‘In gay years, you’re rather past your sell-by date, aren’t you?’ the person ont of me said, raisg an eyebrow.
Contents:
I’M 43 – BUT I’M MA TO FEEL LIKE A DOSR BY YOUNGER GAY MEN
Sure, I’d heard the agent’s name before, primarily nnectn wh his most famo client, Rock Hudson – that Henry Willson’s secretary was the bri chosen for Hudson durg his brief marriage to unter the rampant gay mors that were swirlg about him Hollywood as he grew to a star the early 50s. So I cid old Henry served a blog spot all his own Leroy Willson (1911 ~1978) – and y, that’s “Willson” spelled wh two l’s pl, appropriately enough, a “son” add on at the end – was an olr gay man, what today we would ll a notor “chicken hawk” of an old queen, equentg gentlemen’s night clubs along the Sunset Strip bar scene where he wooed younger men for both personal as well as profsnal see, Henry Willson also jt so happened to be the head of talent at David O. Certaly none of the 1950s dreamboat beefke movie star wannab uld rist, those young men who end up wh the tenr attentns of Henry Willson as their agent, cludg his role shapg gay or bisexual actors to ostensibly straight-arrow silver-screen idols.
GAY SWEET GAY
Such young gay actors were no secret the bs, yet jealoly and zealoly kept unr wraps om the dienc who bought tickets for the fantasy played out on movie screens and fan magaz. A look to the life of Hollywood mogul agent Henry Willson today giv a unique sir glimpse at the dilemmas of his gay clients livg a double life, straight leadg man by day while nductg lively after-hours same-sex affairs and sexual liaison trysts unr the very flashbulbs of the publicy mache which had created their inic statur the first retrospective examatn sh a proverbial spotlight on the hidn soccultural history of the Amerin movie stud system through the late 1950s, which self began to pture the 1960s wh the sexual revolutn as “outg” beme a natnal passtime.
Even at that time, for a gay actor to e out of the closet was ak to mtg reer hara-kiri, not to mentn that was prosecutable to boot (not jt among actors, of urse).
While today certa high-profile producers and directors and even a spatterg of movie stars are now out and prumably proud, n easily be said that more than a few gay actors and their handlers are still saddled wh problems that Henry Willson, Agent, would regnize all too well.
18 GAY BOY
“If a young, handsome actor had Henry Willson for an agent, ‘ was almost assumed he was gay, like was wrten across his forehead, ” rells Ann Doran, one of Willson’s few female closeted dilemma of the gay actor trac s roots the movie dtry further back, however. Two of the Navy’s blacklisted clubs were smack-dab the middle of the Sunset Strip — Chez Boheme at 8950 Sunset Blvd and Cafe Internatnale at 8711 Sunset Blvd — both of which were, g today’s term, “gay iendly. ” (Gay bars as we know them today — clubs that ter pretty much exclively to gay men or women — were strictly a post-war phenomenon.
At the time of his ath, Durk was livg wh his agent Henry Willson and the two were said to be the fallout aftermath of the tragic ath of the young man who well might have been the only real love of his life, Willson quickly beme wily known for his stable of good-lookg, well-built, albe margally talented (not to mentn predomantly homosexual) male actors, each of them wh unual nam which Wilson himself personally had btowed upon Willson personally disvered and named the lik Rock Hudson, Troy Donahue, Tab Hunter, Chad Everett, Robert Wagner, Nick Adams, Doug McClure, Ty Hard, Clt Walker, Van Williams, John Derek, Race Gentry, Guy Madison, and Rory Calhoun, among others (cludg my personal favore first and last name batn, “Buck Class”).
Moreover, he has been given ial primary cred for stmentally advancg the reer of bombshell Lana Turner as well as beg Ga Rowland’s most acunts, the stereotypil Hollywood hunks of the 1950s – the lik of Guy Madison, Rory Calhoun, Tab Hunter, and others – were often eher gay or extremely “gay-iendly, ” as that phrase now turns. In a stud attempt to quell gay mors, Willson gave all of his protege clients a signature ma-up “manly” name nsistg of a sgle-syllable surname (Van, Rock, Tab, Nick, Guy) followed by a regnizable Anglo sirname (Williams, Hudson, Hunter, Adams, Madison).