October 2006 Archives

I can't wait. The DVD of "The Devil Wears Prada" is coming out Dec. 12, just in time to make my Christmas wish list. My friend Eddie and I, who worship Meryl Streep, are planning to do what we did with "Postcards From ther Edge" by memorizng the best lines and incorporating them into our conversations. Eddie has already claimed ownership of "Oh do move at a glacial pace, you know how I love that." But I think we'll both be able to use "That's all" quite liberally.

Anyway, "Prada" will arrive in stores with special features including an audio commentary with director David Frankel, 15 deleted scenes, feature trailers and a fun gag reel, Fox Home Entertainment announced Tuesday.

I am counting the days.

As if Alanis Morissette isn't already lucky enough to be with beefcake Ryan Reynolds off-screen, the singer will appear in the first of three episodes of "Nip/Tuck" as Poppy, the anesthesiologist lesbian lover of Roma Maffia's Liz. Cool! At least they will have a real same-sex relationship instead of this tease Julian McMahon's character has been engaged in this season. McMahon got a magazine cover over all of this so he should at least put out! Sheesh.
Anyway, Morissette's character will be encouraging Liz to undergo liposuction

"She wants me to be my best me, to reach my full potential," Maffia tells TV Guide's Mary Murphy. ""But when I go under the knife, we will see just how much she wants me to have done. She is a control freak."

Murphy also spoke with Morisette - who played a lesbian on an episode of "Sex in the City" and kissed Sarah Jessica Parker - about her latest acting gig on the F/X drama..
"This is definitely against type," the edgy rocker says. "I feel like Poppy is my shadow self, everything that I try not to be — controlling, micromanaging, projecting all kinds of dysmorphic body issues onto your partner rather than owning your own self. "

She and Liz will share a kiss.
"The kiss felt so natural; there was nothing uncomfortable about it. We live in a homophobic culture — if it were two men they would be judged to the nth degree, but with women it is "hot." What I love about this is this seems real.

Morissette tells TV Guide that even though she and Reynolds ("Van Wilder," "Just Friends") have had an on-again off-again relationship over the past four years, she feels "like we are married already. We will most likely down the road actually do it."

Click HERE to read the entire interview on TVGuide.com.

The great Elton John, who married his longtime partner David Furnish in the United Kingdom last year, has donated $20,000 to Fair Wisconson, a group trying to defeat a proposed constitutional amendment that would ban gay marriage in Wisconsin. Voters will decide the issue Nov. 7.

Elton has been giving us memorable music for nearly 40 years now and as he has evolved as an openly gay man, he has become a real activist, raising many millions each year through his AIDS foundation and always speaking his mind on gay issues. It's great to see him putting some of his money where his mouth is!

For more info on Elton's donation, check out the Web site Towleroad.

I gotta wonder why any staunch Republican go to a Barbra Streisand concert a week before an election. I mean, her music is terrific but her politics are VERY LIBERAL and she has never been one not to express her displeasure with the Bush adminsitration.
Gay icon Streisand was pelted by a beverage in hurled by a concert-goer during her Monday night concert in Sunrise, FL. The incident at the BankAtlantic Center came as Streisand was trading political barbs with a George W. Bush imitator, according to the Miami Herald. After her anti-GOP riff ended, another man in the crowd shouted at the singer and was escorted out of the center.

Streisand appeared to shrug both incidents off, saying some people would do better to buy her records than come to her shows.

Click HERE for an Out in Hollywood report on a similar incident at an earlier Streisand concert this month.

I'm glad that Out in Hollywood isn't the only site that understands the significance of the gay storyline playing out on Sunday night's ABC drama "Brothers & Sisters" between Kevin (Matthew Rhys) and Scotty (Luke MacFarland). AfterElton.com does a terrific examination of network television's evolution by recalling back in In 1991, when ABC's "thirtysomething" showed two gay male characters in bed together which resulted in a sponsor boycott, costing the network an estimated $1 million in lost ad revenue and more than 400 written complaints from outraged viewers. ABC pulled the show from repeats and the gay characters were quickly written off the show.

Scotty and Kevin have kissed in two different episodes as their romance continues to unfold and no advertisers threatened to pull out and no conservative groups have launched a letter-writing campaign. I think it was wise of the show's producers to not use the kiss to create some buzz for the shows prior to their airings. By treating the kiss as no big deal in both the "Date Night" and "For the Children" episodes, the reaction has been no big deal. That is refreshing and so is the show's willingness to incorporate these appealing gay characters who seem like real people. Much credit also goes to the two actors who have chemistry and play their scenes like they mean it.

In my opinion, "Quinceanera" was one of the better movies released in 2006 and certainly one of the best in terms of having realistic, but flawed, gay characters. The film, which took both the Grand Jury Prize and the audience award at the Sundance Film Festival this year, has all but wrapped up its theatrical run and has been scheduled for DVD release on Jan. 9, 2007 from Sony Pictures Home Entertainment.
It is a title I will want in my collection. Star Jesse Garcia (pictured above) gives a very natural and believable performance as a gay Latino teen shunned by his family - except for his wonderful octenegarian ucle who takles him in as well as a pregnant 15 year old cousin whose father has disowned her.

The gay couple who the uncle rents from in the Echo Park neighborhood seduce Garcia's cxharacter after a party they have at their house on the same property. All is well until one of the men played by David W. Ross (pictured with Garcia at left) continues his own affair with the teen. When his partner finds out, he evicts the entire family - including the uncle who has left there for 50 years,
This drama, fueled by the racial, class, and sexual tensions of a Latino neighborhood in transition, also stars Emily Rios and Chalo Gonzalez. The DVD bonus features include filmmaker and cast commentary, filmmakers and cast Q&A, behind-the-scenes featurette and a red carpet featurette featuring footage of the filmÂ’s premiere.

I was REAL curious to see where the Kevin and Scotty storyline would go this week on ABC's "Brothers & Sisters" after last week's big kiss. I thought, they're gonna chicken out, the network or the producers or the advertisers will not let this relationship advance.
I remembered years past and how the networks had handled similar situation. They'd give us a little romance then pull the plug before things got good.

Steven Carrington was unapologetically gay during the first season of "Dynasty" and his father killed his lover! As the year's went on, he fathered a baby and married two different women! Finally he ends up with Luke (the gorgeous Billy Campbell) only to have Luke killed off in the infamous Moldavia massacre. Then of course there was Matt Fielding on "Melrose Place" who used to routinely hug his boyfriends goodnight (you hug bad dates goodnight, not your boyfriend) and when Matt finally does lick his lips and prepare for a well-publicized smackaroo, FOX got cold feet and rather than show the kiss, cut away to Billy's reaction when Matt kissed his previously-thought-to-be-straight best friend from high school.

Kerr Smith's character of Jack McPhee on "Dawson's Creek" seemed to be allowed only one on-screen kiss per season with plenty of build-up to the big moment. The kisses were always a little G-rated but still somewhat romantic.
Considering such scant gay romance in network television's past, the relationship developing between Kevin (Matthew Rhys) and Scotty (Luke MacFarland) on "Brothers & Sisters" is nothing short of revolutionary. Not only did these two handsome characters share another sexy kiss Sunday night, but it came pretty much without warning during a gala dinner Scotty was working at (as a waiter) and Kevin was attending with his family. Earlier, attorney Kevin had offered to pay Scotty his salary if he would forgo working and be his guest instead. Insulted, Scotty stormed out of their lunch.

Kevin proceeds to slowly get drunk at the gala and asks various people if what he did was insulting. When they say it was, he sees Scotty's point and tracks him down in the kitchen of the hotel:
Kevin: I never get this way. I never lose control over anybody.
Scotty: I'm supposed to be flattered!
Kevin: YES! Would you please forgive me so I can stop getting drunk? I promise I'll never offer to pay for anything again - not a dinner or a movie, not even a parking ticket.
Scotty: OK! Enough! I forgive you.
Kevin: Really?

Scotty answers with a kiss - a good one. That is until his boss interrupts and promptly fires him. Kevin smoothes it over though and at the end of the episode, when the family is dancing, Kevin and Scotty were doing a slow dance along with the rest.
As it should be.

When the call came to audition for the role of a fashion designer on the MyNetwork soap "Fashion House," Garrett Swann had already rented a U-Haul truck to move to Santa Barbara, abandoning his dreams of an acting career. The audition came with short notice that Swann actually drove the U-Haul truck to it! Even though he had little television experience, his history of party planning and working around fashion design during his years as a struggling actor helped him nail the part.

"It was just ironic that the minute you want to give up, you let go of something, and suddenly it all comes back to you," Garrett tells Out in Hollywood. "This role just came really natusally to me because I knew all about that world, about fabric and how things are cut. And with all the backstabbing the characters do on the show, I know about that from the drama in my pwn life! I even knew about throwing vases and glasses!"

Now the openly gay Swann finds himself on television six nights a week as one of Bo Derek's fashion designers. The other one is played by openly gay actor Tony Tripoli.
"When we wrere in the screen test together for the pilot, I knew when I met him we were ying and yangv and frik and frak. I'm the softer side of the pair, the more sensitive but sneaky one. Bo really liked working with Tony and I. We gave her a lot of fun and we had a lot of connection with her. It's so easy to connect with gay boys, we're so open."

The cast also includes Morgan Fairchild, Tippi Hedren, and a cast of quite attractive younger actors and actresses just now making their mark.

Swann began performing in plays as a teen, studied acting in New York at Circle in the Square and landed commercials and bit parts here and there. It may have taken until he was 37 years old to land his first job as a regular on a television series, but Garrett says he hgas been performing since he was maybe 6 years old when "I'd lock myself in the bathroom and go through every product in the medicine cabinet ands I'd do commericals."

'This is really my big break," he says. "Before when I'd go out for things, no one knew who I was."

Now, a lot of people do.

"I find it bizarre and weird to see myself on television but I'm starting to get used to it," Garrett says. "I'm getting recognized now as I travel and do publicity for the show. A woman walked up to me on a plane recently and said, 'You're that guy on television!' I went to the opening of 'Sweet Charity' recently and ["General Hospital" star] Jackie Zehman came up and told me she was a fan. It's bizarre."

Was gabbing on the phone with a friend Friday night with the television on in the background. I hear this voice. It's Mario Cantone! Charlotte's gay wedding planner'friend in New York City with lots of attitude was making an appearance on ABC's "Men in Trees" as a gay hairdresser in the small town of Elmo, with just a little bit of attitude. Cantone is giving a trim to former real-life lesbian Anne Heche's character of Marin when there is an earthquake and he lops off a big chunk, forcing her to wear hats for the rest of the episode.

I liked the fact that Cantone's character, Terri, makes it immediately clear that he is gay. "You too look as sad as the end of 'The Way We Were.'" he says to a forlorn Marin and her friend. "I watched it again last night!" When Terri overhears the women talking about a guy Marin likes because "he looks like a young Paul Newman," he interjects: "I'd fall into those cool hands Luke anytime."

He explains to the women that he ended up in this small town because while on an "alternative lifestyle" cruise with his boyfriend, he walked in on the partner and the ship's purser getting cozy in their cabin. He got off the ship at the next stop and stayed.
"What can I say?" he tells the ladies. "I love the crap out of nature!"

Traffic was bad last night. So when I arrived at A Different Light bookstore in West Hollywood last night, I expected the book signing event for Reichen Lehmkuhl's "Here's What We'll Say" to be well underway.

But there was a line out the door and things had not yet begun. I bought a copy of the book for him to sign then thought, what the heck, I'll see if he's here already so we could have a quick chat. His assistant took my card back to him and then waved me back a few seconds later. There was an exhausted Reichen text-messaging someone (I didn't ask if it was to boyfriend Lance Bass). He was exhausted from a morning book signing appearance in San Francisco then a quick flight back to LA to appear on the "Trya Banks Show" before rushing over to the bookstore. On Monday, there was a big, splashy book party at WeHo hotspot "The Abbey" as well.
"I'm so tired right now," Reichen confessed. "But I love it."
He told me his book published by New York-based Carroll & Graf Publishers has been two years in the making. "When I was given a publishing date of October 2006, I thought, 'that is so far away. That's plenty of time.'"
He found himself in a time crunch but did manage to finish the book on time. Subtitled "Growing Up, Coming Out, and The U.S. Air Force," "Here's What We'll Say" is a 343 page account of Reichen's difficult life as a closeted gay man in the Air Force. While he was able to find refuge in a secret society of gay cadets, he at one point was sexually assaulted by other cadets.
Reichen, who went on to win season four of CBS' "The Amazing Race" with his former partner, says his book is not "anti-Air Force" but is more an effort to pull back the veil over what is really going on there under the current "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy.
I asked Reichen about what it has been like for he and Bass since the former member of NSYNC came out publicly over the summer.
"It's been amazing," he said. "We'll go to events and the media will treat us just like any other couple and not even bring up that we're gay."

Knowing that a crowd was waiting outside, I kept our chat brief but when I walked out of the store, some dude in line says, "HE'S the one who is making us wait!" I got dirty looks you can be sure. Gay men can be such bitches.
For more on Reichen, visit www.Reichen.us.

>Finally finishing the emptying out of my "Designing Women" reunion notebook from Wednesday night (see previous posts pt. one and pt. two). I think a lot of gay men, if they were really honest about it, would admit to having a little bit of Suzanne Sugarbaker in them. The world revolves around us, we tell it like it is, we sometimes struggle with our weight, we adore men, we have really big hearts and, well, at one point or another, we probably really did want someone to place a tiara on our heads.

That's why I think Suzanne is the perfect gay icon. But she wouldn't be if not for the beautiful actress who brought her to life and created one of the most memorable and funny characters in the history of television comedy: the dazzling Delta Burke.
That's not hyperbole. Check out Nick at Night reruns and see Delta as Suzanne and you will see the perfect melding of actress and character operating on all cylinders.

Until I was about a foot away from her, I didn't realize how stunningly beautiful Delta Burke really is. She is 50 years old, looks more than a decade younger, and that face is right up there with Elizabeth Taylor and Vivian Leigh at their most beautiful. A quite slim Delta was wearing a black knee-length dress and had her hair a flip that reminded me of Mary Tyler Moore and Marlo Thomas from their sitcom hey-days. I was glad to be sitting just a row behind Delta, one seat over, so I could kind of gawk without her noticing. I know I'm going on a bit, but I really was at a loss for words.

But during her years on "Designing Women" (I also loved her as Cherry Cherry on "Popular"), Burke was making terrific television and was the only one of the oh-so-talented leading ladies to receive not one, but two Emmy nominations for best actress in a comedy series.

It's ironic that CBS brass was reluctant to cast her in the part she was born to play and actually had another actress do a run-through with Dixie Carter, Jean Smart and Annie Potts. But Linda Bloodworth-Thomason had written the role of Suzanne for Burke and in the end, got her way.

"When she stepped on the stage, it was so apparent she was the missing part of the puzzle," Linda said at this week's reunion at the Museum of Television and Radio in Beverly Hills. She added that none of the show's four leading ladies were exactly comfortable admitting the similarities between themselves and their characters.
"Delta didn't want to be as aware of the fact that she was the center of her own universe but it came out over time," she said.

And what would "Designing Women" be without the odd, but beautiful relationship between Suzanne and Anthony (Meshach Taylor)? The ultimate Southern belle used to ask Anthony to wax her legs, drive her around, town and even help her get her wigs on right. And when they got stuck in a snowstorm and couldn't get seperate rooms, Suzanne sent Anthony to the van to sleep with a blanket and had the nerve to sweetly say: "Night night. Don't let the bed bugs bite." But, despite the impropriety, she finally allows Anthony share the room with her and their heart-to-heart talk allowed the audience to see another side of Suzanne. Of course a few seasons later she accidentally shoots Anthony, but that's a while other story.
"Meshach and I'd get on the road (for promotion) and sometimes they'd just put us in a suite together," Burke remembers. "It got pretty tight. I knew he had my back."

In the audience Wednesday night was actor Gerald McRaney, Burke's husband of nearly 20 years. They fell in love when he guest-starred on the show as one of her ex-husbands: "He came on and I started acting all girly," she said.

Linda addressed the turmoil on the set during the fourth or fifth season that resulted in Delta leaving the show. Burke was suffering from panic attacks and depression, conditions not well-understood in the late 1980s. It led to misunderstandings between her and Bloodworth-Thomason who said Wednesday: "Despite that little brohaha we had at one point in the show, I think [the mutual respect] grew and continues to grow." Linda said she and Burke "got into a little bit of trouble" because they never talked out their issues." But the two made up when Linda created a series for Delta in the mid-90s called "Women of the House" in which she reprised her character of Suzanne Sugarbaker and they have been thick as thieves ever since.
"She really did want that crown on her head," Linda said of Delta, who is a former Miss Florida in real life and played a fictional Miss Georgia on the show.
Burke said when former Miss America Mary Ann Mobley guested on a fifth-season episode, "I was really pissed when she came on with her crown. I should have at least made the top 10."
But all is forgiven, Burke will serve as a judge at this year's Miss America pageant.

Related links from the "Designing Women" reunion:
-The Dazzling Designing Woman
-Hilarious and Endearing by Design

I wrote enough about that great kiss between Kevin (Matthew Rhys) and Scotty (Luke MacFarland) on last week's episode of ABC's "Brothers & Sisters." So now CLICK HERE to see it (again and again) on YouTube.
Enjoy!!!

I am very happy about the New Jersey Supreme Court's historic ruling yesterday that will, at the very least, give gay couples absolutely the same legal rights as married straight couples as Vermont does. My hope is that the legislature in the state will take it a step further and follow Massachusetts to become the second state in the U.S. to allow same-sex marriage.

