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
William Melmoth Walters William Melmoth Walters William Melmoth Walters (1835-1925) was a former President of the Incorporated Law Society (1891-1892) and member of an old Somerset family. Walters was the eldest son of John Eldad Walters of Lincoln's Inn and Eleanor, daughter and co-heiress of Alexander Radclyffe Sidebottom. He was a nephew-in-law of Sir Christopher Rawlinson. Walters was a descendant of William Melmoth, the poet William King and a relation of Edward Hyde, 1st Earl of Clarendon. On 17 July 1860, he married Marian Eleanor, eldest child of Alfred Leggatt, Esq. He was the father of the famous amateur footballers Arthur Melmoth Walters