After the divorce, Turner again took to the road. In Chicago he associated with members of the Ballet Theatre; in San Francisco he worked for some time for the madam, Sally Stanford, as one of her "boys", and became friends with the "male actress" Charles Pierce. He also worked in Morocco as a clerk for an international construction company before returning once again to Saginaw, where he worked as a salesman. In 1961, he became manager of the ladies' shoe department at a department store in Huntington, West Virginia, where he met William C. Hein, the local district manager for Chevrolet Motors. The two became partners in 1962, remaining together until Turner's death. Later that year, Turner and Hein moved to Charleston, West Virginia, where Turner opened a record shop; for six years the couple also operated a successful gay-nineties-themed eatery, "Belle's Sandwich Parlor and Public Pub". When bootleg tapes caused record sales to wane in the 1970s, Turner closed the record shop and in 1979 the couple opened a lampshade and lamp repair business. They moved to Tampa, Florida, in 1984, where they also opened a lampshade store until Turner retired in 1989.
Turner began writing in the early 1950s: his earliest known datable composition, the poem "Lonely Lover", was written during his time in San Francisco, and was published in 1954 as "The Tortures of Being Alone". Later, he was bitten by the acting bug, and for a brief period left his job as a shoe salesman in Saginaw to become an aspiring actor in New York. He wrote his first play, Step Down Into Hell, in the early 1960s; it was staged by the theater department of West Virginia State College, receiving decent reviews and attendance. During the 1970s he wrote several novels, three of which were eventually published in 1999. His humorous book, Pathetically Yours, Sara Muskoil, was published in 1977. Turner and Hein had been involved in the response to the AIDS crisis since the very beginning, and in 1993, after the death of a particularly close friend, Turner wrote a play, It Happens! A local production was favorably received, and from that time until his death Turner concentrated his efforts on writing plays combating negative stereotypes of gays and lesbians and showing instead the fullness, healthy humor, and normalcy of GLBT life. Several of his theater works had local productions, and one, Mama's Ghost, also had an off-Broadway run.
Turner died in Tampa on February 26, 2007, at the age of 84; his survivors included Bill Hein, his partner of 44 years.
His papers are held at ONE National Gay and Lesbian Archives: this collection consists of the writings, 1954-2006, of J. Max Turner (1922-2007). The materials include drafts and final paper and electronic versions of novels, and final and draft scripts, as well as performance materials (programs, photographs, and newspaper reviews) of plays.
Source: http://www.oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/kt438nf08h/
Further Readings:
Mass Market Paperback: 214 pages
Publisher: Ballantine Books; 1ST edition (1972)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0345025148
ISBN-13: 978-0345025142
Amazon: The Lady of the House; The Autobiography of Sally Stanford
More Real Life Romances at my website: http://www.elisarolle.com/, My Ramblings/Real Life Romance
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