That being said, the LAST person I want to hear from is former NJ Gov. Jim McGreevey who while in office, opposed gay marriage (he did support civil unions at least) because he didn't want anyone to know that he was secretly gay. Now the almost twice divorced McGreevey (still not legally divorced from his wife) is saying he'd like to enter into a legally recognized union with his partner Mark O'Donnell.

He tells the Newark Star-Ledger: "I would obviously look forward to having our relationship recognized. It's a blessing to live in New Jersey...[The ruling is] so profoundly emotional and meaningful. It speaks to the value of marriage and the value of committed relationships, gay or straight. It's groundbreaking and it shows a great generosity of spirit..."

As the Church Lady from SNL would say, "Well, isn't that special?"

But McGreevey did add this little tidbit to the AP: "I applaud the court's courage. I regret not having had the fortitude to embrace this right during my tenure as governor."

Yeah, the gays in your state regret it too.

So here are more highlights from the great "Designing Women" reunion at the Museum of Television and Radio last night. First off, I have to say that this had the feel of a loving reunion of people who love and respect each other and who honor what they created together. This is in contrast to a "Golden Girls" reunion I attended at the museum a few years ago when Bea Arthur seemed to not even acknowledge Betty White and Rue McClanahan sat in the middle of them almost like a referee.
"There was an amazing lack of ago," Jean Smart said of the cast. "For the first few years, every single solitary interview we'd do they'd ask, 'Do you really get along?' We didn't know what they were talking about. [Did they] ask the guys on 'Barney Miller' that?'"
Added Delta Burke: "We all got so close and talked about everything in the world. The characters became more and more of us in them and I, of course, took some of Suzanne home with me."

After the pilot episode was aired, the ladies took the stage and Delta Burke wanted everyone to know why she didn't have her Southern accent. It turns out that the network honchos didn't want the show to seem too much like "Filthy Rich," an earlier sitcom Linda Bloodworth-Thomason created that co-starred Burke and Dixie Carter.
"I was thrilled because Dixie and I had been wanting to work with Linda again," Delta said. "I was told I had to talk straight and that was as straight as I could get!"

Linda said she wanted to create a show using Dixie and Delta as well as Smart and Annie Potts, who had been standouts in an episode of the short-lived Robert Wagner series "Lime Street." She didn't quite know what she wanted the show to be about but she did know "I wanted to show women who were friends, bold in their ideas and strong in their comradrie with each other. There was no concept really - just loud-mouthed women."
"Designing Women" was initially on the ropes with CBS. It was moved around the network's schedule about nine times its first year then cancelled. Said Smart: "My mother couldn't even find us. She'd call me and say, 'What night are you on?" But the group Viewers form Quality Television, which had saved "Cagney and Lacey" from cancellation, initiated a letter-writing campaign for the sictom and it was saved, settling into a Monday night timeslot where it would stay for most of the rest of its seven-year run.
Many Funny stories were shared at the reunion. Among them, when Carter appeared in a dream sequence wearing panty hose, but no panties underneath. Says Potts: "She made the Janet Jackson thing pale. It was the ultimate costume defect." Carter's husband, Hal Holbrook told her: "They saw your pretty." At one point Smart blurted out to Burke: "Remember the episode when you drank Charlene's breast milk!?!"

Each actress was asked to pick a favorite episode.
Smart: The show when she gives birth and Dolly Parton guest-starred as her guardian movie star. Smart was pregnant in real life and told the crowd that Wednesday was her son's 17th birthday!
"I loved playing a character who was gullible and innocent and who took everything at face value. All the women were very distinct. Suzanne and Charlene were shockingly unliberated!"

Carter: The episode when Charlene wants to become a pastor and Julia gets to sing "How Great Thou Art" at the end. Carter's mother was dying and that was the last episode of the show she ever saw, her daugfhter by her side. "She got to see her little girl sing this great Methodist hymn for the whole country."

Potts: The episode when Mary Jo inherits some money and considers getting breast implants. She puts some fake ones on for a test run and asks Julia to go to a bar with her to see the reaction. Men are buying her drinkls left and right. She turn to Julia and says, "These things are POWER!" "To do a whole show about breasts. It was, at the time, pretty provocative. People will still come up to me and say: "These things are POWER!" Carter, in the scene with Potts when the line was said, remembered that she had to " turn around to keep from laughing. I just turned around and took a drink!"

Burke: "They Shoot Fat Women Don't They" was the episode in season four that focused on Suzanne's (and Delta's) noticeable weight gain. "It was out there and no one would acknowledge it, except the tabloids. All I asked was to let me have the punchlines. I didn't want to have all the punchlines be about me." (For the record, Burke is now quite slim and as gorgeous as ever.)
Smart proudly pointed out that Burke was nominated for an Emmy award for that episode (as well as one the next season) while Potts boasted that Smart had actually WON a pair of Emmys (for 'Frasier').

You put Delta Burke, Jean Smart, Dixie Carter and Annie Potts together in a room and you are going to have magic. That's what happened Wednesday night at the Museum of Television and Radio when these four amazing actresses reunited for only the second time since "Designing Women" left the air. They inhabited four classic sitcom characters on that show but when watching them interact as themselves, it is just as interesting...and FUNNY!
They joined the show's brilliant creator and head writer Linda Bloodworth Thomason for the event which had a standing room only audience filled with serious "Designing Women" afficionados. It was nice to not be the only person in the room to be mouthing the words of dialogue as the show's classic pilot episode was screened prior to a panel discussion.

I gotta say, for a rabid "Designing Women" fan like me, this was a night I will never forget. Linda Bloodworth-Thomason, with whom I'd had a terrific interview with last week, greeted me before the show with a great big hug and introduced me to Jean Smart. Then I chatted up Annie Potts before heading into the packed theater for the program. Hmmm. Where to sit? I don't know how this happened, but next thing I know, a staff member is guiding me down to the second row. Then next thing I know, the cast is escorted in and I am directly behind Linda and Delta! Annie, Jean then Dixie filled out the row. So, not only am I stoked to be sitting so near them, I get to watch THEM as they watch the pilot episode together. They would whisper to each other, give each other a look at a particularly funny moment, Jean was cackling hard during some spots and Dixie was just in a constant state of laughter.
In the pilot, her character got the most laughs so this was a real showcase for the actress. One of my favorite lines of Dixie's is when obnoxious Ray Don Simpson ("I want to thank you...RAY DON...") tries to join the women for lunch at a sushi restaurant saying they look like they could use a little male company. Dixie puts down her chop sticks, looks at him and says: "Trust me when I say that you have completely misjudged this situation."

Anyway, there were some terrific lines during the panel portion and I'll have to share those with you later today in a separate post. But what was also cool was that when I took the microphone to ask a question, Linda introduced me to the audience! Holy cow! Love her! Harry Thomason slipped into the theater after the program was underway. After it was over, he turned around and introduced himself to me.
What a heady night.
I'll finish this later, gotta get on the freeway and head to the office.

Out actor John Benjamin Hickey, who alternates between roles in theater, television and film, has roles in two movies currently in theaters: "Flags of our Fathers" and "Infamous." He recently spoke with Andy's Blog about a variety of topics.
He calls being directed by Clint Eastwood in "Flags" "The greatest experience of my life! Like being in a room with Miles Davis -- not that I've been in a room with Miles Davis, but that's how I imagine it would be like...
In "Infamous," he plays Truman Capote's longtime partner Jack Dunphy: "They were partners, lovers, and boyfriends for some 30 years and Jack led his own much quieter life. They had something worked out to where it worked for them, because Truman got around much more than Jack did."
Check out the full post by clicking HERE.
I best remember Hickey for his role as one-half of a gay couple of the wonderful, but short-lived, comedy "It's All Relative" that aired on ABC three seasons back. A friend and I attended this surprisingly intimate event at the LA Gay and Lesbian Center where Billy Bean hosted a panel featuring the entire cast. And what a cast. It also included out actor Christopher Sieber, Lenny Clarke and the terrific Harriet Sanson Harris who has since gone on to a delicious role on "Desperate Housewives." It was a magical night made even more magical by getting to meet two of the show's executive producers: Craig Zadan and Neil Meron. Their credits include a few things you may have heard of: "Chicago," "Gypsy" starring Bette Midler, "Life With Judy Garland: Me and My Shadows" and the upcoming big-screen musical 'Hairspray." They are also involved in bringing Bean's life story to the screen on Lifetime television.
"We met little resistance," he tells Andy's blog regarding ABC and "It's All Relative." "For whatever you may have thought about that show, it did offer Middle America a monogamous gay couple like a lot of married couples and I thought that was cool. It was cool to get to do that on network television -- especially on ABC. They never
censored us in any shape or form. Granted it wasn't the most cutting edge show, but even so...."

Lance Bass' boyfriend, Reichen Lehmkuhl, says he and the former `N Sync star have been dealing with threats ignited by his new memoir, "This is What We'll Say: Growing Up, Coming Out, and the U.S. Air Force Academy," about the trials of being gay while serving in the military.
"We have to be very protective," Lehmkuhl tells "Inside Edition" Wednesday. "I am not going to hide. There are threats that come in from people who do not want me to be so public and expose what is going on in the military."
The former Air Force captain and winner of season four of CBS' "Amazing Race" says that he and Bass forward the threats to private security personnel who send what they consider the more serious ones to the FBI. "Everything is being covered so we feel safe," he said.

 

Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa is profiled in the November 7 issue of The Advocate by John Caldwell. Here a few highlights:

On same-gender marriage:
"When the [anti-same-sex marriage] Knight bill came along in 2000, I put $10,000 of my own money in [to try to defeat it]."

On the roaring ovation he got in summer 2005 when he became the first L.A. mayor to show up and open Outfest, the LA gay and lesbian film festival. The men in the audience were all but whistling at him.
"Oh, I know they're joking," the mayor says. "I've attended almost every Christopher Street West [pride] parade [in West Hollywood]. Sometimes, especially when I was younger, they'd have these big sings saying, 'He's a 10.' I always liked that."

On gay friends and family members:
"I have two openly gay nephews out of three; I have gay cousins. In the 1950s, my mother had gay couples over for dinner."
On what he would say to one of his children if they came out:
"I'd love them. I'd embrace them. I've always said that. The two nephews I mentined, I love them like they're my own sons. I love them dearly."

Has he experienced a backlash from other Latino leaders over his support of same-gender marriage?
"I have from time to time, but you're always going to have people who are upset with a position you take. I don;t preoccupy myself with those who take umbrage with my views on issues. I respect other views, and I've always been very respectful that the views I come with are just those: my views."

Longtime gay rights leader Torie Osborn, who serves as a special advisor to Villaraigosa, says in the article: "Antonio is a rock star. When you're a rock star, you carry a lot of influence. That goes a long way on the controversial issues and he's taking us with him."

Well, it's about time.

Grey's Anatomy actor Isaiah Washington has finally issued an apologyf or his behavior during an on-set argument with costar Patrick Dempsey. After Washington and Dempsey, 40, clashed on Oct. 9, reports surfaced that Washington had used a homophobic slur during the fracas. Then on Oct. 19, their costar T.R. Knight disclosed to PEOPLE that he is gay.

In an exclusive statement to PEOPLE, the same venue Knight used to make his announcement, Washington said:
"I sincerely regret my actions and the unfortunate use of words during the recent incident on-set. Both are beneath my own personal standards. … I have nothing but respect for my coworkers … and have apologized personally to everyone involved."

There had been reports that Washington's job was in jeopardy and that be might be replaced by former ER star Eriq La Salle. Show creator Shonda Rhimes, who has put together one of the most racially diverse casts of any show ever on television, told PEOPLE that Washington was not being fired or replaced.

"I found (those rumors) not only ridiculous but offensive that we would consider replacing a member of our family," Rhimes says. "And also the (idea) that one black man was interchangeable with another seemed disturbing to me...We have a group of people who are more of a family than anything else. We have our fun days, and we have our days when people are tired and the work is hard."

On Tuesday's episode of The Ellen DeGeneres Show, Grey's costar Katherine Heigl played down the incident, calling it "some scuffle … There was a little burst of testosterone in the room, and then within five minutes ... they were totally fine." So what actually happened between Washington and Dempsey? A set source says that when Knight, 33, was late to film a scene, a debate ensued between Dempsey and Washington, with Dempsey insisting on waiting for Knight before starting the scene. The argument quickly intensified, and the source says that yes, the alleged slur was used, but Knight was not present at the time.

"Isaiah was running his mouth off," says the source. "Isaiah verbally attacked Patrick – he tore into him. Patrick's voice escalated and he did tell Isaiah to 'f– off, (but) that was as heated as Patrick got."

Rhimes tells PEOPLE that Dempsey and Washington "are fine" – as are Washington and Knight. "They've had conversations," she says. "They did a really great scene together the other day." The whole affair, she says, "was four and a half seconds of one day in three years. I feel like we've already moved on."

Jane Lynch has been one of those actresses who looks really familiar but you can't quite place her. She has nearly 100 guest appearances on televison series ranging from "Friends" to "Desperate Housewives" to "Felicity." But in the past year or so, this 46 year old actress has been one of the busiest performers around: Tonight, she made another appearance on ABC's "Boston Legal" as sex therapist Joanna Monroe, is a regular of Lifetime's "Lovespring International" and has been signed for a role in an untitled CBS sitcom to be directed by Ben Stiller starring his wife Christine Taylor. She also has had a recurring role on the Showtime series "The L Word."

Jane is just as busy in feature films, big box office hits, including her role as Will Ferrell's mother in "Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby" and as Steve Carell's sexually hungry boss in last year's smash comedy "40 Year Old Virgin." She has a role in the upcoming Christopher Guest comedy "For Your Consideration" and a handful of movies either in the can or in pre-production!

As a tribute to this talented and very busy actress, I am adding Jane Lynch to the "Out In Hollywood" gallery of out heroes. Check out our gallery so far and feel free to suggest any high-profile people you feel deserved to be added.

John Spencer seems to be making a big jackass of himself in the New York senate race against Hillary Rodham Clinton. First he allegedly bags on her looks and now he's allegedly making lesbian jokes.
He sounds, like a moron - allegedly at least.

Clinton's Republican opponent for the U.S. Senate, in an interview with a local Westchester County, N.Y., newspaper, suggested the New York senator and Democratic star is a lesbian. A columnist for the paper, The Journal News, said that Spencer made the insinuation last week in a telephone interview in response to a question about whether he would attempt to portray Clinton as a liberal in two recent debates. "He said words to the effect of, 'Well, you know me, words slip out, but I won't call her a lesbian or anything,'" Phil Reisman, the columnist, told the Times. "He was definitely joking—he laughed after he said it."

Spencer's camp did not deny the remark but offered a lukewarm apology. "As John Spencer said this afternoon, if he offended anyone, he apologizes," Rob Ryan, Spencer's spokesman, said.

Spencer, the former Yonkers mayor, has denied making the comments, which were published by the New York Daily News under the headline "Getting Ugly." "You ever see a picture of her back then? Whew," Spencer was quoted by a Daily News reporter who happened to sit next to Spencer and his wife Friday during a flight from New York to Rochester for a candidates' debate. "I don't know why Bill married her."

Clinton on Tuesday said : "It's unfortunate that when you don't have anything positive to say about the issues that we can get off in some pretty swampy territory."

Outraged women are jumping to Clinton's defense:
"John Spencer's comments about Senator Clinton are an embarrassment to New Yorkers of every party," said Geraldine Ferraro, the party's unsuccessful 1984 candidate for vice president. "Does anyone think if John Spencer were running against a man he would be making comments about his appearance? I think New Yorkers know the answer."

"Out In Hollywood" is nearly four months old and, I gotta say, doing this blog is hands-down the most fun I've ever had in my nearly two decades as a professional journalist. I know there are some typos etc. (which I am reminded of from time to time by some grammar bitches out there in cyberland!) but it's a stream-of-consciousness kind of process so I let it flow. Sometimes, it flows out with typos. Sorry.

Anyway, the feedback from people has been terrifically gratifying and thanks to everyone who has sent nice notes of encouragement and thanks to my friends and colleagues for reading and for being so patient when I blurt out to you in the middle of your busy day: "Have you read "Out in Hollywood" today?" Daily News online editor Josh Kleinbaum, about as busy a man as we have in our newsroom, took the time to give the site a bit of a design upgrade last week. Big thanks to Josh.

Which brings me to the point of this long-winded post. I'd like to challenge/ask regular readers of this blog to do something for me: send our new, simplified link www.dailynews.com/outinhollywood to at least three of your friends, co-workers, family members, the Sparkletts man, your postal carrier, the checker at the Whole Foods, the person who never looks up from his laptop at Starbucks, your stalker. OK, I went one too far. But you get the picture.

It feels like after four months, we have a good, solid and faithful readership and I want even more traffic on this blog! And with your help, there will be so much traffic, it'll resemble the 101 Freeway during my commute home.

One last time, that new, abbreviated web address is: www.dailynews.com/outinhollywood

Officially, I have some issues about making comedy out of a situation that involves a clearly closeted gay man married to a seemingly clueless woman - especially when that couple has a young daughter. No, I'm not talking about a sitcom based on Jim McGreevey's life! I'm talking about Sam Harris' hilariously flamboyant character, Perry Pearl, on the CBS Monday night comedy "The Class." So, while I officially have concerns about the storyline, I forgot about them tonight because I was too busy laughing my ass off.
In this Halloween-themed episode (A yummy Jason Ritter in a Superman costume is reason enough to tune in!), Perry dresses his daughter up as Audrey Hepburn's Holly Golightly (with sunglasses and little black dress) in "Breakfast at Tiffanys." His wife, Holly, thinks she's dressed up as a blind girl and the daughter confesses: "I don't get it." Daddy Perry replies: "You don't have to get it, you just have to SELL it!"

