Gay actors of the 60s and 70s
PRIDE TV: THE QUIET GAY HEROES OF SIXTIES SITCOMS
The faces of these three actors were familiar to Baby Boomers raised on TV situation comedies. Their secret lives were not. In a way, though, they helped to blaze trails for which they were never given credit.
by Burt Kearns & Jeff Abraham
With this year&#;s Gay Pride Month marking the fiftieth anniversary of the uprising at the Stonewall Inn in Greenwich Village, the accomplishments of LGBT heroes of the past fifty years have been widely celebrated. But along with political activists and social revolutionaries, there were a number of entertainers who, in the decades surrounding the rebellion, brought a clear, if often exaggerated, homosexual presence into American homes.
Most did not &#;come out&#; officially, but there was no need. Even kids planted in front of the television sets in the s knew there was something &#;funny&#; about Uncle Arthur and Claymore Gregg. And these entertaining men were welcome. They made us laugh. They, along with other favorite sitcom characters, were influences on American punk identity and today are l
FIVE GAY ACTORS IN MID-CENTURY HOLLYWOOD
by David Ehrenstein
Now that gay actors like Nathan Lane, Jim Parsons, Victor Garber, Jonathan Groff, and Neil Patrick Harris are &#;out of the closet&#; and on the rise, it&#;s complicated to imagine just how different things were in the relatively recent past. Not only was the notion of being openly gay and having a viable career unimaginable, but gayness itself was also a concept polite population couldn&#;t countenance. &#;Homosexuals&#; subsisted on society’s margins, mentioned only in whispered gossip, fearsome psychiatric studies, and Conservative diatribes decrying perversion.
Hiding In Plain Sight
Still, in spite of it all, gay men managed to make their way to very top of the acting profession in the gilded closets of Hollywood. In this covert context, bigtime careers and personal lives proceeded with a calculated risk that can fascinate us today. Here are five of the most noteworthy examples of gay actors in mid-Century Hollywood.
LIBERACE
Liberace was an utterly unique entertainer. A pianist whose act consisted of an abbreviated ar
Old Hollywood Stars You Didn't Know Were Gay
Let's state the obvious: Being a gay public figure during the days of Old Hollywood was no amble in the park. Behind Tinseltown's glitzy facade loomed the specter of Hollywood's "sexual gestapo," a term coined by Matt Tyrnauer, director of the documentary Scotty and the Secret History of Hollywood (via NPR). "It was very difficult," he said, "for people to have authentic lives." And Tyrnauer should know: His movie profiled L.A. character Scotty Bowers, who reportedly acted as a "confidante, ally, and pimp for Hollywood's closeted film stars."
The threat of exposure was actual and ever-present for these entertainers. Per Tyrnauer, studio contracts contained so-called "moral clauses" that could instantly vaporize a lucrative career. Meanwhile, the Los Angeles Police Department's vice squad were all too willing to bust celebrities, often working in cahoots with the push in their quest to hobble reputations.
Definitively name-checking these stars is impossible, as they were all in the closet through
When Hollywood Studios Married Off Gay Stars to Hold Their Sexuality a Secret
Valentino also married costume architect Natacha Rambova in , at a time when his career was starting to take off and the roles he played were seen as less typically masculine, such as in the film “Monsieur Beaucaire” in His marriage to Rambova ended in , which left some speculating that the marriages of the “pink powder puff” (a nickname Valentino acquired after playing effeminate roles on screen) were coverups to keep the sex symbol’s reputation intact.
Identifying how many Hollywood couples tied the knot to cloak their sexuality is, of course problematic since it’s primarily based on speculation_._
“I think the hardest thing for a historian is to kind of sift through what the rumor [is] and what is actually factual," says Tropiano.
One commonly cited root for speculation is the memoir of Scotty Bowers, Full Service: My Adventures in Hollywood and the Secret Sex Lives of the Stars. Bowers’ account details sexual encounters, lgbtq+ and straight, that he claims he both arranged and took pa