Marcus Hernandez, who served as the Bay Area Reporter's longtime leather columnist, died Thursday, October 8 at Pacifica Nursing and Rehab Center in Pacifica. He was 77.
The cause of death was complications from diabetes and arteriosclerosis.
Mr. Hernandez was known to his legions of readers by his pen name "Mister Marcus" and dubbed the "dean of leather columnists." His weekly columns of contest goings-on and gossip were a must-read for leather community leaders, titleholders, and newcomers alike for 38 years.
Mr. Hernandez had been hospitalized since the summer, when his health condition worsened.
He was surrounded by friends at the time of his death; one of his sons had traveled from North Carolina to be at his bedside earlier this week.
"Mr. Marcus has been a San Francisco institution for decades," said B.A.R. publisher Thomas E. Horn. "He unapologetically brought his message of pride for the LGBT community in general and his beloved leather community in particular not only to San Francisco but to all the United States and even the world.
"Words cannot express our feeling of loss here at the Bay Area Reporter. His determination, sardonic wit, and compassion have sustained us through the ups and the downs of these last many years. When Bob Ross died in 2003, Marcus became the patriarch of the B.A.R. family. We will miss him terribly," Horn added, referring to the paper's founding publisher.
Other staff at the newspaper were saddened by news of his passing.
"Marcus was an outrageous character who never failed to either shock or infuriate people with his quick wit or sarcasm," B.A.R. general manager Mike Yamashita said. "His clever irreverence always left me laughing uncontrollably. He had a difficult side too, but those of us who knew him well knew that he was always motivated by his commitment to and love of the leather community at large. He was an LGBT pioneer whose contributions over the decades will never be fully known or appreciated. I truly will miss his humor and friendship."
Former assistant arts editor Mark Mardon, who edited Mr. Hernandez's columns for many years, also mourned his passing.
"As a veteran columnist for the B.A.R. whose work had immense reach across the continent, he profoundly influenced the leather/BDSM subculture, its ethics, traditions, lore, and fundraising prowess," Mardon said Friday. "His smart, often sarcastic, but deeply caring column shone a light on a culture that had long been demonized and suppressed by mainstream gay and straight cultures, yet he brought it respect and showed that leather people are among the most dedicated to their tribe, the most caring and committed, hardest working, and most successful at supporting their community through bad times and good."
The Reverend Curt Hernandez, one of Mr. Hernandez's four sons, was at his bedside earlier this week. The younger Hernandez, who was only 5 years old when Mr. Hernandez left his wife Marian Givens Hernandez in 1960, said that he did not see his father again until 2006. The couple had married in 1952 and had a stormy relationship; Curt Hernandez said that his mother and father met in Washington, D.C., where both worked at the Pentagon.
"You only have one mother and one father," Curt Hernandez said Tuesday, "and my decision was to love my father."
Curt Hernandez, who serves as a youth minister in North Carolina, talked briefly about the difficult journey he and his brothers experienced after their mother died in the mid-1980s. The siblings had no idea if their father was alive or not, and it was only after obtaining information from their late mother's family that one of Mr. Hernandez's sons wrote to him in 1987. One then came to San Francisco to meet his father, and was shocked to discover Mr. Hernandez was gay. From there, Mr. Hernandez began communicating with two of his sons, including Curt, who came to San Francisco to see him in 2006.
Early life
Mr. Hernandez, whose first name was Gilbert, was born March 22, 1932 in Los Angeles. He served in the U.S. Air Force from August 1954 until he was honorably discharged in August 1960. He attended the University of California, Los Angeles but did not receive a degree.
Following the breakup of his marriage, Mr. Hernandez moved to San Francisco in 1968, according to a 1996 interview he gave to Jack Rinella for the Leather Archives and Museum in Chicago. Vice cops in Los Angeles, where he had been living, were arresting gay men and raiding gay bars, Mr. Hernandez recalled, and a friend suggested he move north. That was also the year he came out, his son Curt Hernandez said.
"So in 1968 ... I moved here. And the only bar I knew about was the Tool Box because in the 1960s, Life magazine ran this huge article on homosexuality in America and they had a picture in there of the Tool Box with a pair of white sneakers hanging down saying, 'Not allowed,'" Mr. Hernandez recalled. "It was a subject of disdain to be wearing white sneakers in a leather bar."
