# Who are some famous gays/bisexuals who have married members of the opposite sex? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [May 12, 2005, 4:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-are-some-famous-gays-bisexuals-who-have-married-members-of-the-opposite-sex/303513 "2005-05-12T04:46:32Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2005, 5:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-are-some-famous-gays-bisexuals-who-have-married-members-of-the-opposite-sex/303513/41 "2005-05-12T17:19:00Z")
[QUOTE=Maeglin] > [@Tamerlane](#): > > Calling Alexander bisexual is strictly true insofar as the evidence indicates that he enjoyed a bit of man every now and again One bit in particular, I would imagine (though Bagoas was an “all the way” eunuch, so maybe not). I’m quite aware that ancient and modern notions of sexuality are different (my BA was in ancient history with emphasis on ancient culture) and in some ways that’s the point of the research I’m doing, but that’s another topic. Also, I’m arguing a recent Fundie article about homosexuality not being genetic as “gays don’t have children” with the rebuttal that for most of history, many if not most of the people we would now classify as gay _did_ marry and beget children (which still doesn’t prove it’s genetic, but at least cancels out that particular argument) and I wanted to give examples of gay parents (Alexander, Oscar Wilde, Thomas Mann, Richard the Lionheart [his marriage was unconsummated but he had at least two bastards], etc.). ---
**Author:** ![Crandolph](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/7cd45c/32.png) [@Crandolph](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crandolph)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2005, 6:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-are-some-famous-gays-bisexuals-who-have-married-members-of-the-opposite-sex/303513/42 "2005-05-12T18:37:59Z")
> [@RealityChuck](#): > > Evidently, his wife (straight) had an enthusiastic liking for sex, She and I have that same personality quirk! ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2005, 6:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-are-some-famous-gays-bisexuals-who-have-married-members-of-the-opposite-sex/303513/43 "2005-05-12T18:50:16Z")
> [@Maeglin](#): > > I realize that this isn’t exactly the place to debate the subtleties of ancient sexuality, but I would contend that Alexander’s bisexuality is only vacuously true. There is a great deal of evidence that the ancients used different categories of sexuality. While Alexander certainly enjoyed men, I seriously doubt he would have identified as bisexual or homosexual, hence I would be hesitant to use the label. My point exactly. Thanks. As for Eleanor, I just wasn’t aware there was any substantial evidence. Apparently, there is. ---
**Author:** ![Ol\_Gaffer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Ol\_Gaffer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ol_Gaffer)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2005, 7:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-are-some-famous-gays-bisexuals-who-have-married-members-of-the-opposite-sex/303513/44 "2005-05-12T19:13:43Z")
> [@Crandolph](#): > > She and I have that same personality quirk! What? So now being straight is a personality quirk?!?! ---
**Author:** ![panache45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/panache45/32/64_2.png) [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2005, 7:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-are-some-famous-gays-bisexuals-who-have-married-members-of-the-opposite-sex/303513/45 "2005-05-12T19:26:29Z")
> [@Ol'Gaffer](#): > > What? So now being straight is a personality quirk?!?! Well, in some circles it is. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2005, 7:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-are-some-famous-gays-bisexuals-who-have-married-members-of-the-opposite-sex/303513/46 "2005-05-12T19:34:22Z")
> [@Ace309](#): > > I remember hearing that Kurt Cobain was an acknowledged bisexual, and he was, of course, married to Courtney Love. _snort_ He only said so in an interview, in that kind of “everyone’s bisexual”, and “I’m bisexual at spirit.” It sounded a lot more like he was trying to be “cool” and “different”. Still, sleeping with Courtney might have turned him off of women. _shudder_ ---
**Author:** ![Kent\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kent_clark/32/105_2.png) [@Kent\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kent_Clark)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2005, 7:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-are-some-famous-gays-bisexuals-who-have-married-members-of-the-opposite-sex/303513/47 "2005-05-12T19:45:19Z")
> [@Mockingbird](#): > > He _was_ engaged to Steve Austin. > > What he was engaged in was the inspiration for **We Are The Champions**. Freddie Mercury had a thing going with the _Six Million Dollar Man???_ :eek: ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2005, 7:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-are-some-famous-gays-bisexuals-who-have-married-members-of-the-opposite-sex/303513/48 "2005-05-12T19:49:43Z")
