Tuff Muff: Gateways
| 27 July 2010
Behind a dull and innocuous green door on the Kings Road in Chelsea, London, was a very special place in the annals of queer history.
This month’s Tuff Muff is not a tough little lady but a tough little nightclub: Gateways, an oasis of dykedom from the 1930s until last drinks in 1985. For so many, walking down Gateways’ narrow staircase into the basement room thick with smoke and lesbians, was a life-changing revelation. Here was a safe-haven where gay girls who had felt outsiders all their lives could finally be themselves.
The story is that owner Ted Ware took over Gateways in 1943 after he won it in a boxing match. Opened in 1931, the club had always been a destination for the boheme set: the fags, dykes, musos and artists. However, by the end of World War II, the lezzos had taken the joint over. Owned by a straight man, Gateways became a members-only dyke club.
It was Ted’s wife, Gina, who managed the place, supported all the while by the capable Smithy, an American butch who Gina had befriended. Together they ran a tight ship and Gina would tolerate no argy-bargy from any of her members. Hilariously, she also steadfastly refused to remove her husband’s portrait from the wall, much to the disgruntlement of a few seppo types who felt their womyn-only party space might be polluted by Ted’s presence.
However, it was Gateways’ appearance in the 1968 film The Killing of Sister George (in which Gina and Smithy make a cameo appearance playing themselves) that really put it on the map. The camera follows Susannah York and Beryl Reid as they bustle through the mass of genuine, breathing, real-life lesbians, the actual Gateways punters, packed in like sardines. The all-girl band plays groovy toons while the crowd lurches from hipster 60s moves to an awkward girl-on-girl slow dance. It is both repulsively voyeuristic and utterly compelling. If you haven’t seen this moment of queer cinematic glory, you haven’t lived!
Butch/femme reigned supreme for much of Gateways’ life, although radical lesbian politics of the 1970s interrupted its supremacy. Eventually too, other venues began to emerge as poofs and dykes created more relevant public spaces for themselves and Gateways simply became old-fashioned and, ultimately, obsolete.
So, forgive the boldness for casting aside the human realm for the biography of a venue, but I thought crusty, old Gateways warranted some attention. So here’s to her, the grand dame of the London lezzo social scene, Gateways, CHERRIE magazine’s latest Tuff Muff of the Month.
Subscribe to this comment's feed
