| After Robert Opel dashed naked across the stage in 1974, he ran for President and settled into the gay leather scene, in the orbit of Robert Mapplethorpe and Harvey Milk.  Illustration by Tyler Comrie; Source photographs Steven Errico / Getty (living room); AP (streaker) The Oscars of late have been marked by turbulence: last year, Will Smith slapped Chris Rock; five years before that, “La La Land” was announced as Best Picture—until it was revealed that the presenters had been given the wrong envelope, and “Moonlight” had actually won. But nothing quite compares with the Academy Awards of 1974, which Michael Schulman expertly recounts in this week’s issue. As one of the night’s hosts, David Niven, prepared to introduce Elizabeth Taylor, a “squall of screams” erupted among the audience—which included Jack Nicholson, Liza Minnelli, and Paul McCartney, and Niven saw “a man with floppy brown hair and a bushy mustache, flashing a peace sign as he ran across the stage—naked.” The streaker was named Robert Opel, and he quickly became a countercultural star. But who was he, and what were his real intentions? Schulman explores Opel’s subsequent transformation into “a hippie prankster, a misfit child of the sexual revolution,” and examines the unexpected turns his life took during the nationwide movement for gay liberation. As Opel once declared, “I am Robert Opel. I am an artist, a cocksucker and an anarchist. My life is my art.” Support The New Yorker’s award-winning journalism. Subscribe today » | 
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