When Angela Calomiris (1916-95)—“Angie” to her friends, a photographer by trade—appeared on Eleanor Roosevelt’s radio program (12/01/1950), the former First Lady introduced her as “a young lady of great courage,” her spy mission inside the American Communist Party defined as “something like being a soldier.” Nobody mentioned that Angie was also a rather “obvious” lesbian, a denizen from the late 1930s of that big closet called Greenwich Village, where Mrs. Roosevelt had also maintained a residence for many years. They knew some of the same people.
Angie had worked for Esther Lape, “Chairman” of the American Foundation for Social Research, who shared her home at 20 East 11th Street with her partner Elizabeth Read, Mrs. Roosevelt’s personal attorney and financial advisor. Those connections inspired Angie to tell friends that she had once been a “gofer” for Eleanor Roosevelt, and there was some truth to that.
Maybe there was some truth to other stories she told as a FBI “Confidential National Defense Informant” from 1942 to 1949. It was the best job Angie ever had. As a citizen spy, she was well paid to work undercover inside organizations considered “subversive.” The American Communist Party (CPUSA) topped the list. Angie’s extensive FBI file (1942-65) shows that she reported back on what was said at meetings, actions planned, and especially, who was there. Photos were also useful for identification. Then as now, it was all about national security, with today’s surveillance expanded in scope by technological advances.
Angie’s mistake was to go public. The FBI and prosecution wanted her on the witness stand at the first Smith Act trial (Jan.-Oct. 1949) of the Party leadership, charged with “conspiracy to advocate the overthrow of the US government by force and violence.” The Red Scare was on; the Russians were coming. Angie’s role at the trial was to denounce the New York Photo League (1936-51), as a Communist front and their leader Sid Grossman as a Communist. He never worked in New York again, and died in 1955, age 42. At the Jewish Museum’s Radical Camera exhibit (Nov. 2011-March 2012), Grossman was featured among pioneering American documentary photographers, and there was a special section for Angie, whose betrayal is not forgotten by old Photo Leaguers.
To come out as a snitch, fink, rat brought fleeting fame and fortune from the anti-Communist network, where Angie acquired many prominent friends, published a (ghostwritten) book, and tried (in vain) to get a movie or TV contract for her story. Back in the Village, she was all washed up.
Another long-time Village resident, Buddy Kent, aka Bubbles Kent, Exotic Dancer, aka Malvina Schwartz of East New York, Brooklyn, who had performed in male drag at Mafia-owned clubs, then as a stripper in other neighborhood cabarets, first told me Angie’s story. Without a larger political agenda, Buddy’s quarrel with Angie was that she had ratted out gay girls to the police and FBI. One in particular was Yetta Cohn, long-time friend and companion to actress Judy Holliday, another Villager who lived for years on Waverly Place and began her stellar career at the Village Vanguard. In 1952, Judy appeared before the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee (SISS), the Senate equivalent of HUAC, to answer accusations of Communist ties. Yetta, according to Buddy, “had quite a bad time. She couldn’t get work for about eight years because of this.” What we have come to call the “McCarthy era” was in full swing. I have written a book about all this. While the publishing industry considers its merits, please see http://lisaedavis.wix.com/fbilesbian and let me know what you think.
