Hmmm, I dunno. I saw an A&E Biography of Jonathan Harris, bless his heart, and he was nellier than your new Easter bonnet in his interviews. “People frequently ask me if I’m British,” he said. “I tell them, no, I’m affected.”
P.S. I know nothing of the private lives of the Messrs. Blore, Pangborn and DeWolfe (what a great law firm name!). Their gaiety or straightety is a mystery to me.
Eric Blore’s characters in the films I’ve seen have never struck me as gay. Camp, sometimes, but straight. But then, I’m British so my gay/straight ometer is probably calibrated differently.
His affectation was his Britesque accent, since he was a nice Russian-Jewish boy from the Bronx. He and his (female) wife of 64 years (a pretty good run for a phony marriage) used to lie in bed and make up the insulting names he’d call the robot.
I’m addicted to old movies. I love Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. Carmen Miranda. Myrna Loy and William Powell. I could go on and on. I recently bought the entire “Thin Man” series on DVD, and I couldn’t be happier to have found it. I think that it is mostly because the script writers WERE the stars of those movies I love. There was wit. There was a LOT of intelligence in the writing. And also, the really GOOD actors said more with a “look” than we see in the movies today with the combination of the lines AND the attempt at the “look.” I don’t see many movies these days that can even compare to the scripts of the old ones. Sort of like comparing Johnny Carson to Letterman or Leno. They are good, but NO ONE is THAT good. IMHO, that is. Carson could have a really boring guest on, and…just with a LOOK? He could make it funny. Same with comparing the best of the “old” movies with the current ones.
I have always loved Edward Everett Horton. He was awesome in the movies, and he was awesome in Fractured Fairy Tales.
And this next thing isn’t directed at anyone in this thread, it is just a general annoyance of mine.
[sub]It annoys me, all of this ferreting around about whether or not "so and so " actor is gay. From the 20’s, the 30’s, or now.
Why does anyone care? What business is it of ours?[/sub]
He was why I watched “F Troop.” His timing and looks were exquisite.
It’s fun and it lets people find a difference or commonality with a star, either of which can make a person feel better. Myself, from theatrical experience, I default to the old “show people (well, men) are all gay” meme and am surprised when one turns out to be straight. I mean, who knew? 
Two weeks after I got my first VCR a local station ran a bunch of Astaire films. I wish I could find that tape–it would also have 20 yr old commercials!
Honey, you know I love you, but I think it is rude to speculate on someone else’s sexuality. I really think it is none of anyone else’s business.
Rude, but fun. My wife used to sit in her abortionist/speed-dealer uncle’s waiting room and speculate on the gender of his other patients, but she gives up the game of “Man or Woman?” every year for Lent.
I am always amazed that the “a person’s sexuality is no one else’s business” line of argument only seems to appear when it’s a person’s possible homosexuality that’s being discussed. No one has ever to the best of my knowledge said in a thread (or IRL as far as I know) discussing a confirmed heterosexual’s latest romantic escapades that the heterosexual’s straightness was none of anyone else’s business. The “it’s no one’s business” routine always smacks of defensiveness to me, as if it’s somehow gauche to think that someone might be gay.
I understand what you are saying, and really…that is what I was trying to say as well.
NO ONE’s sexuality is anyone else’s business. I agree that the only time it comes up these days is if homosexuality is “suspected,” and that is an unfortunate thing. But it isn’t right, and WOULDN’T be right, either way.
If a person chooses to share their sexual preferences with the world, God Bless 'em. If they don’t? It is no one else’s place to speculate. The fact that it is always, these days, homosexuality that is speculated about? That is a symptom of our society. It isn’t right, but it is what it IS. Right now, anyway. I feel that it is wrong to speculate on someone’s sexual preferences, no matter WHAT they might be.