Later in the same scene, the TV reporter wife finds out she is in contention for a weekend anchor slot against a rival who Perry describes as "the one with the big boobs." His wife asks: "You noticed?" Perry reassures her: "Oh honey relax, you know I'm an ass man!"

Disaster strikes when Holly, while on the air doing a piece about a petting zoo, impales a fluffy little white rabbit named Q-tip with her high heel spike on live television. It's on the Internet worldwide within minutes under the title: "Can I see this bunny in a size 8?"

Later, their firends, gay couple Kyle and Aaron rush over to comfort Holly while still in their costumes: a cowboy and a pirate, respectively. Perry gives the sexy Aaron's Johnny Depp-like pirate costume a flirty once over, smiles, and says, "Ahoy!"

Former "Queer As Folk" star Gale Harold, who was unexpectedly killed off of Fox's "Vanished" a few weeks ago, is leaving television behind for the time being. He's headed back east to co-star in a production of "Suddenly Last Summer," the Tennessee Williams play that was made into a 1959 movie starring Elizabeth Taylor and Katherine Hepburn (both Oscar-nominated for their roles) as well as closeted gay icon Montgomery Clift.

Harold plays the Clift role of Dr. Cukrowicz, opposite Blythe Danner and Carla Gugino. The play officially premieres on Nov. 15 at the Roundabout's Laura Pels Theatre. The straight actor, who fully gave himself up to the rile of slutty Brian Kinney in "Queer," gave an interview to Playbill magazine. In it, he seems A LOT more enthused about appearing in two episodes of "Deadwood" as Wyatt Earp than about the five years on "Queer," the show that made him a star.

Appearing on "Deadwood," he says, "was fantastic! Working with David Milch [creator and head writer] and the actors and everybody on that show was really invigorating. I don't know what the best descriptive word would be. I loved it! I didn't want to leave."

Of "Queer" he had this to say: "It was full of different experiences. Working with the cast and the directors and pushing myself to places I didn't expect to be in was very positive and difficult and frightening. I'm very grateful that I had the experience to do it. It opened some doors to me. Overall, it was very positive."

Gee Gale, sounds like you had a BLAST.

I swear, I'm not trying to become the next Perez Hilton or anything. I'm still soul searching over the entire Lance/Matthew/Jake "bro-mance" post last week telling myself it was legit since Lance and Matthew addressed the rumors in a cover story in Details. Still, did i need to run about 10 photos of these hunky guys and their pal Jake Gyllenhaal? Oh, the questions that keep me awake at night. But, what the heck. Now that I've already dipped my toe in the tabloid gutter, I offer you this photo and the following speculation: T.R. Knight of "Grey's Anatomy" and Luke MacFarland, who plays Kevin's new love interest on "Brothers & Sisters," were spotted all over town this weekend and lots of pics were taken. Since T.R. publicly came out of the closet last week, obviously there is a buzz around whether these two talented and way cute actors are dating. Now, the photos tell us nothing really since there are no blatant PDAs between the two. And, it's certainly not fair to automatically link any man seen walking around with an out man as gay (I have a lot of straight friends who can tell you this!). But here's a few more pictures (one is from Perez Hilton's site which explains the silly doodling) and maybe some of our astute body language experts can read something into all of this.

My final words on the subject: In my feeble defense of the tabloid-like nature of this post, I did have to go to the doctor today for treatment of a sinus infection. I was given some drugs and my judgement may be impaired as I blog from the home office. So enjoy the tabloidy "Out In Hollywood" for at least today! Tomorrow, we are back on the high road...well, at least the middle road.

Before he became best known as Lance Bass' boyfriend, before he posed for his own beefcake calendar, and before he won $1 million on CBS' "Amazing Race," Reichen Lehmkuhl was an Air Force captain living in the closet. In promoting his new book about his military days, "This is What We'll Say," Reichen told ABC News this week that as far back as he could remember, he had dreams of being in the Air Force.
"It was a childhood dream to fly, and then it came more of an adult dream to not just fly but to … [go to] the Air Force Academy and to be an officer, to be a leader in the U.S. Air Force," he said. But when he began at the U.S. Air Force Academy, he realized that as a gay man, he was in enemy territory.
"I remember the panic that came over me at that moment realizing, 'What am I going to do? Am I going to be able to change this? How can I admit this?' " he said. "And it was all happening just within me, all internal 'cause I couldn't talk to anybody about it."
He says the 1993 policy of "Don;t Ask, Don't Tell" offers little protection: "There was definitely an institutionalized acceptance of people being homophobic and telling gay jokes and making homophobic remarks — really, really mean homophobic remarks to the point of, 'Kill gay people.' "Speculation grew about Lehmkuhl"s sexual orientation and one night he was sexually assaulted by the people he served beside everyday and the attack left him suicidal.
"A bag was put over my head," he said. "I was stripped of my clothes. I was forced to do things sexually with two other male cadets... That's when you start having suicidal thoughts, and that's when you start saying, 'Oh my God. I am so stuck in this situation. I can't go to anyone.' " he said.

But Reichen served out his commitment to the Air Force and has gone on to put himself in the position to write about it. I hope his story shines an even brigher light on this wrong-headed policy that is not only completely unfair and cruel to gays and lesbians, but is also clearly wrongheaded - something never more clear than now with so many gay translators discharged because of their sexuality.

It seems like gay men never really stop coming out of the closet about one thing or another. I've come out as a gay man time and time again but up until now, I have never come out, publicly, as a rabid fan of a show that is one of my top-five favorite sitcoms of all time: 'Designing Women." I loooooooooove that show. I've seen every episode from the first five seasons (it wasn't the same after Delta Burke and Jean Smart left) countless times and know a lot of the dialogue by heart. I think the show had some of the most brilliant writing of any show in television history.

On Wednesday, the Museum of Television and Radio is presenting a Designing Women reunion that will bring together Burke, Smart, Annie Potts and Dixie Carter together with the show's creator and head writer Linda Bloodsworth-Thomason. I preview the event in today's U section of the Daily News.

For the article, chatted with both Dixie Carter and Linda Bloodsworth Thomason and, well, we started doing lines together on the phone. Dixie did the classic: "And thaaaaaat, is when.The lights. Went out. In Georgia!" And, of course, her lines from the first show when she tells off the man called "Ray Don" and later tells her sister Suzanne (Burke) "If sex were fast food you'd have golden arches over your bed." Dixie tells me she loved doing Julia's famous speeches but after they were filmed "I'd have to drop all that information as soon as we drive off the lot in order to clear the brain for next week's script!"

One thing that "Designing Women" had from the very beginning was gay fans. "We were told right away that gay bars all over the country were showing the show and bars in Atlanta and L.A. would do the "The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia" speech," Dixie says.

Among the most memorable episodes were “Killing All the Right People� in which the women were asked to design the funeral home for a friend dying of AIDS. It was based on Bloodsworth-Thomason’s mother who was infected with AIDS after a blood transfusion and died in November 1986, shortly after the show was launched. A client overhears the women talking to the friend (Tony Goldwyn) and she blurts out that AIDS is God's punishment and added, "This disease has one thing going for it, it's killing all the right people." At that point, Julia throws her out but not before saying, "If God were handing out diseases for sinning then you'd be at the free clinic ALL THE TIME!"

Linda remembers being honored at the Pacific Design Center by a gay organization for the AIDS episode and when she walked onto the stage she remembers, "I left like Liza. It was a sea of gay people and it was one of the nicest nights of my life. People were so grateful for that show and for what Dixie had said."

Another far more humorous gay-themed show was when former Miss Georgia Suzanne realizes she has no other friends except for the three women at the design firm. So, she calls up a gal from her pageant days, unaware that she's a lesbain and clueless even after she comes out to her. "Well," Suzanne says, "I'm glad she came out. I don't know why she didn't do it in her teens but better late than never. Why should I care if she's the world's oldest living debutante!" Once Suzanne realizes the friend, a weathergirl at a local TV station, is gay, she freaks out and hides out from her at her health spa. The friend finds her and confronts her inside the sauna. Suzanne softens and the women decide they really can be friends, "once I get my clothes on," Suzanne says.

The glorious Delta Burke created one of the most delicious comic characters to ever grace the small screen. Suzanne Sugarbaker, with her total narcisism, was just a hoot whether she was bringing her pet pig to work, making Anthony wax her legs, showing up in black face to sing Supremes songs at a talent show, helping Mary Jo find a date at the supermarket or taking up smoking to lose weight, Burke played her to absolute perfection.
Post-"Designing Women," Burke reprised her Suzanne Sugarbaker role in the short-lived “Women of the House,� starred in the single-season sitcoms “Delta� and “DAG,� and created the memorable character of mother-from-hell Cherry Cherry on the cult hit "Popular." Burke also tackled Broadway in productions of "Steel Magnolias" and "Thoroughly Modern Millie" and is now on a national tour of the play "Southern Baptist Sissies."
Each of the other three original stars has also gone on to great success. Smart has been the most prominent, winning a pair of Emmys for “Frasier� and being nominated again this year for “24.� She's also been nominated for a Tony Award and had many acclaimed performances in television and films.

Carter, who was on "Designing Women" for all seven seasons, spent four years playing an attorney on the CBS drama “Family Law� and now has a juicy recurring role on “Desperate Housewives� this season with her story line beginning next month.

Potts was Emmy nominated the CBS sitcom “Love and War� then starred in the ABC drama "Dangerous Minds" in the role Michelle Pfeiffer played in the film. Potts' most memorable role after seven seasons as as Mary Jo came on the acclaimed Lifetime drama “Any Day Now� which she starred in for four years before quitting the show to spend more time with her family. She has since had a recurring role on the now-defunct CBS series "Joan of Arcadia" and starred on stage in a Los Angeles production of the play "Diva."

It was the "Date Night" episode on "Brothers & Sisters" tonight. Nora (Sally Field) had her first date since cheating hubby's death and has one too many watermelon martinis. She later tells Kitty (Calista Flockhart): "The whole evening is a haze of alcohol and mortification." This happens the same night that Kitty, jealous that her TV partner who she slept with once, has asked an intern out so dinner so she drags her boyfriend along for a double date. Later, boyfriend does what he should've done for a good when she first confessed: he dumps her!

But here's my favorite date: Kevin (pictured at left w/siblings) and Scotty. A real date with that fun getting-to-know you conversation over dinner. Kevin tells how he confided in Kitty about being gay while in high school (he was involved with her best friend's brother). He swore Kitty to secrecy but "she told the rest of the family by Christmas." Nora was not only accepting, she joined a parents of gay children group and, Kevin tells Scotty, "I became her cause celeb." Between bites of Indian food, Scotty ( Luke MacFarland) asks Kevin: "How did you get so cute?" Kevin's respomse: "I was born this way. What's your excuse?"

It's all going so well. Too well.

Scotty (pictured above), caught up in the moment and suddenly says, "I love this part. When they look at someone and they don't look away." He then leans over and kisses Kevin who almost immediately shuts down. So much for the perfect date. As they walk to the car, Kevin explains that he is not comfortable with public displays of affection while Scotty counters by saying: "You're tangled up in you're own homophobia...I can read you like a comic book, two pages at a time."

At this point I'm thinking, 'Kevin's imtimacy issues are rearing their ugly head and now we are going to have to wait all season to see these two dudes get together. Typical network television.'" But this is not a typical show, thank God, and in a later scene, Scotty shows up at Kevin apartment and apologizes for being so forward and for judging and admits to really liking him. Kevin responds: 'I'm relieved you're not as wildly evolved as you seem."

Then....drum roll............

A full, sexy, man-to-man kiss (In front of the neighbor lady even!) that they both seemed to enjoy. I know i sure enjoyed watching it. Way. To. Go!!!

"Brothers & Sisters," now my favorite show on television, has been picked up for the entire season by ABC which has three of the best shows on TV at the moment with the other two being "Lost" and "The Nine." As for "Desperate Housewives," I'm surprised at how tedious it is right now. I'll stay with it but I don't care about Tom and his pizza parlor or if Bree's daughter is screwing her teacher. I kinda like Susan and Edie fighting over Mike again as he struggles to regain his memory but mostly, i want evil Andrew back. He's being so low-key, no scheming in sight. C'mon Andrew, revert back to your sociopathic ways. At the very least, get a hot boyfriend...it seems to be working for Kevin on "Brothers & Sisters."

I know I shouldn't do it, but a lot of people do: I refilled my drink after "Running With Scissors" then strolled into an afternoon screening of "The Queen" at The Grove. Two movies for the price of one! When watching "Scissors," you feel sure that Annette Bening will finally win the best actress Oscar. Then you see "The Queen" with Helen Mirren in a flawless performance as the reignig British monarch and you know who's going to be holding that statuette the night of the Academy Awards.

Mirren won the Emmy a few months ago for playing the first Queen Elizabeth and these two very different roles of a lifetime.

"The Queen" dramatizes the aftermath of the death of Diana, Princess of Wales, in August 1997 in a horrific car crash in London. The story of her death has been often told but there has never been a movie focusing on the grieving British public's disbelief and anger toward their queen for staying holed up at the royal country estate without uttering a word or even issuing a statement about the death of her former daughter-in-law, Diana, who was the mother of her grandson William, the future King of England.

It took a new Prime Minister, Tony Blair (portrayed wonderfully in the film by Michael Sheen to convince the Queen - clearly out of touch with the public mood - to return to London, fly the flag over Buckingham Palace at half-mast, and to address her subjects in a live television address. I do wish the filmaker had allowed the audience to hear Mirren do the address in its entirety instead of having Blair's wife Cherie (Helen McCrory) talk over the last part of it. She was amusing through much of the film but in that scene, I did so want her to shut up.

But you just can't take your eyes off of Mirren who is imperious much of the time but her eyes are saying so much throughout the movie. "The Queen" takes care to help the audience understand Queen Elizabeth II more, to understand that being stoic and rigid about protoccal and clueless about real people (even her children) isn't so surprising when you consider she became Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth at the age of 25 after the sudden death of her father King George. She's now been on that throne for more than 50 years! And given that her late mother, Queen Elizabeth, The Queen Mother, lived to be 101, chances are her daughter will around for a few more decades to come!

Any regular reader of "Out In Hollywood" knows that my personal experiences often find their way onto this blog and this is another one of those times. I was in London staying with my friends Danny and Lorna for two weeks in the summer of 1997 - about a month before Diana's death.

For many years, I had been obsessed with all things having to do with the royal family so was beside myself when Lorna secured tickets for us to tour Buckingham Palace (it was the first summer the palace had ever been open to the public). It was a thrill to be inside rather than just looking through the gates like in years past and waiting to watch the changing of the guard.

But my visit that summer was also memorable because of all the attention on Diana whose trip to Bosnia as part of her landmine work was all over the headlines. I loved scooping up all the papers every morning in Britain, they are such a good read. But in the days before I left, there was all this furor over photos taken of Diana on a boat kissing Dodi Al Fayed. It was HUGE news.

When the pictures were published in one of the tabloids, Lorna and I could not find one anywhere on our way to lunch at a pub. Good thing it was a gay pub though because there was one dog-eared copy of the paper with the pictures of Diana and Dodi snogging. I looked just like everyone else but I had this feeling, that day, that it was all too much, that there was too much heat on this woman and it seemed a bit scary and out of control. So when Diana was killed only weeks later, a part of me wasn't completely surprised because I had been witness to a bit of the madness that had surrounded her.
It's still so sad.

It was a day at the movies at The Grove starting with "Running With Scissors" based on the best-selling memoir by Augusten Burroughs. As Burrough's narcissist nervous breakdown of a mother, Annette Bening gives the kind of performance for which Oscars are won. In recent years, Benning has been doing some of the best work of any actress with superb work in "Being Julia," "Mrs. Harris" and now "Scissors."

In addition to Bening, the cast is top-notch with Joseph Cross as the teenage Augusten, Joseph Fiennes as his troubled lover (and, technically his much-older adopted brother), Alec Baldwin as his alcoholic absentee father, and Brian Cox, as the controlling and probably mad psychiatrist who dopes up Bening's character of Valium then convinces her to let him adopt Augusten. He joins the shrink's family which consists of his broken-spirited wife (Jill Clayburgh's best role in years) and two daughters played by Gwyneth Paltrow (not given much to do here) and the always good Evan Rachel Wood.

The movie mixes the drama with plenty of doses of comedy with writer-director Ryan Murphy doing a terrific job of balancing the two. I might have enjoyed the movie more though if it had not been based on a true story because what this kid goes through is so terrible. And yet, he is so resilient.

I do have a few quibbles with "Scissors" though. First off, the 20-year-old Cross just seems a tad too old to be playing a 13 and 14 year old boy. So when he begins an affair with Fiennes' character, you don't get the true picture that this is a man 20 years older than him. Also, Clayburgh's character is not fully fleshed out. To be eccentric or depressed is one thing but she doesn't seem crazy enough to sit on the sofa all day eating dog kibble.

But overall, very entertaining film thanks largely to Bening's tour de force.

Singer Melissa Etheridge and her wife, actress Tammy (Lynn Michaels) Etheridge became parents this week when Tammy gave birth to twins: son, Miller Steven, and daughter, Johnnie Rose..
 
According to Melissa's official Web site, both Tammy and babies "are in excellent health." The couple posted on their site: "The creation of life brings about immeasurable love, and pours hope into the future… The joy will help carry us through our upcoming sleepless nights."
 
Melissa, 45, and Tammy, 31, exchanged committment vows in a private ceremony in Malibu in September 2003. The twins are their first children together. Melissa has two children, daughter Bailey Jean, 9, and son Beckett, 7, born to her ex-girlfriend Julie Cypher. They were conceived through artificial insemination with the help of friend and singer David Crosby.
 
