TV's 'Year of the Gay' gets boost from Olfson

By Tom Shales'

L.A. Times/Washington Post Service

Ken Olfson is 36, bouncey and bald, formerly, fat, veteran of 100 television commercials, (he once played a plump raisin), devotee of raw cookie dough and portrays a homosexual character on "The Nancy Walker Show."

ABC's

"Let's face it, this is the year of the gay on television,” says Olfson.

Other shows have similar subject matter. But Olfson is not the one to ask what it all means. All it means to him is a job, a big break after a long wait.

Norman Lear saw Olfson in a small part on "Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman" (Olfson had years earlier appeared in a Playtex Bra commercial with Louise Lasser), and remembered him when it came time to cast Terry, the openly homosexual male secretary to Walker.

"I had no reservations about taking the part," Olfson said. He did have second thoughts, however, about becoming well known in that particular role "and I was a little bit scared of how the audience would react. But the studio audience was terrific the very first time, when we taped the pilot."....

It seems unfair but inevitable to ask Olfson about his own sexual orientation. He doesn't decline to answer. "I have had bisexual experiences," he said. "I don't consider myself heterosexual or homosexual. Of course I've never had my sex life so widely discussed

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as now. But in truth, you play gay' character, anyway, you play a human being who happens to be gay." He's very upfront and comfortable about being homosexual, and the writers are determined not to do cheap jokes to get easy laughs.

"We have representatives of the Gay Task Force come to our runthroughs and they can object to anything they don't like. So far they're delighted we're doing it. They did have reservations about Terry not being very successful in life, so we're going to have an episode in which he gets an acting job. as a psychotic killer."

The original concept was "to say he's gay, and then drop it.Olfson recalls, but this was changed "On some shows, it won't even be men tioned. "So far the network censors haven't bothered us much.