John Burnside dies at 91; gay rights activist, teleidoscope inventor
John Burnside, the inventor of a kaleidoscope-like device called the teleidoscope and an early gay movement activist who was the longtime partner of the late gay rights pioneer Harry Hay, has died. He was 91.
Burnside, who had recently been diagnosed with glioblastoma brain cancer, died Sunday at his home in San Francisco, said Joey Cain, a longtime friend.
"I don't think it's a cliche to say that John Burnside epitomized the full meaning of the word gentleman," said Mark Thompson, a well-known writer on gay history and culture who knew Burnside for nearly 30 years. "He was not only smart and funny and bright, he was also profoundly, at his core, a gentle man and all that that implies.
"He was a very beloved person in our community of men loving men."
A onetime staff scientist at Lockheed, Burnside had an interest in optical engineering that led to his inventing the teleidoscope, a variation on the kaleidoscope that works without the use of colored glass chips and instead uses a lens to transform whatever is in front of it into a colorful design.
In 1958, he launched California Kalidoscopes, which became a successful Los Angeles design and manufacturing plant.
In the 1970s, Burnside created the Symetricon, a large mechanical kaleidoscopic device that projects colorful patterns; it was used in a number of movies, including the 1976 science fiction film "Logan's Run."
By then, Burnside was more than a decade into what would be a 39-year relationship with Hay, who had started the pioneering Mattachine Society, a gay rights organization, in Los Angeles in 1950.
When they first met at a gay community center in downtown Los Angeles in 1963, Burnside was married with no children. He divorced his wife and moved in with Hay.
The two men became a highly visible activist couple, including appearing together on confrontational TV talk show host Joe Pyne's program.
In 1965, Burnside and Hay helped form the Southern California Council on Religion and the Homophile.
A year later, they participated in one of the country's first gay rights demonstrations: a 15-car motorcade through downtown Los Angeles protesting the exclusion of gays from the military.
And in 1969, they participated in the founding meetings of the Southern California Gay Liberation Front, one of which was held at Burnside's teleidoscope factory.
