David Mactavish Loovis (April 20, 1926 - August 28, 2008)
was a LGBT activist and author. Queer Places:
Colgate University, 13 Oak Dr, Hamilton, NY 13346
Brooks Brothers, 346 Madison Ave, New York, NY 10017
David Mactavish Loovis (April 20, 1926 - August 28, 2008)
was a LGBT activist and author.
David Mactavish Loovis was born New York, NY. He attended Colgate University. He served in the Navy, then became a journalist, a textbook sales representative, and an advertising copywriter. In 1953 he worked as a waiter at Key West’s Trade Winds Restaurant.
David Loovis’ first novel, Try for Elegance, a slim bittersweet boy-meets-and-loses girl romance set in New York, was published in 1959 to mildly positive reviews. It was, in fact, a roman a clef about his affair with Gore Vidal, to whom the novel was dedicated.
In 1959 he published the novel “Try For Elegance”: the characters were described as “white-collar Beats” and included Teena, “a commuter between Park Avenue and Greenwich Village,” and Paul, “a bohemian in a Brooks Brothers suit.” At the time Loovis was an Ivy Leaguer who worked at Brooks Brothers’ Madison Avenue flagship, and “Try For Elegance” was largely based on his experience there.
The New Yorker profiled Loovis on July 11, 1959, after dispatching a writer to track down him at Brooks: We found him deep in wash-and-wear suits, on the second floor, and begged the privilege of an interview. Slender, dark-haired, and dapper, he said he’d be glad to give us a word or two between customers. To break the ice we remarked that he was the best-dressed author we’d encountered in many years. Loovis later tells the magazine: “The ‘elegance’ of the title doesn’t refer solely to physical surroundings, by the way. An elegant person is a gentleman, one who knows how to handle himself. He cares for his life, and intends to live it in association with others who care and with things that are beautiful and fine. In my novel, I deal sympathetically with a middle-class hero who wishes to play the game but is ill-equipped to do so.” You’ll dig the vintage Brooks lingo here: Mr. Loovis was called away to wait on somebody, and upon returning he told us that Brooks Brothers salesmen take customers in rotation and that, by bad luck, the customer who just had fallen to him had proved an egg, which is a BB term for a customer who takes a lot of time and then doesn’t buy anything. The opposite of an egg, Mr. Loovis told us, is a wrapup — a customer who knows exactly what he’s after and wastes no time getting it — while a sea bass is a big buyer, and a huckleberry is a pleasant fellow who moseys around the store for an hour or so, making no trouble, and eventually buys a necktie or some other small article. Loovis closes by telling the New Yorker: “The job gives me a good income and I believe in what I’m selling; there’s an undeniable integrity, a psychological validity, here at Brooks that I mightn’t find anywhere else.”
It must be love. Berenice Campbell finds perfect casual fashion by Alvin Handmacher. Two-piece, white Arnel sharksk tvith a pleated skirt and blue cardigan. The young man in the picture is David Loovis, author of Try for Elegance.
Loovis moved Key West and spent a year writing The Last of the Southern Winds, which was published in 1961 to mildly positive reviews. At the time Loovis was working at the Southern Winds, now demolished, and used it for the setting of his novel. The main character is Carl, 30ish like Loovis. Loovis was a longtime friend of Tennessee Williams. At one point Williams and Loovis had a quarrel. According to Williams, Loovis was the first one to mark Williams as a homosexual in print, but he concealed his own homosexuality. Williams said that Loovis was never gonna amount to anything as a novelist until he learned to tell the truth. Williams was referring to Loovis' The Last of the Southern Winds, which had a minor character, Emmette Colliers, who may have been based in part on the playwright.
Loovis wrote two nonfiction works: Gay Spirit: A Guide to Becoming a Sensuous Homosexual, 1975, and Straight Answers about Homosexuality for Straight Readers, 1977.
Loovis died in Hialeah, FL.
My published books:
