The Los Angeles-based Christopher Isherwood Foundation, named for the late author (1904-1986) whose novels among other things formed the basis for the award-winning “Cabaret” Broadway play and film, has signed on as an “honorary patron” of the Falls Church News-Press, the News-Press’ Nicholas Benton reported this week.

Renowned portrait artist Don Bachardy, the long-time partner of Isherwood, notified Benton, who founded the News-Press, now in its 27th year, in 1991. In the mid-1950s, Isherwood and Bachardy were friends with Benton’s aunt, Virginia Hoerner, from whom they rented a house in the Santa Monica canyon and Benton and Bachardy’s friendship has extended for more than the past decade, including two portraits of Benton that Bachardy has painted.