Hollywood Closets

In his memoirs, the late Frederick De Cordova, the director whose credits include low brow movies (Bedtime for Bonzo with Ronald Reagan) and high class television (The Tonight Show starring Johnny Carson), remembered directing a pre-stardom Rock Hudson in a now forgotten 1950 comedy called Peggy. One of Hudson’s friends told the director that the 6' 5" (some say 6' 6") Universal contract player was "queer." De Cordova dismissed the remark as a malicious lie, but the friend insisted it was true, and bet the director a sum of money that Hudson would confirm it if asked. The actor’s reaction surprised the director. "I wish I had a piece of that bet," Hudson said, good naturedly admitting he was gay.

Tom Cruise, John Travolta, and, in an earlier era, Cary Grant have all been rumored to be gay, but Hudson’s death from AIDS related complications in 1985 tore the hinges from a closet door that had been ajar since 1971 when the purely fictional story of his marriage to Gomer Pyle star Jim Nabors circulated so widely that even the mainstream press picked up on it. It may have only been a joke, but from that point on, most people took it for granted that Hudson was gay. Surprisingly, his career was unharmed. He started a successful five season run as the star of the popular McMillan and Wife TV series only months later, and remained a popular figure in movies and television until his death.

It’s not surprising that Hudson only came out to the public on his deathbed. It took him 38 takes to deliver one line of dialogue in his first movie, 1948's Fighter Squadron, and he got it right only after the line was rewritten. By the time he achieved superstar status with 1954's Magnificent Obsession, Hudson’s private life also required a rewrite. Would the public accept a known homosexual as a ladies man?

"If it’d come out that he was gay," Liz Smith told CNN’s Larry King in 2003, "it would have been the end of his career. And I don’t think the world was ready for it then. I’m not sure they’re ready for it now."

Are they?

Ian McKellen may be the most notable film personality to free himself from the closet, but though he’s a superb actor, he is not a major box-office attraction. Who cares if Gandalf is gay or straight? The Lord of the Rings character is not a sex symbol, neither is the 60 plus year old McKellen. But sexuality is definitely an issue with younger box-office titans like Tom Cruise who has successfully sued publications for questioning his sexuality. Cruise may not be gay, but the fact that he considers the allegation to be worthy of legal action suggests Hollywood celebrities are not as liberal as we’ve been led to believe.

In Hudson’s heyday, homosexuality was still classified as a mental illness by the American Psychological Association. His career would likely have come to an abrupt end if the public learned he shared his bed with males. Even after his homosexuality was an open secret, not only in Hollywood but among his fans, an admission might have been too much for a public that enjoyed speculating on the sex lives of the stars, but preferred rumor to fact. Rumors of homosexuality are titillating. An admission leaves less to the imagination.

Do celebrities have reason to fear coming out? Despite claims to the contrary, playing gay on screen has never had a negative impact on the career of an established actor. The first of Tom Hanks’ back-to-back Oscars came for playing the gay AIDS victim of Philadelphia. The careers of Richard Burton and Rex Harrison continued to flourish after they played a gay couple in 1969's Staircase, and Peter Finch won an Oscar nomination for his role as a gay doctor who shared his male lover with a woman in Sunday, Bloody Sunday. But no one thought Hanks, Burton, Harrison, or Finch were really gay, and each made sure that the public did not confuse their roles with reality by stating that they were women loving heteros in real life.

Until a leading man does come out of the closet, we won’t know whether the public refuses to accept a gay male star, or if the stars are more homophobic than their support for gay rights would indicate. Should a star’s sexuality matter? Many think it does. Gays are everywhere, in every walk of life, but young gays lack role models. The public’s image of homosexuals may also be altered if they knew that Joe Beefcake was gay. When the public realizes that the one whose marriage they oppose is a performer whose work has entertained or even enlightened them, they may be more likely to support our equality. And an actor doesn’t need to be a cop, a superhero, or a serial killer to play one, so why should he have to be straight to play straight, or gay to play gay?

So far, the only leading men who have come out did so as reluctantly as Hudson. As the star of the early 1960's TV series Route 66, George Maharis was a sex symbol with millions of female fans. His preference for males became apparent when the "confirmed bachelor" was arrested in 1974 for having a sexual encounter with a male hairdresser in a gas station’s men’s room. It’s hard to tell what impact this incident had on his career. Long before being outed, he left Route 66 to try his luck in the movies, but does anyone remember Quick, Before It Melts? The Satan Bug? The Happening? Even before the scandal, his career was on the decline. After the scandal, he remained active in TV, making guest appearances on Fantasy Island and Murder, She Wrote.

Richard Chamberlain’s days as a leading man were behind him when he came out in his memoir, Shattered Love. Would the women who swooned over Chamberlain as star of The Thornbirds change channels had they known he was gay? Would men have been likely to reject him as the hero of Shogun?

Speculation is pretty much what we are left with when it comes to current Hollywood stars. Rumors that Oscar winner Kevin Spacey is gay were revived when he was mugged in a London park where he claimed to have been walking his dog at 4:30 a.m. Spacey later denied he was the victim of a crime and decided not to pursue the matter. He considers questions about his sexuality "insulting." If a Hollywood star thinks it’s still "insulting" to be thought gay, Tinseltown may not be as liberal as the conservatives charge. Even Liberace, who appeared in public wearing feather boas, hot pants, and was even suspended above the stage by wires in imitation of a fairy, denied he was gay and won a lawsuit against a British tabloid when they dared to suggest as much.

Clearly, Hollywood, for all its talk of tolerance and acceptance, is still a town where the closets hold more than clothes.

by Brian W. Fairbanks

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