Partner Harry Hyde

Queer Places:
5553 Hollywood Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90028, USA
Forest Lawn Memorial Park, 1712 S Glendale Ave, Glendale, CA 91205, United States

Joseph "J." Jiquel Lanoe (October 3, 1875 - February 15, 1948) was a French actor who carved out a notable career in early American theater and the silent film era.

Born on October 3, 1875, in Vannes, Morbihan, France, he relocated to the United States as part of the French Company of Players. He made his Broadway debut in 1907 in the stage production Iron Master.

Lanoe subsequently transitioned into the rapidly growing motion picture industry, becoming a prominent member of D. W. Griffith’s Biograph Company ensemble. Over the course of his screen career, he appeared in more than 100 American Biograph films, establishing himself as a reliable and versatile character actor. Outside of performance, Lanoe was an avid painter and built a deep personal friendship with the acclaimed deaf Impressionist artist Granville Redmond, with whom he frequently painted landscape works. Lanoe later left Hollywood and moved to French Polynesia, where he spent his final years until his death on February 15, 1948.

Joseph Jiquel Lanoe was an openly gay man during a period when homosexuality in the film industry was strictly hidden from the public eye. Actress Blanche Sweet later revealed to film historian Anthony Slide that Lanoe and fellow actor Harry Hyde were lovers and maintained a joint household in a hotel located on Hollywood Boulevard. During the 1920s, Lanoe listed 5553 Hollywood Blvd as his official place of residence and artistic studio in his U.S. Naturalization records (Declaration of Intention filed in 1924) and contemporary directory listings, where he operated primarily as a landscape painter and member of the California Art Club.

This dynamic extended into his artistic legacy when D. W. Griffith cast Lanoe in Judith of Bethulia (1913). In the film, Lanoe portrayed a campy, effeminate eunuch—a performance historical commentators identify as the first prominent instance of a gay actor playing an overtly swish, effeminate character in American cinema.

Following his death in Papeete, Tahiti, J. Jiquel Lanoe was interred at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale, California, where his remains rest in a crypt within the Great Mausoleum.

References:

Behind the Screen: How Gays and Lesbians Shaped Hollywood, 1910-1969 Paperback – October 29, 2002 by William J. Mann

Other references:

• Anthony Slide, Silent Players: A Biographical and Autobiographical Study of 100 Silent Film Actors and Actresses (University Press of Kentucky, 2002)
• Edan Milton Hughes, Artists in California, 1786–1940 (Hughes Publishing Company)
• Cooper C. Graham, Steven Higgins, Elaine Mancini, and João Luiz Vieira, D. W. Griffith and the Biograph Company (Scarecrow Press, 1985)
• Paolo Cherchi Usai (ed.), The Griffith Project (Volumes 1–12) (British Film Institute / Indiana University Press)
• Internet Broadway Database (IBDB): Records his 1907 Broadway theatrical credits, including his appearance in The Iron Master.
• American Art Annual (1925) & City Directories: Archival records tracking Lanoe’s membership in the California Art Club and his studio addresses in Hollywood during the 1920s.

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