Partner
Fernando Rodolfo de Jesus Vargas Zamora
Queer Places:
Columbia University (Ivy League), 116th St and Broadway, New York, NY 10027
31 Jane St, New York, NY 10014
Warren Allen Smith (October 27, 1921 – January 9, 2017) was an American gay rights
activist, writer and humanities humanist. In 1961, Smith started the Variety
Recording Studio, a major independent company off Broadway, New York City,
with his business partner and longtime companion Fernando Rodolfo de Jesus
Vargas Zamora. Smith ran the company for almost thirty years (1961–90). In
1969, Smith participated in the Stonewall riots. Warren Allen Smith met
Fernando Rodolfo de Jesus Vargas Zamora (September 22, 1928, Costa Rica -
February 20, 1989) in 1949, the first week after hitchhiking to New York City
from Iowa. The two remained together for 40 years.
Smith was one of the signatories of the 1973 Humanist Manifesto II as well
as the Humanist Manifesto III in 2003.
Warren Smith was born in Minburn, Iowa. His father, Harry Clark Smith, who
played for and was a scout for the Chicago Cubs' Portland farm team, after
service in France including the Battle of Verdun, (the greatest and lengthiest
during World War I) was a grain dealer in Minburn and Rippey, Iowa. His
mother, [Ruth Marion Miles (1891-1975), was the daughter of a pioneering
homesteader, L. D. Miles, who came to the Dakota Territory from Michigan in
1882.
Drafted into the U.S. Army (1942-1946), he landed on Omaha Beach near St.
Laurent Sur Mer (1944, the largest amphibian landing in history) and became
Chief Clerk of the Adjutant General's Office in the Little Red Schoolhouse,
Reims, France. In 1948, he received his B.A. (English, music) from the
University of Northern Iowa and in 1949 his M.A. (American Literature Since
1870; advisor was Lionel Trilling from Columbia University.
He was a teacher for 37 years - a progressive school, Bentley in New York
City (1950-1954); New Canaan High School in Connecticut (1954-1986); Teachers
College, Columbia University (1961-1962).
He was one of the Stonewall Inn rioters and was committed in a love
relationship with Fernando Vargas, that he met in 1948, while hitchhiking from
Iowa to Columbia University. In 1961, they founded Variety Recording Studio
(1961-1990), which became a major independent company on 42nd Street just off
Broadway in Times Square, using the motto, "in the heart of showbiz." Vargas
and Smith were lovers for 40 years, until Vargas's death from Kaposi's sarcoma
in 1989. Concurrently, Gilbert Price was a partner from the early 1960s until
his accidental asphyxiation in Austria in 1991.
He died on January 9, 2017 at the age of 95.
My published books:
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