Neda Ulaby looks at the current landspe of gay characters on televisn, om the hight brows of Downton Abbey to the surprisgly welg world of realy shows.
Contents:
WHO'S GAY ON TV? DADS, JOURNALISTS, INVTIGATORS AND FOOTMEN
Ey Nsbm article on 1960's TV seri The Odd Couple, starrg Tony Randall and Jack Klugman, foc on whether Randall's Felix Unger character was gay; says seri' fal episo, which will be shown on WPIX, has Unger's wife Gloria takg him back and two remarry; photo (M) * was tony randal gay *
He later starred The Tony Randall Show (1976) as a Philalphia judge, and Love, Sidney (1981) as a gay artist. Even the early 70's, Felix Unger mt have stck many viewers as dly gay. Although he spent the show's five-year n longg to w back his wife, Gloria, wh whom he had two teenage children (she had divorced him on the groundbreakg legal basis of ''pts''), the character embodied almost every cliché of the urban gay man: he was natty, neat and trim, obssed wh opera and gourmet food, repelled by sports and booze.
As much as he might have stck some viewers as a stealth gay stereotype, Felix uld also be terpreted simply as a snob a boor's world: hyper-sensive to rejectn, yet endlsly tryg to te those around him the fer thgs. For a moment, cema dienc may have speculated whether Randall uld be referrg to Jews or perhaps gays, due to his typilly effete screen persona. In a 2012 terview, the edian Will Jordan likened Randall, who was assumed wrongly to be gay by some lleagu, to the TV host Robert Q.
Lewis (born Robert Goldberg), who was, fact, gay: “[Lewis was] like Tony Randall; they were two very un-Jewish lookg guys who were both very Jewish real life.
* was tony randal gay *
A more thentic attempt to stretch creativy occurred when Randall played what he scribed as an “agg Jewish homosexual” a 1981 TV s, “Love, Sidney. It is uncerta whether the homonym had fluenced his -narratg a 1990 documentary about Ethel and Juli Rosenberg, nvicted as Soviet nuclear spi. Before that, Randall was bt known as the fastid "bt iend" figure--addg addnal gay subtext to films that already had spas-- three Rock Hudson-Doris Day movi, cludg 1959's Pillow Talk and 1961's Lover Come Back.
The show was based on a TV movie which Sidney was gay; the TV show, the character's sexual orientatn was implied but never specified.