Tammy is best known for her role on the cult hit "Popular" as an evil cheerleader. She also appeared in the movie "D.E.B.S." as well as Showtime's "The L Word" and the short-lived NBC sitcom "Committed."

After just checking Google News and seeing that there are well over 400 different news stories out there about "Grey's Anatomy" co-star T.J. Knight releasing a brief statement that he is a gay man, I realized that this story is becoming more compelling than an episode of the show itself!

First of all, without viewers knowing it, Knight has been proving for more than two seasons now that a gay actor can convincingly play a straight man. In addition to his unrequited love for Meredith Grey on the show, Knight's George O'Malley character has been involved in a relationship with the character played by the sensational Sara Ramirez, a Tony winner last year for "Spamalot." She and Knight even appeared together on this year's Tony telecast as presenters and were funny and adorable together.

Secondly, I wonder what the ramifications will be for Isaiah Washington who allegedly made an anti-gay slur against Knight during an argument on the set with co-star Patrick Dempsey. So far, we only have the National Enquirer reporting the slur (not exactly a reliable source) with the show's producers only confirming there was a disagreement and that everyone had moved on. But how? There are those, myself included, who believe that if indeed Washington refered to Knight as a "faggot" in the workplace, as was reported, then he should be disciplined. This should not be tolerated in any workplace. And because the resulting brouhaha led Knight to feel that he had to come out publicly, I believe Washington should make a major public apology. There's no excuse for that kind of stuff - ever.

John Stamos, whose "Jake in Progress" series I so enjoyed, is back on weekly TV in "ER" and is giving this still-compelling series a real boost. But what I'm really looking forward to seeing Stamos in is the A&E Network movie "Wedding Wars" set to air December 11 th at 9 PM.

Stamos, who somehow gets more handsome as he gets older, plays a gay wedding planner whose brother is getting married to the daughter of a conservative governor. The brolther works for his future father-in-law who is portrayed by James Brolin. The guv gives an anti-gay marriage speech which results in Stamos' character refusing to plan the wedding which results in a nationwide strike by gays and lesbians for marriage equality.

I've thought Stamos was mega-cool ever since seeing him as a drummer at a Beach Boys concert in 1987 in San Diego. Plus, he's an OC boy just like me. In fact, last year I profiled Stamos for Orange Coast Magazine and during the conversation, he told his make-up guy that I was currently single and they'd have to set me up with someone. When I mentioned that I was gay, Stamos didn't blink an eye and said, "Well, we're gonna have to find a guy for Greg to go out with."

Remember hunky Grant Show who played Jake on "Melrose Place" all those years ago? He was quite the ladies man on that 90s nightime soap that co-starred Heather Locklear, Marcia Cross, Doug Savant, Courtney Thorne-Smith, Rob Estes and Kristin Davis, among others. While many of his co-stars have had major successes since then, we haven't really seen Show in many high profile roles since "Melrose" but he is certain to be noticed in his next gig: he is playing a closeted A-List actor on the new FX series "Dirt" which stars Courtney Cox. The closeted actor is also reportedly a Scientologist for what it's worth.
I'm looking forward to this one!

Remember the days when two men in bed on "thirtysomething" had advertisers fleeing the late-80s, early-90s touchy-feely drama? Times have changed, thankfully, and hopefully will continue to do so. This was proven on Monday night when CBS aired its new sitcom "The Class" and it contained a same-gender kiss between Kyle (Sean Maguire) and his gorgeous boyfriend, Aaron (Cristián de la Fuente). No one pulled ads.

CBS describes the show as "a comedy about a group of 20-somethings inextricably bound together by having been in the same third grade class. Two decades later, their lives intersect once again, giving them the uncommon opportunity to learn how everyone turned out and to rebuild old friendships."

The show has plenty of talented and attractive actors including the adorable Jason Ritter and openly gay performer Sam Harris who is best known for his fantastic singing on Broadway and in concerts. In "Class," the very handsome Sam plays Perry Pearl, a very gay-seeming "straight" guy married to one of the classmates. Whenever he is in a scene, be prepared to laugh. He even named his daughter Oprah because, he explains, "I'm a fan." Word has it that Perry may be coming out later in the season! His poor wife! She had her heart broken in high school by Kyle when he turned out gay and now Perry.

The show airs Monday nights on CBS at 8:30.

Welcome out of the professional closet T.R. Knight, one of the stars of "Grey's Anatomy."

What a classy guy. There has been all kinds of speculation in recent weeks about his sexuality so instead of making a big deal out of it, he released the following statement to PEOPLE today: "I guess there have been a few questions about my sexuality, and I'd like to quiet any unnecessary rumors that may be out there. While I prefer to keep my personal life private, I hope the fact that I'm gay isn't the most interesting part of me."

Knight, 33, plays the unassuming Dr. George O'Malley on the hit ABC drama who has had unrequited love for Meredith Grey on the show which is a ratings blockbuster on Thursday nights. But it has been in the headlines in recent days because of a brawl that erupted last week between Isaiah Washington and Patrick Dempsey on the set. Washington allegedly referred to T.R. Knight with several derogatory slurs.

Knight is a Minneapolis native, he began his career in that city's famed Guthrie Theater. I think he is going to find that he is coming out to a big warm hug. My hunch is that Grey's Anatomy is going to have record ratings tonight.

In honor of T.J.'s very welcome disclosure, he has been added to the Out in Hollywood Photo Gallery of Out Heroes.

A true American hero, Martina Navratilova, turned 50 years old today. Born on Oct. 18, 1956 in Czechoslovakia, she defected to the United States after losing in the semifinals of the U.S. Open in 1975. She became an American citizen in 1981 and at the U.S. Open final that year, she was given one of the most memorable standing ovations in tournament history. Not only was the crowd cheering her valiant effort in a heartbreaking 1-6,7-6-7-6 loss to Tracy Austin, they were cheering a fellow American. Martina went on to win four US singles titles during the 1980s over the likes of Chris Evert and Steffi Graf and played in her last singles final at the Open in 1991 when, after losing to Monica Seles, she told the crowd: "I'm so damned proud to be an American." Then last month, Martina took the mixed doubles title at the age of 49 in her last match as a professional. An out lesbian for nearly 30 years, Martina has gone a long way toward showing the world what it is to be true to yourself, to have the courage to speak your mind, AND what it means to be a proud American.

On the "Out in Hollywood" site, I've tried to take the high road (well, one does have to try) when it comes to all of the scintillating speculation over the close friendship between Lance Armstrong, Matthew McConaughey and Jake Gyllenhaal. These three single hunks, split from Sheryl Crow, Penelope Cruz and Kirsten Dunst, respectively, have been spending more time together than with any gorgeous females.
Here are just a few of the countless pics that make various sites on a regular basis accompanied with all kinds of juicy inuendo:

Lance Armstrong clears the air on a few rumors in the new issue of Details, according to TMZ. First off, he says that despite their bike training, and the Tour de France buddy vacation, Gyllenhaal will not be playing him in a new biopic.
Of his close friendship with McConaughey, with whom he seemed inseparable last summer, Amtrong says:
"Our friendship just kind of developed. I think people see pictures and they think we're these over-grown frat guys." (they call each other 'LiveStrong' and 'J.K. Livin,' ).

On rumors of something more between the two, Armstrong jokes: 'We tried it. Wasn't for us.'"

At the ESPYs last summer, Armstrong poked fun at the speculation surrounding the trio while he was on stage at the Kodak Theater in Hollywood. In a reference to Gyllenhaal's "Brokeback Mountain" role, asked why Gyllenhaal was sitting in the front when Armstrong thought he preferred to be 'in the rear … of the theater.' Then, referring to McConaughey's recent PEOPLE honor, Armstrong said, 'The Sexiest Man Alive is here, Matthew McConaughey. We don't all have to turn and look – we all know what he looks like. Jake, eyes up here!'"

Anyway, even though no one in this tremendous trio appears to be gay, their male bonding is sucha beautiful thing that I feel compelled to feature even more pics of their adventures in LA, Miami and France:

Everything is coming up Rosie these days. Miss O'Donnell is not only a popular (if not sometimes controversial) addition to "The View," she confirmed ths week that she will be reprising her guest spot on "Nip/Tuck" as lottery winner Dawn Budge - who paid Julian McMahon's character to have sex with her for $100,000 - in a spinoff series!
The character proved to be such a hit with fans, producers approached Rosie about starring in her own show.
In the "Ask Ro" section of her Internet blog, she is asked the question, "Is it true ur (sic) in talks for a spin-off series starring as Dawn Budge?" O'Donnell posted the message, "Talks r (sic) over. I said yes."
The new series will reportedly be shot in New York City, so O'Donnell can also continue her hosting duties on "The View."
And speaking of "The View," McMahon shocked Rosie this week by appearing on the chat show with the zebra skin rug the two shot a love scene on and preceded to recreate the scene. McMahon unfurled the rug and jumped on top of O'Donnell after she sprawled out on the carpet, to the delight of the studio audience. Co-host Joy Behar also had a turn on the rug with McMahon after musing that she was missing out on all the fun.

Even though "The Mostly Unfabulous Social Life of Ethan Green" had been a popular comic strip by Eric Orner in gay publications for a decade, I hadn't ever read it or actually even heard of it until stumbling upon the movie version of the strip when it was booked at the Landmark Theater on LaBrea last summer. I wrote a mini-review of the movie awhile back. In a nutshell: I LOVED it! It was a well-acted, quality gay comedy that was truly hilarious with Daniel Letterle (so memorable in "Camp") in the title role and Meredith Baxter as you have NEVER seen her before.
On Monday night, a few cast members including the super-talented Letterle, reunited with directorGeorge Bamber and artist Eric Orner (pictured with Letterle) at A Different Light bookstore in West Hollywood (Where one of the scenes in the movie was filmed) to promote the just-released DVD of this terrific movie.

Letterle, 27, had snagged the lead just two days before the 15 days shoot shooting began in summer 2004 and told me he "was flying by the seat of my pants. It was totally off the cuff." In real life, Letterle is far different from the character in the movie and based some of his performance "on this guy who I knew when I was dancing in Europe and he was very expressive, he was always kind of cartoony."

Letterle, whose girlfriend was also at the event, was embarassed to admit that he was "oddly attracted" to Baxter, who played his on-screen mom, wanting to kiss her during one scene. "She's very in charge," he says of the actress. When it came to his several same-sex love-scenes, Letterle did not flinch, even during a sex scene he had with actor Diego Serrano, who played his pro baseball playing boyfriend. In the scene, Letterele has to wear a football helmet, but nothing else. "I enjoyed it, I thought it was hysterical," he says. "That was scene that when I read the script I said, 'I gotta do this!' I had a great time, Diego is a lovely partner." Serrano was also a partner who, in about the 12th take of the same time, ended up accidentally pulling off Letterle's undewear. "It was 120 degrees and we had been doing it for four hours," Serrano says before Letterle jumps in and jokes, "I turned him on, he was all about it." He added: "I said, 'Diego, we gotta go for it.'"

Letterle says he finds it "much more fascinating" to play gay characters. "I'm fascinated by the gay psyche, I feel like it's powerful and strong." Although his character in the cult favorite "Camp" was a bit of a ladies man, he did come close to kissing his gay best friend in the film. Letterle tells me that a kiss was indeed filmed so maybe a future DVD special edition will include the smooch. But have no fear, there is plenty of lip-locking in "Ethan."

Had a long chat with the very articulate and thoughful Orner who says he was a political cartoonist for a small newspaper in New Hampshire when, on the side, began drawing Ethan Green in the late 80s after "a boyfriend who I was very in love with dumped me. All of a sudden I had all of these innappropriate cartoon ideas. I was young and going to bars and hating it and that manifested itself in the cartoons and they sold."

Since Orner has been in a commited relationship with the same man for over a decade, "I'm not Ethan. But he's like me back then in some ways. He's coping and making his way in the world. The character is appealing but dorky, sexy, but nerdy. He's not this golden boy. He's where I thought most of us were."

Orner has had four books of "Ethan Green" books published and worked for a few years as an animator for Disney on such films as "Bambi II" and "Tinkerbell." He says the only character in his strip (which he stopped drawing about four years ago) that physically resembles anyone in his life is Ethan's overly-supportive and wacky party planning mother Harper Green "who happens to look like Meredith Baxter." That is especially funny since Orner looks an awful lot like Michael J. Fox, Baxter's on-screen son on "Family Ties."

In the end, Orner has no quibbles with the on-screen adpatation of his work.

"The character in the movie sound like my characters. They had the right tone," he says. "You hear these horror stories from people whose work is adpated but I was surprisingly happy with it."

Here are some links to Orner's Ethan Green cartoons: http://www.echonyc.com/~stone/Ethan/index.html

http://www.ethangreen.com/movie/menu.html

It happened a week ago in New York but thought I'd post a few pics from the 10th Annual Human Rights Campaign Dinner and take advantage of yet another opportunity to post a picture of my hero, Billie Jean King, who received another well-deserved honor during a special year for this remarkable sports pioneer who has always believed in fighting for what is right.

Billie Jean was presented with the 2006 Human Rights Campaign Equality Award on October 11at an event that drew more than 2,800 guests from across the country who attended the dinner hosted by the largest gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender civil rights organization.

Receiving the HRC's Visibility Award were the suddenly very visible gay pop singer Lance Bass and partner, Reichen Lehmkuhl, past winner of the CBS reality show "Amazing Race" and author of the newly released book, "Here's What We'll Say." The HRC decision to honor the couple was criticized in a Sept. 8 opinion column in the Washington Blade, a gay weekly newspaper and in an open letter to HRC that appeared anonymously on the Internet. The letter accused HRC of using Bass and Lehmkuhl to raise funds because of their glamour and notoriety, columnist Randy Foster wrote in the Blade: "HRC is not recognizing GLBT activism; they are recognizing a notorious gay couple thrust into the national spotlight by paparazzi. If the exposure of Lance as a gay man advances the GLBT cause, then shouldn’t we be honoring the New York Post instead?"
Foster added: "If we are looking for celebrity flair at the dinner, then let’s ask Lance to sing while Reichen takes his shirt off. Don’t give them a National Award for being over-exposed."

Ouch!!! At least he didn't quibble with Billie Jean. If he had, them would be fightin words!

It was a strange blip that it wasn't until Sunday that I finally saw "Quinceanera," the movie that won the top two prizes at the Sundance Film Festival. I've been writing about its box office performance for months and even interviewed its star Jesse Garcia and co-directors/co-writers Richard Glatzer and Wash Westmorland last weekend. But, I had not made the time to see this movie and boy, was I missing out. On Sunday, I walked from my house to the new Recency Theater (former Laemmle) on Fairfax at Beverly which just re-opened for business. All tickets were $3, hot dogs $1 and popcorn free. Of course the medium coke I bought cost $4 but I still felt like I was getting away with something.
OK, the movie: set in Echo Park, it tells the story of 14 year old Magdelena (Emily Rios) who, despite not technically going all the way with her boyfriend, finds herself pregnant (the sperm crawled up her leg or something). Her preacher father goes beserk so she moves in with her saintly great-uncle Carlos who had previously invited another cousin, Carlos (Jesse Garcia), to move in after his family disowned him for being gay.

Although I have strayed far from my hispanic roots in my adult years, the movie made me remember fondly all the family gatherings at each of my grandmothers' houses, cousins all around, the conversations in Spanish, the food on the stove. It took me back so vividly and that's why I know the filmmakers really got things right. I have aunts who seemed like the aunts in the movie and cousins too. I attended a few of their quinceaneras and loved being taken back to that era of my own personal history by this wonderful movie.

The performances are across-the-board terrific with the standouts being the three main characters: Rios, Garcia and Chab Gonzalez as uncle Thomas. Rios is so natural on screen and does a wonderful job of showing her characters strong sense of self which she never loses despite her circumstances. Garcia's character, however, is not as fully developed and you wonder why he has no issues with being gay (a rare thing for a hispanic kid I would think) and he goes from being unfriendly to his pregnant cousin to wanting to get a job and help her raise her kid. I love that they ended up close and supportive of each other but there is no scene that tells us how it happened.

And then there is the gay couple who moves in to the house in front as part of the gentrification of this Echo Park neighborhood. They seduce Carlos but when one of them begins an affair with him behind his partner's back, all hell breaks loose and the couple evicts the uncle and the two cousins from the back house which is a part of their property.
There's an upbeat ending, believe it or not, and what I did like was that Garcia's character really does grow into a man who has some lessons to teach those relatives who had been so judgemental.

Well, it's official. My favorite Sunday night show is now "Brothers and Sisters" on ABC. I think it is getting so good that it is making "Desperate Housewives" seem kinda silly. Of all the dumb drama going on Wisteria Lane last night (Why is Andrew being so nice to Bree? He better become a sociopath again soon...this Andrew is booooooring), my favorite part of the episode was Lynette bribing the pitcher at her son's baseball game to give an easy pitch to her son. This was Felicity Huffman at her comic best.
But "Brothers and Sisters" is proving itself to be the real deal. The characters are becoming more sharply defined, the actors are really clicking and at times, even remind me of my family. This is good stuff! Calista Flockhart is operating on all cyliders now and Sally Field continues to be a revelation.

I am, of course, watching to see how my favorite character, Kevin (Matthew Rhys) is being developed since he is the only gay sibling in the family. And by golly, he is being developed in an intelligent and realistic way. What a concept for network television!
When he gives up a date with a cute guy to accompany his mom to a golf tournament, they end up going to see a revival of "Two for the Road" after and run into the guy Kevin blew off....and the guy was on a date with someone else! Later, instead of suffering in silence, he later tells his mom that he would've rather been on that date, "not on the town with my friggen mom!"
Any single gay man with a widowed or divorced mother can certainly relate. It's just assumed that the gay son has all the time in the world to squire mom to events. Good for Kevin for calling her on it.

