From the Closet to the Screen
Women at the Gateways Club, 1945-1985

In the 1960s the Gateways Club was known as "the" lesbian club in London. In her portrait of the club, Gardiner also gives us a social history of lesbian lives, loves and mores, from a cloistered secret in the 1950s and 1960s, to a battleground between feminists and traditionalists in the 1970s.

In the 1960s heyday the Gateways Club was internationally known as "the" lesbian club to visit in London. When it opened in the 1930s lesbians were firmly in the closet and butch-femme roleplay predominated as a lifestyle. Yet by 1969, "The Killing of Sister George" had immortalized the Gateways and many of its real life members in a Hollywood movie starring Coral Browne, Beryl Reid and Susannah York, and directed by Robert Aldrich. By her portrait of the club, Jill Gardiner also gives us a social history of lesbian lives, loves and mores from a cloistered secret in the 1950s and 1960s to a battleground between feminists and traditionalists in the 1970s.

Preface
Introduction
1945-63 Closet Lives
1. A club you two girls might like
The Gateways, a Bohemian haven in a conformist era
2. Lost in London
How gay women found each other in a period of secrecy and fear
3. Natty suits and frilly frocks
Butch-femme role playing from the dance-floor to the bedroom
4. Is she a friend of Dorothy?
How women led double lives, including some who passed as men
1964-71 Screen Goddesses
5. Letting lesbians into the living room
New images of gay women in literature and the media
6. Changing times
Greater openness and unisex fashion transform gay women's culture
7. The filming of Sister George
Gateways members in a landmark Hollywood movie
8. You don't have to say you love me
Erotic encounters between women in the swinging sixties
1971-85 Glad to be Gay? 9. We'll have no politics in her darling
The challenge of gay liberation and women's liberation
10. Cheek to cheek and thigh to thigh
Passion and love in a new era of sexual freedom
11. Truck drivers and teachers
Working lives, from blackmail attempts to trouser suit protests
12. Out and proud?
Did gay women come out in the media and their private lives?
Conclusion: Was there a revolution in gay women's lives 1945-1985? Biographies of contributors
Chronology of Lesbian History 1945-1985
Glossary
Index