Heroes and Halos
Actors Sidney Poitier and Tony Curtis reunite in this collage from their prime, set against a moment from the Defiant Ones played out in successive stills — the source film running behind them with background text.
A purple moon crowns Poitier: allyship, the halo of a straight man who stood by his friend without condition. A pink moon crowns Curtis: queerness, worn openly here, not smuggled through subtext the way the era demanded. The two moons don’t compete. They complete each other, the way the two men did off-screen for the rest of their lives.
Looking back today to 1965: a straight man and a queer man, one Black and one white, friends and allies, together represented the best of what a man could be at the middle of the twentieth century.
Most though did not understand it, recognize it, or embrace it.
It’s never too late to get it right.
— Behan