And I’m not sure I explained that well at all, but I am with you on what you said. I don’t personally feel that “it’s somehow gauche to think that someone might be gay”… what I DO think is that it is gauche to speculate on someone’s sexual preferences AT ALL. Unfortunately, at this point in time? That speculation usually centers around whether they are gay or straight. It’s wrong, I think…but it would be JUST as wrong if it went the other way. It just isn’t likely to happen that way, in the world at this particular time.
I really botched that. Maybe if I stick to the topic, I can do better. I don’t know, but I’ll try.
I don’t CARE whether EEH was homosexual or heterosexual. It doesn’t MATTER to me, and I have never felt the need to speculate about it. It is a non-issue for me. All that matters to me is that I loved him in every movie I ever saw him in and I appreciate his wit and his talent. I also loved his work in Fractured Fairy Tales, and once again…his sexuality is a non-issue. He could be a eunuch for all I care. Or a virgin, or he could hate sex of any kind. I APPRECIATE THE MAN. He was talented, gifted…and that is all that matters. All that SHOULD matter.
I think in the case of this thread, it all simply boils down to a pun: “straight man.” Being the Dope, it all spun off wildly from there. Had the question been “second banana,” goodness knows what we’d be speculating about.
(Aftr seeing that hourlong Jonathan Harris bio, I still vote for “not only gay, but good old-fashioned gay with sprinkles on top.” Who was his wife, Dorothy Arzner?)
One of my father’s better one-liners, after meeting and sizing up a high school drama teacher (and professional actor): “He’s not gay. He’s just theatrical.”
I’m sorry, but this sounds like you’re talking about a skeleton in the closet; like being gay is a disease that polite people don’t discuss in public. Cultural homophobia.
Regardless of whatever else Edward Everett Horton may have done with his sphincter, he did fart at Bob Newhart (inside a car, yet!) in Cold Turkey, (1971) an American Cinema fart joke that predated the campfire scene which many erroneously consider to be the first in Blazing Saddles (1974). Although, if you watch and listen closely, Anthony Quinn lets rip right after the banquet scene in Lawrence of Arabia (1963).
“That sounds like a bullshit!”
Was that Judith Lowry’s line in Cold Turkey? I’ve only seen it in bowdlerized form and it and Horton’s fart were excised. As I’ve mentioned before, Chicago TV chopped up movies so much that Blazing Saddles came off as a drama.
I’m sorry too. Sorry that I am evidently not up to expressing myself well.
Yes, there is “cultural homophobia.”
I don’t think it is right, I think it is WRONG. But I’m not stupid, and I know that it exists.
But that isn’t what I meant, nor is it how I conduct my life.
If someone chooses to share their gender preference with the general public, they have chosen to do so. If they don’t choose to do so? I feel that it is no one else’s business. They have a right to privacy on this issue, should they decide they WANT to be private on this issue. I assume that if they don’t feel comfortable “coming out”…they have their reasons. Why would I feel comfortable with people making it difficult for them to be private, when they have obviously made their own decision to BE private on the issue? I don’t think it is a bad thing to decline to feel comfortable with people “ferreting around” in a person’s personal life, looking to “out” them…when they have already chosen to make it a personal thing.
I include heterosexual’s in this, too. I don’t feel that anyone’s sex life is other people’s business…unless that person chooses to share it with others. It annoys me if people start speculating about whether people are sleeping together or not, too. Of any sexual preference. Hey…if they want you to know, I expect that they will TELL you. If not? None of your business. If you need to know so bad, ask THEM. Don’t scurry around, gossiping. For SURE? Don’t ask me. If I knew, I wouldn’t tell you.
