It’s clear the timing of Chamberlain’s announcement is blatently commercial. Chamberlain has said he denied being gay for years because he didn’t want to risk losing parts playing straight men but now figures he’s too old for romantic leads. So he’s admitting his true orientation - coincidentally in conjunction with the publication of his autobiography. What I see is a man who figures he’s got all the money he could get out of heterosexuality and now decides to make a few bucks out of homosexuality.
Little Nemo kind of sums up my take on Chamberlain’s timing. His career has cooled off enough over the years, that I’d say he was about 10 years too late with his “too old for romantic leads” statement
I remember seeing headlines about him on supermarket tabloid covers years ago. I always figured his sexuality was the worst kept secret in Hollywood. But hey, if he’s happy and comfortable with himself now, more power to him.
Doesn’t change my opinion of him as an actor, my favorite films of his are the excellent Three/Four Musketeers films from the 70s.
Some of these responses are classic. When Chamberlain was getting his first breaks, the climate was such that coming out would’ve been career suicide. The perception was that society was so repressive that no would tolerate an actor’s being homosexual; even if it were obvious they were forced to keep it hidden or even lie about it for fear that their personal lives would be criticized by strangers. Great that that’s over now.
Oh but wait, it isn’t. Now, when a majority of people don’t give a rat’s ass whether an actor is gay or straight or whatever, the actor can be criticized for not being “gay enough.” For being “cowardly” and not supporting the “movement.” What a crock, and what hypocrisy. The idea of a person’s personal life remaining personal is unacceptable, apparently. He either has to be a Ladies’ Man or a Champion For Gay Rights, instead of just being allowed to be an actor.
Now, as Little Nemo points out, Chamberlain’s case might be different if he’s releasing an autobiography and trying to capitalize on that. But the problem is still there, as is evidenced by all the attempts to out celebrities in this thread alone. Like Kevin Spacey, who’s stated directly that his personal life is his own business, but that doesn’t stop everyone from winking or passing judgement or shrieking like women whenever the topic comes up, digging up whatever gossip they’ve managed to gather on the man and taking any available opportunity to spread it around.
If it were so obvious that Chamberlain was gay, then what’s the god damn problem? As far as I’m concerned, a lot of people can just take their copies of Hollywood Babylon and shove them up their collective ass.
Though the IMDb tidbits page for George Nader repeats the story that Universal sacrificed Nader to keep Rock Hudson’s career scandal-free, it’s not really true. There was no outing of George Nader in Confidential magazine or any other scandal mag of the day. Nader starred in three network television series in a row in the late 1950s and early 1960s, long after he ceased to be a Universal contract player, so his career can hardly be called sabotaged. Nader was never a big star to begin with, so it’s not surprising that like a lot of other minor leading men of the 1950s, he spent the 1960s kicking around Europe in B-movies.
Sure, because outing did such a wonder for Ellen’s career that his autobiography will make tons of money. I’d cut the guy some slack. If I thought my livlihood would be threatened by my sexuality I’d keep it a secret as well. I wouldn’t tell anybody until I didn’t think it would affect my ability to make a living.
To all you folks who think Richard is a coward. Do you say the same about professional athletes who don’t come out until their careers are over?
Marc
MGibson, I would say that Ellen’s show tanked after she came out not because she was gay, but because the show became about nothing but how she was gay, and thus became one-note and unfunny. It deserved to go. Tragic, too. It’d been a good show, early on, and got better right before/after her coming out. They just couldn’t get past it and go back to telling stories about a funny woman. They had to make them all about a formerly funny LESBIAN, LESBIAN, LESBIAN woman. It got old.
And we can all be sure that more than a few movements have passed by him.
The very existence of a thread called Finding Nemo turning kids on to lesbianism is enough to remind me that even in 2003, coming out can have serious repercussions for an actor. I look forward to a time when sexual orientation is no big deal and everyone can be open and honest about it, but I have nothing but admiration for Richard Chamberlain for deciding to come out now, when its primary effect will merely be to add one more person to the list of respected celebrities who are openly gay. I can’t imagine how difficult it was to spend so many years in a relationship that had to be kept hidden. It’s not just about the career – he says in this week’s T.V. Guide that even his parents didn’t know. He’s decided to leave an unambiguous legacy as a gay man, and even if he ends up selling a few more copies of his book because of it, I think it’s a positive thing.
** spectrum** I agree with you about Ellen Degeneres’ show. What’s really sad is, she says she was pushed to do these storylines by the network? producers? and when the show tanked she was so dismayed. I thought the show was terrific and I looked forward to ‘no big deal’ lesbian references and storylines, just like it was her regular life, like everything else.
As for Richard Chamberlain, I have nothing buy sympathy for him. Actors are forced to live in a fishbowl, whether they like the celebrity that comes with their profession or not. If you’ve listened to the stories of average folks like some of gay Dopers have told, you know that for people in the public eye, it can only be that much more difficult.
I’ve always found the notion of “coming out” as a little perplexing. The practice seems to make more of a big deal about someone’s sexuality than is warranted, particularly if the person protests that their being gay is no different than their having brown hair. I’m a bisexual male, but I’ve never felt the need to tell anyone who I wasn’t romantically involved with because it really isn’t their business and it isn’t any more (or less) a part of me than any other part.
Is the fascination with famous people’s sexuality a product of their sexuality, or their fame?
It’s a product of the human fascination with other people’s business along with the expectation originally fueled by Hollywood that the private lives of stars are to be lived in public. The studio system certainly capitalized on promoting the “private lives” of its stars (and creating fictional “private lives” for them as circumstances warranted) as a way of protecting and growing the investment made in the stars. So today we expect that stars will make their “private lives” public and will gossip about them if they don’t. Anyone who doesn’t like it or realize that it’s part of the price of fame should find work in another field. Not saying it’s right or wrong; it just is.
That being said, does anyone remember the last time an allegedly straight celebrity (or a celebrity about whom there were no serious gay rumors) claimed that their sexuality was no one’s business? Do gay actors not realize that by declaring their sexuality to be no one’s business they are for all intents and purposes coming out? Representative Mark Foley, are you listening?