Contents:
WHAT 40 YEARS OF CELEBRY TERVIEWS TGHT ME ABOUT ATTUS TOWARDS GAY MEN
Andrews’ private life was no secret among his peers – the Oliviers would enterta him and Hosks at their home nearby Steyng – but he had never ma any kd of public announcement about , and no wonr bee homosexualy had, for most of his reer, been a crimal offence.
The most Andrews had ever done was to ht at later life when he had accepted the part of an overtly gay character the film versn of Joe Orton’s Entertag Mr Sloane. The homophobia of the tabloids was vilent those days bee of AIDS, and the verage of the last days of Rock Hudson — another Dynasty star — had been peculiarly tastels and judgemental. Did I really want on my nscience I had put not jt Andrews, but also Hosks, through a lot of lurid ‘gay secret’ headl their later years?
The third party is the hband’s male adaptatn of Bethan Roberts’ novel vers a perd recent English history – stretchg om the 1950s to the 90s – when attus to homosexualy unrwent signifint change. It wasn’t until 1995 that the actor fally felt able to nfirm what had bee an open secret, an terview wh the Daily gay men may now wonr why took him so long but, while homosexualy may have been crimalised 1967, attus didn’t change overnight. Makg such a fs about not talkg about his private life was, as Sher now wryly accepts, like “puttg a gigantic neon sign over my head sayg ‘This guy is gay’”’s hard to blame eher actor for beg fensive, as the Aids epimic had, the 1980s, not engenred sympathy towards gay men om the tabloids, only more hostily.