Rainbow Records
Rainbow Records is a powerful oral history project preserving the stories of the queer community. Its premiere season focuses on Los Angeles during the AIDS crisis, uplifting voices that are often overlooked. The stories shared provide valuable insights into the past, as well as important messages for the present.
Rainbow Records
Episode 6: Eugene La Pietra
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In this episode of Rainbow Records, Eugene La Pietra shares his experiences as a gay man in the military, meeting his partner Ed, and founding the iconic LA queer club Circus.
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Created and edited by Analisa Venolia
Welcome to Rainbow Records, a show about the stories of queer people who lived through the AIDS crisis in Los Angeles. Stories of resistance, resilience, and a community that refused to be erased. I'm your host, Annalisa Vinolia. This episode, we're talking with Eugene La Pietra, the owner of Circus, one of the most iconic queer bars in LA history. He shares his experiences as a gay man in the military, meeting his partner Ed, moving to LA, and how Circus came to be. Let's listen.
SPEAKER_01My name is Eugene La Pietra. I was born March 17, 1948, in Providence, Rhode Island. That's where I grew up. I was in seven foster homes until I came to California. And I'm retired. And I'm really happy to say I just putt around here doing this and that, especially my garden and the babies that I take care of. It is a wonderful time of my life. It really is.
SPEAKER_00When did you first know you were gay?
SPEAKER_01Oh my God. I do that day one. I'd watch Robin Hood and Superman when I was a kid, and I was cruising them then and still do. It was uh you knew, you just knew. Everybody knew. It was not a surprise at all. I have thanked God that he gave me my gayness because I would not want to be a straight guy and go through what they have to go through. My life has been very nice the way it is. I'm very happy with it.
SPEAKER_00And how did you come out to your family and the people around you?
SPEAKER_01I really don't think I had to do a little kid running around with green hair and red hair. I think it was pretty much out there. Everybody knew it. There was no surprises. None at all.
SPEAKER_00Now let's discuss your time in the military. How did you navigate being gay while in the Coast Guard?
SPEAKER_01You know, that's a really I've never been asked that question. I had a rule that I would never go to bed with a Coast Guardman. Never. Everybody else, sure, but not Coast Guard. My preference was the Air Force. They were the best. No question about it. And since we were going to different bases, of course, it was available. When I was questioned by the captain, I told him I was gay. And I also reiterated, but I have never slept with the Coast Guard man, and I'm not about to do that. And at that time, my job was as a steward for the five chiefs. Those are the five guys that really run the show and run the ship. And uh that was it. Nothing else was said about it, and that was the end of the whole thing, the whole expose.
SPEAKER_00So being gay didn't have to be a huge secret.
SPEAKER_01Well, the generals may not have known, but it was a large population, that's for sure. When you put 5,000 guys on an island without any women, what do you think is gonna happen? Seriously, guys, what do you think is gonna happen? And it did happen. And nobody acted like they saw or knew anything because it was very prevalent. And not just Coast Guard Army, they were great too. Uh, but uh the Air Force was my preference. And I actually got to tell you, I I zeroed in on all these officers because I knew nothing would happen. You know, you have to be a little, you know, a little sneaky on that point. Go with officers. They ain't gonna say a word.
SPEAKER_00Tell me the story of how you met your partner, Ed.
SPEAKER_01Well, I was going off base uh in Seattle, and I called a cab, and the cab picked me up at the front gate, and I said, take me to a queer bar. We weren't using the word gay back then, so I said, take me to a queer bar, and he almost had a freaking heart attack. And he said, You can't go there, then it's off limits for military. I said, just take me. So he took me up to a bar, and I said, wait here. And I looked in the door. I said, No, take me to another one. He took me to another one. Then he took me to the third one, Golden the Horseshoe. And I looked in and I said, Oh my God, he's standing right there. I went back and paid the cabbie. I went to go in and the doorman stopped me. He says, Where do you think you're going? I said, I'm going inside. He says, You're military, are you crazy? The MPs come by, you're gonna get arrested. I said, Don't worry about it. I'm going in. So I went in. I walked up to the bar and ordered a beer, and then I turned to walk away, and the bartender said, Where are you going with that beer? I said, I'm going over there. He says, You can't carry liquor across the floor. It has to be, a waiter has to bring it to you. I mean, talk about rules, right? Well, I just walked over to the person I was looking at. He had a very colorful bandana, jet black hair, dark skin, and I got over there and I stood next to him. I'm not sure if I took one sip or two sips, or I didn't take any sip at all of the beer. And I put it down and I looked at him and I said, Let's go. And he put his down and we walked out the door. Of course, we partied that night and had a good time. And the next day, he drives me back to the base, and I told him, I said, we're gonna be together the rest of our lives. I'm gonna take you to Los Angeles and make you a millionaire. Of course, years later, he told me what he told his friend Mario, who was standing next to him at the uh jukebox. He said, I told Mario, I said, Mario, that guy's your type. I wasn't even his type. And uh, of course, he he thought it was a little radical that I'm telling him after one night, but I knew. I went to the commanding officer, and I uh told him that I was gay, homosexual actually. I didn't say gay, we didn't have that word, and uh that I wanted out, and he asked me why. And I told him the story the night before, and I was out in 10 days. Honorable discharge and the whole nine yards, all benefits. But uh I put love first, and that's what I did, and I have no regrets.
