The Closet Door is Open - Lavender Ladies & Gents of the Golden Age of Hollywood

[Tomasso]

Rumors............

Years ago I was sitting at the bar in the Ginger Man restaurant in Beverly Hills where the owner, Carroll O'Connor (of Archie Bunker fame), happened to be tending bar. A friend came in and said that he had just seen Bob Hope walking down Rodeo Dr. with two young men who must have been his grandsons. A waiter, overhearing the conversation, laughed and said that his companions were not relations; that Hope was a known chicken hawk. Carroll nodded in agreement from behind the bar.

I found it difficult to believe as Hope's routines often contained some form of mild gay bashing in them. In fact a while after hearing this rumor Hope caused a furor in the gay community when on the Johnny Carson show he used the F word to describe the type of man that would wear the tie Ed McMahon was wearing. He even made a public service announcement for GLAAD to make amends. Hard to believe he was gay but then in resent years we've seen some of the most strident anti-gay rhetoric come out of the mouths of closeted gays.


[video=youtube;ie_L2ylmRSY]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ie_L2ylmRSY[/video]

 

[rue]

^ Now THAT would be shocking. He was known as a total womanizer.

 

[AtomicEraTom]

That would be a shock about Bob Hope. I'm surprised O'Conner didn't just go "Awww, Geeeezzzzz Edithh!!!!!" lol

 

[Tomasso]

He was known as a total womanizer.

Those woman may have been beards or he may have been a Don Juan homosexual......who really knows. [huh] What makes me skeptical is that not a single man has outed him even after his passing.

 

[MisterCairo]

OFF TOPIC:

I think there is a tendancy to "see" homosexuality where one wants to see it. The many rumours and allegations about celebrities, politicians and so on discussed throughout this thread evidence this.

I am reminded of a film critic, in Canada's Globe and Mail I think, talking about the Lord of the Rings films. His theory was that the scenes where the hobbits re-connect after their harrowing, life-threatening adventures, the ones including such behaviours as hugging, smiling, laughing, you know, joy at seeing one's friends alive after believing them to be dead, were in fact "homo-erotic".

A man remains a life-long bachelor - must be gay. A man shares a hotel room with another man - must be gay. A man dresses well - must be gay. Bob Hope is seen on the street with other men - must be gay.

Even the term (which I hate) "metro-sexual", has as its implicit meaning "a heterosexual male who exhibits good grooming, dress, manners, deportment and knowledge of cuisine, art and other similar attributes". 50 years ago, such a man would be called "a gentleman". I was called a metrosexual at a military mess dinner (by a civilian female colleague) because I knew the reason red wine pairs better with red meats!

Such thoughts and attitudes seem to me to suggest a pathology, not necessarily "it takes one to know one", but some underlying phobia or insecurity.

Wow, I need a drink.....

 

[LizzieMaine]

I think it's the modern tendency to see everything with no shading whatsoever -- we've become a militantly binary culture. You're either A or B -- there's no room for any possible in-between space or other interpretations. If you're not a groping, beer-swilling fratboy slob, you're as gay as a day in May.


My favorite example of such exaggerated conclusion-jumping is an academic book on radio some years ago that went to some lengths to extract the hidden gay subtext in the relationship between Jack Benny and Rochester. "OH, MISTER BENNY!"

 

[MisterCairo]

^^^

Ernie and Bert. The Odd Couple. Barney the Dinosaur. The novels of Jane Austen. I've read "academic" articles in addition to the ravings of homophobes on these and other characters and novels "representing" homosexuality. Pretty much everything written before the 60s apparently contains "subtext" because one couldn't be open about such things.

While Osar Wilde wrote about "feasting with panthers" in the late 19th century to reference his extra-marital escapades (many people aren't aware he married and had children), I am sure others hid their preferences in their works.

Just as I am sure the vast majority of others just wrote, no hidden meaning whatsoever!

 

[bunnyb.gal]

^
The Teletubbies!

 

[MisterCairo]

^^^
Yes, the list is endless!

OFF TOPIC UPDATE:

Yes, it was some tool from the Globe and Mail who instead of reviewing "LOTR: Return of the King" thought he'd appear to be "intellectual":

http://www.evalu8.org/staticpage?page=review&siteid=5778

Check out this incredible quote:

Back to
narrative strand one, where Sam saves Frodo from a giant spider, they get
captured and rescue themselves, all the time avoiding the "eye of
Sauron," a glowing device on two towers that functions as supernatural
radar. Set on its two giant legs of the towers, the "eye of Sauron"
looks unmistakably like a big, angry vagina in the sky. (No doubt there's a
good graduate-school thesis to be written about homo-erotic bonding and the
fear of the feminine in The Lord of the Rings).

But it gets better:

The real, barely suppressed love story seems to happen between the hobbits. There's an impassioned bedroom scene near the end where Frodo is recovering and Sam comes to visit him that actually evoked titters at an advance screening.


