In 2019, I was invited to speak at the Convention Valentino in Turin. After my speech, I approached the Valentino spokesperson, Jeanine Villalobos to introduce myself. She told me in front of several people, that if I published the 1975 George Ullman memoir, “It would kill her mother”.
I was a tad confused because there was nothing in the memoir all that upsetting and it was basically a collection of anecdotes about the Mineralava tour, back stage times with Valentino, etc. I could not fathom what Villalobos was referring to that could be so tremendously offensive to her family. I believe I now know.
I believe it possible that Ullman's original memoir, which shortly before his death he gave to collector Bill Self to “read”, could have contained far more than I, or Ullman's children ever had access to. I believe it probable that the original was ravaged the moment Ullman left it with Self/Alberto and Jean. Knowing Self as I did, I am sure he offered cunning promises and excuses as to why he could not return it right away.
I am sure in writing during the months just before he died, Ullman held back no punches in the final telling of the tale. Was this what Villalobos thought I had, the uncensored/original version?
I should have questioned the integrity of my copy after learning Self had it. When I told Self about Ullman's children giving me their copy of the memoir, he looked startled and asked me how many pages I had. I answered, “All of them?” Most probably I did not.
So who ultimately revealed this ravaging? The same person who admitted those court records I was being accused of forging were in fact real....Tracy Ryan Terhune. Tracy Terhune admits he has possession of the original George Ullman 1975 memoir in claiming there is more (which we have yet to see) which was not included in the copy I had.
He admits the original is in his hands in making this claim and incriminates Self and the family for having the document all these years without saying a word of its existence. Terhune also incriminates them all for having apparently ravaged the original.
Ullman's two children were in the belief they had the only copy and as I had never read any of the anecdotes Ullman included anywhere, I was also sure of that. I did not then imagine the subterfuge in the hiding of documents by the family and Terhune.
The Ullmans' copy was a priority mail envelope with a stack of loose pages inside, all old photocopies which Self gave to them after their father's death. I can imagine him saying he had to look for the original, etc. In reading the copy I had, it seemed disjointed at many points, but I attributed this to it not being finished when George died in 1975.
I now believe Ullman probably wrote a great deal more revelatory material which Alberto, who was still alive at the time, Jean and Self quickly deemed banned, in the least from the copy returned to the Ullman children. But I have to wonder and lament....what did Ullman write about? Did he discuss the court settlement, give more insight into Alberto's actions? Did he reveal anything about Jean? What did he write about which could “kill” Jeanine Villalobos' mother?
I ask Terhune why he never contacted us when we published the Ullman 1975 memoir back in 2014 to say there was more we did not have? For years he said nothing about the memoir's existence as did the family, who stayed mums the word on the whole subject.
I allege their hiding the memoir was precisely because to share it publicly would have been an admission of Self, Alberto and Jean's efforts to prevent Ullman's true revelations from being known. The same absconding dynamic applies to those long lost reel to reel tapes of Bee Ullman's interviews. Where are they?
If I had not located the Ullmans, that memoir would still be sitting lost in the heap. What else is there in that heap?
Villalobos said it would kill her mother.. and the original version George Ullman wrote just might have. What I ended up with, courtesy of Bill Self, was the soft and fuzzy remnant which would surely kill no one.
I add in closing that it is mind-boggling that Terhune and Bret continue after a decade to exploit the serious subject of homophobia as a cheap way to try and defame a critic.
