upscale Los Angeles cafeteria, lived with a succession of pet canaries in a fleabag hotel where washed-up movie stars had drunken flings, and saved up his meager earnings for a succession of pilgrimages to the graves of famous people all over the world. Harnly-the insider of outsider art-flew under the social and cultural radar all his life yet along the way managed to intersect with a dizzying array of famous, infamous, and not-so-famous personalities, including legendary thespian Sarah Bernhardt, dancer Paul Swan, a.k.a. "The Most Beautiful Man in the World"; celebrity decorator Elsie de Wolfe, who had blue hair and blue poodles; and free-living Bohemian Rose O'Neill, who made and lost millions with her iconic creation, the Kewpie, which was the Hello Kitty of its time. A prolific correspondent, Harnly filled hundreds of letters with salty reminiscences, extravagant sex facts (or maybe fantasies), snarky Hollywood gossip, and racy anecdotes about everyone he knew. His most famous artworks are gloriously and microscopically detailed paintings of overstuffed American Victorian interiors that reveal a wicked wit, a sly critique of American culture, and hints of his queer identity.

This highly entertaining, occasionally bittersweet biography uncovers a vibrant and little-known history of the joyous lives led by queer artists and their friends from the 1950s to the 1975s. Book jacket.