# Was Nero Wolfe's Fritz gay? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [May 20, 2006, 11:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-nero-wolfes-fritz-gay/357578 "2006-05-20T23:47:55Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2006, 12:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-nero-wolfes-fritz-gay/357578/21 "2006-05-23T12:17:31Z")
> [@The King of Soup](#): > > Carla, Wolfe’s adopted daughter, was introduced in _Over My Dead Body_ and then pretty much ignored until she was murdered in _The Black Mountain_. Wolfe’s boyhood friend Marko Vukcic, proprietor of Rusterman’s restaurant, also died in that one. > > There was a _Mother Hunt_ and a _Father Hunt_ but no parent hunt. Thanks, Soup! ---
**Author:** ![Olive\_The\_Other\_Reindeer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Olive\_The\_Other\_Reindeer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Olive_The_Other_Reindeer)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2006, 2:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-nero-wolfes-fritz-gay/357578/22 "2006-05-23T14:11:50Z")
> [@carnivorousplant](#): > > I think _The Black Mountain_ involved a return to Montenegro. The guy who owned the restaurant was killed over some old political fued, was he not? OK - thanks for clearing that up - I remembered the story, but not all the details. Olive ---
**Author:** ![Ceejaytee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ceejaytee/32/2956_2.png) [@Ceejaytee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ceejaytee)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2006, 3:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-nero-wolfes-fritz-gay/357578/23 "2006-05-23T15:21:53Z")
> [@Johnny Angel](#): > > It could be that I was smoking the crack, but I seem to recall that the relationship between Archie and Wolf in the early books was so complicated and nuanced that it suggested, well, perhaps not homosexuality as such, but a deep emotional entanglement. In later books I didn’t get quite that sense, though Wolf and Archie always dealt with eachother in a way that suggested more a familial relationship than that of an employer and employee, as I think becomes explicit in A Family Affair. There’s a book by William S. Baring-Gould, _Nero Wolfe of West Thirty-fifth Street_ which posits that Archie is Wolfe’s nephew. To get there, he surmises that Marko Vukcic, Wolfe’s best friend, is really his brother. Marko, a ladies’ man, traveled around the world, ended up in Ohio, had an affair with Archie’s mother, and, Bob’s (well, Nero’s) your uncle. There’s some canon references (Wolfe fans call it the “Corpus” rather than the Canon) from which to pull the theory, but it’s really stretching. There’s no doubt that Wolfe and Archie are very close, like an uncle/nephew father/son thing. In the very second book, _The League of Frightened Men_ Archie is injured and Wolfe holds him in his lap during a car ride. Surprising for 2 reasons: (1) Wolfe’s not very touchy feely; (2) Wolfe refuses to ride in any car not driven by Archie. As for the basement, there’s a pool table down there. Also, when the FBI had the place bugged during _The Doorbell Rang_, Wolfe and his operatives did all their serious planning in the basement. Why, yes, I am a Wolfe/Archie fanatic. Thanks for asking. Anyway, the gay man in the Wolfe stories is Saul Panzer. He was a bachelor (there was a mention once that he was married but this “wife” mysteriously vanished from the scene) and I don’t recall any woman being mentioned in reference to him. Fred was married, Orrie was a lady-killer, and Saul lived alone in his clean apartment, cooking good food and playing the piano. Clearly, the gay one. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![The\_King\_of\_Soup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/a87d85/32.png) [@The\_King\_of\_Soup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_King_of_Soup)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2006, 3:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-nero-wolfes-fritz-gay/357578/24 "2006-05-23T15:52:02Z")
