1943-2006

versatile artist and activist

Robert Long was a singer, writer, composer, comedian and radio and television presenter. He was born in Utrecht. Long proudly and loudly proclaimed his homosexuality. His songs and shows were a great support for many queers, before and after they came out.

Long was born 26 years after comedian Wim Sonneveld. That quarter of a century and their completely different attitudes towards homosexuality made a world of difference. Sonneveld remained in the closet his entire life. Long proudly proclaimed his homosexuality.

First love

Jan Gerrit Bob Arend Leverman, as his real name was, knew early on that he was gay:

I know for sure that I was already homosexual when I was three years old. I had a boyfriend in kindergarten, his name was Kees, and he had blond, straight, half-long hair. He died of blood poisoning, because he was bitten by an adder. And that was a lost love, I just didn’t know that it was, because of course I was too young for that.

‘Never fucked’

He didn’t live in Utrecht for long. When he was four, his parents divorced and he moved with his mother to Ederveen, a small village 40 km. east of Utrecht. When he was twelve, his mother died and after that he lived with family, in homes and finally with his father. In 1957 he went to live in Utrecht again with his father and stepmother. There he met Floor, a student of Sanskrit in her late thirties:

He gave me books by Chekhov. We never fucked but I got more from him than from any other person in my life. Floor learned me about things of which I absolutely knew nothing. He freed me from that reformed junk, that burden of the School with the Bible. A whole new world opened up for me. My father was very suspicious. He followed me on his bicycle. One time I was standing on the doorstep of the house of my friend, the student. He opened the door and was shocked. Dad was standing behind me. He told the landlady to throw that faggot out of the house. She did. My father sent the police.

Career start

From the age of fourteen he was in various bands. In 1968 he became a member of the group Unit Gloria and changed his name to Robert Long. ‘Long’ referred to his height of 1.92 meters. With Unit Gloria he had a number of hits, including The Last Seven Days and Our Father. Four years later, when Unit Gloria was on the verge of an international breakthrough, Robert decided to go solo. The record company wanted to give him a glamorous image: fast cars, beautiful women and English lyrics, but Long refused and started singing in Dutch.

Sooner or later

In 1974 his first Dutch-language LP was released: Vroeger of later (Sooner or later). The record was in the hit parade for over two years and sold almost half a million copies. Three years later Levenslang (Lifelong) was released, for which he received an Edison, the most prestigious and oldest music prize in the Netherlands. It was the first of six he would receive. The LP also included the song Thorbeckeplein (Thorbecke square), which is exemplary of his work. In the song he meets a person with whom he has an affair. Only in the last line: ‘dan ga je weer terug… naar je vrouw’ (then you go back… to your wife) does it become clear that it is a relationship with a man. Quite shocking at the time. He himself wrote about it later:

I can make a nice song, think up a nice tune, sometimes I write a book […] the most important thing in all of this is that I enjoy it myself. And when that one lady writes that she got so much support from my beautiful song Thorbeckeplein, because her husband himself also… etc., then that gives me more pleasure than all awards put together.

Clearly gay

In 1974 his first theatre show also premiered. Many more would follow. With Leen Jongewaard (also gay) he made three successful and controversial shows. The first, Duidelijk zo (Clearly gay), had homosexuality as its main subject. One of the highlights of it is the parody Die fijne Jordaan, about the beloved Amsterdam working class neighbourhood Jordaan.

Writer

Robert Long wrote many texts, for himself, but also for others: Conny Vandenbosch, Marga Bult and Gerard Cox. And columns for the newspaper Algemeen Dagblad. In 1988 he wrote the musical Chekhov together with Dimitri Frenkel. With Cees van der Pluijm he published the scabrous picaresque novel Hete Klippen (Hot Cliffs) in 1991. In 1998 they published Beste Robert, Waarde Kees – brieven over leven, dood, liefde seks, werk en collega’s (Dear Robert, Dear Kees – letters about live, dead, love, sex, work and collegues). About sex he wrote among other things:

Once, in my early youth, the support group flourished as never before. The national gay organisation COC in particular was very adept at that. By the way, you couldn’t walk in anywhere as a prospective homophile without an older young man coming up to you who wanted to receive you, guide you, introduce you, inform you, show you the ropes, understand you, or whatever. And all I wanted to do was fuck. I was going crazy with the bullshit of those self-knit wimps.

An A for language

In the late 1980s, when he, in his own words, ‘visited all the Dutch theatres an inside and out’, he presented his first TV programme Mijn Geheim (My Secret) on Dutch television. Shortly afterwards he presented the language quiz Tien voor taal (An A for Language), a programme that was more in line with his profession. Many people had difficulty with this step, but as always he followed his own path.

A happy piglet

Robert was critical, in his texts, as an advocate of gay emancipation, but also in other areas. In 2000 he became the spokesperson for the ‘Stichting Varkens in Nood’ (Pigs in Need Foundation), an organisation that wanted to bring abuses in the bio-industry to the attention of the public. In the farmers newspaper Agrarisch Dagblad he made a comparison with atrocities from the Second World War

Concentration camps have come to an end. Guilty people have been punished, but that does not yet apply to pig farming,

according to Long. The national farmers organisation ‘LTO Nederland’ filed summary proceedings against him. Robert Long invoked freedom of expression, the judge agreed with him. Long also released a single for Pigs in Need, called Een Vrolijk biggetje (A Happy Piglet).

Death

On December 11, 2006, it was announced that Long was terminally ill. Two days later, he died in a hospital in Antwerp from cancer. He was 63. In his last column, he wrote:

I would have liked to live a little longer. But I am not angry. Not at all disappointed, at most sad because the people I love were in my life for too short a time, or I in theirs, but I can look back on a beautiful life with a number of sensible contributions to what I found important and I don’t need anything else. No longer need a voice, no longer need fingers to play the piano or write, no longer need a mind to organize my thoughts. In short, it was beautiful!

Consolation

Robert Long was buried at the Sint Petrus’ Banden cemetery in The Hague. Singer Gerard Cox led the funeral. A statue by the Flemish sculptor George Minne, a ‘kneeling youth’, adorns his grave. The stone bears a line from his song Grafschrift (Epitaph):

Someone, at least one, has loved him.

That is very modest. Many people loved and love his music. As a consolation for all those who miss him now: he wrote Liedje voor als ik er niet meer ben (Song for when I’m gone), which appeared on his last album ’n Duivels genoegen (A devilish pleasure). In 2023 it was in 23rd place in the Funeral Top 100.

Beloved

Robert Long is still loved by a large group of fans. His songs Flink zijn (Be brave) and Kalverliefde (Puppy love) have been listed for years in the Dutch list of all-time favourites. In December 2015, a musical about the life of Robert Long premiered with many of his songs. In 2023, the duo Ludique created the performance LevensLONG (livelong), in collaboration with producer Kristof Rutsaert, Robert Long’s widower.

Carel Jansen