Interview with New York’s original leather daddies: Frank Olson and Don Morrison
The couple behind the first gay “Eagle” bar introduced Fire Island to Leather
Frank Olson and Don Morrison were among the most important founding members of the leather scene in New York City, famous for opening the first gay “Eagle” bar and hosting legendary S&M-themed parties in Manhattan and Fire Island.
In 1970, they opened “The Eagle’s Nest” New York’s premier leather bar. Today, more than 30 bars around the world operate under the name “The Eagle,” inspired by the original and connected by their common sense of the masculine ideal.
Frank and Don, now both in their 90s, are still together living in Pennsylvania. Pines Historical Society spoke to them for this story.
The Origins of Leather in gay culture
Leather became part of gay subculture at the end of World War II. Frank Olson recalls: “Guys coming back from the war found out that it was a lot easier to have sex overseas and some of them really liked the idea of having sex with each other. That’s when the first clubs opened on the West coast.”
Photos from the Satry Motorcycle Club archives. See more here.
This was around the same time that Touko Laaksonen (Tom of Finland) began creating erotic images based on his fetishization of uniformed men. According to Wikipedia “The post-World War II era saw the rise of the biker culture as rejecting "the reorganization and normalization of life after the war, with its conformist, settled lifestyle." Biker subculture was both marginal and oppositional and provided postwar gay men with a stylized masculinity that included rebelliousness and danger.”
Tom of Finland’s drawings fetishized masculine men in uniforms and leather
Gay motorcycle clubs combined a uniformed military look with a fraternal order and social club.
The first of its kind, The Satyrs Motorcycle Club, formed in Los Angeles in 1954, during the height of the McCarthy era. The club’s incarnation began “after a night of drinking, partying, and sex.” Leather attire (vests, chaps, caps and pants) became the norm for members who–even if not sadomasochists–enjoyed being associated with rough sex.
Other clubs sprung up across the United States, adopting the charter and bylaws from the Satyrs. Frank Olson was a founding member of New York’s first gay biker group, the Empire City Motor Club which formed in 1964.
Frank Olson meets Don Morrison
“If you knew Frank Olson, it was your ticket to meeting other people who were into S&M,” recalls Don Morrison.
“Frank was the go-to-guy New York — in London it was Felix, Berlin it was George. It guaranteed you could always find a heavy sex night in the city. You could be pretty sure that if you got tied up, you wouldn’t get killed.”
“I was invited to a New Year’s party in 1966 and walked right up to Frank and said ‘I think I’d be good for you.’
And so began their 55 year relationship as New York’s original “leather daddies.”
“There were always people who had fantasies about rougher sex and we helped make those fantasies come true. The two of us have always had a sexual compatability” says Frank.
Don knew his sexual taste was a bit different from an early age. “I used to go to the local movies and hoped they had a pirate movie playing. Whenever someone got tied to the mast, I’d get a hard-on. Words that got me excited were: torture, whipping, flogging.”
The Pirate the Slave Girl, 1959
Frank was originally married to a woman, but after his time in the service, could no longer ignore his interest in other men.
Frank and Don were highly sought-after mentors in the leather community. In his memoir, Jack Fritscher, founder of leather magazine Drummer and one-time lover of Robert Mapplethorpe, sums up their status: “leatherman Frank Olson and super-top, the legendary Don Morrison, tutored and tortured only the creme de leather.”
Frank Olson and Don Morrison bring the leather scene to Fire Island
Frank and Don started coming out to Cherry Grove in the late 1960s, renting a small cottage from John Eberhardt (also the owner of The Belvedere hotel).
“The Pines didn’t really have much of a leather scene until much later in the 1970s. But even then it was more about putting on a leather jacket to clone a particular “look.” Not many guys actually wanted to get strung up from the ceiling and whipped,” says Don.
“We knew a few people in the Grove who were into leather and invited people we knew from the city to our parties. People thought we were a lot rougher than we really were. One time we had an issue with the fireplace and threw a burning log out the window and people thought it was a burning body!”
Drugs helped fuel the action at their events. “The drug of choice was mostly weed and some LSD. And of course poppers! If you had amyl nitrate, you could have a heavier S&M session.”
But things never got *too* out of hand. “Trying to be butch one night and more than a little high, I climbed one of the electrical poles in Cherry Grove. Got all the way to the top of it, quickly sobered up, and had to figure out how to get down”
Some of the action spilled into the meat rack. “One of our friends came out for the day and was wandering into the meat rack and heard the crack of a whip. He suddenly came upon us and said “oh my Christ, it’s just you guys!”
The Eagle’s Nest
The original Eagle was a longshoreman's pub called the Eagle Open Kitchen at 142 11th Avenue, at 21st Street, in operation since 1931 near NYC's West Side Highway.
In 1970, Frank and Don teamed up with their friend Jack Mottica and purchased the bar, adding a few coats of black paint and an beat-up motorcycle for decoration, calling it the Eagle’s Nest. “That name only stuck for a year until we learned the association with Nazi Germany, so we rebranded as “The Eagle” says Frank.
The bar quickly became a popular gathering point for the city’s gay leather subculture, biker groups and sports clubs, and subsequently inspired the creation of similarly named gay bars across the United States and Internationally.
“We had a dress code — leather or Western. That area had a lot of straight guys coming right off the ships, but we fit in pretty well. A “fluff bar” wouldn’t do as well as there was gay bashing in the 70s. We knew that when they brought out their chains and bats, we as members of the S&M community would bring out our chains and bats.”
One story Don shared with Pines Historical sums up their legendary status: “We were at the Eagle and I met a guy who said “I’m into military flogging.” We got into a cab together and the guy started backing off “oh I’m not so sure, Don…” Suddenly the taxi driver says from the front seat “Oh shit, you should go home with Don –he’s a lot of fun. If I can find a place to park the cab, I’ll go home with you!”