Former B.A.R. photographer Ron Williams dies

  • by Cynthia Laird, News Editor
  • Monday January 27, 2025
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Photographer Ron Williams. Photo: Ron Williams
Photographer Ron Williams. Photo: Ron Williams

Former Bay Area Reporter photographer Ron Williams, a gay man whose photo of an empress riding an elephant in the 1975 Pride parade became one of the LGBTQ newspaper's most iconic front-page images, died January 10 in Rancho Mirage, California. He was 81.

Howard Russo, Mr. Williams' husband, said that he had experienced several health issues in recent years. Russo, 87, and Mr. Williams had lived in Palm Springs for many years before moving to an assisted living facility in nearby Rancho Mirage.

Russo met Mr. Williams after he moved to Palm Springs. The couple met 11 years ago and got married five or six years ago on a cruise to Mexico, Russo said.

"It wasn't a gay cruise," Russo said in a phone interview. "But the ship had a very pretty bar" where LGBTQ people could gather for socializing for a couple of hours each day. Mr. Williams and Russo married there and were surrounded by well-wishers.

Ron Williams' photo of Empress X Doris riding an elephant in the San Francisco Gay Freedom Day parade in 1975 was on the cover of the B.A.R. Image: From B.A.R. Archives  

Empress rides an elephant
In 1975, Mr. Williams was a freelance photographer for the B.A.R., which began publishing in 1971. In those days, what was then known as the Gay Freedom Day parade (now the San Francisco Pride parade) marched down Polk Street in the Tenderloin. Mr. Williams was there when San Francisco Empress X Doris (Ray Gustafson) rode an elephant in the June parade, and he took the photo that would grace the cover of the paper's next issue.

"She was like, 'Get me off this thing,'" Mr. Williams said of Doris in a YouTube conversation that was first streamed on June 3, 2021 on the occasion of the B.A.R.'s 50th anniversary. "It's an iconic photo, and I love it."

The "B.A.R. Talks 2: Pride Images Then and Now" show also featured arts editor Jim Provenzano, and photographers Jane Philomen Cleland and Gooch.




Mr. Williams said that he worked as a freelance photographer for the B.A.R. from 1974-1976. He knew the late Bob Ross, a gay man who was the paper's founding publisher. (Ross died in 2003.)

After his freelancing stint, Mr. Williams said he moved to Sonoma County in 1977 to take a job in the wine industry. He recalled in the YouTube conversation that he lost all of his stuff for the B.A.R. — negatives and prints — in a flood.

"They only exist in the archive," he said.

The paper's old issues, from 1971-2005, are archived online at the Internet Archive and the California Digital Newspaper Collection website, which is overseen by UC Riverside.

Mr. Williams was born in San Francisco on December 6, 1943. He graduated from City College of San Francisco in 1966.

Peter Fiske, a longtime friend, told the B.A.R. that he met Mr. Williams in 1967 when they were both members of the Koalas Motorcycle Club. "We were the youngest members," Fiske wrote in an email. Fiske, a former San Francisco resident who now lives in Palm Springs, said that with Mr. Williams' passing, he is now the last surviving member of the club.

"Ron Williams and I were both Stonewall veterans and friends for 57 years," Fiske stated.

Mr. Williams left Sonoma County and returned to San Francisco in the early 1980s, he said in the YouTube interview. He took a job at Chevron in the graphic arts department. He retired and moved to Palm Springs around 2010.

He's the author of two photography books. One, "Capturing Our Diversity: Three Decades of Pride," focuses on the San Francisco Pride parade and was published in 2019. The other, "Images of Desert Diversity: Palm Springs," looks at Pride celebrations there and was published in 2020.

Provenzano reviewed Mr. Williams' book focusing on San Francisco in 2020, when in-person Pride events were canceled due to the COVID pandemic. He called it "a festive documentation of florid fey fun."

Ron Williams, front row, second from right, was a member of the Koalas Motorcycle Club, with his friend, Peter Fiske, right. Photo: Henri Leleu  

Mr. Williams also wrote his autobiography, "San Francisco's Native 'Sissy' Son," in 2013. "I came Out of the Closet in 1962 when the police were still raiding gay bars in San Francisco; it was still illegal for homosexuals to congregate publicly; you could be arrested — and hundreds were," he writes in the book.

Later life
Russo, who described himself as "a late bloomer," said he marveled at Mr. Williams' self-sufficiency. "He was 19 when he found no place to go but the Castro," Russo said. "He was self-sustaining by the time he was 19."

Russo didn't know Mr. Williams during his time in San Francisco, but Mr. Williams filled him in on his life, and the couple visited the city. One of Mr. Williams' favorite haunts was the Twin Peaks Tavern in the Castro.

"He loved that bar," Russo said. "People just adored him. They fussed over him."

Russo said that in Palm Springs, Mr. Williams served as president of the Prime Timers group for older queer and trans men. He had been vice president and had taken pictures at group functions. When the presidency became open, a number of members asked Mr. Williams to take the job, Russo recalled.

Russo said he misses his husband dearly.

"He was really beautiful," Russo said. "He was a wonderful man."


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