FIVE GAY ACTORS IN MID-CENTURY HOLLYWOOD - WalterFilm

Contents:

• SEND HUNTER BIN IRS WHISTLEBLOWER INTIFIED AS GAY DEMOCRAT
• TAB HUNTER: HOW HOLLYWOOD'S BOY NEXT DOOR BEME A GAY IN
• TAB HUNTER, FIFTI FILM STAR AND GAY IN, DEAD AT 86

SEND HUNTER BIN IRS WHISTLEBLOWER INTIFIED AS GAY DEMOCRAT

He had been anonymo until Wednday's his openg statement, Ziegler emphasized that he is a gay man and a registered Democrat who has been acced of betrayg his party.

In his closed-door posn last month, Ziegler told lawmakers that he is gay, and phed back agast the notn om some right-wg figur that his sexual orientatn fluenc his polics or his job. “People have said, bee I’m gay and that I am workg as the se agent on this vtigatn, that I mt be a far-left liberal, perfectly placed to f some agenda. A prevly anonymo IRS whistleblower ttifyg about an vtigatn to Hunter Bin me forward Wednday, intifyg as a gay Democrat who wanted to do the “right thg.

Ever sce the silent film era, Hollywood beefke photos have tillated both female and gay male fans.

TAB HUNTER: HOW HOLLYWOOD'S BOY NEXT DOOR BEME A GAY IN

Here we ntue our seri celebratg gay, bisexual, and straight movie stars wearg next to nothg at all. Gay actors Farley Granger and Roddy McDowall are ready to share — a Coke? Gay star Gee Nar was lked wh another famo hunk — g up...

Guy Madison was a sailor plucked om obscury by gay agent Henry Willson. The troubled but betiful gay star Montgomery Clift. Montgomery Clift was sexually lked to many gay stars, cludg Rock Hudson.

Gay tck driver Roy Fzgerald was transformed by gay agent Henry Willson to superstar Rock Hudson. Rock Hudson and Gee Nar — gay BFFs or somethg more? Gay actor Sal Meo was the go-to boy to play a troubled teen — and never more overtly gay than Rebel Whout a Cse.

TAB HUNTER, FIFTI FILM STAR AND GAY IN, DEAD AT 86

1950s heartthrob Tab Hunter was another gay hunk whose reer was built (and then stroyed) by agent Henry Willson. Tab Hunter's homosexualy was an "open secret" until he officially me out a memoir and new film. Gay buddi Tab Hunter and Roddy McDowall: "Ssage or ke?

This time, however, the horny teen who gets to rnally-related ep water after beg left alone by vatng parents happens to be gay. A blon, square-jawed and wholome symbol of mid-century Amerin masculy, Hunter, born 1931 as Arthur Gelien, was gay but kept his sexualy a secret for the bulk of his reer, until g out his 2005 tobgraphy Tab Hunter Confintial: The Makg of a Movie Star.

”A product of an era that was famoly hospable to gay entertaers, Hunter kept up secret romanc wh film star Anthony Perks and figure skater Ronnie Robertson as movie studs trotted him out alongsi screen sirens Natalie Wood and Debbie Reynolds, wh whom he’d go on pretend dat. But not before an article Confintial, the bimonthly gossip rag om which Hunter’s memoir borrows s name, reported on the then 24-year-old’s volvement an arrt at a “limp-wristed pajama party” where other gay mal were attendance. The article, Hunter felt, suated he’d been party to a “gay y”, a mor that might have torpedoed his reer given the ntemporaneo moral panic around homosexualy and the “lavenr sre” that led to mass firgs.

But what would revalize his reer earnt was a phone ll om John Waters, the transgrsive gay film-maker whose mpy sensibily hadn’t yet been fully embraced beyond midnight moviegoers. But, s Insi Baseball approach to revealg the ner workgs of Hollywood before, durg and after the stud era, is a remarkably sightful, nfint acunt of and by one of Hollywood’s first gay movie stars, a label by which the famoly self-effacg Hunter would surely be ath, though, Tab Hunter’s legend won’t fa. The 2015 documentary adapted om his memoir, which n be seen on Netflix, helped her a wave of disurse about the ills of the stud era – homophobia, misogyny and abe among them – a topic that was revised last year Fd, the fict televisn reuntg of the rivalry between Bette Davis and Joan Crawford.

But there is a kd of poetic jtice that a man who spent much of his life the shadows lived long enough to see his forbidn romance veloped as a movie, one produced, as ought to be, by two openly gay men. Now that gay actors like Nathan Lane, Jim Parsons, Victor Garber, Jonathan Groff, and Neil Patrick Harris are “out of the closet” and on the rise, ’s hard to image jt how different thgs were the relatively recent past. Not only was the notn of beg openly gay and havg a viable reer unimagable, but gayns self was also a ncept pole society uldn’t untenance.