That said, the chemistry between Field and Rhys is wonderful and laced with humor. At the golf course, when they paired with a truly annoying couple, Kevin says under his breath to his mom: "I'd like to roast them on a spit with apples in their yaps!"
In another scene, when the siblings are trying to encourage Kevin to take their mom to the golf tournament where their late father is being honored, they remind him that he is the one who has ever golfed. He replies that he only joined the golf team in high school "because I had a crush on Matt Brown. I joined every club he was in. I even joined Future Farmers of America!"
Compare this to all the families out there, both on and off the screen, where the topic of someone's sexuality remains the pink elephant in the room. The way its handled here is oh-so refreshing.

Last week marked the eighth anniversary of Matthew Shepard's death in an anti-gay hate crime in Wyoming - a senseless tragedy still so heartbreaking. But his amazing mother, Judy Shepard, keeps her son's name and spirit alive through her work with the Matthew Shepard Foundation to "replace hate with understanding, compassion and acceptance." I met Judy Shepard Saturday night at a garden party kicking off a get out and vote campaign for the general election on Nov. 7. Judy told the crowd that Matthew, who was murdered at the age of 21, had been quite politically active in his short life. At the age of 7, he worked on his first political campaign, stuffing envelopes for a candidate. "He was always interested and informed," his mother says. At 12, Matthew ordered sweatshirts from the Clinton-Gore campaign.

Judy says that one of the first things her son did whenever he moved was register to vote. His voter registration card was found in his wallet after his death.
"He loved it and even at 7, he knew if you didn't vote, you were giving up a great privledge and responsibility. He can no longer vote, no longer has a voice to make a difference and we should pick up that (responsibility)."
In a conversation later, Judy told me "we have an opportunity to wake people up - if we could just get everyone to vote."

She added that she is "constantly amazed when (Matthew's) name shows up in the paper. It's a touchstone for people but it's also a double-edged sword for me. (Hate crimes) keep happening."

Judy says she was quite moved by the show of support from the crowd that included actors Chad Allen, Darryl Stephens ("Noah's Arc") and Tony Tripoli ("Fashion House") and, of course, my friend Trevor Daley (not the pro hockey player but one of Sen. Dianne Feinstein's main point persons in L.A.). Trevor is a real character and had invited me and my journalist friends Michael and Ted to the early evening Matthew Shepard event prior to a dinner we had all planned at the Barefoot Cafe. Dinner was really terrific but meeting Judy Shepard was something I will never forget.
"I used to think L.A. was not very caring," she told me. "But this has changed my mind."
The photo of Matthew on the badges and other promotional materials for the get out and vote effort is Judy's very favorite picture of her son. You can pledge to vote on Matthew Shepard's behalf at www.MatthewShepard.org/Vote

Rob Cowen and Daniel Lipman have created and written and produced some wonderful quality television programs over the past 30 years including Showtime's "Queer as Folk" which ran for five seasons and is now on DVD. They also created NBC's "Leap Years" which I loved but didn't last long enough, and the wonderful series "Sisters" that starred Sela Ward and Swoosie Kurtz, among others, and, I hope, will be out on DVD soon.

But Cowen and Lipman, a longtime couple in real life, created what is their most important work more than two decades ago: "An Early Frost," the first TV movie about AIDS which was nominated for 14 Emmy Awards and won four, including one for Cowen and Lipman for their writing.

They were the recipients Friday night of the Lagacy Award at the Outfest Honors event in West Hollywood for this landmark film that starred Aidan Quinn as a gay man with AIDS, Gena Rowlands and Ben Gazarra as his parents and a very memoriable Sylvia Sydney as his grandmother. Out on DVD thanks to Cowan and Lipman's efforts, the movie also won a Peabody Award.

"It was the first film about AIDS and to preserve it is very important," Cowen told me before the awards show. "It was almost lost and out of print and if not for Wolfe Pictures, it might've been lost. AIDS is still around so it's a film that needs to be seen by people, who weren't there (in 1985). I think people need to be educated and reminded so the devastation doesn't happen to another generation."

Added Lipman: "We thought that when 'Early Frost' first came out 21 years ago, HIV and AIDS would be over by now and this film would be a part of the historical record."

Although AIDS is a heavy subject, the night's hostess Caroline Rhea made sure there were plenty of light moments. This woman is F-U-N-N-Y! "I'm not a direct member of the GBLT community but I have had a BLT," she said shortly after taking the stage. She then went off on bans on same-gender marriage: "Until gay people can get married, don't let straight people get divorced. It'll happen pretty quickly!" She got a little political too: "Everytime you watch (President Bush) talk, it's like watching your parents dance - a little part of you dies." And my favorite comment: "All the gay people I know just use the voice that God gave them and are just very, very brave."
What a sweetheart!

Faye Dunaway, still looking like a million bucks after all these years, was on hand to present the "Special Outie Award" to Regent Media for its extensive LGBT philanthropy and for the many queer films it has released over the years including Beautiful Boxer, Callas Frover, Sordid Lives, Summer Storm and Third Man Out: A Donald Strachey Mystery. The company is also behind here! Networks, the pay LGBT channel that has a library of more than 400 movie titles and original programming such as "Dante's Cove." Founders Paul Colichman (pictured, right) and Stephen P. Jarchow have been tight with Dunaway since she starred in their movie 'The Twilight of the Golds."
"I know the quality and care they put into their roles," Dunaway said. The very witty Colichman, a true life force, took the stage and told everyone that his business partner and friend Jarchow is straight but that "we embrace your alternative lifestyle."

Regent has contributed more than 50 masters of movies to be archived in the Outfest Legacy Project which is a historic initiative to preserve both the history and the future of LGBT media. While mainstream films are both collected by nonprofit archives (including the UCLA Film & Television Archive) and cared for by the commercial film industry itself, independent films are largely overlooked. Gay and lesbian independent films-including significant titles from the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s-are in particular peril because of a perceived lack of commercial value by the industry and/or the filmmakers' inability to maintain their work themselves.

Outfest Executive Steven Gutwillig, as passionate and articulate proponent for the preservation of gay films as there is, told the crowd on Friday: "As a gay man, I'm desperate to know my own history." He talked about how many important movies that document gay history are in desperate need of restoration. "This blackout (of LGBT films) ends NOW," he said to applause. Gutwilleig talked to the audience about why it is so important to preserve these films: "Memory is a momument harder than stone."

After only one year, the Outfest Legacy Project for LGBT Film Preservation has created the largest publicly accessible collection of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender media materials in the world (over 3,000 titles) and announced the first two feature films slated to be restored: Parting Glances (1986) starring Steve Buscemi and the groundbreaking Word is Out: Stories of Some of Our Lives (1978).

The Legacy Project is working to raise funds to rescue these films and some of that money was raised on Friday night during a live auction charmingly hosted by Rhea who got a winning bid of $11,000 from an audience member for a private screening for 20 people of the upcoming musical "Dreamgirls" on the lot of Paramount Pictures.
But here's something I'm sure will garner even higher bids: the leather jacket worn by Heath Ledger in "Brokeback Mountain." Rhea said: "It has pure Aussie (body odor). It will get you laid for the rest of your life!" The jacket, which was modeled on stage Friday night, is up for auction on eBay for another week with proceeds benefiting the Legacy Project.

On Friday night at Outfest Honors, presenter Judith Light, who starred in "The Ryan White Story," unveiled a roster of films for the inaugural Legacy Tribute. These films commemorate the first quarter-century of AIDS and seeing clips from each of them was a sober reminder of what the disease has done to not only gays, but to the world. There were a lot of tears inside the theater at the Pacific Design Center as bits of these movies were shown. And with HIV cases among young people actually on the rise, these films are more relevant then ever. Below is the complete list of films:

Angels In America (2003)
And the Band Played On (1993)
Buddies (1985)
Chrissy (1999)
Chocolate Babies (1996)
Common threads, Stories from the Quilt (1989)
An Early Frost (1985)
In the Gloaming (1997)
It's My Party (1995)
Jeffrey (1995)
The Living End (1992)
Longtime Companion (1990)
Parting Glances (1986)
Paul Monette: The Brink of Summer's End (1997)
Philadelphia (1993)
Poison (1991)
The Ryan White Story (1989)
Silver Lake Life: The View From Here (1993)
Tongues Untied (1990)
Zero Patience (1993)

Said Judith Light: "Too many people were allowed to die in silence and some of these films are all we have left."

Prior to the start of the program at the Outfest Honors event Friday night, a gala to benefit the Outfest Legacy Project for LGBT Film Preservation, I slurped down a diet coke then set off to work the room at the Pacific Design Center. Had already said hello to Miss Faye Dunaway outside during the photo op and was taken aback when she looked at me, fire in her eyes, and screamed: "Don't f**k with me fella!" OK, she didn't say it, she was perfectly gracious but wouldn't that have been great? Any gay man would know that is a classic line from "Mommie Dearest" when Faye, as Joan Crawford, stares down the entire board of directors of Pepsi Co.
So who to talk to. Scanning the room. Hey! There is Tony Tripoli, an actor on "Fashion House" who used to be Kathy Griffin's best gay friend and was on her "D-List" series. We hadn't seen each other since summer when we did an interview at The Abbey for a Frontiers cover story. "I loved it!" he says of the magazine piece. We hug, kiss on the cheek, and I'm off to the next handsome actor: the talented and inspiring Chad Allen, an out actor who was happy to show up and support the legacy project. "It's extraordinarily important for our art to express who we are as a culure and to show where we've been and for it to be saved for future generatons," he said.

Chad also told me that he, Robert Gant and Judith Light (one of the best friends gays have ever had) just wrapped their indie film "Save Me!" and submitted it to Sundance with the goal of releasing it in theaters next year. The movie has Chad as a gay man who seeks to be "saved" at a rehab facility run by Judith's character. Gant plays a fellow rehab resident with whom Allen falls in love. The talented acting trio put the project together, nurturing it every step along the way. "It's hard work!" says Chad. "We worked three years on this project but it's exhilarating to bring stories you want to tell to life." Chad is also helping to write a script for the third movie which has him playing gay detective Donald Strachey. Turned around and there was Gant, the handsome star of "Queer as Folk." He is always unfailingly polite and thoughtful at public events and gave me his thoughts on the preservation of GLBT films: "When I was in college (at the Univ. of Pennsylvania), I took a film class on gay cinema, they called it 'cruise for credit,' and I remember seeing films like 'The Children's Hour' and all these other older movies. It's vital that we have examples from the past at which to look back on and recall to see how far we've come and how far we have to go."
And shortly before we all entered the Silver Screen Theater for the award presentations, I chatted up "Dante's Cove" star Charlie David (Toby) who I had met and talked to at-length last year in Chicago. He told me that it looks almost certain that "Dante's" will return for a third season and that making the second season's five episodes was a blast with the cast having a lot of fun between takes. "I had a wonderful time doing it, shooting on the North Shore of Oahu. It's such a fun sbow, very sexy and soapy. People are enjoying it." And what about all those love scenes with on-screen boyfriend Kevin (played by Gregory Michael). "Greg is a real sweetheart," Charlie said, laughing. He's too much of a gentleman to kiss and tell.

After the program, chatted up Brett Chuckerman, one of the leads in the gay comedy sequel "Eating Out 2: Sloppy Seconds." The title is horrible in my opinion but the movie is not. It will hit selected theaters the first week of December. Brett told me the cast had a blast time making the indie movie and it shows. He promises a good time for all: "It's funny! It's a fun crazy
little romp guaranteed to make you laugh and turn you on at the same time."

And finally, my biggest star encounter of the night, the one that really had me tickled: celeb chef Susan Feniger, one of the "Two Hot Tamales" who had several shows with business partner Mary Sue Millicent on the Food Network several years back that I never missed. The pair are still running the successful restaurants Ciudad in downtown LA and "Border Grill" in Santa Monica. Susan and her partner Liz were seated right behind me during the program so when I turned my head around as she took her seat, I startled her when i blurted out: 'Susan Feniger!" But she was so cool and we talked about her shows and her restaurants. I told Susan that the Santa Monica place was absolutely the favorite restaurant of my friend, Tim Fairholm, who died unexpectedly earlier this year. A group of his friends went to the restaurant on what would have been Tim's 41st birthday in April to toast a wonderful person who we all really miss.

Last summer's surprise hit "The Devil Wears Prada" is being developed into a weekly TV show! I'm curious to see if this small-screen adpatation of a hit feature film will soar in the way that "MASH" did or tank like "Baby Boom" did, despite the presence of Kate Jackson.

It will ALL depend on who dares to take on Meryl Streep's role as the perfectly icy and demanding fashion magazine editor. With plum parts in "Prada," "Adaptation," "Angels in America," "Prairie Home Companion," and "The Hours," Meryl in recent years has added more gloriously rich performances to her unprecedented resume which includes a record 13 Academy Award nominations (two wins) as well as two Emmy Awards. It will take an actress with the right chops and aura to take over her part in "Prada."

Here are a few of my suggestions and just imagine them saying things like a curt "That's all" and an annoyed, "DO move at a glacial pace, you know how I LOVE that."

Glenn Close: She did her first series ("The Shield") not long ago and got nominated for an Emmy. But she's doubtful since she left after just one season to go back to Broadway (she's won three Tonys) and still has plenty of choice roles to choose from.

Helen Mirren: She'd never do it but can't you just see it? She would bring so much with a part like that. At any rate, she will be too busy collecting awards, including the Oscar, for her performance in "The Queen."

Patti Lupone: My favorite Broadway diva also developed a television following during her four seasons on ABC's "Life Goes On." This would be a role she could really go to town with. After all, she's played Evita Peron, Norma Desmond AND Maria Callas on stage. She can do anything.

Since it's a fantasy that Glenn, Helen or Patti would bite, two more realistic choices:

Sela Ward: The two-time Emmy winner ('Sisters" "Once and Again") is a wonderful actress who deserves a meatier part than the one she played on "House" last season.

Morgan Fairchild: She's kinda perfect! Old Navy commercials aside, she's been playing variations of this part for 30 years! And she does wear clothes awfully well.

Anyone have any other suggestions???

Oops. For readers of "Out In Hollywood" who are not regular readers of the LA Daily News Web site or newspaper, I neglected to post a DN piece I wrote last weeik on "I Love Lucy: The Movie" which was screened for an audience last Friday at the Museum of Television and Radio in Beverly Hills. Here is a piece of it and a link to the entire thing.

When Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz were riding high in 1953 as the stars of "I Love Lucy," they decided to capitalize on their show's popularity by signing to do the movie "The Long, Long Trailer." What is not widely known is that the release of the movie in 1954 about a couple on a rocky honeymoon meant pulling the plug on "I Love Lucy: The Movie," a feature film version of their sitcom that had already been completed.

MGM, the studio releasing "Trailer," balked because they felt that having the "Lucy" movie in theaters would interfere with the film's marketing.

"We had heard about how three episodes were adapted into a movie, and it was something we were always curious about and had been looking for," said Ron Simon, the museum's curator. "We're really fortunate that it was located. It's really one of the missing pieces of Lucy's career, and we're awfully glad to have it."

"I Love Lucy: The Movie" had a successful test screening in Bakersfield before it was shelved, then lost for many years, before being located in a CBS vault by Cahn, one of the handful of people who had been looking for it.
TThe movie was actually three episodes of the sitcom, "The Ballet," "The Benefit" and "Breaking the Lease," which were linked together with 12 minutes of specially shot footage featuring Ball, Arnaz, Vivian Vance and William Frawley — who made up the classic quartet of Lucy, Ricky, Fred and Ethel.

The movie was a behind-the-scenes look at "I Love Lucy," which began with two audience members waiting in line for the show and then shows Arnaz warming up the studio audience and introducing the cast.

"Lucille Ball was so close to the museum and did quite a few seminars for us before she died," Simon said. "We always wanted to have as complete a "Lucy" collection as possible."

That footage as well as "I Love Lucy: The Movie" will be included in a DVD boxed set of 13 one-hour episodes of the show that aired from 1957-60. They will be released as seasons seven, eight and nine, but in a single DVD package. It is set to be released in early 2007.

And one more thing: I came across this must-see Web site for any Lucy fan (you know who you are) called Everything Lucy. Check it out!

My eyelids are a little droopy today due to sleep deprivation. The reason: I stayed up until the wee hours watching the last three episodes of my favorite gothic gay soap opera "Dante's Cove" which airs on the nhere! TV pay channel. Season two has been airing as five one-hour episodes. For my review of the first two episodes, click HERE.

It's gotta come back for a third season so we can find out what Ambrosias (William Gregory Lee) does with Kevin (Gregory Michael)! Just when it seemed like Kevin and Toby has all their troubles behind them, "Bro" pulls another trick out of his hat that keeps these two hotties from sailing out into the sunset.

I'm not going to do a bunch of spoilers, just going to give my general impressions of the three episodes. First off, Thea Gill is an inspired addition to the show, a wonderful actress who elevates the entire level of the show. Her Diana Childs is a perfect rival to Tracy Scoggins' Grace Neville. Scoggins really chews up the scenery this season and looks absolutely sensational doing it. I love her!

Nadine Heimann as Van is, along with Charlie David's Toby, the real heart of this show and their friendship something special. William Gregory Lee continues to be top-notch as the villainous Ambrosious and oh so sexy and John Fleming, the new Adam, really blossoms during this trio of shows and rarely wears a shirt.

