Ann Bannon in 2008, The Queen of Lesbian Pulp Fiction. PHOTO BY JASON GANWICH

By Katharine Holland

On Feb. 26, Brava! for Women in the Arts Theater Center opens the West Coast premiere of The Beebo Brinker Chronicles.  Ann Bannon wrote pulp novels during the ‘50s and ‘60s, three of which inspired this dramatization by Kate Moira Ryan and Linda S. Chapman (which has had two successful NYC productions).  And during the run, Bannon will participate in several show-related events as well as greet theatergoers and autograph books at various performances including opening night.

Ann Bannon (pseudonym for Ann Weldy) was married and soon to be a mother of two children when she sat at her dining table and in two weeks flat typed out a novel on a Remington typewriter about lesbian love.  A pen pal provided an introduction to New York City Gold Medal Books Editor Richard “Dick” Carroll.  Fueled by imagination alone, Bannon wrote about sorority sisters sharing a room on campus.  A late-night backrub led to passionate embraces, and the friends became lovers.  She recalled the editor’s feedback, “You’ve got something.  I think you need to focus on the sorority sisters and cut back the plot about the house mother, fall festival and the Spring carnival.”

And Odd Girl Out, a tale of women’s college romance, was born in 1957.  It represented for many one of the first stories of women loving women and became the #2 national bestseller that year.  “The editor didn’t add or subtract a word,” Bannon said.  “Although he did ask if I knew what the word lesbian meant since I hadn’t used it in the book,” she laughed.

“Even the word ‘Lesbian,’ which had offended her before, began to sound wonderful in her ears.”  Beebo Brinker, 1962

Fueled by this success, she followed up with five more books, each with melodramatic, outrageous plot twists and lesbian desire, earning her the title “The Queen of Lesbian Pulp Fiction.”  She remembers with a broad smile, “My husband was reticent.  Then the checks started coming in.  He went off bright-eyed to the bank.”  

Bannon ended up doing “extensive research” in the Village and along the way found her own true nature.  The best known of her characters is Beebo Brinker, a butch lesbian.  “I based her on a combination of Johnny Weissmuller, who played Tarzan in the ‘30s and ‘40s, and Ingrid Bergman.  Johnny was a big handsome young man, an Olympic medal swimmer, and I blended him with Ingrid to make Beebo,” she said.  The name Beebo popped into Bannon’s head as the ideal name one day.  She had a childhood friend named Beverly and could not say her name — it came out Beebo.

“It was true that Laura was ashamed to go anywhere out of Greenwich Village with her
 Beebo, nearly six feet of her, with her hair cropped short and her strange clothes and her gruff voice.”  Women in the Shadows, 1959

“I’d walk around Greenwich Village and keep my fingers crossed I would meet her.  I never met her exactly as I pictured her.  No one with the force, personality and humor Beebo had.  I met a few who came close though,” she laughed.  

The injustices Bannon witnessed in the Village made compelling material for her books.  “You are all alone thinking you are sick and horrible.  You don’t know how to be with another person when you can be thrown in jail just for wearing a pair of jeans and walking down the street.”

“She had on a skirt tonight
 That’s because she has to wear one in here.  City ordinance.  No women in bars in pants.  But she won’t wear the skirt to work.  She carries it in a paper bag and changes in the john.”  Journey to a Woman, 1960

It sounds like Ann Bannon and Beebo fans are in for a treat.

The Beebo Brinker Chronicles runs from February 26 (Friday at 8pm) to March 13 at Brava Theater Center, 2781 24th Street, San Francisco.  Tickets ($20-$40) call (415) 641-2822 or at brava.org.