Phil Andros

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Samuel Morris Steward (1909-1993), who used the pen name Phil Andros (from the Greek for "Lover of men"), was a novelist and tattoo artist based in Oakland, California. He was born in Woodsfield, Ohio. While at Ohio State University In 1934, he received his doctoral degree and began teaching English as a university professor. In 1936 he was dismissed from a position at Washington State University at Pullman due to the portrayal of prostitution in his novel Angels on the Bough. He moved to Chicago, teaching at Loyola until 1946 and then at DePaul University.^[1] In 1954 he left teaching and began tattooing in Chicago under the Trade Name name Phil Sparrow.

In 1958 Steward contributed to the trilingual Swiss homosexual journal, Der Kreis (The Circle).

Steward met famed sex researcher Alfred Kinsey in 1949 and became an "unofficial collaborator" in his studies. They remained friends until Kinsey's death in 1956. He also maintained friendships with Gertrude Stein, Alice B. Toklas, and Lord Alfred Douglas (the intimate friend of Oscar Wilde). His 1981 memoir Chapters from an Autobiography detailed these relationships, as well as other experiences. He also edited the book Dear Sammy: Letters from Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas (Houghton Mifflin, 1977), and wrote two "Gertrude Stein-Alice B. Toklas Mysteries" featuring the famous couple as detectives.^[2]

As a tattooist and man of letters he drew the attention of Clifford Ingram, AKA Cliff Raven, and from his Oakland studio, Don Ed Hardy. He mentored both into the profession. Cliff Raven became famous as a tattooist in Chicago, and by mentoring others, generated a line of noted tattooist (Tatt's Thomas, Robert Benedetti, Bob Roberts, Pat Fish, and Thomas Raven among others).

He is perhaps best known by the pseudonym Phil Andros, as the eponymous hero of several collections of witty and graphic stories of gay male sex. The stories were very popular, and they have inspired another generation of younger gay writers.

Steward died in Berkeley, California.

[edit] Bibliography

As Phil Andros:

The Joy Spot (1969)
$tud (1969)
My Brother, the Hustler (1970; later published as My Brother, My Self)
San Francisco Hustler (1970)
When in Rome (1971; later published as Roman Conquests)
Renegade Hustler (1972; later published as Shuttlecock)
Below the Belt and Other Stories (1975)
The Greek Way (1975; later published as Greek Ways)
The Boys in Blue (1984)
Different Strokes: Stories (1984)

As Samuel M. Steward:

Pan and the fire-bird (1930; short stories)
Angels on the Bough (1936)
Dear Sammy: Letters from Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas (1977, ed.)
Parisian Lives (1984; novel)
Chapters from an autobiography (1981; memoir)
Murder Is Murder Is Murder (1985; Gertrude Stein-Alice B. Toklas Mystery)
The Caravaggio Shawl (1989; Gertrude Stein-Alice B. Toklas Mystery)
Bad Boys and Tough Tattoos : a Social History of the Tattoo with Gangs, Sailors, and Street-Corner Punks, 1950-1965 (1990)
Understanding the Male Hustler (1991)
Pair of Roses (1993)

[edit] External links

A Very Magical Life: Talking with Samuel Steward—Interview by Owen Keehnen in GLBTQ

[edit] References

^ Terence Kissack, PlanetOut History: Phil Andros
^ Ted-Larry Pebworth, "Mystery Fiction: Gay Male", GLBTQ: An encyclopedia of gay, lesbian, transgender and queer culture.