SPEAKER_00And how did you and Ed come to create your club circus?
SPEAKER_01We came down to Los Angeles in his Rambler American that he had hand painted yellow, hand painted this car yellow, and everything he owned was in it. I had nothing. I mean, you could have wrote all my stuff into a little tiny bag, and that was it. And we both got jobs and we're doing doing the life, really enjoying life. And uh one day we heard about this new, now the word gay is being used, this new gay club in West Hollywood. Oh my God, we live at MacArthur Park, right across the street. It's a different world completely. And uh we said, oh wow, let's go over there, you know. It's like you need a passport to go to another country. That's how it was in those days. So our friend Lee, he was 21 at midnight, it was gonna be his birthday. So we figured we'd celebrate. So five of us piled into broken down Cadillac. I mean, truly broken down. And it couldn't have been worth more than 50 bucks, that car. So we were the first people in line. Very exciting. And uh we've read about it even in the LA Times. Oh my god, you know, that doesn't happen. So we got there and I was first, and the security guard did not ask for an ID. But Ed was second, and they asked for not one, not two, but three pieces of ID. He had his military ID from the Navy, he had his Seattle liquor license, and he had a driver's license. He showed all three. Next person was the birthday boy, not 21 yet. Blonde, blue-eyed, 6'2, Adonis. Didn't ask for his ID, nothing. Next person up was of mixed race, Bobby, and didn't even ask for his ID. He just said you're not getting in. Last person was, I can't even remember his name. Well, he was a very famous bartender at a bar on Selma. It was a hustler bar, and he was the bartender, and everybody knew him. He was about 37 years old. And so the guy checking IDs told me, he said, You can get in and he can get in. To Lee, pointing to Lee. But the three others can't come in. I said, You're crazy. Call the manager. Manager comes down. I couldn't get a word out until he says, You can go in, he can go in, and they can't. So we left and we said, What do we do now? We're all the way over here. And so we ended up going to this club called Oil Can Harry's. It was on Ventura Boulevard. They could not have been nicer to us. They couldn't have been nicer. They actually gave us a table that was in a little alcove. It was almost like you got a semi-private banquet room. And, you know, that really impressed us. I mean, we never had anything like that. And of course, I got drunk as a skunk. The next day, when I woke up, it said, Do you know what you said last night? You're gonna open up a nightclub and let everybody in. Are you gonna do it? And I said, Yes, we'll do it. No money, none. So he went looking for a place in Hollywood, and I went downtown Los Angeles. Same day. And we came back to the apartment because those days we didn't have cell phones. So we had to meet back at the apartment, and he says, I found a place. And so I said, Well, give me the number and dial. No, no, no, no such thing. So we drive over to the place, and there's a big sign, four lease, and it has numbers on it. So I looked at the number that we dialed, because we had it on a piece of paper, it was the right number. So it was nobody there. Went next door, rang the bell, rang the bell, rang the bell. Finally, a man opened it, buzzed us in, we walked in, and at the top of a staircase was this monster of the man. And he says, What do you want? And I said, Do you know who owns the building next door to you? And he says, I do. What's it to you? I said, Well, I'd like to lease it. And he said, What are you gonna do with it? I said, put a discotheque in it. And he said, What's a discotheque? And I said, A place for people to dance. And he said, Do you know who I am? I said, No. He says, I don't have time for you. I invented the mini skirt and I'm on my way to a fashion show in New York. And I said, Well, just give us a couple of minutes and I'll tell you what we're gonna do. Well, he let us come up. We went into his office. This man was very scary. Ed and I looked like two chipmunks melting into each other. We just, oh my God, this is crazy. And I told him what it was. He says, I don't understand it. He said, You're the first people to ask me about that building. I come to find out a little later that that one digit off, the last digit was a mistake, but I was not gonna tell him. So he says, Okay, give me some money. So I whipped out that checkbook and I wrote out a check and I handed it to him. He said, What's this? I said, You said give you some money. And he said, But it's $10. I said, but it ain't gonna bounce. So zippy-doo-da, he took the $10 check. He gave it to his secretary, who sat a few uh desks down and told her to told her here's next door, give him the keys. Oh my God, this is too crazy. It's unbelievable. We're inside this big building, huge, completely empty, nothing in it, brand new. No bathrooms, no nothing. Just a huge building. How are we gonna pull