Dante “Tex” Gill

Dante “Tex” Gill was a savvy businessman in Pittsburgh, about whom there is honestly not a lot of reliable information except that “[he] was just a hell of a lot of fun” (according to his sometimes lawyer, Carl Max Janavitz).

Gill was born April 2, 1930 and was given the name Lois Jean Gill. The family was fairly large. That’s basically all the information I could find about Gill’s life before the 1950’s (except some records from the U.S. census that claims he was 3 in 1940. Someone over there is bad at math, I guess. Worse than me, even!) In the 1950’s, still using the name Lois, Gill worked as a blacksmith at horse stables in Schenley Park, where he earned a reputation for taking no nonsense — from people or from horses. According to his cousins, he was already pretty intimidating at this point. Later, he became involved in other businesses in Pittsburgh — including a baby furniture store and a frozen foods store, but was involved in the prostitution industry on the side. It was during this period that Gill began essentially living as a man.

However, when his mother Agnes fell ill, his businesses simply did not bring in enough money. And so, through business contacts, Gill turned full-time to a life of crime. This was some time around 1964. Agnes died of cancer in 1973, but Gill remained in the illegal business. Gill was arrested by the FBI in 1974, but apparently avoided conviction. On February 12, 1977 — in the midst of what was essentially a mob war — prominent businessman (and local crime boss) George Lee was shot to death in a restaurant in broad daylight. Gill — along with Nick Delucia — took over the massage parlors, which were fronts for prostitution, that Lee had operated.

He came to run a number of these massage parlors, including Spartacus Massage Parlor, the Japanese Meditation Temple, and the Taurean Models massage parlor. One of his parlors, Gemini, was bombed by the mafia in 1977 — destroying the building and killing Joanne Scott, one of the girls who worked there. In the same year, one of Gill’s employees — Anthony Pugh — was murdered in his own home. Later, DeLucia would be charged with planning to assassinate Gill, although this would never be proven in court (and their rivalry would continue until DeLucia went to prison for tax evasion in 1981). Though much of the mob was definitely unhappy with Gill’s control over illegal operations in the city, he was supported by the LGBTQ+ community of the city — and by the Pittsburgh Steelers, who Gill had begun selling anabolic steroids to. That was enough support to keep him virtually untouchable. Gill’s criminal empire grew — much to the chagrin of his rivals in Pittsburgh’s underground.

Gill’s ties to the LGBTQ+ community of Pittsburgh at the time were slim, but enough to earn their loyalty. When Tampa gay bar El Goya burned down in November of 1977, Gill brought the owner Frank Cocchiara to Pittsburgh to manage Taurean Models. Frank — also known as Miss Frank — became a staple of the Pittsburgh drag ball scene and friend of activist Herb Beatty.

By all accounts, he lived an extravagant lifestyle, traveling often and becoming the owner of several rare pets. Gill lavished the women who worked for him with expensive gifts — but conversely, insisted they take lie detector tests if he suspected they might be stealing from him. Gill also insisted on regular tests for STDs — decades before that was common practice anywhere in the United States. Despite this toughness, Gill was described as gentle and non-violent by those who knew him. For a time, he was legally married to Cynthia Bruno — the marriage certificate denotes Gill as “husband”, and no other gender qualifications were asked for. The two did eventually part ways.

In 1978, police attempted one of several efforts to take down Gill’s operations — with no success. Authorities raided Spartacus — and Gill continued the grand queer tradition of weaponizing baked goods by throwing a cake at Pennsylvania State Trooper Gerald Fielder. Gill was arrested in 1979, but claimed that his primary source of income was a ceramics shop called “Take Me Paint Me”. Ultimately, Gill was not convicted of any crime.

In 1980, a fire destroyed the building that housed the Taurean Models massage parlor. Three men, asleep on the top floor of the building, died. They were customers; neither Gill nor anyone who worked for him was hurt. Authorities determined the fire was an arson. As far as I can find, that was the extent of the investigation — no one was ever arrested for the crime.

The authorities finally got the best of Gill. It was not for his underground prostitution empire — it was for income tax fraud and conspiracy. A federal jury determined that Gill was guilty of underreporting his income by $60,000 between 1975 and 1983 — hardly anything when you consider that Gill was raking in over a million dollars from the massage parlors. The Pittsburgh Press gave Gill the titles of “Dubious Man of the Year” and “Dubious Woman of the Year”. One of the reasons for this prestigious title was said to be Gill’s compassion — the Press specifically noted that he gave senior citizens a $5 discount at his massage parlors. (Apparently, that’s what qualified you for having notable compassion in Pittsburgh in the 80’s.)

In 1985, a U.S. District Judge sentenced Gill to 13 years in prison — but offered to take three years off the sentence if he would close three massage parlors in 24 hours. Gill complied, reducing the sentence to 10 years. Gill was paroled in 1987 and then was driven into poverty by a string of lawsuits from the IRS. He had not yet — as far as I can find — paid the IRS all of the money they were seeking when he passed away on January 8, 2003.

I did want to note that there’s loads of misinformation about Gill out there on the Internet — some of which is really obvious (incorrect dates of death, for instance, despite there being publicly available obituaries written by surviving family members) and some of it is a bit less so. One area with lots of discrepancy is Gill’s actual gender identity — which makes sense given that the understanding we have of gender now was rapidly evolving throughout Gill’s life. That said, Gill’s cousin Barry Paris has definitively confirmed (in the wake of all that controversy with Scarlett Johannson) that Gill identified as a transgender man.