The finale is pretty specatcular with Grace, Ambrosios and Diana fighting for the ultimate power of Tesom during the Solstice. Someone drowns themselves, a few someones have spells cast on them, someone gets hooked on drugs and becomes a ho. Someone thought to be straight is gay. Good stuff.

I gotta say, this subplot involving a sex club was revolting. If I want to see that kind of graphic stuff, I'll rent a porn movie. These scenes, which don't involve the regulars, just go too far and bring the entire show down a notch. I hope wherever that subplot is going, that it is quickly dispensed with at the start of season three. Big. Turn. Off. One of the season's new additions, outdoor bar owner Marco (Gabriel Romero) hasn't had much of a part so far in terms of dialogue and any semblance of depth but he has two of the most graphic sex scenes in the series history.
Steamy!

Just checked out the UTUBE video of the much-hyped dream sequence in which Julian McMahon (whose character has been questioning his sexuality this season) and Dylan Walsh share a kiss. Much like the Mario Lopez shower episode, it's a lot of hype with very little payoff. Still, it was enough to get McMahon on the cover of the Advocate recently.

The brilliant playwright Tony Kushner, whose body of work includes "Angels in America" and "Caroline, or Change," is the subject of an upcoming documentary "Wrestling With Angels" which shares with viewers his work and life during a particularly important time when several of his landmark works were in various stages of being written, being released, or being workshopped. He's so smart and articulate and the SRO audience at Outfest this summer ate this film up.

Anyway, AfterElton.com scored an interview with Kushner posted today and I wanted to share with you some of his thoughts about the damage of being in the closet and his right-on comments about Mark Foley:

“Oh, great, thanks! It's good for you [Foley] to take this moment to come out of the closet now that you have been revealed as a sexual predator.�

Kushner says the Foley affair is reminiscent of parts of "Angels in America," which featured a fictionalized version of Roy Cohn, a conservative gay lawyer who was willing to sell other gay people and Jews down the river for political expediency.

“All this really does is that it reminds us over and over again that the closet is a horrendous place,� Kushner says of the Foley scandal. “People who really need psychological help don't seek it. When you pathologize your entire sexual being, you are making it more likely that you aren't going to openly seek the kind of psychological help that you actually need.�

My great friend Danny Sullivan (the world's foremost search engine expert, not the race car driver) is among the many I heard from today in regards to my own coming out story. Danny, who now likes in the UK with his family, has some clarifications as to exactly what happened on that sailboat in Newport Harbor when I sprung the "Yep, I'm gay!" news on him more than a decade ago. He blogs about it at: http://daggle.com/061011-142318.html.

Here's a taste of it:

"Every gay person has their coming out stories. I've always wanted to start a site for the opposite, friends of gays to share how they learned. There's probably a site like that out there somewhere. I think we have fun or interesting stories to tell as well.

Greg came out to me an entirely different way. First we were coworkers, and soon after he moved in with me and another friend to share an apartment in Newport Beach. For two years we lived together, me never knowing he was gay. He kept it well hid...

Several years later -- me now living still in Newport but with my wife -- I had a day off from work. Greg was meeting me to hang out, and I suggested we go sailing. I rented a small 14 foot boot to tool around Newport Harbor in... Greg had mentioned he wanted to talk about something, but he hadn't gotten to that. So in the small talk, I asked him what was going on with another friend and joked I thought he might be gay. He was, Greg said -- and so was he, he told me.

I was completely shocked. Not upset -- just shocked that I hadn't seen it coming. I may have even dropped the tiller. In short order, I was trying to get the boat under control. Greg exaggerates it -- we never were going to head out into the Pacific. We barely had any wind. But I did spend an intense 10 minutes tacking as best I could to get past the ferry and back to the dock, so we could talk properly with solid land underfoot!

Greg was transformed when he came out to his friends. He became more confident, happier and something just felt right that I could never put my finger on. That wrong thing, of course, was that he was having to hide is true identity all those years."

***************************************************
Danny does have a way with words. He's just lucky I didn't share other stories like when he lit my Bart Simpson poster on fire or hurled my Mickey Mouse statue (bought in Tijuana for maybe $3) off the second floor balcony followed by a broom for me to sweep up the broken pieces.

Good times.

To read a nice profile of Danny in USA Today, click HERE.

With scandal currently brewing in Washington D.C. surrounding my least-favorite ex-politician who in his disgrace, gave gays everywhere a great big headache. Among his excuses for preying on underage male congressional pages, (the others being he's an alcoholic and was molested by a clergyman), he had his attorney tell the world that he is a "gay man."
National Coming Out Day takes on some added significance in this environment with the scandal still front page news and on the covers of this week's Time and Newsweek. I explore this a bit in a story in today's edition of the Daily News. So check it out!

I used to dread October 11 because it is National Coming Out Day. There were years when I thought, "I'm just gonna tell everyone!" Then I wouldn't and I'd feel like a failure and a coward. Mostly, I'd feel like a liar. I had lied through high school, college and the first 10 years or so of my professional life. I did all the horrible things: having a girlfriend publicly and a boyfriend privately; going to gay bars wearing a baseball cap and looking over my shoulder, hiding any clues to my sexuality (pictures of guys, magazines etc) any time my family was coming over for a visit; and even hung up the cover of the "Sports Illustrated" swimsuit issue to REALLY throw 'em off the scent.
Oh, brother.

But the truth is, I now have an incredible amount of compassion for the closeted person that I was. It was A LOT of pressure and I'd be lying if I didn't admit to almost cracking many times. It was often a nightmare in my teens and early 20s. I was trying to make my mark in the world and didn't want that pesky gay thing getting in the way of my dreams. I was kind of a laser-beamed focused maniac in high achiever mode: student government leader, yearbook editor, tennis team in high school, then newspaper and magazine editor in college. I wanted to be liked and accepted by everybody and pretty much was. I remember one day in SDSU's Zura Hall, where I lived, one of the guys on our floor looked at me and said, 'You are the most normal guy in this dorm.' He meant it as a compliment and I took it as one. But it was a big lie.

Then, two years out of college, I found myself somehow at the Los Angeles Times and stayed for 11 years, most of them in the closet. But, unlike the Jim McGreeveys of the world, I stopped the whole straight charade in my mid-20s when I, once and for all, came out to myself, and admitted that the girlfriend thing wasn't really my bag and that the boyfriend thing absolutely was.

Still, I built a nice, big wall around myself to keep folks from sniffing around my private life which was having its share of turbulence on the guy front. I was all business in the newsroom and out in the field and matters of the heart were not to be discussed. I gave off the vibe of "I'm here to work and my personal life is none of your beeswax!"

I started to come out to my college friends, one by one. First to know was my first SDSU roomie who I told during a drunken phone call in which I slurred something like, "I like someone and it's a GUY!" Smooth. Anyway, I proceeded to tell a core group of straight male friends since I had no gay friends at the time! At first, I assumed they would react badly and each time, I had to down several beers (burp!) before I could manage to share the news. And boy, do I have good friends. They had questions, good ones. One of them, a cute blonde said, "Well. have you ever been attracted to ME?" I answered honestly: "Not really." He frowned and said, "Why not!?!" Told an ex-girlfriend which was really tough and emotional but she forgave me and we got to be really good friends with no secrets. When I told one of my roomates from my early years at The Times, I did it when we were sailing in Newport Harbor. He was so stunned that he basically lost control of the boat and we were soon headed for the Pacific Ocean. Another friend, a female, was pregnant when I popped the news and she said, "Are you trying to induce my labor!" All of them seemed to be so concerned about this burden I had been carrying and let me know that it was definitely OK. It gave me confidence to go on and I will always love those first friends I confided in for their sweetness and support.

Then it started to get fun. I started telling more casual friends and acquaintances just for kicks and as a warm-up if I had a major coming out scheduled in the days ahead. It was fascinating and exhilarating. To study reactions, to know who REALLY was OK with it, to know who you'd probably never see again...nor would you WANT to.
It was all going well until I ran out of people to tell. Well, there were plenty of people I hadn't told, like my co-workers (at least the ones I hadn't secretly dated or slept with) as well as my entire, huge, Hispanic family. I started telling other reporters in time. When I decided to leave The Times in 2000 to take a film reporting job at the Hollywood Reporter, I was pretty out to my new co-workers, even put a picture on my desk of the guy I loved at the time, and started covering movies. With that job a GRIND, I left after a year and hooked up with the Daily News. I think I am the gayest person a lot of my co-workers have ever met and now here I am doing this blog for the paper. Life. Is. Good.

But I had put off the family "outing" year after year after year. I read books on how to do it and even attended a Coming Out group at the Long Beach Gay and Lesbian Center every Friday night for a year in the mid-90s. It was/is complicated and difficult for reasons I can't go into here (I'll save those for the book!) but culture and religion have been two of the big divides. It wasn't until I was well into my 30s that I flat-out told my family who I really was. There was the shock to deal with (I thought for sure they knew!) and just that entire adult life you have led that they know nothing about. How do you fill them in? How do you stop compartmentalizing and start being the same integrated person with your family that you are with your friends and co-workers? I'm still figuring that one out but I have nothing but optimism that the truth will continue to set me free.

After all those years in the closet (and in therapy!), I think the biggest gift I've given to myself is gradually carving out a life that is honest and authentic and putting my energies, both personally and professionally, only into what or who I believe in and love. Everything else just feels like a waste of time.

Thanks for reading...
- greg

Kenneth Anger, pioneer queer filmmaker: 'I love making films and I've always been out. My grandmother accepted me, my father did not...I was the black sheep. But I wouldn't be anything else."

JenRo, hip hop artist: "I feel that being queer, being young and woman of color and actually being out, it's a really good thing for me and the people I'm representing in the queer community. I just focus on making music that comes from the heart and me talking about liking girls is what comes out. If I write a love song, I will include a chick's
name. Hip Hop is about keeping it real."

Lance Bass, singer: "The thing is, I’m not ashamed – that’s the one thing I want to say," he explains of his decision to come out. "I don't think it's wrong, I'm not devastated going through this. I'm more liberated and happy than I’ve been my whole life. I'm just happy."

Wilson Cruz, actor: (On his decision at 19 to be professionally out when he landed the role of a gay character on "My So Called Life" opposite Claire Danes: "I felt that because of the role I was playing and what we were trying to say with the role, that acceptance is a journey, and that I was going to take that journey on the show, that in the end, the character was going to find acceptance and love for himself. For me as a gay man, to play the role and not own those values in myself was hypocritical. I thought anyone who played that role needed to stand up with him."
Thomas Roberts, CNN anchor: "I wasted way too much time worrying about this and I didn't want to do it anymore. There's no more time to lie. My personal life is much more important to me than the professional. It switched for me in my late 20s. When you hold something back, that's all anybody wants to know...and it becomes bigger than it is."

Martina Navratilova, icon: "Everything that I’ve done, I’ve known what the consequences will be but I’m willing to accept them," she says. "If I didn’t come out and pretended I was someone else, what are those consequences? I would not be who I am. Not being accepted by Madison Avenue because I was a lesbian, I could accept those consequences. My guidelines are totally philosophical and what’s morally right to me. I was never guided by
financial gain."

Alec Mapa, actor: "I really didn't come out professionally but you'd have to be deaf dumb and blind to not know I'm gay. Then I discovered that it wouldn't make a difference. What? I was going to lose out on all the great roles for Asian males under 5 foot 5? The minute I came out it was the first authentic thing I had to offer, the only authentic voice I had."

Tony Tripoli, actor: "I’m an actual gay guy on a show and I’m actually gay! A practicing homosexual who’s not ashamed of it. It’s huge to think about these gay and questioning youths flipping through the dial and to be able to see themselves in television shows. That’s great and profoundly impactful."

Miss Cleo, infomercial star: "The reason it’s scary is because in my personal experience, black cultures throughout the world have a more difficult time accepting homosexuality in their family. I have family members who will be
shocked, they don’t know. I have some family members who are very, very close to me and they do know. But I’ve been afraid of the wrath, of the exiling. When I came out to a number of friends in the late 80s, I had a number of friends who turned their back on me and walked away. That was really intense. I really believed they were my
friends."

Brian Graden, the out president of MTV Network’s Music Entertainment Group says he was "viscerally taken aback" by the reaction to MTV's Loga channel series "Coming Out Stories." He says one of the show's participants ran into him Human Rights Campaign event and showed him pages and pages of printed emails from viewers who said watching the show gave them the courage to come out in their own lives.
"I see the validation in people’s eyes as they talk about the affirmation of seeing themselves in their living room and the power of pictures to humanize all of us," says Graden. "Anything that injects itself into the cultural conversation that says, ‘We count, we are included’ is invaluable."

I'm sure there are plenty of other terrific coming out films out there but my list is limited to the ones that I have seen and impacted me the most. When you are living your life in the closet, it is so powerful to see someone on the screen take the stand that you want to take in your own life.

I'll start with the superb "Doing Time on Maple Drive," a 1992 television movie starring William McNamara as a gay college student who is intent on marrying a girl (Lori Laughlin) despite a three-year relationship with a classmate. Jim Carrey plays his older brother in this Ken Olin-directed drama that illustrates the toll trying to be the best little boy in the world can take on a person, especially a gay person. The performances are great all the way through. The first time I saw "Maple Drive," I bawled because McNamara's character was so similar to a guy I loved at the time who was trying desperately to be straight. That guy and I happen to be great friends today, thankfully, the drama long since played out. And one more thing, on a rainy day in Woodland Hills about two years ago, I was getting some money out of an ATM machine when I came face-to-face with William McNamara whose other credits include Showtime's "Beggars and Choosers" and such feature films as "Copycat," "Stealing Home" and "Chasers." I told him how much "Maple Drive" had meant to me and he remarked how often he hears that. I think it remains his best work ever!
Just as good in different ways are a pair of British films that are very powerful and have great heroes who come out in the end as their true loves stay closeted: "Get Real" and "Maurice."
Rupert Graves and James Wilby in "Maurice" (left) After Maurice (James Wilby) Graves' character is emotionally-tortured for so long by his repressed and closeted love (Hugh Grant) who enters into a sexless marriage with a woman, he falls for the gardener on Grant's family estate (Rupert Graves) and they even end up together in the end!
Ben Silverstone and Brad Gorton star in "Get Real" (pictured, left). Gorton's character is a popular and closeted high school jock, who falls in love with Silverstone's character who writes for the school magazine and is more in touch with his feelings. One of them boldly comes out in front of the entire school in the finale.

The masterpiece "Brokeback Mountain" makes the list not just because it was so beautifully acted by Oscar nominees Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal, but for how this Ang Lee film portrayed true love. In the end, Jake's character, although married with a child, is willing to give it all up to make a life with Heath. He has come to terms with who he really is and is ready to follow his heart. His heartbreak is so real and any gay man who has deeply loved a closet case can feel his pain. And for those gays who have chosen a closeted life, Ledger's pain is deeply felt when he realizes, too late, how he had given up the love of his life.

Then there is 1982's "Making Love" which may seem a little dated by now (it was made more than 25 years ago) but still rings true in so many ways. Michael Ontkean's character married Kate Jackson in an effort to be straight. He loves her and they have a wonderful life everywhere except in bed. She's clueless as he starts cruising bus stations and bars then falls in love with an author (Harry Hamlin). He confesses, Kate feels betrayed and slams a piece of china onto the floor then Ontkean moves out. Hamlin, enjoying the single life, blows Ontkean off but in the end, both he and Kate end up with pretty nice guys to spend their lives with.

The rest of my top 10 coming out DVDs:
6. Edge of Seventeen
7. The Incredibly True Adventures of Two Girls in Love
8. Kissing Jessica Stein
9. The Truth About Jane
10. (tie) Big Eden
10. Get Real

I would have included one of the more well-known movies, "In & Out" but I watched it again and it pretty much sucked. Kevin Kline is a middle-aged man (and I'm fairly certain is a virgin in every way) about to be married and doesn't realize he's gay until Tom Selleck gives him a big, long kiss on the side of the road. Suddenly he's dancing to the Village People in the next scene. Just silly but kinda worth it just for Joan Cusack's performance alone. Her Oscar-nominated turn is a hoot with such lines as "Is EVERYBODY gay?" and "I've got a heterosexual code red!"

Chatted with former major league baseball player Billy Bean on Tuesday from his home in Miami for a future freelance piece and decided to talk to this former San Diego Padres and Los Angeles Dodgers player about National Coming Out Day.
Billy was never out during his playing days and it caused him a lot of heartache, including forcing himself to play in a Padres game the day his first true love died.Now 42, he went through a lot of the stuff some guys of our generation did: married a woman and tried to live life as a straight man. But it was short-lived and he took a series of steps that have led to him being the authentic and articulate gay man that he is today. But he felt he had to quit the major leagues while still his prime to have an open life (he's been with partner Efrain Veiga for 11 years).

He came out in an interview with the Miami Herald then in a heartbreaking interview with Diane Sawyer on television. I remember it well: riding the stationary bike at a Gold's Gym in Long Beach and literally sobbing at one point. It was so raw, so honest. Billy wrote an honest memoir about his life in the closet and on the baseball field called "Going My Own Way" which is set to be made into a Lifetime movie to air sometime next year. I've met Billy several times over the last four years at various events (That's us pictured below at a Nat'l Gay $ Lesbian Journalist Assn convention) and he is really someone who I feel glad is on my team.

Here are the highlights of our chat:

On National Coming Out Day, which he makes clear is more of an opportunity for out people to celebrate their collective experience rather than being a day where people feel they have to come out:
"For the most part I'd say 100 percent of the experiences people have shared with me, they always say their lives greatly improved once they did it. None of us start in the same place and time. It's showing people that you can live a life that is complete and full in an honest and open way."

On his own coming out:
"It was just really empowering...When I was in a position emotionally to make it happen, .the relief of living honestly and being able to give my family and friends and people who care about me the opportunity to know me completely, I just became so much closer to them."