> [@Johnny Angel](#): > > … the relationship between Archie and Wolf in the early books was so complicated and nuanced that it suggested, well, perhaps not homosexuality as such, but a deep emotional entanglement. In later books I didn’t get quite that sense… The ability to interpret these books is flexible enough that I’d like to preface this by saying that if I offer an interpretation that differs from yours, I mean to augment, rather than disagree with, your ideas. There is no such thing as a word, phrase or sentence that carries exactly the same literal, figurative or emotional meaning for any two people. Therefore, contradictory explanations of literature should be allowed to coexist, bumbling around each other, and parts of both freely given to yet other theses that may partly or wholly deny both. In _Fer-de-Lance_, Goodwin has been Wolfe’s employee for a while, (5-10 years) and knows him pretty well. But neither Goodwin himself, nor his relationship with Wolfe, is anywhere near mature. Goodwin’s speech is still uneducated: his diction and grammar are often muddled, which doesn’t happen in the later stories. Wolfe is often sarcastic and insulting toward his employee: that happens, but not nearly as often, in the later stories. This is necessary: only because Archie is still learning about Wolfe does all the exposition required in a first novel make sense. Most of the books contain a reference in the first four pages to Wolfe’s weight, but they get spottier as time goes on. In the earlier books, as _my_ reading tells me anyhow, Wolfe is less communicative, and Archie less intuitive and autonomous , than happens later in the series. Archie’s vocabulary improves, his ability to subtly rile his employer improves, his own skills improve, and Wolfe regards him more and more as a colleague. I have to say that I thought _Family Affair_ was kind of a mess, not at all up to the pressure of concluding a forty-year series. The botched attempt at a continuance with Goldsborough (did I spell that right?) made it worse. I prefer to mentally fade the series out in the very early sixties, long about _Final Deduction_ or so. **Ceejaytee** , hello and good to meet you. I personally think Baring-Gould’s imagination would have served him better writing his own book rather than annotating Stout’s fiction, but there’s no denying he put lots of time and energy into his work. My own feelings are that (1) there’s a huge gap between the pre-war books and the post-war books that may not be explainable by fans’ interpolation: what post 1946 Wolfe novel would have him conversing so freely with women and children and moving fast enough to kill a snake as the first one (I’ll stipulate that _The Black Mountain_ is an exceptional case)? (2) _All_ the characters were still developing and didn’t gel much until _Some Buried Caesar_, when Stout decided he’d like his books to be funny as well as exciting and suspenseful, and (3) Stout put pretty much all his efforts toward establishing a close emotional relationship between Wolfe and Archie into _The League of Frightened Men_ (the card-case, as well as the rescue), and that was just part of what he wanted to establish as the background of the series: you can’t tell me he wasn’t writing for the long haul. The idea of Marko accidentally siring Archie strikes me as just uncomfortable and absurd. In my opinion, the point of Saul isn’t that he’s gay or not gay, it’s that Stout just plain does not give a damn about his creations’ sex lives. People who do are scraping the paint off a canvas because they think something wonderful is underneath. I say Stout knew exactly what he was doing, and it was a subtle admonition to mind our own business. ---
**Author:** ![Ceejaytee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ceejaytee/32/2956_2.png) [@Ceejaytee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ceejaytee)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2006, 4:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-nero-wolfes-fritz-gay/357578/25 "2006-05-23T16:02:23Z")
> [@The King of Soup](#): > > In my opinion, the point of Saul isn’t that he’s gay or not gay, it’s that Stout just plain does not give a damn about his creations’ sex lives. People who do are scraping the paint off a canvas because they think something wonderful is underneath. I say Stout knew exactly what he was doing, and it was a subtle admonition to mind our own business. **King** : I was only joking about Saul, though I think you probably know that. I don’t think Stout was completely unconcerned about his characters sex lives though, at least not where they impact on his character’s actions. Wolfe exhorts Archie to use his skills with women on numerous occassions to get information. Orrie’s preoccupation with the ladies gets him into very serious trouble twice. But I agree that there’s nothing hidden that Stout’s left for us to uncover. But Wolfe fans, like Holmes fans, will wonder about inconsistencies, little dropped hints, etc. It’s part of the fun, and part of feeling like the characters live. By the way, you’re not a member of the Wolfe Pack are you? ---
