ON THE AIROFF THE PRESS

JUNE 7, 1996

TV goes from weddings to lesbian parenting

by John Graves

Here's one to catch on reruns: A few weeks ago, on the CBS medical drama Chicago Hope, two of the three ex-wives of Dr. Sutton, the staff gynecologist, told him that, after their divorces, they had come to the realization that they were lesbian.

Thetwoex-wives, portrayed by Tamlyn Tomita and Saturday Night Live alumnus Laraine Newman, had met while traveling and had fallen in love. The two women then told Sutton that they wanted to have a child and wanted him to artificially inseminate one of them. After Sutton performed the procedure, the two women celebrated with a long, on-camera kiss. Chicago Hope airs Mondays at 10 pm.

Actress Valerie Bertinelli will portray a lesbian mother embroiled in a child custody battle with her own mother in For the Love of Zachary, an upcoming ABC movie.

Lindsay Crouse portrays Natasha Lytess, Marilyn Monroe's acting coach, housemate and lover, in Norma Jean & Marilyn, now playing on HBO. Crouse, who has played recurring lesbian roles on Hill Street Blues and L.A. Law, talked about her role as Lytess in the May 14 edition of the Advocate.

"I wish homosexuality were more directly addressed in feature films," Crouse told the magazine. “I wish more prominent actors were consistently playing gay roles in real stories that don't deal so much with stereotypes as with the vicissitudes of life."

On her own future roles, Crouse said, "I'd love to do a film about gay women if I could, but unfortunately, there aren't a lot of scripts that deal in depth with all the different aspects of what it is to be gay. Hollywood is a patriarchy, and Hollywood follows the tone of the nation, not the other way around."

"Out in Prime Time," a feature article in the May 14 Advocate, focuses on four openly gay actors in recurring roles on primetime network

programs. Profiled are Murder One's John Fleck, Frasier's Dan Butler, Party of Five's Mitchell Anderson, and Ellen's Patrick Bristow.

Cleveland Free Times film critic Lila Hanft seems to be the only reviewer to take note of the strongly implied lesbian relationship Uma Thurman's and Janeane Garofalo's characters in their recently released film The Truth About Cats and Dogs.

Wild Side, a film which aired on cable last month, is now available for rent on videotape. Joan Chen and Anne Heche portray two women in abusive relationships with men, who meet, realize they are lesbians, fall in love and leave the men to spend their lives together.

There has been much speculation that Joey's roommate Chandler on the NBC sitcom Friends might be getting ready to come out of the closet on the show, but the show's creators insist that Chandler is straight. People magazine TV critic Elaine Showalter, in her May 6 column, lamented the fact that producers are still unwilling to have lesbian and gay main characters in their shows.

By the way, have you noticed that Ross' lesbian ex-wife Carol and her lover Susan seem to have disappeared from Friends since their wedding in February?

People also reports that lesbian activist Candace Gingrich, who officiated at Carol and Susan's wedding on Friends, Greg Louganis, Chastity Bono, and Sean Sasser will appear in a series of print ads urging lesbians and gays to vote in the November election.

The Cleveland Plain Dealer is asking students in grades nine through 12 to submit twopage essays on the subject of whether or not gay teens should be allowed to form support clubs in schools. The essays will appear in "Next," the paper's Monday teen section. Students are asked to send their work to Youth Editor Julie E. Washington, The Plain Dealer, 1801 Superior Ave., Cleveland, 44114. In-

clude your name, address, phone number, school and grade.

Extremely racist and homophobic radio talk host Bob Grant was fired by recently by WABC radio in New York for his on-air comments about the death of Commerce Secretary Ron Brown in a plane crash. An article in USA Today last week indicated that Grant was to receive the "Freedom of Speech Award" from the National Association of Radio Talk Show Hosts. Buck Harris, who hosts Cleveland's The Gay '90s and is on the association's board of trustees, says that USA Today is in error and that Grant was not in line to get the award. Grant has, however, been hired by WABC's New York rival, WOR.✔

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