On gays and lesbians coming out younger these days:
"I think kids at this generation are light years ahead of where we were. They are so much more aware because of the Internet and blogs. We had to interact face to face which kept us from doing that. They are so much more progressive in so many ways."

On playing in tennis tournaments now, including at last summers OIut Games in Chicago:
"it saved my soul from leaving basebsall before my time,. it has let me let go of whatever regrets I had from walking away from the game. Just to feel the nervousness, to compete and to feel pressure."

On professional athletes being out:
"We just have to embrace the few images that we have and keep building positive images to create a more diverse group of people. As their lives allow it, it will just keep happening. Slowly, but it will."

Earlier this year, Billy was part of an all-gay panel for an entire season of the game show "I've Got a Secret" which aired on the GSN Network. He is now helping to write the script for the movie about his life, does corporate speeches across the country and is a partner in a Miami real estate company.

"I'm a very busy boy," he says.

Tomorrow is National Coming Out Day! Out in Hollywood will have many special posts tomorrow including a list of some of the best coming out films to rent on DVD and an interview with a famous former pro athlete who came out after his playing days were over and lots of other surprises.
If anyone is planning to come out to anyone tomorrow, whether it's your family, a friend or co-workers, GOOD FOR YOU!!!

Meanwhile, here is something Martina Navratilova told me a few weelks ago aqbout the importance of gays and lesbians being out:

"I think it’s important for anybody to be out for obvious reasons. In
encouraging everyone, particularly in the public eye, it would make
it more human. It makes it more difficult to be predjudiced if they
know who we are. It’s your neightbor, your UPS guy, your postal
worker, your waiter. When we put faces to our community and let
people know who you are, it’s much more difficult for them to be
predjudiced."

Apologies for the late posting on an event that happened Sunday but took a break from blogging last night to have a shopping spree at Ameoba Records in Hollywood. I hate to be so predictable but, yes, among the DVDs I snagged was season five of "Will & Grace," season three of "Footballers Wives" and a Barry Manilow CD (Songs from the 50s). I'm so gay!

But enough about me (for now). Sunday was the Gay and Lesbian Task Force's Leadership Awards at the Beverly Hilton Hotel. See earlier post for some Bruce Vilanch lines. A real highlight was being at the table next to the sexy star of indie hit "Quincearnera," Jesse Garcia, who was on hand to present an award to the films co-directors Richard Claster and Wash Westmoreland.

Garcia told the audience that he got the part of a gay teen living with his uncle and pregnant cousin in Echo Park by scanning casting notices in the trade papers. The straight Garcia was asked is he had any problems playing a gay part: "No dude!" he told the films casting director. "It's awesome!" "I really embraced the role," he said. "I wanted to break down doors, especially for Latinos in the industry where it's tough to get in anyway. It was just a tremendous honor to play this role and to bring it to life for those who don't have a voice."
And play it he did! In the scene shown at the brunch, Garcia shares a very sexy kiss with one of his gay next-door neighbors. I may have to add it to my next edition of Top 10 Guy Movie Kisses.
After the brunch, Garcia told me he has received many emails from gay youths who said they felt more positive about themselves after seeing the movie. "I didn't grow up in the gay community but I've learned more and I've always had gay friends. It's really cool to be a part of a community like this."

Real-life couple Glatzer and Westmoreland chatted with me about the reaction to their film which won both the audience award and the grand jury prize at this year's Sundance Film Festival.
Says Westmorland: "t's just been a continuing series of revelations. Everything is beyond our wildest dreams from Sundance to this event."
Added Glatzer: "It's been so heartening to see people embrace this film."

Gay icon and well-known liberal Barbra Streisand lost her cool Monday night during her concert at Madison Square Garden, according to the New York Post. Streisand, a friend of Bill Clinton but no freind of the current administration, engaged in some President Bush-bashing. This led to a man in the audience shouting "What is this, a fund-raiser?"

The perfectionist Streisand is famous for her carefully choeographed shows (even her chatting between songs with the audience is scripted). But she went waaaay off script with this reply: "Why don't you shut the f- - - up. If you can't take a joke, why don't you leave and get your money back."

The man got up and left then Streisand apologized to the audience.
"I'm sorry. I shouldn't have lost it," she said before continuing the show.

"I was surprised," concertgoer Nancy Heller told The Post. "She yelled at the guy. She actually said the f-word."

My take? Well, sometimes, ya gotta just say what's on yer mind.

here! Networks, home of the gothic gay soap "Dante's Cove" and other cool programming, also has some serious real-life issues to promote in the weeks leading up to World AIDS Day on Dec. 1. The pay television network has announced the creation of the Internet’s first Virtual AIDS Quilt, which will pay tribute to the many lives that have been lost to AIDS and will be unveiled on World AIDS Day.

“After 25 years, the AIDS epidemic has become a global concern,� says Paul Colichman, here!’s Founder and CEO. “HIV/AIDS has become a killer that does not discriminate based on race, creed or sexual orientation, and the Virtual AIDS Quilt will celebrate the lives of all of those who have been taken from us while helping to promote HIV/AIDS awareness and prevention efforts around the globe.�

Online users will be able to create a quilt by unloading photos and sharing stories of those taken by AIDS as part of 25th anniversary of the discovery of this terrible disease that for so many years devastated the gay community and remains a public health emergency in many communities in the U.S.where 40,000 new HIV infections occur each year--more than half in people under 25 years old. .
 
Upload your photo and story by visiting one of the here! Interactive Media sites at: www.heretv.com , www.gaywired.com , www.247gay.com  or www.lesbination.com .  Visitors will be sent a copy of their submission and will be able to see their remembrance published when the Virtual Quilt is fully unveiled in December.

Writer Dennis Hensley (The Screening Party) interviewed the talented John Leguizamo for The Advocate recently to ask about his forthcoming memior "Pimps, Hos, Playa Hatas, and all the Rest of My Hollywood Friends: A Life." Big chunks of the interview didn't make it into print due to space limitations so Hensley posted it in its entirety on his terrific blog, Driven to Distraction.
Here are some highlights:

DENNIS HENSLEY: Your book’s very honest. Did you struggle with how much to reveal?

JOHN LEGUIZAMO: When you’re writing at home, you’re like, “I’m going to tell the truth.� Then, when you start letting it out of your hands, the panic hits. Still, I hope people get some laughs out of it and that they can understand me in a deeper way and not just in an “E! True Hollywood Story� kind of cheesy, sleazy way.

DH: Gay audiences got their first big dose of you as ChiChi Rodriguez in Too Wong Fu Thanks for Everything Julie Newmar. You claim your eyebrows haven’t been the same since.

JL: I used to have thick eyebrows. Now, they’re hyphens. If you look at Patrick Swayze and Wesley Snipes you’ll see that their eyebrows are weirdly thin on both ends.

DH: You shot that film in the tiny town of Loma, Nebraska. Did you encounter any homophobia?

JL: No, they welcomed us. I’m a Latin man so when I travel across America, I’ll always have the Deliverance radar that somebody is going to come at me. But they saw all this going on and they wanted to be a part of it.

DH: You turned down the part of Tom Hanks’ boyfriend in Philadelphia, which Antonio Banderas ended up playing. Why?

JL: Because it wasn’t funny. I really wanted to do funny things back then and it wasn’t like this show-off part. There was no flash. It was just the beautiful lover and that was it.

DH: Have attitudes in Hollywood changed since you were starting out when it comes to playing gay?

JL: Actors always want to play gay. Not leads, usually, but everybody else does because it’s always the most interesting part. It’s either the part that will get the most laughter or the most pathos. It’s always the best part.

DH: You recently played a gay man reuniting with his old school friends in The Groomsmen. Did you base your character on people you know?

JL: Yeah, I did. I heard my character got huge applause at the San Francisco Gay Film Festival. People said that I didn’t portray him as mincing. I didn’t want to do any of the stereotypes -- the fashion sense and witty quips. I wanted him to be like a regular dude, like some people that I know. And he had the issues with his father, which was pretty interesting to me, for obvious reasons.

There are several things I really liked about Sunday night's episode of "Brothers and Sisters," the fast improving drama that follows "Desperate Housewives" on ABC.

Cute gay brother Kevin (Matthew Rhys), a lawyer, is set up, against his will, by his sister (Rachel Griffins) who invites a gay client (same one from episode two) to a party at the family home. As she's leaving his office, Kevin sticks his head out his door and says in a loud whisper: "Bitch!" I love it! When cute client arrives at the party with red velvet cupcakes, Kevin says, "My sister invited you here just to get back at me." (I'm not sure why) Cute client with cupcakes replies: 'For what? Being so cute?" Later, Kevin is showing cupcake guy around the house and pointing out family photos. He points to his dead dad and says that, like him, "I've never been able to master the art of being faithful." Cute cupcake guy replies: "You can't be faithful to anything until you know why you should be." At the very end of the episode, long after the party ends, Kevin can be seen slowly biting into a red velvet cupcake, and smiling.

The show really seems to be finding its footing and the interaction between the siblings rings true at times - especially when none of them can keep a secret from each other. I'm from a family of six siblings, it happens all the time, just travels down the chain at the speed of light. Calista Flockhart is beginning to show signs of life! And who wouldn't after cheating on her handsome boyfriend with her just-as-handsome television partner. When the boyfriend shows up unexpectedly as the same time as the lover calls, she screams and accidentally steps backward into the pool. Great moment.

As for the rest of the show, Sally Field continues to give the kind of performance that gives me reason to think she might win her third Emmy Award to go along with her two Oscars. It's just such a treat to see her on television again and not as Abby's manic depressive mom on "ER." Here, she is a multi-dimensional matriarch who I sense will only get more interesting as the season progresses. And I'm very eager to see where Patricia Wettig's character (the late-patriarch's mistress) will go. How cool it is to have this three-time Emmy winner ("thirtysomething") back on series TV even if her character is a skank!

He's baaack. Gay teen Andrew Van De Kamp returned to Wisteria Lane at the end of Sunday night's episode. Good thing, the show needs him. His return was handled a little clumsily though. Bree, who seems to not have given him a thought for more than half a year as she marries a man who may or may not be a wife-killer, sees a homeless Andrew on television being interviewed for a story on homeless people. Wham! She gets hit with a case of guilt for dumping him on the side of the road all those months ago. Where did she think he was? Club Med? I'm losing my patience with Bree.
And we better find out if hubby offed his first wife or not soon or i might start some kind of letter writing campaign. On the plus side, Mike the plumber finally wakes up from his coma. But when will we find out why Bree's new husband ran him over with such a vengeance?

The best thing about being invited to The Task Force Leadership Awards at the Beverly Hills Hotel Sunday afternoon was chatting up the hilarious Bruce Vilanch. It feels like I've known Bruce forever since I did once date his dentist but we didn't meet until last December at a Christmas Party. I felt like saying, "Lemme see your teeth!"
Anyway, Bruce was the host of the lunch where spunky and passionate U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer was honored along with the inspiring Alice A. Huffman, president of the NAACP's California Conference, and "Quincearnera" co-directors Richard Glatzer and Wash Westmoreland (more on them in a separate post.
Before the event began, I badgered Bruce at the pre-show mixer to tell me some jokes about alleged pedophile Mark Foley exclusively for "Out in Hollywood." He told me he was saving them for the show (by coicidence, I was seated next to Bruce's cardiologist from "Celebrity Fit Club" at the lunch. What's next? I meet his chiropractor!).
So Bruce starts off the show this way: "I was just on the phone with Mark Foley. We've been on the same page for years!" He added that he was not bothered that Foley never bothered to send him naughty emials but if "(SF Mayor) Gavin Newsom had been doing it, I would have felt left out!"
Even though the Foley scandal is revolting and it is devastating that he is claiming to be gay instead of what he really appears to be, a pedophile, it felt good to laugh at the jokes with a ballroom full of people who feel the same way.

Couldn't resist asking Bruce what he thinks of John Travolta nabbing the cross-dressing role of the mom in the feature film version of "Hairspray," a part originated by Harvey Fierstein on Broadway and played hundreds of times on tour by Bruce. "Well, he and I have been up for so many of the same parts," jokes Bruce. "You can't have a bigger flop than (Travolta film) "Battlefield Earth" so if it flops, it;s not a big deal and if it does work, he becomes Robert DeNiro."

Rosie O'Donnell famously faced-off with Tom Selleck several years ago over gun control on her old daytime chatfest. That was just a warm-up. On a recent episode of "The View," the liberal anti-gun Rosie took on resident conservative Elizabeth Hasselbeck. The shooting at an Amish school in Pennsylvania led to a fiery debate over gun control:
Rosie: "I think the horror of imagining six to thirteen-year-old girls handcuffed together and shot execution style, one by one, is perhaps enough to awaken the nation that maybe we need some stricter gun control laws."

Elizabeth "So you can’t- You can't take way the right to, to bear arms...It is a right. It’s in our Constitution. It’s the Second Amendment."

Rosiel: "Well, let’s talk instead of yell."

Elizabeth "I’m not yelling."

Later...

Rosie: "Well, what about this? The firearm death rate among children in America 0 to 14 is 12 times higher then all 25 other industrialized nation combined. Combined."

Elizabeth: "What about the fact that firearms- Well, firearms are used 60 times more to defend people then they are to take a life in this country, too. That’s another statistic. This is why we have the debate."

More back and forth follows with neither woman backing down. Finally Joy Behar breaks the tension with some of her humor:

Behar: "I think people want to hunt, that's a right as you’re describing with their rifles. Why do they need an AK--47? Are these deer in the Israeli army?"

In the new issue of Vanity Fair, coverboy George Clooney tells the mag about his perfect solution to the never-ending curiosity and speculation about his lovelife: he will simply date everyone..including LEO!

"Here is my theory on debunking photographs in magazines, you know, the paparazzi photographs,� he says in the October issue. “I want to spend every single night for three months going out with a different famous actress. You know, Halle Berry one night, Salma Hayek the next, and then walk on the beach holding hands with Leonardo DiCaprio."

Those are some pics I'd like to see!

While Cher is selling off her belongings, another Oscar-winning 60-year-old gay icon is busy working. That was a very upbeat Liza Minnelli greeting giddy fans outside "The Today Show" on Thursday morning before sitting down for an interview with Meredith Viera, the best thing to happen to morning television since Jane Pauley. Liza hadn't slept a wink since she had been up until the wee hours filming an episode of "Law & Order: Criminal Intent." Minnelli plays a former beauty queen whose daughter, an aspiring beauty queen, was found murdered on Halloween night. She described the role as Patsy Ramsey, "only crazier!" The episode, called ''Masquerade,'' is filming now and will air in November. Liza, the star of "Cabaret" and "New York, New York," has found steady work on the small screen including a few seasons on "Arrested Development" in a hilarious recurring role.

Viera is so cool. Toward the end of the chat, she asked Liza about her soon-to-be ex, David Guest, whose silly spousal abuse case was kicked out of court. Says Liza: "The word dismissed never sounded so good." But the three-time Tony Award winner declined to comment further on the strange dude she married.

"the guy wears sunglasses indoors! That shoulda been your first clue!" Viera told Liza, sounding much like her old self from "The View." Liza cackled and could be seen giving Viera a playful scolding slap on the knee before giving her a big hug as the show was going to commercial.
Love both those dames.

The priceless Cher, winner of an Oscar, an Emmy and a Grammy and loved by gay men everywhere, put more than 700 of her belongings up for auction and they fetched over $3.5 million, more than double pre-sale estimates. Up for auction at the Beverly Hilton Hotel were more than 700 of her paintings, furniture, works of art, pieces of clothing and jewelry to the highest bidders.
The top clothing item? A rock and roll costume designed by Bob Mackie which sold for $60,000. It had been estimated at between $2,000 and $3,000.
Other big ticket items were Cher's 2005 black Bentley which sold for $204,000 and a "Gothic Revival" brass bed from the star's Malibu home took in $84,000.
The auction was held at Sotherby's and run by Julien's Auctions. Part of the proceeds from the two-day sale will be donated to charity, and Cher will use some of the proceeds to redecorate her Malibu mansion.
"Today every single lot found a buyer, a true testament to Cher's fan base and longevity as a performer and star," says Julien's Auctions President Darren Julien.

Caught the "ER" episode Thursday night with John Mahoney as a drag queen fighting the family of his lover who is hovering near death. Mahoney, best known for his role as the conservative ex-cop dad of Niles and "Frasier" Crane on the long-running NBC series, was just terrific. He tries to stay in the background as his partner's estranged family, which hasn't seen the ill man in many years, are trying to decide his fate. What a nightmare. This episode alone should have same-gender couples everywhere getting their paperwork in order if they haven't already. Anyway, after they keep trying to shove him aside, Mahoney's character finally screams to his partner's homophobic family: "I love him! I love him!" The episode didn't have a happy ending but Mahoney's does go on stage that night, in drag, in honor of his comatose lover. And here's the shock: he wasn't such a bad looking older woman. He looked a bit like Tallula Bankhead in her later years!

But, I'll tell you what was really touching: the scene between Mahoney and new "ER" leading man John Stamos (a very, very welcome addition to this still vital show) at the end of the episode. Mahoney is telling Stamos about how happy he is when he is up on stage, selling a song in drag. Stamos then says to him: 'You make me want to be a drag queen."
I don't think even Geroge Clooney could have played that scene better.