And hey, why stop at homoeroticism and misogyny, let's bring racism into the critique:


Unlike the sixties' generation that embraced Tolkien and wore "Frodo Lives" buttons, Jackson prefers to make war than love. One could also ask, fairly, why the enemies are so uniformly dark-skinned and deformed, and the heroes blue-eyed and fair, and why the roles of women and children are so tangential, but that may be an argument more with Tolkien than Jackson.


Wow! I wish I was making this up, but you couldn't.

 

[scotrace]

I think it's the modern tendency to see everything with no shading whatsoever -- we've become a militantly binary culture. You're either A or B -- there's no room for any possible in-between space or other interpretations. If you're not a groping, beer-swilling fratboy slob, you're as gay as a day in May.

Very true. As I am sure is true of many of the men here, I try to dress decently. My home exhibits at least some effort at having been "decorated," I keep it tidy, do my own cooking, cleaning, laundry., etc. I watch "chick flicks," have rarely been to a sporting event (since High School), have never watched a football game on TV (or baseball, or basketball, or soccer, etc). I know what fork to use, how to iron my own shirts, know how to get wine stains out of the couch fabric, and can sew a button on.
I can also make my own car repairs, keep the lawn mowed, have built respectable furniture, built my own shed from scratch, recently replaced wind-damaged siding, and drink anyone I know under the table -- and am as straight as can be.
But I am certain there are plenty of people who make incorrect assumptions.
The irony is that we are supposed to be "enlightened" these days. We are supposed to be free of assigning traditional gender roles. Yet, the more "enlightened" we pretend to be, the more quickly we jump to these conclusions. It's as if society says "we must accept everyone for whatever they are. We no longer judge based on sexuality." Any other position or opinion is politically incorrect and "not helpful." And then begin assiduously assigning sexual identity based on appearances. Straight in this pile, gay in that pile. One or the other. "It's OK if you are gay or lesbian - but we have to mark who is and who isn't."

 

[rue]

^ Scott you'll be getting marriage proposals by the thousands after that description


It is true though, if a man isn't "manly" in a scratching their crotch while watching sports with a beer in hand, then they are usually thought of as "light in the loafers" by other men.

 

[scotrace]

^ Scott you'll be getting marriage proposals by the thousands after that description

Ah. Good. It'll be nice to see a reduction in the numbers... lol

 

[rue]

:rofl: That was funny.

 

[LizzieMaine]

^ Scott you'll be getting marriage proposals by the thousands after that description


It is true though, if a man isn't "manly" in a scratching their crotch while watching sports with a beer in hand, then they are usually thought of as "light in the loafers" by other men.

Which, in turn, explains a lot of the Iconic Figures Of the Past who are assumed to be gay -- although Cary Grant was known to take in a ballgame or two, I doubt he was ever seen to scratch his crotch in public.

I wonder what these modern men would make of Leo Durocher, prominent baseball manager, coiner of the phrase "Nice Guys Finish Last," and one of the best-known sports figures of the 1940s. He was renowned for his huge collection of stylish suits, his silk shirts -- often changed twice a day -- his hundreds of pairs of shoes, and his ever-present cloud of cologne. By today's standards he'd be Highly Suspect, but in reality he was embarassingly straight -- probably the most offensively shameless womanizer in baseball. But he'd no sooner have scratched his crotch in public than he'd have run naked thru the streets of Brooklyn at high noon. (Actually, he might be *more* likely to do that.)

 

[rue]

Which, in turn, explains a lot of the Iconic Figures Of the Past who are assumed to be gay -- although Cary Grant was known to take in a ballgame or two, I doubt he was ever seen to scratch his crotch in public.

No I certainly can not imagine Cary Grant doing that lol

 

[C-dot]

Yes, it was some tool from the Globe and Mail who instead of reviewing "LOTR: Return of the King" thought he'd appear to be "intellectual"

Ah, Liam Lacey. I spill my tea on his column every Saturday on purpose.

It is true though, if a man isn't "manly" in a scratching their crotch while watching sports with a beer in hand, then they are usually thought of as "light in the loafers" by other men.

I prefer to think of those men as "homophobic"

 

[rue]

Yes I do believe that's the name for them

 

[Tomasso]

. He was renowned for his huge collection of stylish suits, his silk shirts -- often changed twice a day -- his hundreds of pairs of shoes, and his ever-present cloud of cologne.

Sounds like Michael Jordan.

 

[Richard Warren]

So it seems that the only person who can be disparaged here (a thread dealing with gays in Hollywood) as (allegedly, without any proof) being gay is J. Edgar Hoover (I somehow cannot remember any movies he was in), a person who undeniably gave his life to fighting concrete, manifest evil (gangsters, Nazis, and communists). A much wrongfully maligned man of heroic dimensions.

 

[LizzieMaine]

By all serious accounts, Hoover was asexual. There's no documented evidence of him having any sort of physical affair with anyone.

(He may not have appeared in any feature pictures, but he did lend the Bureau's support to a number of films over the years, starting with G-Men in 1935.)