ALLEN FRAME in APARTAMENTO
May 20, 2022 - Allen Frame remembers an artist, DARREL ELLIS
I first met Darrel Ellis in 1981. I was 30 and he was almost 23. He had just broken up with the actor José Rafael Arango and we were at an East Village neighbourhood gay bar called The Bar, at 2nd Avenue and East 4th Street, half a block from José’s apartment. The Bar had been in existence just a few years and had become a popular, low- key hangout with a pool table and jukebox, notable for the actors, artists, and writers who frequented it, including Peter Hujar, John Heys, Bill Rice, Jim Neu, Frank Franca, Bob Gober, Dieter Hall, Ken Tisa, Alvin Baltrop, Stephen Barker, and many others. That night at The Bar I brought Darrel home to my fifth-floor walk-up apartment in the West Village, which I shared with my roommate, an actress from Mississippi named Butch Walker. The bathtub was still in the kitchen. Our relationship started romantically but was very short-lived and quickly changed into a friendship..
Download Article (PDF)