She was Lucy Ewing on "Dallas" for many years and last night, Charlene Tilton livened up the TV DVD Awards at the Century Plaza Hotel which she co-hosted. "I didn't even know i was doing this until yesterday!" she told me after the event. I asked her some silly questions like who was the cutest Ewing and she said her father Gary Ewing, played by Ted Shackleford, who mostly played the role on "Knots Landing." Lucy had many steamy affairs as on the prime-time soap but Charlene says her favorite was Kit Mainwaring, played by Mark Wheeler, who broke Lucy's heart when he turned out to be gay. Her uncle J.R. (Larry Hagman) had gotten them together as sort of a business merger since Kit's family had a fortune. "He came out of the closet and came out to (Lucy) and she was devastated," Tilton recalls. "This was 25 years ago and it was handled so well. They didn't use the word gay, they used homosexual. It was my favorite storyline, the best I ever had. It was so ahead of its time."
We walked down memory lane a bit and Tilton laughed at some of her character's antics over the years which included accusing her high school teacher of rape because he gave her a bad grade! "I go into the bathroom and start cutting off these expensive clothes and run out saying, 'He raped me!'"

Charlene, who has a 24 year old daughter, has kept busy since the series left the air in the last 80s with movie appearances and TV guest spots. She co-executive produced the highly-rated "Dallas Reunion: Return to Southfork" on CBS in 2004 and last year, she was on the reality show "The Farm." Next up for Tilton is an indie film she is producing on the life of Tammy Faye. Tilton will play Tammy Faye, a very vocal supporter of the gay community, who is currently fighting cancer.
"I'm honored to play her," Charlene says. "When you are in her presence, she just exudes the pure love of God. she's so non-judgmental. She came out of all that happened to her as the most loving human being."

Was introduced to "Three's Company" star Joyce DeWitt last night after the TV DVD Awards in Century City and, of course, then cornered her for an exclusive interview for Out in Hollyhwood. She could not have been nicer or looked better. Really, it was as if time had stood still since she left the airwaves as perky and loveable Janet Wood who shared her apartment with Jack Tripper (John Ritter) and Chrissy Snow (Suzanne Somers) and later Terri Alden (Prisilla Barnes).
With the eighth and final season of "Three's Company" just out, DeWitt told me she is ready tio give show business another try after many, many years away from the spotlight during which she traveled the world and studied different religions.
"I left and have been meditating nine hours a day for a decade," she says. "I'm in the process of going back to work.I sense it's time to participate in a larger way again. I'm not allowed to hide anymore!"
She jokes that she has a form of "organized schizophrenia" with an astrological chart that is "classical hermit" combined with showbiz leanings

The last season of "Three's Company" has DeWitt's character getting married which was how the producers worte her and Barnes out of the show which would continue on for one more season as the retitled "Three's A Crowd" with Ritter as Tripper in a new live-in relationship. "I would have had her go to law school!" DeWitt says of her character. The poor handling by producers of the transition (DeWitt and Barnes were not told they were being written off until after an episode with the new cast was already shot and it was all in motion). DeWitt was turned off acting for a long time. but whatever she was doing instead certainly has left her looking relaxed and youthful. While famously estranged from Somers ("I don't talk about that") who was fired after season five in a contract dispute, DeWitt did remain friends with Ritter who died in 2003. I told Joyce about an interview I did with Ritter about three weeks before his death for a magazine profile and he had happily told me of a dinner he had with DeWitt in New York earlier that summer. "John used to say we weren't just there to make people laugh. We were there to make them laugh so hard that they fall off their couch. We were willing to do anything to tickle your funny bone and have joy in the moment."

She is thrilled to see the success of Jason Ritter who is starring in the new CBS sitcom "The Class" and whose other roles include a role as a musician who comes out in the indie film "Happy Endings."
"Jason looks like his dad!" Dewitt says. "Then he also looks like his mom! He comes from an amazing and beautiful lineage but Jason is his own person with his own distinct talent. He marches to his own drummer. Part of what he and John enjoyed most was their adult relationship."

John Mahoney has a role on tonight's "ER" that is a dramatic deparfure from his best-known part as Marftin Crane, the father of the fussy Niles and "Frazier" Crane. He plays an aging drag queen on the medical drama whose partner is still in the closet. The partner is brought to the hospital with congestive heart failure. He's not only coping with the partner's health crisis, but he is forced to fight his family to keep him alive. The episode illustrates how vulnerable gay couples are legally since they cannot be legally married in almost all U.S. states. It's a reminder of how important it is to legalize a committed relationship as much as possible with such things as domestic partnerships and power of attorney etc.

As for Mahoney, he has played gay before, most notabely on the memorable indie "The Broken Hearts Club" where he was a restaurant owner and coach of a gay softball team that included characters played by Zach Braff, Timothy Olyphant and Dean Cain.

Had a nice conversation with filmmaker Carlos Portugal this morning. His movie "East Side Story" will screen Friday night as the only gay-themed film that is part of the Los Angeles International Latino Film Festival. Portugal, a gay Latino man who executive produced some Spanish-language comedies that aired on Telemundo, wrote and directed this romantic comedy.
Explains Portugal: "It is a comedy that pushes buttons.Ii'm an openly gay man and I point out what I think is wrong with the gay culture and the Latino culture; the Latino men who are on the downlow and also the racism and homophobia in the Latino culture. I also show how racist and closed-minded gays can be at tinmes, certain white gays only want to be around other certain white gays."
The movie tells the story of Diego Campos who is tired of living in East Los Angeles and being on the “down low� with the ultra-macho Pablo Morales. Things heat up when Diego is outed and Pablo decides to take cover by dating Bianca Campos, Diego’s young Aunt. Meanwhile, Diego turns his affections to Wesley, an openly gay Anglo, who along with Jonathan, his jealous boyfriend, have bought the house next door.
"I wanted to tell a story that came from the heart, about relationships and family and falling in love and falling out of love.It's a very sweet romantic comedy about coming out and coming home."

The movie, which was filmed in 21 days in Los Angeles, was made on a shoestring budget with a cast of unknown actors. Portugal says he "called in all my favors" to get the movie made. Fortunately, he had made lots of contacts and friends during his 10 years in the entertainment business.
"Everyone said yes and showed up," he says. "They donated their time, helped with catering, you name it. It was a labor of love. You hear a lot of horror stories about first time movies but we all worked together well and had so much fun together."
Portugal, 38, is of Cujban descent and grew up in Miami. But he has lived in Los Angeles for the last 20 years. The movie isn't exactly autobiograhical but there are similarities to his own life.
"The story is an original story but I was raised by my grandma as the characterin the film was, been on the downlow with Latino guys and had a white boyfriend as he does. You have twice the hurdles of someone who is just a white gay man. It can be a lot more dramatic but I also think it can be a lot more funny."

The movie has also been accepted at the International film festivals in San Francisco and San Diego and was the audience favorite at the Philadelpia Gay Film Festival. There is heavy distribution interest but a deal has not yet been sealed.
"East Side Story" screens 9:30 p.m. at the Egyptian Theater, 6712 Hollywood Blvd., Hollywood. Tickets can be purchased at www. latinofilm.org or at ticketweb .com

If you've been watching Fox News Channel, disgraced former congressman Mark Foley has apparently had his party affiliation switched post-resignation. I wouldn't want him either but c'mon!
This is what appeared on Bill O'Reilly's show twice last night and one other time on Fox:

I came down hard on Jim McGreevey a few weeks back but good God, he now looks pretty good when you compare his misdeeds and lies with the possibly illegal activity of Mark Foley! Afterelton.com interviewed McGreevey about his book and he lays his cards out on the table. For that, he deserves some measure of credit. He also seems to have done a great deal of self-reflection as opposed to Foley's excuses to preying in teenage male pages: I'm gay, I'm an alcoholic and I was molested by a priest. Dude, Get. A. Shrink.

Anyway, here are some excerpts from the McGreevey chat:

AfterElton.com: The title of your book is The Confession — not The Apology, or The Coming-Out, or My Life in the Closet. But a confession takes place after some sort of wrongdoing. What is it, exactly, that you see yourself confessing to?
James McGreevey: I’m confessing to my inability to live my truth, and confessing to the fact that for the majority of my adult life, I lived a lie. I’m confessing to the reality that I embraced fear as opposed to my identity, and most basically, that I didn’t accept my truth.

AE: The media have been focusing on the sexual aspects of the book, although it’s mostly about your political career and your family life — and the quandaries of the closet with respect to those parts of your life. Why has the media ignored the much larger political aspect of your story in favor of the sexual details?
JM: I can only say why I wrote it. I believe that I wrote a book with [co-author] David France with a heartfelt sense of describing where I got what I wanted, but [I only wanted] what I thought was available to me. I wanted what I think most people want; namely, a loving, committed relationship with another person. I thought because I was gay, it was beyond my capacity ever to have that level of love, that embrace. So, in part because of messages I accepted in my youth, I thought being gay was shameful, and a lot of that shame was wrongly accepted. Because of the shame that I wrongly accepted, I acted out in inappropriate and, for me, unhealthy ways.

I remember when I was a young man, a freshman or sophomore in high school, going to the local public library and trying to find writings regarding homosexuality, and at the time, the American Psychiatric Association referred to homosexuality as a psychiatric disorder, a perversion. And my church, the faith that I love, Roman Catholicism, referred to being gay as an abomination, a mortal sin, a damnable [thing].

And so, being 12 or 13 years of age, being gay was not something I wanted to embrace. I wanted to keep it as far away from me as possible. I thought at first that I could change who and what I am. I tried my own amateurish, boyish form of aversion therapy, of looking at girlie books and trying to channel, with all my mind, my sexual energies toward women. And when that failed, I tried to deny and repress, and subsequently tried to manage, however so badly, my sexuality.

The reason I was so specifically honest [in the writing of the memoir] was the need to show how, as I accepted that shame, I thought that I couldn’t live openly, in the bright light of day, a gay, loving lifestyle, that I then began to do things that were not only unhealthy, but the wrong course for me. I wanted to be candid and truthful in a story which involves a life of deception, and I wanted to share with the greater American public how shame — and particularly for youth, once it’s accepted and internalized — ironically produces actions which are in themselves shameful.

Click HERE to read the complete interview with McGreevey.

I try not to get blatantly political on this blog but I've been watching all the television reports about that creepy former congressman Mark Foley for days now and have been sickened. I just about lost my lunch today when I read on the Web that his attorney was telling the world that his client "wants you to know he is a gay man." Oh, great. Just what we need. If Foley had been sending inappropriate e-mails and instant messages (and God knows what else) to female teen congressional pages would the attorney have stated that yes, his client is straight? I don't think so. Foley appears to me to be a pedophile. He gives gay a bad name and having his attorney tell the world that he is a homosexual (as some sort of explanation for his illegal behavior), makes it harder for gay people to fight this misguided notion about them that some ignorant people often have.
If he is gay, why did this creep find it necessary to prey on teens? If he wanted to stay closeted, he could have had anonymous sex in alleys like Jim McGreevey. I just hope that readers of "Out in Hollywood" who might not be gay have been reading enough about some really terrific gay people who are authentic and contribute to society in such positive ways either through their talent or good works.

If you missed some of the movies you wanted to see at Outfest 2006 over the summer, it just might be showing in the upcoming weeks as part of the Outfest Wednesdays film series at the Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood.

Screening on Wednesday, Oct. 4 is "Shortbus" directed John Cameron Mitchell. This movie wasn't an Outfest entry but has been getting plenty of attention for its stunningly graphic sex scenes that are said to be unprecedented for a mainstream film.Male and female, straight and gay, the characters find one another - and eventually find themselves - when they all converge at a weekly underground salon called 'Shortbus,' a mad nexus of art, music, politics and polysexual carnality set in present-day New York.

This film was one of my favorites from Outfest. I gave it a little review in an earlier post. "Fat Girls" will screen on Monday, Oct. 23. Writer-director Ash Christian, who also stars in the film, won Outfest's emerging talent award.
Armed with biting humor, FAT GIRLS follows would-be-Broadway-legend Rodney and his Rubenesque friend Sabrina as they suffer through the indignity known as high school. Channeling his inner 'fat girl,' Rodney befriends the hot new British boy in school, confronts his own fears and hilariously reaches for his true potential.

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A comedy of errors, "Coffee Date," will screen on Wednesday, Nov. 1. This film involves a practical joke sends straight man Todd on a blind date with gay man Kelly. The two strike up an unexpected friendship, and Todd's life soon spins out of control. Everyone believes he's gay and nothing he says or does can convince them otherwise. Even Todd begins questioning his sexuality
The movie will be followed by a post-reception and Q&A with cast members Wilson Cruz, Jonathan Bray, Jonathan Silverman, Sally Kirkland, Elaine Hendrix, Jason Stuart and director Stewart Wade


The terrific lesbian drama "The Gymnast," which won the Outstanding Narrative Feature and First Narrative Feature awards at Outfest 2006 will screen on Wednesday, Nov. 29. Dazzling and sexy, this high-flying drama chronicles two women on a journey toward growth and newfound strength. Jane is an unhappily married masseuse who was once an Olympic gymnast. She is drawn back to the gym where she meets gorgeous dancer Sabrina and sparks fly. Their electrifying attraction to each other forces them both to make choices that shake up their lives.

For more information on the screening series, click HERE.

Regular readers of this blog already know that I am not just a Hollywood fanatic, but am a tennis fanatic too. The two players, male or female, who I have been inspired by the most are Billie Jean King and Martina Navratilova. On court, they were both as competitive as they come, each won a record 20 Wimbledon titles (including one together in 1979). But off the court, with their commitment to social change and determination to achieve equality for women and for gay people within their lifetimes, they are far more than great champions: they are heroes. So to meet them both in person within a span two weeks was surreal and very special. Here are some pics of me with these great ladies.
With Billie Jean King at the Smash Hits fundraiser for the Elton John AIDS Foundation (right). Click HERE for Out in Hollywood coverage of the event and HERE for my profile on BJK for AfterEllen.com.

Other blog postings on BJK:
Meeting Billie Jean
A BJK Tribute for the Ages...
Past Champs Give BJK Her Due
Well Deserved Honor for Billie Jean King
HBO Tribute Fit For A King

With Martina Navratilova last week at the Lambda Liberty Legal Awards (right)where she was honored for a lifetime of courage and integrity. Click HERE for Out in Hollywood coverage of the event.and HERE for my Daily News profile on Martina.

Other recent blog postings on Martina:

Martina Story
Martina Tributes
Martina Wins Last title!
Martina's Supportive Words for Lance Bass

This is too funny. A theater in Orange City, Iowa, got complaints over its marquee advertising "Jackass Number Two" starring gay-friendly personality Johny Knoxville. Their solution? Check out this pic:

Gee, Orange City sounds like a REAL fun place to visit. Just don't make a jackbutt of yourself while in town!

"Big Brother All Stars" is history but I wanted to provide you with some excerpts of an article that the show's only openly-gay houseguest, Marcellas Reynolds, wrote for AfterElton.com. Marcellas says his image as a bitchy whiner was created by selective editing and that he was much lighter than the moments they chose to show. I was pretty turned off by Marcellas during the show but the truth is, reality show editors, who are fighting to be recognized as members of the Writers Guild oif America, do shape episodes in the same way writers shape scripted TV.

Here is some of what he had to say:

"I wish we could have just played the game instead of play “acting� with some other ulterior motive driving our actions. But why should I expect realness from my cast mates? The show is not real. There are writers, producers, directors and continuity people. The end credits read like a major motion picture. For every episode, a story is being created and each one of the houseguests is a character.

And this season my role was first gay sidekick to the blond bombshell, Janelle. That's not the role I wanted. I didn't go into the game to be Will to anyone's Grace.

Unfortunately for me, the producers didn't much care what I wanted. My relationship with Janelle, who was the biggest target and the deadliest sexpot to play the game, made me a target. The straight boys were after me very early on. What's a gay guy to do? Well, this one fought. I wasn't there to make friends. I was there to get respect, give respect, and play to win.

A game like Big Brother is about making moves that get you to the end. Much like chess, you must think about your moves in advance — in this case weeks in advance. This season I was quieter, more reserved than Season 3's Marcellas. I didn't want to be the over-the-top gay male. We've seen him before on shows from Will & Grace to The Real World to Queer Eye for the Straight Guy. He's done. This time I wanted to be silent and deadly. Shrewd. A threat, but not a villain.

The producers picked up on this and ran with it. Gone was the jovial Marcellas with a penchant for gnomes and hanging with the gals from Season 3. Enter the surly, in your face, adversarial, slightly cutthroat Marc. This guy didn't want to be called Marci, had no tolerance for ignorance, and didn't have a problem telling you the truth. He was a new spin on the gay reality show contestant. He wasn't a crier and he wasn't a victim. In all honesty he didn't fully exist, but thanks to a bit of creative editing, a new star was born.

I was shocked when I saw the final edit of Big Brother. Yes, I wanted a new image, but even so I was so much lighter in the house than I was portrayed on the show. However, I knew that in the end I had little control over the final version of “Marcellas� from Big Brother All-Stars. He was a character I provided the raw materials for, and the editors did the rest. "

Watched the second episode of "Brothers & Sisters" tonight and was glad to see Sally Field get some meaty scenes and sink her teeth into them. In contrast, Calista Flockhart seems to be sleepwalking through the first few episodes. Hope she wakes up soon. I'm so glad that the sexuality of the show's gay character, Kevin (Matthew Rhys) , was woven into the episode in small but natural ways: when he and Flockhart's character are fighting over the remote control in a motel room in Oceanside ( during an unexpected family road trip) and he threatens to order gay porn. And more intriguing was when a gay client is in his law office and suddenly says to Kevin, "You're gay!" He says that yes, he is. The client then spots a framed photo and his ex and says, "he's cute!" Small things, yes, but an indication of a rare comfort level on broadcast television when it comes to a gay character. But, the real test will be how they portray Kevin dating or in a relationship. I hope he will continue to get equal time and equal treatment.