50 years on, Joe Hasham reflects on his ground-breakg role as TV's first gay character, as part of a new documentary on the Queer History of Atralian TV.
Contents:
“COULD I PULL OFF AS A STRAIGHT GUY…. ULD I BE A BELIEVABLE GAY MAN?”
Brenda Gayle... “The boys she was referrg to are a gay uple. Those noisy gay neighbours were seri heartthrob Don Flayson, a succsful lawyer portrayed by Joe Hasham, and his first of several onscreen boyiends, photographer and bisexual man Bce (Pl Wegott).
Homosexualy would not be crimalised NSW until 1984. “It mt have been surreal for Michael to be stg there, as a gay lawyer himself watchg this reprentatn on TV, wh many of those early episos showg Don reprentg gay men urt, ” Merdo says. “Michael nsirs the show so important [ terms of the gay liberatn movement] bee was gog out on a wi sle.
“At his dn by [producer] Bill Harmon, Joe’s immediate rponse to how he’d feel about playg gay was to say, ‘I jt want to make sure that my gay iends aren’t gog to have an issue wh how he’s portrayed. “David Sale, who created and wrote for Number 96, knew the world of gay and bisexual men. “There was this whole bunch of really groundbreakg taboos Number 96 and that prevented om beg sold around the world, ” wrer and TV mentator Andrew Merdo told “You uld maybe cut the nudy, but you uldn’t cut out the gay characters.