He is remembered as one of the great filmmakers of the 1940s, but his key bgraphers believe he was also an early example of a gay or bisexual man workg a ls than acceptg environment.
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WAS VCENTE MNELLI A GAY?
He is remembered as one of the great filmmakers of the 1940s, but his key bgraphers believe he was also an early example of a gay or bisexual man workg a ls than acceptg environment.
Four tim married, wh two children, he has a strikg and eply ntented send legacy, one batably as a closeted gay man. Mnelli is wily regnised certa circl whout bate as a gay man. In Mark Griff’s words A Hundred or More Hidn Thgs: ‘Dpe the fact that Mnelli was married to Judy Garland and three other women… was generally assumed that he was a closeted gay man who, due to the societal ndng of his era, felt pelled to marry and procreate.
There seems to be a vast quanty of evince potg to the fact that Mnelli was openly gay New York, before a move to Hollywood forced him back to the closet. As much as we n unrstand Mnelli did not ‘choose’ to bee gay, we mt know he did not choose to alter his herent sexualy to be wh the women he was.
WHY DID GAY MEN MARRY JUDY GARLAND?
As easy as is to believe that a pre-ter, and, to an extent, pre-paparazzi world, an openly gay man such as Mnelli may have found easier to pe scty, this is a fable. Gay rights moved slowly Ameri, and batably even slower central Europe. Wh the Amerin Psychiatric Associatn diagnosg homosexualy as ‘a socpathic personaly disturbance’ 1952, Mnelli not only risked social and faial disrepute, the fall of his reer, and divorce as a nsequence of g out - he risked stutnalisatn.
“Dpe the fact that Mnelli was married to Judy Garland and three other women… was generally assumed that he was a closeted gay man who, due to the societal ndng of his era, felt pelled to marry and procreate. While many of his clost timat never doubted his te inty as that of a gay or bisexual man, Mnelli remaed eply private about the issue and avoid pletely his 1974 memoir, I Remember It, 35 years later, film cric Emanuel Levy seeks to offer a more hont and thorough examatn of the remarkable reer and plited life of the late director wh the fascatg new bgraphy Vcente Mnelli: Hollywood's Dark Dreamer.
Havg prevly thored a book about gay director and Mnelli ntemporary Gee Cor, Levy is the first to wre a full-length bgraphy of the legendary filmmaker and, rearchg his enigmatic subject, was granted special accs to letters and rrponnce om Mnelli's last wife.