Gay icon a prototypical portrait of a tortured closet case." Due to Saint Sebastian's status as a gay icon, Tennessee Williams chose to use the saint's name for the martyred character Sebastian in his play, "Suddenly, Last Summer". The name was also used by Oscar Wilde—as Sebastian Melmoth—when in exile after his release from prison. Wilde, an Irish writer and poet, was about as "out of the closet" as was possible for the late 19th century, and is himself considered to be a gay icon. Marie Antoinette was an early lesbian icon. Rumors about her relationships with women circulated in pornographic detail
Samuel Jackson Pratt 1773 had become entangled in a scandalous love affair and left the church to become an actor under the stage name 'Courtney Melmoth" Some time in the early 1770s, Pratt entered into a marital-like relationship with a lady who thereafter referred to herself as "Mrs Charlotte Melmoth" (Melmoth being Pratt's stage-name). Her maiden name is unknown. According to "A History of The City of Brooklyn", Charlotte "had been duped into a sham marriage, while at boarding school, by a Mr. Pratt (known in the literary and theatrical circles of that day as Courtney Melmoth ), and with him went upon