The Way We Were's Secret Gay Backstory

As the first few hntg not of the tle song sound and the unmistakable voice of Barbra Streisand ton “mem’ri, ” most of n’t help but settle for yet another viewg of The Way We Were, even though we know how the turbulent romance of Katie Morosky and Hubbell Garder turns few of know about the beloved 1973 film’s behd-the-scen drama or s gay origs. In other rearch, he terviewed s two still-livg, inic stars, Streisand and Robert rult is a tale of clash between Lrents, Pollack, and producer Ray Stark, the differg styl of Streisand and Redford, and how a gay Jewish man, Lrents, channeled his love of betiful Gentile men to the years, Lrents said the character of Katie, a polilly radil Jew who falls love wh and marri apolil Gentile Hubbell, was based on a woman he knew llege. He had reason to make this statement; the 1960s and ’70s, gay wrers were often cricized for turng their experienc to fictnal heterosexual romanc.

So he set out to thoroughly explore the gay angle of The Way We Were. “There always has to be a gay angle, or I’m not terted, ” says Hofler, a gay don’t thk Hubbell is a directly fictnalized versn of any of the men Lrents loved, but he do thk the character was fluenced by the wrer’s relatnships wh some of them, cludg his longtime partner, Tom Hatcher, and actor Farley Granger.

Gore Vidal was yet another famo homosexual bedazzled by Hatcher’s looks, and knowg Lrents’s taste handsome Gentile men, the novelist remend that his fellow wrer iend pay a vis to William B. As the MoMA crowd learned that summer on Quoque, Lrents was gay but his lover was a very bisexual man.

HOW BARBRA STREISAND AND ROBERT REDFORD’S ‘THE WAY WE WERE’ WAS INSPIRED BY A REAL-LIFE GAY ROMANCE (BOOK EXCERPT)

But few of know about the beloved 1973 film’s behd-the-scen drama or s gay origs. The rult is a tale of clash between Lrents, Pollack, and producer Ray Stark, the differg styl of Streisand and Redford, and how a gay Jewish man, Lrents, channeled his love of betiful Gentile men to the story. “There always has to be a gay angle, or I’m not terted, ” says Hofler, a gay man.