this one off, right? And come Monday morning, because this was Friday, come Monday morning, Walter was his name. He called me and he says, I'm gonna kill you. You got to get out of that building. The police told us that you're a queer and all this and that and everything else. And I said, Walter, you have your lawyers call my lawyers. I didn't have any lawyers. And lucky for me, he didn't say, Well, what's their name and telephone number? Because I wouldn't know what to give them. Oh, so every day he was there with the signs he'd put up, non-responsibility signs, but then he put hatred signs up. And he was just awful, awful. But now we don't have any money. What are we gonna do? We're shopping over on uh Hollywood Boulevard and Vermont, and we're lamenting our situation. And when we get out of the car, there's a line going all the way down the shopping center. So I asked somebody like, what are you standing here? What's going on? Oh, they're opening a new bank, and the bank is giving away credit cards. Hello, we don't need to shop, we need to get in this line now. So we got in line, we got up there, filled out the application, and we both got a credit card with a limit of $500 each. Hello, Alice. We are on a shopping spree right now. Hollywood Boulevard at that time, which you'll never hear from anybody except right now, was all banks. Bank after bank after bank after bank. If you go down Hollywood Boulevard, you can start picking out the banks by their construction. But now, you know, Ripley's, believe it or not, was Bank of America. There was a bank, first national grocery, all these different banks. So Ed drove the car and pulled in front of the bank. I run in and I get my $500. Go to the next bank, get $500, $500, $500. In those days, they weren't interconnected. So you we just grabbed $500. Got home, because after I got mine, then I drove and he ran in and got his. Got home and we had $30,500. And I figured one of us missed one bank because we have to have an even number, but we got 30,500, and that's what we had to get the whole show done. So six months later, everything's ready to go, but we do have a problem. We don't have any sound system, and we have no lights, and we have no money. So I keep going down to Kelsey's. Dave Kelsey had an audio place on Santa Monica in La Brea. So I would go over there and I picked out all the stuff that was necessary for the club. And then I told them I didn't have any money. Could they just bill me and all that? And of course they said, Absolutely, nah, we don't do that here. But one day, after going there all the time, the owner came out of his office on the second floor and yelled out, What do you want now? And I said, I want you to let me take the equipment and I'll pay you every week, I promise. And he said, Okay, install it. You have to pay me, I think it was $200 or $250 every week. And don't make me come and collect it. So every week I was at his place giving him his money. And we opened, oh, before that, I got ahead of myself. So we're getting ready to open that day, and I decided, you know what, I'll go up and invite Walter, even though he's been very nasty. So I walked up there and he starts yelling at me to get out. And all that I said, Walter, I just came up to tell you we're opening tonight, and I want to invite you as my guest to the opening. I'll never go there, I'll never do that, blah, blah, blah. Well, when you know it, we opened up a mob scene. It was a huge success because Ed went out and he handed out all these flyers. And we opened up in the middle of the week, not even a weekend. All the business is going on and everything. And who do I see walk in? Walter. He comes in with the most beautiful girl you've ever seen, woman. She looked like Anne Margaret. They danced the entire night. At the end of the night, he comes over and says, Kid, I'm gonna give you a lease. The next day I woke up, my head was banging, all the pressure, everything. And Ed says to me, You gotta go see him now. I said, No, I'll do it later. He said, No, do it now. He's gonna change his mind. So I drove over there and I pulled in the driveway, and he was pulling in his driveway for the exposure. So we ended up parking next to each other. I got out, he got out. I walked over to him and he he took his finger and he poked me with it to emphasize every word. I changed my mind. And I said, Why? He says, How do I know you're not gonna go bankrupt? And so I poked him and I said, How do I know you're not gonna go bankrupt? There was that pause. And he said, Okay, let's go upstairs. And he gave me the lease, very generous lease. He used to come to the club now to get his rent. He'd come over to the club, get his rent. And little by little by little, he became more and more gay friendly until he I could say he was a friend of the community.
SPEAKER_00This is just part one of the conversation with Eugene La Pietra. In the next part, you'll hear him discuss how the AIDS crisis affected not only circus, but his personal life. This has been Rainbow Rapids. Until next time.