he liked the boys is what I'd heard..
he was gay apparently.....
Sexuality
On a trip to
Florida in 1953
[1] Clarke met and quickly married Marilyn Mayfield, a 22-year-old American divorcee with a young son. They separated permanently after six months, although the divorce was not finalised until 1964.
[27] "The marriage was incompatible from the beginning", said Clarke.
[27] Clarke never remarried, but was close to a Sri Lankan man, Leslie Ekanayake, whom Clarke called his "only perfect friend of a lifetime", in the dedication to his novel
The Fountains of Paradise.
[28] Clarke is buried with Ekanayake, who predeceased him by three decades, in
Colombo's central cemetery. In his biography of
Stanley Kubrick,
John Baxter cites Clarke's homosexuality as a reason why he relocated, due to more tolerant
laws with regard to homosexuality in Sri Lanka.
[29] Journalists who enquired of Clarke whether he was gay were told, "No, merely mildly cheerful."
[30] However,
Michael Moorcock has written:
Everyone knew he was gay. In the 1950s I'd go out drinking with his boyfriend. We met his protégés, western and eastern, and their families, people who had only the most generous praise for his kindness. Self-absorbed he might be and a
teetotaller, but an impeccable gent through and through."
[31]
In an interview in the July 1986 issue of
Playboy magazine, when asked if he had had a bisexual experience, Clarke stated "Of course. Who hasn't?".
[32] In his obituary, Clarke's friend
Kerry O'Quinn wrote: "Yes, Arthur was gay ... As
Isaac Asimov once told me, 'I think he simply found he preferred men.' Arthur didn't publicize his sexuality – that wasn't the focus of his life – but if asked, he was open and honest."
[33]
Clarke maintained a vast collection of manuscripts and personal memoirs, maintained by his brother Fred Clarke in Taunton, Somerset, England, and referred to as the "Clarkives". Clarke said that some of his private diaries will not be published until 30 years after his death. When asked why they were sealed, he answered, "Well, there might be all sorts of embarrassing things in them."
[3]
