I am, but at a college that mainly does medical and legal research so hard to justify this purchase. Though I could perhaps ILL it in the future.
Gore Vidal Confirms That Katharine Hepburn Was A Very Slutty Lesbian
Just very Onion-esque.
I will check this out the library if they have it, but from what I’ve read on the Internet, it doesn’t tell me anything that hasn’t been said before.
And why would Cary Grant’s estate care if he’s outed? Because they are bilking his image for money long after his death? It’s kind of insulting to gay people to say if he’s outed he’s worth less, whether or not it’s true
One of the methods is “they were about 1,000 miles away on the date the encounter is supposed to have taken place”.
My mother’s first ginecologist was sure she couldn’t have the correct date for my conception. She was sure she did. For several weeks around the date he guessed, Dad and her had been a 24h-drive away.
Indeed. Unfortunately, this kind of smut mongering tends to claim the event occured “sometime around 1957, but definitely in the 50s”. It’s hard to provide an alibi for a decade.
I don’t care about this book. I don’t care if Katherine Hepburn, Vivien Leigh(*) or anyone else supped of the velvet cup. I don’t care if they were gay, bisexual,pansexual, or even transsexual. It’s their business, and I think we should have moved beyond this drivel at this stage.
As regards the argument that we need to acknowledge gay history, I understand it, and to some extent agree with it, but books like this are not the way forward in that respect.
(*) The caveman in me thinks he’d quite like to have seen that, but that’s not relevant.
You assume that someone is going to remember a specific date and time for a sexual encounter that might have happened decades ago. Also, back in the golden age of Hollywood almost all film was made here. So the stars were almost always here.
Uh, pardon me if I’m thick, but why would a “gay prostitute” have a wife? Unless the man’s gay partner wanted to be called his “wife”, it’s puzzling to me. In any event, tell all books like these should belong to bygone era when these mean-spirited gossip rags actually mattered and could destroy someone’s career needlessly.
I have no idea if Walter Pidgeon was gay or straight or bi, but I hugely doubt that in the 1940s–a huge star–he was picking up teenage grease-monkeys at gas stations, with so many established “madams” and sex-crazed fans available to him. Walter Pidgeon was not an idiot.
Eve:
Thank you. I have no idea either, and frankly that wouldn’t alter my love for him no matter which way he favored.
My take on all of this is yeah, this jabroni probably was good looking enough back in the day to get some action from some celebrities. I can’t picture him as a master-mind pimp extraordinaire, though. Does he have any confirmed link to someone like Henry Willson?
UT
Here is an article about the book and author in the New York Times. It mentions his wife of 27 years and says that he “prefers the sexual company of women.”
Yeah, but there have been several instances I know of (Spanish media, not US) which mentioned vague dates, but still narrow enough to prove it couldn’t be.
Also, I always find it absurd when cop shows have people asking “what were you doing on February 3rd at 8pm?”, but I was providing an example. And, while I will probably have no idea wtf was I doing on February 3rd at 8pm (in fact, it is now February 12th and I wouldn’t be able to answer the question), I can track where was I, to within plus minus one day, without grabbing the calendar, since July of 1994. Let me grab the calendar and I’ll give you exact dates for every trip.
I once got my hands on the UCLA restricted collection copy of “Steal This Book”. I didn’t.
Well, don’t be so sure of that - Robert Reed of the Brady Bunch admitted he used to go to a public area near Pasadena to pick up random guys.
Santa Monica Boulevard in the West Hollywood area is full of hustlers and there are many celebrities who stupidly go there to pick up tricks.
Of course, Eddie Murphy was just being nice when he stopped in that area and was only giving that transvestite a friendly ride home…
I have seen a few relatively famous actors at sex clubs and dive bars late at night.
Sure - they could have made a phone call and had a discreet escort show up, but for lots of guys, the thrill of the danger adds to the experience and that is why they go to such public places.
Now Walter Brennan, maybe: “Hee hee hee, no brag, just fact!”
It’s common enough that it’s practically a cliche that some closeted gay men, even famous closeted gay men, often find anonymous or semi-anonymous sex with strangers in bars, public restrooms, or bathhouses etc. far more interesting and exciting than safe hook ups.
But it’s also common enough that it’s practically a cliche that people make up all kinds of shit about dead celebrities to sell books and get some notoriety. Just read–or better yet, don’t–books by Kenneth Anger, Boze Hadleigh, Charlotte Chandler, David Bret–all 100% bullshit, and yet they get published, read and believed.
I am the last person, certainly, to care who is gay and who is straight, but as a biographer and a historian who knocks myself out to verify my research, the “make shit up” school of scholarship make me all stabby.
I second this. This is pretty much what I was going to post, but w.b. phrased it better. The difference is, the cavewoman in me finds the idea of seeing some Rock Hudson/Cary Grant man love…intriguing.
As a gay man myself it’s hardly a mark against anybody that they’re gay or bi or tri or some new option, but I detest misinformation and scavenging on dead celebrities.
Also, the Cary Grant rumors- which I believed at one point- don’t hold up to scrutiny. He had some major baggage in general, but everything provable and reliable about his sex life, inside and outside of marriage, implies he was exclusively heterosexual at least in his activity. He lived with and loved Randolph Scott, but Grant was notoriously cheap and it’s not surprising he had a roommate, plus two straight guys can be lifelong friends who love each other. There’s just not a lot to build on that he was into rent boys and the like.
I blame Boze Hadleigh for a lot of the rumors: Grant, Agnes Moorehead (also no evidence), and many others were posthumously “outed” in his works when there was nothing to go on. I’m surprised he didn’t get his ass sued into the stratosphere for libel, though for public figures of course it’s damned near impossible and bloody expensive and it’s doubtful somebody like Hadleigh would even have enough to cover their legal fees if you got a judgment against him.
Because Boze Hadleigh and Charlotte Chandler wait till their subjects are dead before publishing long, personal “interviews” they did with them decades ago–all of which sound suspiciously like Boze Hadleigh ad Charlotte Chandler.
Seems like in some narrow circles where fame is still revered and sanctified, it may actually leave the realm of cliche and become a kind of holy rite.