[7] Fouts left for Manhattan, working for a time as a stock boy and attracting a good deal of attention for his looks, which were described as "thin as a hieroglyph, he had dark hair, light brown eyes, and a cleft chin."

[8][9] His friends, who called him Denny, included Christopher Isherwood, Brion Gysin, Glenway Wescott, Truman Capote, George Platt Lynes, Jane and Paul Bowles, Jean and Cyril Connolly, and Michael Wishart.

[11] In 1938, Fouts introduced Brion Gysin to Paul and Jane Bowles, later shocking them by "shooting flaming arrows from his hotel window onto the busy Champs Élysées below", having spent some time in Tibet, learning archery.

[7] Fouts was allegedly the lover of numerous notable figures, including Prince Paul of Greece (later King), and French actor Jean Marais.

[9] Capote, in exaggeration of his prowess, claimed that "had Denham Fouts yielded to Hitler's advances there would have been no World War Two.

"[16] Katherine Bucknell, the editor of Christopher Isherwood's diaries, noted "Myth surrounds Denham Fouts",[17] and one of his friends, John B.L.

"[7] Fouts spent much of his later life dissolute, spending time "in bed like a corpse, sheet to his chin, a cigarette between his lips turning to ash.