**Author:** ![Rocketeer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rocketeer/32/4437_2.png) [@Rocketeer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rocketeer)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2006, 5:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-nero-wolfes-fritz-gay/357578/26 "2006-05-23T17:37:55Z")
> [@The King of Soup](#): > > I have to say that I thought _Family Affair_ was kind of a mess, not at all up to the pressure of concluding a forty-year series. _Family Affair_ was ghastly. It was as though Stout had run out of ideas and was reduced to cannibalizing his characters. No way would Orrie kill anyone, and no way would Archie & Saul & Fred drive him to suicide. Completely out of character for everyone. ---
**Author:** ![pinkfreud](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pinkfreud/32/17603_2.png) [@pinkfreud](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pinkfreud)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2006, 5:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-nero-wolfes-fritz-gay/357578/27 "2006-05-23T17:58:57Z")
> [@The King of Soup](#): > > In _Murder by the Book_, Fritz refers to his heterosexuality: “If you need any help with the ladies, for my age I am not to be ignored. A Swiss has a long usefulness.” Somehow I imagine this being uttered with a significant pause after the word “long.” 😛 ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2006, 6:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-nero-wolfes-fritz-gay/357578/28 "2006-05-23T18:10:52Z")
> [@Rocketeer](#): > > _Family Affair_ was ghastly. Yeah, I _liked_ Orrie dammit! ---
**Author:** ![Ceejaytee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ceejaytee/32/2956_2.png) [@Ceejaytee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ceejaytee)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2006, 7:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-nero-wolfes-fritz-gay/357578/29 "2006-05-23T19:25:50Z")
> [@carnivorousplant](#): > > Yeah, I _liked_ Orrie dammit! You _liked_ Orrie?! But, but, he was after Archie’s job! And he was an arrogant jerk! I always thought of him as the poor man’s Archie Goodwin–wanting to be witty and suave but always falling short of Archie’s high standards. Sorry. Is my love for Archie really obvious here? ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2006, 8:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-nero-wolfes-fritz-gay/357578/30 "2006-05-23T20:05:12Z")
> [@Ceejaytee](#): > > You _liked_ Orrie?! But, but, he was after Archie’s job! And he was an arrogant jerk! It was the interaction. Like the time he sat at Archie’s desk and Goodwin grabbed him by the ankles and jerked him out of the chair. He did run the joint once while Archie was doning something else, didn’t he? (Even money says Soup will know!) 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Rocketeer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rocketeer/32/4437_2.png) [@Rocketeer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rocketeer)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2006, 8:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-nero-wolfes-fritz-gay/357578/31 "2006-05-23T20:36:42Z")
I always liked Orrie, too; he was imperfect, so he seemed more human. Archie comes across as [blasphemy coming :eek:] being way too cold. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2006, 8:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-nero-wolfes-fritz-gay/357578/32 "2006-05-23T20:56:51Z")
As long as we are hijacking, who should play who in the movies? We aren’t limited to time. Bogart for Archie, Sidney Greenstreet for Wolfe, Lauren Bacall for Lily. Dustin Hoffman for Saul Panzer. Ron Dean for Cramer. ---
**Author:** ![The\_King\_of\_Soup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/a87d85/32.png) [@The\_King\_of\_Soup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_King_of_Soup)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2006, 8:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-nero-wolfes-fritz-gay/357578/33 "2006-05-23T20:57:43Z")
> [@carnivorousplant](#): > > It was the interaction. Like the time he sat at Archie’s desk and Goodwin grabbed him by the ankles and jerked him out of the chair. > He did run the joint once while Archie was doning something else, didn’t he? > (Even money says Soup will know!) 