Also, while I won’t speculate on the validity (or rather the sexual mechanics) of the marriages of certain rumored to be gay current stars as there is nothing but rumor and conjecture, studios and publicists DEFINITELY still arrange beards (on the off-chance that any aren’t familiar with the term, a beard is a “straight date” or member of the opposite sex who poses, knowingly or un, as the apparent heterosexual love interest of a gay man [e.g. Phyllis Gates was the “beard wife” of Rock Hudson]; the equivalent for a lesbian is called a merkin [don’t ask me why] or a bonnet) for gay stars.
Chad Allen, who was outed by The Globe in such a way that he could not deny (very moderately unwork safe- gay but no nudity) not only attended events with starlets arranged by his publicists and management but before his outing tabloids even had stories about his great love for this or that actress and how they were talking marriage or at least moving in together. Richard Chamberlain (for whom I have enormous contempt) was attending premieres with starlets half his age as recently as the late 1990s while his lover of 20 years patiently waited at home [hopefully socking away some of the silver]) and even the far from leading-man Nathan Lane mentioned that he was advised to refer to gender flip when telling a funny story about something he did with his boyfriend on a talk show (he refused, though he did change it from a boyfriend to just “friend”).
Nathan Lane, incidentally, is probably the closest to an openly gay man playing a straight lead in a motion picture, but Max Bialystok was not a romantic lead- he was a comic character. Anthony Rapp reprised the role of (straight nebbish) Mark in RENT, but a) nobody that homophobic would go see RENT you woudln’t think {though I had a bad experience in the theater} and 2) he’s not well known enough for most people to know or care who makes his putter flutter and 3) he didn’t have a sex scene or even kiss in the movie.
Why I can’t stand Richard Chamberlain: Chamberlain is a very very rich man. He inherited a fortune from his parents, he made a fortune from the 1960s on and was in fact the only actor on TV miniseries to earn movie-star type salaries in the 1980s. The reason I bring up his wealth is because had his career been destroyed by coming out, he never would have missed a meal or a vacation and would still be driving Porsches (or whatever) when he’s 90 if he so desired.
This in mind, he not only did not come out when he was still “big” careerwise, he actively denied being gay. (Something happened, it’s not clear what, in France in 1989- he came out in a magazine interview, but then quickly recanted: explanations I’ve heard are that he was drunk and panicked when he sobered, or that he was talking off the record to the gay journalist and the journalist included it in the interview, or that he was in a moment of clarity and then it fogged again, but whatever it was he was soon back on the Hollywood paparazzi scene with starlets on his arm.)
Now, if Richard Chamberlain had come out even in the late 1980s when he was still getting big roles on TV and AIDS was so feared that people wouldn’t drink from public water fountains and there was not a minute fraction of gay exposure in popular media that there is now, this would have been HUGE. It would have helped with people’s perception of gays (“John Blackthorne and that Thornbirds priest were queer?”) and given gay kids a role model or whatever, and if it destroyed his career he could go back to his mansion or do theater and arthouse or just be Norman Desmond. Instead, he gave that “whatever the hell happened interview” and recanted (and even had he recanted the recanting it would have been good) and waits through the 90s as he becomes more and more of a has-been, then waits until 2003 when he’s 70 and most 20 somethings don’t know who the hell he was and the best roles he’s getting are as an old English woman on The Drew Carey Show or supporting roles in “ho hum” movies of the week and more celebrities are openly gay than ever before and Will & Grace and Queer as Folk are hits and Ellen Degeneres has a second career as a talkshow host and homophobes are beginning to catch great flack, and THEN he comes out, coincidentally at the same time he’s about to release his memoirs.
Screw you, shug. Where were your guts when they would have mattered?