I think it’s pretty safe to say that the multimarried Lord Laurence Olivier was bisexual (and he was married to Vivien Leigh, who had episodes of nymphomania, which wasn’t good). Lord Byron also diddled with both genders but was married (his only legitimate daughter being the only child of his he never met). I personally think Ralph Waldo Emerson was gay (for one thing his youthful journals about his fixation with a particular classmate whose name, ironically, was Gay) but whether it was consummated or not I don’t know. Henry Adams was married\* (no children) and I’m almost positive he was gay (he spent way too much time describing beautiful men and nude statues of men in his books and letters.) \*His wife, Clover, was a photographer and committed suicide in an odd matter- she swallowed developing fluid. I’ve wondered before if he was informed of the event by friends saying “There’s been a horrible development with your wife.” ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2005, 8:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-are-some-famous-gays-bisexuals-who-have-married-members-of-the-opposite-sex/303513/49 "2005-05-12T20:01:47Z")
And while the jury is out on Langston Hughes, several key players in the Harlem Renaissance (both male and female) were gay, including [Countee Cullen](http://www.nku.edu/~diesmanj/cullen.html), who married Nina Yolanda DuBois (the pampered and beloved daughter of W.E.B. DuBois) in one of the great Harlem social affairs ever. (DuBois didn’t approve of her true love, a bandleader, and thwarted the romance, essentially arranging her marriage to Cullen who, as an intellectual, he approved of.) The marriage was an unqualified disaster and soon over. (I know she had a daughter but I’m not sure if it was Cullen’s.) On the DVD special features of _The Hours_, the son of Vita Sackville-West is very frank about his mother’s affair with Woolf. ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2005, 8:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-are-some-famous-gays-bisexuals-who-have-married-members-of-the-opposite-sex/303513/50 "2005-05-12T20:09:43Z")
I think it’s more fair to say that Leigh suffered from bipolar disorder. I don’t even think that nymphomania is even a credible diagnosis anymore, is it? Poor Vivien Leigh. You know he broke the news that he was leaving her on her birthday? ---
**Author:** ![Walloon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/fbc32d/32.png) [@Walloon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walloon)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2005, 8:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-are-some-famous-gays-bisexuals-who-have-married-members-of-the-opposite-sex/303513/51 "2005-05-12T20:27:15Z")
> [@Sampiro](#): > > Henry Adams was married\* (no children) and I’m almost positive he was gay (he spent way too much time describing beautiful men and nude statues of men in his books and letters.) > > \*His wife, Clover, was a photographer and committed suicide in an odd matter- she swallowed developing fluid. She actually died by swallowing potassium cyanide, a crystaline chemical used in the formula for developing fluid. As to whether Henry Adams was gay, read some of the hundreds of letters Henry Adams wrote over a period of 35 years to [Lizzie Cameron](http://www.cosmos-club.org/journals/1998/krinsley.html), the younger woman he was enamored with. ---
**Author:** ![Push\_You\_Down](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/push_you_down/32/9095_2.png) [@Push\_You\_Down](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Push_You_Down)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2005, 8:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-are-some-famous-gays-bisexuals-who-have-married-members-of-the-opposite-sex/303513/52 "2005-05-12T20:27:34Z")
> [@Guinastasia](#): > > _snort_ He only said so in an interview, in that kind of “everyone’s bisexual”, and “I’m bisexual at spirit.” It sounded a lot more like he was trying to be “cool” and “different”. > > Still, sleeping with Courtney might have turned him off of women. _shudder_ And on to fellating firearms. ---
