Denham Fouts
Born in Jacksonville, Florida, in 1914, “Denny” Denham Fouts became one of the most famous male prostitutes in the 1920’s and 30’s. As a young man, he formed a huge crush on Truman Capote, who posed in a suggestive photograph in the dust jacket of one of his books. Capote was just 24 years old at the time, and he was openly gay. Fouts held on to the image of Truman Capote and hung it on his wall, longing to be with his writer-crush some day.
Denham Fouts grew up to be a male escort, and he traveled to New York City to work for wealthy clients. He was extremely handsome, and he spoke with a Southern accent that everyone found to be very charming. He even slept with King Farouk of Egypt, and had a relationship with Prince Paul of Greece, before he became King. He quickly got used to a life where he was constantly pampered. He was known for laying in bed all day after making lots of money from his sex work, ordering room service, and asking other people to do difficult things for him. They called him a “kept boy“.
When he was 20 years old, he learned from one of his New York clients that Truman Capote would be traveling to Paris. This rich benefactors knew of his crush, and paid for his plane ticket to fly to Paris to meet his favorite author. They became good friends and lovers, but Denny was suffering from an addiction to Opium. Truman Capote convinced him to go to a drug rehab clinic. He promised to meet up with him in Italy once he got out of rehab, but Capote learned from mutual friends that Denny never completed the program, and started smoking opium right away. He was afraid that continuing their friendship would drag him down, and he had to cut off all ties. However, their relationship impacted him greatly, and Capote based more than one character off of Denny Fouts. Other artists used him as their muse, as well. He never recovered from his drug addiction and died in his 20’s while living in Paris.