Denham Fouts

Denham "Denny" Fouts (May 9, 1914 – December 16, 1948 ) was an American male prostitute and socialite. He served as the inspiration for characters by Truman Capote, Gore Vidal, Christopher Isherwood, and Gavin Lambert. He was allegedly a lover of Prince Paul of Greece and French actor Jean Marais.

Biography From Jacksonville, Florida, he was born Louis Denham Fouts, a son of Yale graduate Edwin Fouts, who was the president of a broom factory, and his wife, the former Mary E. Denham (1890–1970). He had two siblings, Ellen (born 1916) and Frederic (1918–1994).

In 1926, 12-year-old Fouts submitted a letter to Time magazine, protesting the abuse of animals in the making of movies. In his teens, Fouts worked as a clerk at an ice-cream company in Jacksonville. Later he was sent north by his father to Washington, D.C., having asked a relative, who was the president of Safeway Inc., to give him a job. His friends, who called him Denny, included Christopher Isherwood, Brion Gysin, Glenway Wescott, Truman Capote, George Platt Lynes, Jane and Paul Bowles, Jean and Cyril Connolly, and Michael Wishart. Isherwood described him as a mythic figure, "the most expensive male prostitute in the world" and Capote considered him the "Best-Kept Boy in the World". Fouts was at one time the boyfriend of artist Peter Watson, but they separated because of Fouts' opium addiction.

In 1938, Fouts introduced Brion Gysin to Paul and Jane Bowles, later shocking them by "shooting flaming arrows from his hotel window onto the busy Champs Élysées below", having spent some time in Tibet, learning archery. Fouts' occasionally outrageous behavior made some uncomfortable. Michael Shelden remarked that Fouts' "'Deep South' charm masked a volatile, sometimes nasty temper. There were rumours about his past and tales of erratic, dangerous behavior."

During World War II, Watson sent Fouts to the United States for his safety. He met Isherwood in Hollywood in August 1940. Isherwood's guru Swami Prabhavananda refused to accept Fouts as a disciple despite his interest in Vedanta. Isherwood, nonetheless, had Fouts move in with him in the summer of 1941 to "lead a life of meditation". Capote rejected the check, but accepted his offer to visit, and would spend hours with Fouts in his dark apartment on the Rue du Bac, talking and listening to Fouts' stories. Another of his lovers was Evan Morgan, 2nd Viscount Tredegar. Katherine Bucknell, the editor of Christopher Isherwood's diaries, noted "Myth surrounds Denham Fouts", and one of his friends, John B.L. Goodwin said of Fouts: "He invented himself. If people didn't know his background he would make it up." Fouts died in 1948 at the Pensione Foggetti in Rome at the age of 34 of a "hypoplastic aorta and hypertrophy of left ventricle". Goodwin told Isherwood that Fouts was found dead in the bathroom. His body was buried in the first zone, 11th row, of the city's Protestant Cemetery.

Literary references Gavin Lambert's roman à clef Norman's Letter contains a character based on Fouts. Truman Capote's "Unspoiled Monsters", contained in his Answered Prayers: The Unfinished Novel, is based on Capote's conception of Fouts' life. Christopher Isherwood's Down There on a Visit contains the novella Paul, whose titular character is based on Fouts. Michael Wishart, the painter, had an affair with Fouts, which his autobiography High Diver details.