I am a gay male, and I have a pretty decent record for knowing (or at least strongly guessing) who is or isn’t gay. Let’s face it I don’t think many of us would be taken by surprise to find out Paul Lynde, or Jim J Bullock or Neil Patrick Harris, or that little kid on “Who’s The Boss,” were gay. I mean I recall looking at a still photo of George Maharis from “Route 66” and saying “Boy that guy is gay.”
I will admit when I heard Merideth Baxter was a lesbian, I didn’t see that one coming at all. Though she has been getting rather “butch” in her later years
So my question is has there ever been a famous person who was either outed or came out and it really took you for a surprise.
I know a lot of people seemed to be shocked by Rock Hudson, but that was one I got right off.
One I didn’t get was Richard Deacon from “The Dick Van Dyke Show,” and “Leave It To Beaver.” That one I totally missed.
To avoid this turning into a “is he/she or isn’t she/he” debate, I would like to stick to those who have come outor reasonably outed. I say that in light of people like Liberace who went to his deathbed denying he was gay and took a lot of effort to conceal the fact even after his death
Obviously people like Julius Ceaser and other historical figures are never going to be known.
So I’m looking for famous people that truly surprised you when the said they were gay or it was revealed.
Julius Caesar wasn’t gay. There’s a lot of knowledge about his life that points to him being a big time womanizer. There’s a famous slander that his opponents used about him being an Eastern king’s “wife” when he was a young man.
Second Raymond Burr. It’s just hard to imagine Old Ironsides getting it on with another dude.
Also Richard Chamberlain. That one really came out of nowhere.
Gareth Thomas - a gay rugby player in the UK. It’s not actually him per se that I found surprising, it’s that anyone in the world of professional sport would ever actually come out whilst they’re still playing.
Though she has never been real closeted, Portia De Rossi was the most surprising.
I find it hilarious that the two best characters on TV, Barney Stinson (HIMYM) and Veronica Palmer, are both convincing hetero, sexually aggressive tomkats, yet both are played by gay actors.
While looking over that list, I was in fact surprised to find out that Tab Hunter is still alive. I could have sworn he was in one of the Academy Award Death Montages a few years ago.
I remember being surprised when Sophie Ward came out.
Not just surprised but horrified when the word started getting out that James Dean was at least bi, if not full-blown gay. It had to have been at least 20 years before my teenage idol became the prized possession of the Gay Community.
Since then, nobody’s being outed or outing himself or herself has been a surprise. I read such things as Film Actors: Gay Male with a measure of indifference.
I just think it would be a real neat thing if the declarations would shift from sexuality to whether or not you put cream in your coffee, and have that determine whether you can get a job, get married, or get drummed out of Congress or a governorship.
Reading about Meredith Baxter floored me, especially her having been married so many times and having children. I used to think of her as my ‘fantasy mom.’
Living in New Jersey, Governor Jim McGreevey. I read it on the Internet and made such a noise that someone two offices away asked me what was going on.
