Name another celebrity who defended being gay on national TV in 1970.
Never realized that John Astin was also The Riddler. Frank Gorshin (who died in 2005) is the only Riddler I remember.
Gorshin’s portrayal of the character is probably more iconic; he played The Riddler in 10 episodes, plus the 1966 movie, while Astin only played the role in 2 episodes (which, IIRC, would probably have been the two parts of just one story, as that’s how the show was structured in its first two seasons).
According to Gorshin’s Wikipedia entry, he was replaced by Astin for those two episodes, because he (Gorshin) was unavailable.
John Astin was, and I assume still is, awesome. In the right roles, he was fantastic; and I feel like he could have been a great Batman villain. But for The Riddler, I give the nod to Frank Gorshin.
I don’t’ have time to watch every television show from 1970 and earlier. It would require me to research and write an entire book about the history of the acceptance of homosexuality to demonstrate how gradual the acceptance was and how it began long before 1970. Let me give you a couple of examples. Judy Garland died in 1969. She worked with, was married to, and probably had a father that was homosexual. She had a large amount of fans who were male homosexuals, and she knew it and appreciated their support of her. Her funeral was the day before the Stonewall Riots.
And then to tell about my personal memory of that time. At my college (a fairly liberal one), in the autumn of 1971, there were at least two groups that made demands to the college administration. One was a woman’s group that made a set of demands to the college president about the treatment of women and took over his office for a while. A second was a group of homosexual men who made a set of demands but didn’t give them to anyone in particular. (And, um, then I created the short rights movement by posting my demands on a wall in the student union.) Though some people at the college thought the demands of those two groups were unnecessarily unkind because the college was actually more sensitive to such political positions than most colleges, very few people had any real objections to women’s liberation or to homosexual rights.
Incidentally, there has always been more acceptance of female homosexuals than male ones. Many people in the early twentieth century objected to male couples who lived together for their whole adult lives than to female ones who do. Consider Ann Caracristi, who retired as the deputy director of NSA. Supposedly the first acceptance of a homosexual as a NSA employee was in 1980. However, Caracristi lived her entire adult life with another single woman from the 1940s on, and no one made a big deal about it.
Yeah, not continuing your hijack.
Am I mistaken in understanding that this had something to do with the rainbow symbology wrt gay rights?
I think the rainbow as gay symbol came much later.
This talks about Judy Garland’s influence on gay culture
Given the titular actor of this thread I thought that I should mention the recent passing of John Aprea who played the young Sal Tessio in Godfather II. Note that John and Abe both appear in the film with Abe in the flashback at the end.
This just leaves DeNiro alive of the three young hoods who toasted around the kitchen table. Here’s a deleted scene where Sal meets Vito. Bruno Kirby died in 2006 at age 57. His actor father Bruce outlasted him by several years.
He was 83 and his last IMDb credit seems to be from 2023. Nice run.
From the Variety article:
<<Before taking on the role, he reportedly reached out to Abe Vigoda, who played the older version of the character in the first film, for advice. According to his manager, Vigoda’s response, “I don’t know what I did. Just have a good time, kid,” became a guiding principle for John’s career.>>
…or was.
Anybody mention Petula Clark? She’s 91 years old. She’s older than I thought until recently, she started her singing career as a child during WWII. She was already in her 30s by the time songs like Downtown gained her notice in the US.
Herbert Blomstedt is not only still alive at 97, he’s still conducting orchestras.
Phil Donahue passed away yesterday.
When we used to visit my grandmother, then in her eighties, she would talk about the Phil Donahue show.
“His guests talk about anything! Just anything! It didn’t used to be like that.”
When we were driving home, I mentioned this and how it seemed to bother her.
“She keeps watching, though,” said Dad.
RIP, Phil, and thanks for giving my grandmother insights into the changing world.
British naturalist and broadcaster Sir David Attenborough is a very active 98.
Maybe it should not be a surprise that he is still alive, because he is still working and in the public eye.
Scared me. Alive, whew. His death will be a huge loss for the world.
Klezmer clarinetist Giora Feidman is still with us at 88.
Barbara Eden recently turned 93.
She’ll be fine. She’s been on my Death Pool list for a couple of years now.
I read The Day of the Jackal back when I was in high school and that was a long time ago. And the book had been published a few years before I read it.
So I was surprised to just learn that the author, Frederick Forsyth, is still alive.