Immortalized in the book The Beautiful Fall and in the recent film Saint Laurent, Bascher was a very minor aristocrat (his family had bought the title) who came to Paris to become famous. He became the lover and muse of both Karl Lagerfeld (whom he called 'Mein kaiser') and Yvs St. Laurent because of his stunning Proustian good looks, and was painted by David Hockney. He died at 38 of AIDS; very few people came to his funeral.

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by Anonymous

reply 23

February 28, 2018 3:20 AM

Brings back too many of then unknown horrors lurking just a few years in future.. This recent history is still being shaped and surely will be called the Gay Holocaust.

by Anonymous

reply 1

June 12, 2015 7:11 AM

He kept a gynecologist's chair in his living room for parties.

by Anonymous

reply 2

June 12, 2015 3:13 PM

In the recent “kept gay men thread” I mentioned that I think Jacques was absolutely beautiful. Does anyone else agree?

by Anonymous

reply 3

February 27, 2018 11:23 PM

no r3, you're on your own with that one. But, then again, I expect you're quite used to being on your own.

by Anonymous

reply 4

February 27, 2018 11:27 PM

j'adore the cocktail glass, there.

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reply 5

February 27, 2018 11:30 PM

Was just reading about him. Something for the birds.

by Anonymous

reply 6

February 27, 2018 11:32 PM

I think he's just average looking. I guess if you like that pouty French look you might find him attractive. But he's no Robert Redford or Michael Landon who were both stunningly beautiful as young men.

by Anonymous

reply 7

February 27, 2018 11:35 PM

Jacques was handsome but not a great beauty. He was a fashion plate, chic. His face had good and bad angles, the best being full on because he had nice eyes and elegant thin lips. His face isn't that rare in France.

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by Anonymous

reply 8

February 27, 2018 11:37 PM

A bio published last year:

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reply 9

February 27, 2018 11:41 PM

I just find big noses, angular faces, and good fashion sense beautiful on both men and women. Hence, why I also find the late Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy to be stunning.

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by Anonymous

reply 10

February 27, 2018 11:48 PM

You would have liked the Agnellis.

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reply 11

February 27, 2018 11:52 PM

Now the Agnellis are more like it. They were real aristocrats of true refinement, not like that bourgeois wannabe Bascher. I always feel a ting of sadness when I see this Horst photo of Marella Agnelli with her favorite son Edoardo. Beautiful Edoardo was the heir to the Agnelli billions. He was also a serious scholar of religion. He decided to convert to Shi'a Islam and spent time in Iran with Ayatollah Khomeini. When he returned to Italy, he was murdered by some Jewish cousins who had married into the Agnelli family. They now have the family forune. Marella is still alive and still mourns for her dear lost son.

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by Anonymous

reply 13

February 28, 2018 12:06 AM

He died in 1989 when AIDS wasn't particularly scandalous in our sophisticated cities. On the contrary, there was a dreary routine of big memorials for our dead. So why no-one at his funeral? Was he finally disliked?

by Anonymous

reply 14

February 28, 2018 12:13 AM

R14, he may not have been a very nice person. He's a prominent character in Bertand Bonello's "Saint Laurent" (which I highly recommend even though it goes on forever); in it he is portrayed as very sexy, depraved, and opportunistic. Of course, that seems to have been catnip to Lagerfeld: Lagerfeld visited de Bascher every day in the hospital when he was dying, and has never really said a bad word about him since then. But plenty of Saint Laurent's friends really disliked him.

by Anonymous

reply 17

February 28, 2018 12:52 AM

scroll back through the slide show at R15. TBM

by Anonymous

reply 18

February 28, 2018 12:56 AM

Lagerfeld can be counted on for some Teutonic rectitude. He's often a class act without having to say that he is.

by Anonymous

reply 19

February 28, 2018 12:58 AM

On a sidenote - Yves SL completely ignored that Bascher was sick and dying and of course never visited him in hospital. I guess he abhorred reality and was too horrified to deal with suffering and dying.

by Anonymous

reply 20

February 28, 2018 1:43 AM

Karl Lagerfeld has said that he and Jacques never had sex, even though they were partners and that Jacques was the “love of his life”. Do we believe that?

It’s hard to image Lagerfeld sleeping with his current muse Gianbaconi, so perhaps he just like to lavish beautiful men with money, gifts, and attention?

by Anonymous

reply 21

February 28, 2018 1:49 AM

R20, don't you realize that YSL was working on a COLLECTION? He couldn't risk any negative vibrations interfering with his creative process!

by Anonymous

reply 22

February 28, 2018 2:01 AM