Mr. Hernandez worked in various leather bars for 12 years as a manager.
He also served as the appointment secretary for then-Mayor Joseph Alioto.
It was around that time, in the early 1970s, that Mr. Hernandez wrote a column for the Advocate, which at the time was a gay newspaper. In October 1971, just six months after the B.A.R. started publishing, Mr. Hernandez was asked by Ross to write the paper's leather column.
Mr. Hernandez's column has focused primarily on the calendar of contests in the leather community. He also served as a judge at an estimated 250 contests over the years, he told the B.A.R. in an interview last month.
Part of the enjoyment in writing his weekly column was that he viewed it as a platform by which to educate non-leather members of the LGBT community.
"I'm trying to help people see that it's not what people perceived it to be �" queens pissing on each other," Mr. Hernandez told the B.A.R. "The thing was, you do your thing, I'll do mine and no one gets hurt."
"There still are people who feel leather is kinky stuff," he added.
Colleen Small, who knew Mr. Hernandez for 18 years and coordinated medical care for him in recent months, said he helped her establish herself in the leather community.
"I met him when I ran for a contest, he was sitting there, and then he put my name in the paper," Small said. "I was working for the post office at the time and said I can't have my name in the paper, so I came up with 'Queen Cougar.'"
That moniker stuck, and is today how Small is best known by the community.
"He liked me from the start," Small said.
Small was named Ms. San Francisco Leather in 1993 and it was around that time that Mr. Hernandez "adopted" her as his daughter.
"He became the father that I really didn't have," Small said. "He really loved other leather women and that was an important thing to the leather community because the leather community was so male-focused."
His comfort with leather women, Small added, led to the community becoming more inclusive of leather women through contests and other social activities.
His columns occasionally had a bitter edge, but that's what helped keep the community honest, friends and colleagues said.
"He had a biting, funny style and a distinctive high-pitched voice, which led some of us to occasionally tease him about not really being a top (he insisted he was), but he took it all in stride," Mardon recalled.
Scott Peterson, manager of the Powerhouse bar, said last month that Mr. Hernandez's columns kept the community informed.
"He's always been able to keep it fairly dishy and provocative, and let us know what is happening across the nation," he said.
That was especially true in the days before the Internet and blogs. Still, Mr. Hernandez's column was one of the most popular features on ebar.com, and he would receive news items from leather folks around the world.
Mr. Hernandez also used his column to help many nonprofits, including the AIDS Emergency Fund, which provides cash grants to people living with disabling HIV/AIDS so that they can pay rent, utilities, and other expenses. AEF was started in the leather community, as the epidemic hit leathermen hard in San Francisco.
In addition to his involvement in the leather community, Mr. Hernandez also was part of the Imperial Court of San Francisco, a charitable organization. Jose Sarria, a.k.a. the Widow Norton, was the first Empress of San Francisco in 1965. In 1972, the Imperial Court added the title of emperor, and Mr. Hernandez was the first one. His empress was Maxine.
Mr. Hernandez often recounted the story of his election as emperor, which also occurred while he worked for Alioto.
One of the first things that came to his mind was, "How am I going to face the mayor?" Mr. Hernandez recalled last month.
The San Francisco Examiner had his photo on the front page, he said, and the event was featured on local news programs.
"So the follow-up was the mayor," Mr. Hernandez said. "Monday morning I go to my office and I am at my desk and he walks in and says, 'Well, I see I am not the only celebrity in this office.' And I said, 'No, your honor, I guess you are not.'"
Small said that while Mr. Hernandez was estranged from his biological family for many years, "he encouraged a familial energy with the people that he loved."
In addition to countless friends and his leather family, Mr. Hernandez is survived by his four sons: Greg Hernandez of Overland Park, Kansas; Curt Hernandez of High Point, North Carolina; and Tracy Hernandez and Shawn Hernandez, both of Jefferson City, Missouri; six grandchildren; and one great-grandchild.
A memorial to celebrate Mr. Hernandez's life is planned for Saturday, November 21 at 1 p.m. at City Nights, 715 Harrison Street in San Francisco.