18 GAY PEOPLE'S CHRONICLE APRIL 17, 1998
EVENINGS OUT
Ellen is gone for good, as DeGeneres receives awards
by Doreen Cudnik
Recent developments seem to indicate that the Ellen show is in fact gone for good from ABC's line-up, but fans of the show's star Ellen DeGeneres will get to see her at least one more time during prime-time-on a rival network.
According to the April 7 Boston Globe, DeGeneres will guest-star on the season finale of NBC's Mad About You on May 19. DeGeneres will play the Buchmans' full-
time nanny in the second of back-to-
back episodes, airing at 8:30 pm ET. Recent Oscar
winner Helen Hunt,
who plays new mom
Kathy Najimy presented DeGeneres with the award, saying, “Because of you, television will never be the same. It will be better. Because of your courage, there will be a few gay men or lesbian women who might not get bashed tonight. And because of you, there will be one or two gay teens each day that might not get kicked out of their houses, live on the streets or take their life because they're gay."
Last spring's historic “Puppy Episode,”
"I came out on the show and in my life, and the network that aired it wanted me to go back in the closet."
Jamie Buchman on Mad About You, appears in the season finale of Ellen, but whether that show ever airs is still in question.
Accepting a Creative Integrity Award at the Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Center's Women's Night '98, held March 7, DeGeneres said, "You're catching me on a really weird, weird, weird time. We finished our show yesterday with no audience, with nobody to say goodbye to and we're not going to come back, I know it. It's a really hard time for me because there's no closure. There's no way of saying goodbye. We shot our last episode over the last three days and have had amazing support. The people who came out to do the show for us you'll hear soon enough. We had amazing people who came on the show this past week."
DeGeneres was accompanied at the event by her partner, Anne Heche, and her mother, Betty DeGeneres. Actress and comedian
in which DeGeneres' character came out as a lesbian, was recently given a George Foster Peabody Award, considered one of the most prestigious awards by the broadcast and cable television industries. Award presenters described the episode as “a landmark moment in television history notable not only for the frequent laughter the situation provoked but also for portraying the importance of tenderness and caring to all relationships."
DeGeneres will also be honored on April 19 in Los Angeles at the third of three 9th Annual GLAAD Media Awards. She is being presented the Stephen F. Kolzak Award, named in honor of a late Los Angeles casting director who devoted the last part of his life to fighting AIDS-phobia and homophobia within the entertainment industry. The award is presented to an openly lesbian or gay individual in the media for their outstanding contribution in combating homophobia.
The Ellen show is also up for a GLAAD Media Award as Outstanding Television Comedy Series. Interestingly, since ABC seems ready to ax the show, the network took
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Ellen DeGeneres accepts the Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Center's Creative Integrity Award.
out an ad in the GLAAD Media Award program book that said, "Ellen makes people laugh. More importantly, she makes them think. She also makes us proud."
"When you take a stand for anything, you risk it," Ellen said at the March 7 Women's Night, although she added, "I wouldn't change a thing."
"I came out on the show and in my life, and
the network that aired it wanted me to go back in the closet. The writers and I fought every single episode to do what we did. And thank God we did, and I think we had an amazing year, and I hope that we reached a lot of people. They may have won because we're not coming back and they have the power to cancel us, but they can't cancel me. I am going to be here, and I'm going to do as much as I can."
Folk singer says she's straight but not narrow
by Harriet L. Schwartz Columbus-"It was probably the way in which I said 'I'm straight'," says Joan Baez, explaining how she may have offended many of her lesbian supporters. "I felt threatened... that I had to make a point of the fact that I was straight. I don't feel threatened anymore.”
Baez, whose career as a folk singer spans four decades and more than three dozen albums, will perform at the Columbus Association for the Performing Arts' Palace Theater on Sunday, April 19. The 7:30 pm show will include songs from the singer's catalog of hits, plus music from her new album; Gone From Danger-Baez's first album of new material since 1992.
Baez said she remembers the one samesex affair that she did have as a "wonderful time."
"But after that it would appear to me that I'm heterosexual," Baez said. “I assume that women hoped, and now occasionally hope, that there's something in there that's retrievable. But it doesn't seem so."
Baez did offer an apology to her lesbian fans after she came to an understanding about how she may have offended some of them. Coming to terms with the public's questions about her sexuality, she says, is part of a "larger journey of soul searching" that has left her more at peace with herself than she ever imagined possible.
Baez says that her newfound happiness has also impacted her music and her experience as a performer. Acknowledging that fans still like to hear her classics, Baez says she plans to play more new material than was typical of her shows in past years. Baez sees her newfound confidence as a step forward.
"[I'm] dropping my co-dependency with the audience," she says with a hint of a laugh. One of the side-effects of this new-found confidence is that Baez is no longer is plagued with the stage fright that often used to make her ill before shows.
"Eventually somebody would just pick me up and shove me out on stage and I'd sing,” she said. “Usually the terror would pass while I was singing, sometimes it wouldn't. Sometimes it would visit me in the middle of a song. So it was pretty rocky. That eased over the years but it never really went
away until I tackled the deeper stuff... the deep inner journey that I had put off."
While Baez admits to contemplating retirement, she says she is enjoying her career now more than ever. She is content to spend time at home writing poetry and working on her house, but she also remains passionate about her music.
The new collection features ten songs written by other songwriters, including Dar
Joan Baez
Williams, Richard Shindell, Sinead Lohan, Betty Elders, and Cleveland native Mark Addison.
More than 30 years into her career, Baez, 57, can see more clearly the various motivations she has had as a singer.
"When I started singing, I believe it was out of some kind of loneliness,” she says. "And then it seemed to be a route to making friends, they probably weren't friends, but at least I was recognized. Then, I used to sing for hours, just because I enjoy it. My mom is the only other person I know who feels that way about my voice, she'd sit there for years and listen because she recognized that it's a gift."
To purchase tickets for CAPA's presentation of Joan Baez, visit the CAPA Ticket Office at the Ohio or Palace Theater, Riffe Center or any Ticketmaster location. To charge by phone, call 614-431-3600 or 614469-0939.
Harriet Schwartz is a freelance writer living in Pittsburgh.
DANA TYNAN