Born in 1913 in the California central valley town of Modesto, James Broughton grew to become an influential filmmaker and poet. In 2006 Jack Foley edited All: A James Broughton Reader and in the Preface to that book, we find this assessment of his life’s work:

“Nowhere is the sheer effervescence of gayness more clearly demonstrated than in the lifework and writings of James Broughton. Nowhere is joy of life proclaimed with more fervor and an almost divine obliviousness to any form of shame. … No one has explored the full dimensions of a vibrant eros more deliciously than he did with every word he wrote, every frame he shot. …. If poetry is the language of the soul, Broughton had an unparalleled fluency.”