**Author:** ![Mockingbird](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c68b51/32.png) [@Mockingbird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mockingbird)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2005, 8:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-are-some-famous-gays-bisexuals-who-have-married-members-of-the-opposite-sex/303513/53 "2005-05-12T20:43:39Z")
> [@kunilou](#): > > Freddie Mercury had a thing going with the _Six Million Dollar Man???_ :eek: Why do you think it took so long for a **Bionic Ever After**? 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2005, 9:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-are-some-famous-gays-bisexuals-who-have-married-members-of-the-opposite-sex/303513/54 "2005-05-12T21:14:26Z")
Dorothy Parker’s second and third husband **Alan Campbell** , who apparently married the much older Ms. Parker for her income, writing talent (he was a second rack hack) and as a beard. They divorced and later remarried, inviting the same people to the second wedding as the first. A wedding guest remarked to Dorothy “You know, most of the people in this room haven’t spoken to each other in years,” to which she replied “Including the bride and groom.” ---
**Author:** ![Crandolph](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/7cd45c/32.png) [@Crandolph](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crandolph)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2005, 4:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-are-some-famous-gays-bisexuals-who-have-married-members-of-the-opposite-sex/303513/55 "2005-05-13T04:24:33Z")
> [@Ol'Gaffer](#): > > What? So now being straight is a personality quirk?!?! I was just riffing off of the ‘enthusiastic liking for sex’ bit, but the ‘in some circles…’ rejoinder was pretty funny on its own… ---
**Author:** ![Oy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/bc8723/32.png) [@Oy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oy)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2005, 12:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-are-some-famous-gays-bisexuals-who-have-married-members-of-the-opposite-sex/303513/56 "2005-05-13T12:37:23Z")
> [@Sampiro](#): > > Richard the Lionheart [his marriage was unconsummated but he had at least two bastards], etc.). My understanding was that there were _no_ bastards known to have existed - unusual for a nobleman, let alone a king, at that time. But admittedly the last info I had on this topic was over twenty years ago - what is your basis for believing this? I find the Wikipedia article to be suspect, simply because they define Richard the Third as the club-footed, hunch-backed king. Other than the Tudor-era Shakespearean play (and he was a hell of a playwright, but not an historian \) based on the even MORE Tudor era Sir Thomas More’s biography (and the man was five when Richard III died, so we’re not talking first hand experience here), there’s no evidence to suggest anything more than one shoulder a bit lower than the other. This has been debunked for a very long time - if Wikipedia couldn’t be bothered to get that right, why should I believe anything else they said? I also think there’s a big difference between someone who is truly bisexual, and someone who has had a single affair or experimented with people of the same sex. The latter two don’t really say anything about one’s sexuality except that one is not absolutely, rigidly against the idea of having sex with a person of the same sex. It really doesn’t demonstrate a preference. Similarly, I don’t think you can realistically discuss people who came from cultures where bisexuality was the expected norm - I’m thinking ancient Athens here. If everyone around you does it, you tend to automatically do it yourself. As people have said, I guess I’m just saying you can’t attach much significance to many of these people even assuming that every one of them had at least one homosexual experience. Given how fashionable bisexuality has been over the past twenty years (and in artsy circles, make that the last hundred years), it’s impossible to know how many of the modern people listed as bisexual engaged in such out of actual sexual attraction rather than curiosity and a sense that ‘all the beautiful people do it.’ ---
**Author:** ![Gymnopithys](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/fbc32d/32.png) [@Gymnopithys](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gymnopithys)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2005, 4:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-are-some-famous-gays-bisexuals-who-have-married-members-of-the-opposite-sex/303513/57 "2005-05-13T16:41:46Z")
> [@freakstasy](#): > > Virginia Woolf? > > Or try [this list](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_famous_gay%2C_lesbian_or_bisexual_people#A). Anyone not single probably qualifies. Not on that list: Marguerite Yourcenar, French writer, Nobel Prize, lesbian. (In a French book listing homosexuals, reference forgotten) ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2005, 8:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-are-some-famous-gays-bisexuals-who-have-married-members-of-the-opposite-sex/303513/58 "2005-05-13T20:48:06Z")