🙂 The big three stories in which Archie went undercover at a client’s establishment were _Too Many Women_, _The Second Confession_ and _If Death Ever Slept_. The scene you describe takes place in _Slept_. I think. I’d like whoever really knows the answer to embarrass me gently, please. **Ceejaytee** , no, I’m not a member of anything, I just managed to read the books at an impressionable age, so a lot got stuck where my education should be. _Family Affair_ was an ugly vessel stuffed full of junk (like the gratuitous, going-nowhere Watergate connection), and for my money one of three I’d as soon he hadn’t bothered to write. But Stout was almost ninety when he wrote it (he barely lived to see it published), and the desire to end the series without killing off Wolfe and Archie is understandable, as is the poor execution. For what it’s worth, Orrie was a fairly vanilla character until Johnny Keems was killed off in _Might as Well be Dead_, and over a fairly short time absorbed some of the Keems character’s cockiness and ambition. ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2006, 10:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-nero-wolfes-fritz-gay/357578/34 "2006-05-23T22:49:46Z")
> [@brownie55](#): > > Regarding the orchid thing from [Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orchis) > > Orchis is a genus in the orchid family (Orchidaceae). This genus gets its name from the Greek orchis, meaning \*\*“testicle”, \*\* from the appearance of subterranean tuberoids. > > So Wolfe and Theodore Horstmann are both suspect. I had always taken the sexual nature of orchids to be part of his sexual sublimation, but not in any DIRECT way. Horstmann, there’s no way to know, from what I’ve read. I haven’t read “The Black Mountain” because the stories in which Wolfe stirs from his brownstone don’t appeal to me. Part of the fun of a Wolfe novel is watching the pains he takes to stay at home. There are SCADS of detectives who run around all over the place solving crimes. ---
**Author:** ![Ukulele\_Ike](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/df788c/32.png) [@Ukulele\_Ike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ukulele_Ike)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2006, 11:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-nero-wolfes-fritz-gay/357578/35 "2006-05-23T23:25:37Z")
> [@carnivorousplant](#): > > who should play who in the movies?..Bogart for Archie You’re totally insane. Cagney is _much_ more Archie-like. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2006, 11:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-nero-wolfes-fritz-gay/357578/36 "2006-05-23T23:28:04Z")
> [@Evil Captor](#): > > I had always taken the sexual nature of orchids to be part of his sexual sublimation, but not in any DIRECT way. I hesitate to mention it because I think the characters are straight and _I_ grow a few easy orchids; what makes an orchid an orchid is that the sexual pats of the flower are fused into a single organ. Make of that what you will. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2006, 11:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-nero-wolfes-fritz-gay/357578/37 "2006-05-23T23:37:02Z")
> [@Ukulele Ike](#): > > You’re totally insane. Cagney is _much_ more Archie-like. Ha! Cagney can play Z. He’s a born bad guy. ---
**Author:** ![twickster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ec9cab/32.png) [@twickster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/twickster)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2006, 12:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-nero-wolfes-fritz-gay/357578/38 "2006-05-24T00:27:16Z")
> [@Ukulele Ike](#): > > You’re totally insane. Cagney is _much_ more Archie-like. You’re both insane. No goofy speech mannerisms allowed. How about, geez, I dunno, Edward Norton or someone? ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2006, 1:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-nero-wolfes-fritz-gay/357578/39 "2006-05-24T01:05:31Z")
> [@twickster](#): > > Edward Norton or someone? You’ve got to be [kidding.](http://www.wtv-zone.com/moe/moesboomerabilia/images3/Honeymooners.JPG) ---
**Author:** ![twickster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ec9cab/32.png) [@twickster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/twickster)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2006, 1:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-nero-wolfes-fritz-gay/357578/40 "2006-05-24T01:20:08Z")
> [@carnivorousplant](#): > > You’ve got to be [kidding.](http://www.wtv-zone.com/moe/moesboomerabilia/images3/Honeymooners.JPG) You can’t see him with a porkpie hat? 😃 [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-nero-wolfes-fritz-gay/357578.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-nero-wolfes-fritz-gay/357578.md?page=3)