Angela Calomiris

Bad Gays

Huw Lemmey & Ben Miller

History

4.6 • 842 Ratings

🗓️ 1 December 2025

⏱️ 49 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Subscribe to Extra Bad Gays on Apple Podcasts or Patreon to support our work, get monthly bonus episodes, and join our community of listeners! Today we’re discussing a strange and compelling figure, the photographer Angela Calomiris. We can start at the end of her life, as a denizen of Provincetown, the little resort at the tip of Cape Cod in Massachusetts that has long been a haven for LGBTQ people. Angie had a reputation as a formidable figure in the town as a tough, and not always fair, businesswoman. She had made good money through some stiff deals. But she was also regarded as generous, if eccentric, by others. Yet behind Angie’s role as a local doyenne, she trailed a dark secret about her life as a young photographer in New York. How did Angela end up in Provincetown, and why was the mere sight of her name enough to induce horror in a fellow photographer? In today’s episode, we’ll discuss Angela’s life of FBI collaboration, naming names, secrets and lies. ----more---- Lisa Davis, Undercover girl : the lesbian informant who helped the FBI bring down the Communist Party (Imagine, 2017) Lisa Davis, The Spy Who Came in from the Closet https://glreview.org/article/the-spy-who-came-in-from-the-closet/ David K. Johnson, The Lavender Scare (Chicago University Press, 2004) Mason Klein, The radical camera : New York's Photo League, 1936-1951 (Yale University Press, 2011) Carol A. Stabile, The Broadcast 4: Women and the Anti- Communist Blacklist (Goldsmith's Press, 2018) Sophia Starmack, The rise and fall and P’town rebirth of Angela Calomiris https://eu.wickedlocal.com/story/provincetown-banner/2017/05/18/the-rise-fall-p-x2019/4502034007/ Veronica A. Wilson ‘I chose the values I regarded as American’: Sexuality, ethnicity, and FBI informant Angela Calomiris https://www.ingentaconnect.com/contentone/lwish/tcc/2021/00000020/00000020/art00005 Our intro music is Arpeggia Colorix by Yann Terrien. Our outro music is by DJ Michaeloswell Graphicdesigner. This podcast may contain copyrighted material, and its use is under the principles of fair use for purposes such as commentary, criticism, and parody. All rights belong to the respective copyright holders.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello and welcome to Season 9 Episode 5 of Bad Gays, a podcast all about evil and complicated queers in history.
0:23.1	My name is Ben Miller. I am a writer and historian currently at work on a biography of the fashion
0:27.7	designer Rudy Gernrick.
0:29.2	And my name's Helemy. I'm a writer and author.
0:32.2	Last week, we talked about Jacob, Israel, Dahan, a Dutch gay writer turned Zionist poet turned anti-Zionist political
0:39.1	activist who was assassinated by the Haganah.
0:41.6	Who are we talking about this week, Hugh?
0:43.8	Today we're discussing a strange and quite compelling figure, the photographer Angela Kalamaris.
0:49.8	We can start the end of her life, actually, as a denizen of Provincetown, the little resort at the
0:54.6	tip of Cape Cod in Massachusetts that's long been a haven for LGBTQ people.
0:58.6	Massachusetts mentioned.
1:00.7	Actually, the pixie gay civics and history teacher at my high school, the same of my life
1:05.2	was now unfortunately passed away, Ty Vignan.
1:07.4	His summer job was he would work as the bartender on the Boston to Provincetown Fast Ferry.
1:12.6	He almost certainly knew Angela, Angie to her friends, owned a row of waterfront cottages in the resort which she let out that were called Angels Landing, which still exists.
1:23.6	It was in 1980s and 90s and Angie had a reputation as a formidable figure in a town,
1:28.6	as a tough and not always fair businesswoman.
1:31.8	She'd made good money through some pretty stiff deals with other people,
1:35.2	but she was regarded as generous, if quite eccentric, by others.
1:38.7	She was involved in the Women's Inkeepers Association,
1:41.9	and she offered help and support to women who are arriving in town in
1:44.9	difficult circumstances she was a butch a petite woman and she wore a men's blazer and a fisherman's
	...

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