Sexual Identity and Gordon Bowen, Pt. 1
Sexual Identity and Gordon Bowen, Pt. 1
The Lives and Lies of Gordon Bowen
Gordon Bowen’s divorce from his wife Barbara began with the discovery of phone records that demonstrated Bowen’s propensities for male escorts and gay pornography. Bowen’s homosexuality was an open secret for much of his life, including his days at the University of Utah, where he worked at a venereal disease clinic. Bowen had met his friend Brad Nygren while attending the University of Utah, and while Nygren worked at a Drug Referral Clinic, Bowen worked at a VD clinic where he examined male patients. In fact, Bowen allegedly told Nygren he enjoyed examining the male patients, but he had no interest in examining the female patients.
Nygren’s claim might have strained credulity if it were not for Gordon Bowen’s decades-long inappropriate behavior with regards to sexual comments and activities. Over the years, multiple coworkers of Bowen’s would accuse him of attempting to fondle them, being found tied to a bed with feces smeared all over his body, and of having young boys live with him in his New York and Salt Lake residences. In the face of these claims, Bowen either asserted that he didn’t remember the incidents or that the incidents had never occurred.
In Gordon Bowen’s world, everyone else was a liar, and he alone was telling the truth.
This was consistent with Bowen’s self-image, where he was carrying out a great work for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, a work that connected him to God. It also provided the justification for Bowen’s sins, which he viewed as foreordained by God.
In various journal entries from April 2004, Bowen wrote that his sins were foreordained so that he might be taught the secret combinations and codes.1 2Bowen believed himself to be a “chosen son” whose sins were foreordained in order to expose Satan’s plan. He wrote the his father and mother had sexually abused him, and it was his responsibility to heal his family line and those of Barbara Boyce and Steve Timothy.3
Bowen’s grandiose self-image served as the justification for his behavior at every stop in his career, and in every personal relationship. His faith and his sexuality were intertwined in a way that resembled an attempt to weave oil and water together: the two were incompatible, but that did not deter Bowen from trying to reconcile his homosexuality with a faith Bowen’s own mentors such as James Faust and Boyd K. Packer defined as irreconcilable with homosexuality.
Bowen did what he could to present himself as a heterosexual man in public, dating women such as his former English professor at the University of Utah, Stephanie Ann Fish Pace. Pace had come to Salt Lake City in 1973 with her daughter in pursuit of her doctorate in English Literature and Gender Studies. She would go on to come out as a lesbian. Bowen bragged to Brad Nygren that he had the best sex of his life with Pace, but nearly all of Bowen’s other known girlfriends characterized him as a man who refused to have sex with them.4567
Bowen had left the University of Utah after five years without a degree. He had gone east to Chicago to work as a copywriter for J. Walter Thompson, and it was in Chicago that he would begin cultivating his notorious reputation among the advertising community. Bowen would later tell a group at the Lion House that if they knew what he had done in Chicago they would never be his friend.8 It is unknown what Bowen was alluding to when he made the statement.
In 1980, Gordon Bowen went back home to Salt Lake City, where he took a position with Bonneville Communications. At Bonneville, Bowen would meet Lincoln Kevin and Khaliel Kelly, alleged LDS Church of Satan members. He would later characterize his association with the Kevin and Khaliel as emblematic of deeper patterns in his life.
For Gordon Bowen, the issue of sexual identity determined who he attracted to in his life, and when he encountered others who had the same issues, he gravitated towards them. In his own words, he surrounded himself “with individuals who have sexual identity issues of some sort or another.”9
Khaliel Kelly was said to adore Gordon Bowen during her family’s time in New York, but Bowen’s favor in her eyes quickly faded. When Bowen moved to marry the widowed Barbara Timothy, Khaliel Kelly called Barbara on the phone and warned her that Gordon Bowen was a homosexual. The brazen act revealed just how bitter the relationship between Bowen and the Kellys had become since the mid-Eighties. Kevin Kelly alleged that Bowen had stolen his work, repackaged it in a portfolio, and used it to obtain another job.
However, the relationship between the Kelly family and Gordon Bowen was not initially acrimonious. Although Bowen’s mental instability was common knowledge at Bonneville Communications, his creative team still left with him after he was terminated from Bonneville. Lynn Dangel, Kevin Kelly, Parry Merkley, and Tom Pratt all left Bonneville to join Ogilvy-Mather with Bowen.
This despite Bowen’s history at Bonneville, which was the first known instance of Bowen claiming to be beset by evil spirits.
Next: The Bonneville Years (1981-1984)
Box 68, Folder 5, Document 49, pg. 3; Timothy, Timothy, and Bowen v. Bowen, Complaint and Jury Demand Draft, paragraph 114, pg. 17 of 37.
Bowen’s journal excerpts detailed his beliefs: “The evil spirit energy you have has blocked your core…so you could learn the codes,..secret combinations,…words, symbols, signs, oaths, covenants and songs.”
Id. at paragraph 113.
Ellen Richardson, the VP of Human Resources for Bonneville Communications, dated Bowen for two years. Dick Allsop asked her if she had slept with Bowen, because he had claimed that he had been hired by sleeping with Richardson. Richardson said she “collapsed in laughter and said, ‘Gordon doesn’t do women.’” Witness Statements, III, Ellen Richardson, (#31, #33 Testimonies).
https://www.deseret.com/1990/4/24/18858072/adapt-to-myths-women-told.
Lynn Dangel was Gordon’s girlfriend for two years and told substantially the same story as his other girlfriends
Diana Walker, an opera singer, claimed that she found a gay pornography magazine in Gordon’s apartment while she was staying with him. November 2008 Gordon Bowen Deposition, pg. 188.
November 2008 Gordon Bowen Deposition, pg. 200, lines 7-10.
November 2008 Gordon Bowen Deposition, pp. 28-29.