In the case of celebrities, such as EEH? Well, that’s a bit more difficult. He lived in a time when it would have been very difficult for him to share his gender preference with the public, if he was in fact gay. Things are difficult now, but they would have been a thousand times worse THEN. Nowadays, though? If a celebrity doesn’t choose to share their gender preference with the general public? “shrugs” What on earth makes it anyone’s business but their own? I don’t think it is anyone’s business. That doesn’t mean I consider that being gay is a disease that polite people don’t discuss in public. What I THINK is that…a person should have the ability to share whatever they feel comfortable with sharing…and be left alone if they DON’T feel like sharing it. I think that you either “like” a celebrity, based on their talent and general life stuff, or you DON’T. Their gender preferences don’t seem to me to have anything to DO with it. It should be a “non-issue.” At least from my own perspective.
One of my best friends is gay. He is completely open about it, and he has been married* to his partner for 25 years. It has been difficult for him…he essentially lost his family. If the issue of gay marriage comes up, I bring him up and talk about his marriage. I have no problem doing that, since HE is very comfortable with both his gender preference AND his marriage. This allows me to talk about his marriage, and it allows me to discuss why I believe so strongly that gay marriage should be legalized. It also allows me to talk about how prejudice against homosexuality cost him his family. It allows me to ask people if THEY are so homophobic that THEY would be willing to lose someone they love…just because that person is a homosexual. It allows me to ask them if being gay (if being gay IS a sin, which I don’t personally think it IS) is more of a sin than gossiping, or being judgmental. It allows me to open a dialogue with people who have never once considered that there is any other way to view homosexuality than the way that it was presented to them. Does it change anything for them? I don’t know. Still, my friend allowes me to present these facts to them. And I pray that it is a start. That perhaps they will start looking at things a bit differently, that perhaps they will question the things that they thought were “black and white.”
I also have a good friend who is gay, but doesn’t feel comfortable with sharing it. It annoys me when people speculate about whether or not he is gay, and when people DO speculate? It annoys me. It would annoy me exactly as much if they were speculating about whether he and his girlfriend, if there was one, were sleeping together. I have had people basically WHISPER to me…“Is Jase gay?” at a party. It never fails to tick me off. Is that so wrong? It isn’t, to me, a “guilty little secret”…it is, to ME…an invasion of Jase’s privacy…and one I am not willing to participate in. Is it so wrong for me to think that if Jase wanted them to know, he’d have TOLD them?
If it is wrong for me to protect my friend’s privacy, lissener, then I am sorry. I’m going to continue to do so. Not because he has a “dirty little secret”, but because if HE doesn’t feel like telling someone he is gay, it isn’t MY place to say so.
I don’t think it is his “dirty little secret.” I think that he has a right to make is own decisions as to who he shares his personal life with.
*They weren’t able to legally marry, due to the laws in this country. But they married in their hearts, and have remained married for 25 years. Works for me.
I don’t so much care whether E.E. Horton was gay per se. I do, however, have the feeling that Hollywood at times circled the wagons when they wanted a project to have a certain “sensibility,” and would be more likely to put people together on that project who would agree on that sensibility.
And golden age Hollywood, especially, dealt in stereotypes as common coin. If going for a John Ford sensibility, you’d want to hire physical, profane alpha males who drank 'em straight, no chaser. If going for a super-stylized white-telephone musical where romance always has to be kept at a distance, you’d want to get comic actors they told rumors about.
I’d read before that Edward Everett Horton was gay. I remember his performances in various old movies and his voice work in Rocky and Bullwinkle. I just don’t understand in what sense his performances are “effeminate.” (He doesn’t lisp, nor does he talk in a high sing-songy voice, for instance.) Is all this means that 1) he doesn’t end up winning the girl (although his characters are often married as the film opens) and 2) he’s not a two-fisted hero who beats up the villains? If that’s what it means and people back then (in the 1930’s through 1960’s) were supposed to obviously think that he acted effeminate and therefore was gay, then people back then were more screwed up than I thought.
It is a mystery to me, as well.
And I believe that he DID “get the girl” in some of those movies, although I couldn’t tell you which ones. I love those old movies, so I watch a lot of them. And I get them confused.
And yes, people back then WERE more “screwed up” than you thought. Today, as well. Sadly