> [@Oy!](#): > > My understanding was that there were _no_ bastards known to have existed - unusual for a nobleman, let alone a king, at that time. But admittedly the last info I had on this topic was over twenty years ago - what is your basis for believing this? He had a son, Philip de Cognac (fictionalized as Philip Faulconbridge in Shakespeare’s _King John_) by an unknown mother who was mentioned by chroniclers in his own lifetime. About a generation after his death he was said to be the father of a son named Fulk (a common name in the Angevin house) by a woman named Joan de St. Pol, but these sources may be less reliable (or it’s even possible that Philip and Fulk were the same man). He had no children by his queen Berengaria and was admonished by a Cardinal to quit practicing “Eastern vices” and return to his wife at one point. Many historians refuse to accept Richard’s homosexuality in a manner much like the denial of Sally Hemings among Jefferson biographers. ---
**Author:** ![liirogue](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/dbc845/32.png) [@liirogue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/liirogue)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2005, 1:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-are-some-famous-gays-bisexuals-who-have-married-members-of-the-opposite-sex/303513/59 "2005-05-14T01:18:52Z")
**Sampiro** , I have had two American history professors completely dismiss the idea that Eleanor R. was gay. They argued that the letters themselves can’t really be used as evidence - everyone back then wrote in a similar style. They had other arguments, but I can’t recall them. There was a book published a few years ago that claimed to “prove” that she was a lesbian, but both professors knocked it pretty damn hard. AFAIK, the professors have never met (graduated from different states and currently work at different colleges), and both gave the strong impression that the historical community dismisses the rumors as rubbish. ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2005, 4:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-are-some-famous-gays-bisexuals-who-have-married-members-of-the-opposite-sex/303513/60 "2005-05-14T04:03:43Z")
> [@liirogue](#): > > **Sampiro** , I have had two American history professors completely dismiss the idea that Eleanor R. was gay. They argued that the letters themselves can’t really be used as evidence - everyone back then wrote in a similar style. That Lorena Hickok was a lesbian is not up for debate- she was quite open about it. That Eleanor Roosevelt was by the 1930s locked in a very unhappy marriage with an unfaithful husband with whom she probably has not had sex in well over a decade is well established. Remembering these things, read the following: > [@](#): > > _Jimmy_ was near & I couldn’t say ‘je t’aime et je t’adore’ as I longed to do but always remember I am saying it & that I go to sleep thinking of you & repeating our little saying.\* > ER to LH, March 6, 1933 > _My Pictures are nearly all up & I have you in my sitting room where I can look at you most of my waking hours! I can’t kiss you so I kiss your picture good night and good morning._ > ER to LH, March 9, 1933 > > _Most clearly I remember your eyes, with a kind of teasing smile in them, and the feeling of that soft spot just northeast of the corner of your mouth against my lips._ > LH to ER, December 5, 1933 > > _I wish I could lie down beside you tonight & take you in my arms._ > ER to LH, September 1, 1934 Now, honest answer, does this sound like “two good friends” talking, or the correspondence between lovers? Are you familiar with any correspondence between Lou Hoover or Bess Truman, both of whom were writing letters in the 1930s, in which they discussed how much they longed to kiss or cuddle or how they couldn’t speak their true feelings because their grown child\* was present? I honestly don’t think that I’m reading between the lines on blank paper when I say that the above, which is just a few randomly chosen excerpts from a lengthy correspondence, is between two people who have been physically (romantically) and emotionally intimate. And trust me: if the letters mentioned putting on snorkels and looking for each others G-Spots, there are academics and biographers out there who would dismiss it as “snorkeling was big at the time, and the G-Spot was slang for ‘gravy boat’, which people collected at the time and used to keep their snorkels in”. \*Jimmy was Eleanor’s son, James (1907-1991) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-are-some-famous-gays-bisexuals-who-have-married-members-of-the-opposite-sex/303513.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-are-some-famous-gays-bisexuals-who-have-married-members-of-the-opposite-sex/303513.md?page=4)