Ltle Richard honed his craft as a teenage drag queen. In everythg om his hairstyle to his lyrics, we see the fluence of gay ntemporari like Esquera and Billy Wright.
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CHART TOPPG SGERS WHO HAVE COME OUT AS GAY
* gay singers 50s *
Poor old Johnnie Ray, as he was referred Dexy’s Midnight Runners’ “Come On Eileen, ” was a closeted gay man, arrted for solicg male unrver officers on more than one ocsn.
REHOBOTH’S GALLERY 50 TO HOST SHOWS BY TWO GAY ARTISTS
Johnny Mathis never vered up his sexual orientatn, though he didn’t e out as gay until 1982, when a reporter prted his off the rerd acknowledgment. Rudy Lewis, who sang lead on this Drifters h as well as “On Broadway” and others, was a closeted gay man who sadly died of a dg overdose when he was jt 27 years old.
From the Tony Award wng mil Cabaret, wrten by openly gay lyricist Fred Ebb and openly gay poser John Kanr, based on a book by openly gay wrer Christopher Isherwood, this number, performed by Joel Grey, who publicly me out 2015 at age 82. He later moved to the Netherlands, changed his name to Lee Roberts, met a man who beme his life partner, and then lived as an openly gay man.
Regald Dwight changed his name to Elton John after Elton Dean, a fellow mician the backg band of Long John Baldry, the gay volist om where the John .