Thirty years ago, a peculiar man, an author bearing a false name, wearing a phony beard and sporting a wig and dark sunglasses, became the world's first outer. This outer's pseudonym bore a certain resemblance, strangely, to Michelangelo's actual name, except that it sounded—when spoken-- even more flamboyant. He was Angelo d'Arcangelo. In 1968, he wrote a very funny classic that's little known today. It was titled The Homosexual Handbook (Olympia Press, 1968).

Like Michelangelo Signorile, Angelo d'Arcangelo dragged celebrities, assorted politicos, and uptight financial barons kicking and screaming from their supposed closets. Though many today may denounce the practice of outing, d'Arcangelo commenced it in 1968—a chic bisexual year—and instead of angry lawsuits, his book elicited mere titters.

Variety picked up a few of the showbiz names, and because of that mag's help the fledgling author found his book selling more copies than would otherwise have been the case had the book stuck to giving just not-so-plain advice.

Personally, I mostly loved d'Arcangelo's book. It was the first of a genre.

Angelo d'Arcangelo was a tall fellow whose diction betrayed a rather practiced elegance and whose bearing was quite regal indeed, though in deference to feminist principles it seems best to leave the gender of this majestic person's station a matter of conjecture.

Suffice it to say, he had—at least half the time—some wit and that his wicked tongue made portions of his book eminently readable. He introduced a new attitude –that of the shameless, grandiose libertine—which succeeded in making him an immediate favorite nationwide.

One of his later published tomes, titled The Lovebook: Inside the Sexual Revolution (Lancer Books) revealed somewhat systematically, however, the general fogginess in his mind. Those who'd hoped for the spicy humor of the Handbook were disappointed.

The great difference between Angelo d'Arcangelo and Michelangelo Signorile, it must be said, is that the world's first outer refused to out himself, while Signorile, at least, used his real name while naming others, doing as he would be done by.

At a 1969 Handbook press party—a soiree at Manhattan's Luxor Baths—the original wig-wearing outer met his public in full disguise. Along with Dick Michaels, founding publisher of The Advocate, and Lige Clarke, co-editor of GAY, I first met him there.

He explained that the "outing" section in his book had not been his own idea but, rather, that of Maurice Giroudius, his publisher. "Why don't you compile a 'hearsay reference' as an appendix to the Handbook, Giroudius had suggested, "listing famous homosexuals living and dead."

Voila. It was Olympia Press's idea of a good sales gimmick. Twenty-two years later Angelo d'Arcangelo explained to me that he'd been very naïve. "I wrote the list in two days, adding bitchy comments under the names," he explained.

Naïve? Angelo d'Arcangelo? Such a thought does damage to the outrageously knowing persona he carefully portrays in The Homosexual Handbook. Therein he seems the smartest, sassiest, gay advice giver of all time.

In any case, the gimmick worked and sales soared, he boasted, into the millions, a figure which strikes me as unduly high. Anyway, he complained in 1990 that he got only $3,000 dollars for his famous book, possibly trying to exonerate himself from the obvious charge that he himself had hid in the closet while outing others.

The first edition of The Homosexual Handbook with a green cover, did sell like hotcakes, though suddenly it was withdrawn from every bookstore in which it was selling. There was a waiting period and then, strangely, a pink-covered edition was released. Only one very minor change had been made in the book's text, the removal from the "outing" appendix of the name of the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, J. Edgar Hoover.

Several years later, incidentally, the Handbook's publisher, Maurice Giroudius was deported to his native France. Was this deportation hastened by J. Edgar's wrath? Who knows? In any case, in 1969 I hired Angelo d'Arcangelo to write for America's first gay weekly newspaper, GAY.

Eight years ago, I experienced an eerie re-visitation from the "Angel". After a long stint in Manhattan (one of his best short-lived compositions showcased there was an Off- Broadway play written under his real name and titled De Sade Illustrated) he'd moved to Minneapolis. But then, discovering my whereabouts, he drove thousands of miles and—to my surprise-- placed himself on my doorstep, having only $15 in his pocket and throwing himself, so to speak, on my mercy. Mercy.

Strange, I thought, remembering that as a late 60s editor I'd experienced difficulties with Angelo—always a cheerful meddler—and had had to fire him after he'd attempted to engineer a failed writer's coup at GAY.

In his Lovebook, however, he'd written afterwards that he hadn't held his being fired against me, and that, in fact, he'd remembered me fondly because Lige and I had given him a copy of Witter Bynner's translation of The Way of Life According to Lao Tzu. "Whenever I read in that book," he'd said, "I give myself a little party." Well, if he was ready and willing to forget and forgive, so was I.

Thus did I make the mistake of taking this homeless (at the time) fellow into my apartment, assuming he'd quickly get a job and find his own place. I wish I'd listened to a small stilled voice—that of the late Lige Clarke whispering through my brain—"Jack, don't make any assumptions. Just don't assume!"

Angelo sat happy, ensconcing himself as a lounger, reading at my pool during periods when I was at home in the apartment. When I took off each day to work, he returned to the apartment and—indoors--watched videos. When I came home, he'd always go right to bed. He was, probably, unhappy with himself and hardly spoke a pleasant word on those awkward occasions when we crossed paths. After the passage of two months and with no sign he intended to do little more than mooch and lounge, I was forced to evict him. It seemed a righteous eviction at the time.

Recently—in 1997-- a call came from one of Angelo d'Arcangelo's admirers, a gay newspaper editor who'd been influenced by the Handbook years before when he'd come out. "I was told," he explained, "that you knew d'Arcangelo." Well, yes I did, I admitted, but I have no idea where he can be found.

What I was able to relate, however, came as something of a disappointment to the sleuthy newspaper editor. Angelo d'Arcangelo, I told him, none other than the famed author of The Homosexual Handbook, once a delightfully shameless libertine, had become, in the ensuing years, (hold onto your hat, Gladys) a convert to Islam. That's right, a garl-darned moocher-Moslem, alms for the love of Allah, etc. ad nauseum. In my apartment he used a copy of The Holy Quran, the Moslem holy book, to prop up his computer.

What an odd metamorphosis.

While Angelo had been "visiting" we'd indulged in a few literary exchanges, I related, or arguments, if you will. I told him that if he were ever to preside over the republication of his otherwise brilliant Handbook, that he'd be well-advised to remove one slimy sentence from its pages.

"Which is that?" he pressed.

"In your zeal to appear to be a bisexual," I told him, (pointing at the same time to his use of a pseudonym when writing about homosexuality) "You have said something particularly insulting about women, something that makes you, as I see it, a very typical, dreary macho man."

"And what was that?" he begged.

"You wrote: 'Women were made to be fucked, they're perfectly ridiculous otherwise.' "

That a homosexual-turned-serious-Moslem-convert should have written such words ought to come as no surprise. My last words to Angelo-- as I gave him directions to a mission called Christ is the Answer-- were "Allah be with you, Josef."

He nodded politely: "And Allah be with you, Jack."