Like Tab Hunter who came out to promote his memoir, gay former mini-series star Richard Chamberlain came out at 69 to promote his memoir. Now 76, Chamberlain recently said he "wouldn't advise a gay leading man-type actor to come out" because "there’s still a tremendous amount of homophobia in our culture. For an actor to be working is a kind of miracle… so it’s just silly for a working actor to say, ‘Oh, I don’t care if anybody knows I’m gay’ — especially if you’re a leading man… Look at what happened in California with Proposition 8. Please, don’t pretend that we’re suddenly all wonderfully, blissfully accepted.”
This week, figure skater Johnny Weir finally came out at 26 to promote his new memoir, Welcome to My World. On the Today Show he said, "I'm a person -- I've never lived in a closet. I've never claimed to be anything -- I've never claimed to be straight or gay. I claim to be Johnny Weir. And I think that's something that's very important for anybody in this world, is to own who you are, regardless of what you're born into. I was born a white male. A white gay male, and I don't celebrate being white or male. So, why should I celebrate being gay. That's my opinion on the whole thing."
Last year, country singer Chely Wright came out to promote her memoir Like Me. In a very thoughtful new interview with Autostraddle, she says, "It didn’t help my career. My record sales went directly in half. If it appears from the outside in that it’s helped my career, it could be because I haven’t talked about the negative. You won’t hear me bitching and moaning on my Facebook about the hate mail I’ve gotten. My life has been threatened. I get nasty letters every day, “I’m through with you Chely Wright, you’re going to hell.” There’s a big difference between press and advocacy and…. sometimes people forget that people who sing or make movies, this isn’t just a hobby for us. This is how I pay my bills. In coming out I had a feeling that it would diminish my wage earning, and that feeling was correct. And, I am fine with that." Chely also says when she came out last May, a lot of celebrity friends supported her privately but when the media asked about her coming out they said, "No comment." Only Mary Chapin Carpenter supported her in public.
Promoting his new awards bait movie Rabbit Hole which has zero queer content, John Cameron Mitchell chatted with the Advocate. New York mag summarizes:
"Gay film' means 'stupid kind of lamebrained date film with pecs,'" complains the Hedwig and the Angry Inch director, who also finds fault with modern gay men's single-minded devotion to pop icons like Lady Gaga: "I get a little homophobic lately when I meet young people who just assume that this is what you're supposed to be because you're gay. It makes me feel like I'm in some sort of frat society where you've got to do this, you've got to listen to that, you've got to wear these clothes."
All due respect to an actor born in the 'great age of the closet', Richard Chamberlain reveals himself to be a gutless-wonder, with a narrow gauge focus on his own old-school ambition. You would think at his age, he might have had a glimmer of social or political consciousness. A glimmer of the shoulders in Hollywood and the U.S. he stands upon in his evident dotage. Fame and celebrity and faded beauty do not give Richard Chamberlain a pass.
Posted by: Charles Francis | January 12, 2011 at 08:52 PM