March 1, 2002 GAY PEOPLE'S CHRONICLE 11

on the airoff the press

Rosie will spotlight adoption ban when she comes out

by John Graves

Rosie O'Donnell is finally expected to come out of the closet in an upcoming interview with Diane Sawyer on ABC's Primetime Live.

O'Donnell will be speaking on behalf of the ACLU's Lesbian and Gay Rights Project, which has been litigating a federal lawsuit against Florida's ban on gay adoption for nearly three years now.

In a statement released February 15, the ACLU said, "We have been working with Rosie O'Donnell since last year on the fight against Florida's gay adoption ban. Because of growing speculation about this, O'Donnell today asked us to confirm that interviews took place this week with Diane Sawyer for an hour-long program that will air on ABC on March 14."

In the interviews, O'Donnell and one of the families in the suit talk about their lives, their families and how they are affected by Florida's law.

"Despite the fact that she's a celebrity, Rosie is a private person," Cindi Berger, O'Donnell's representative, told the New

Spears noted how her popularity with gays is a major factor in the success of her singing career. Spears says she has many gay friends and enjoys going to gay clubs to party.

"Gay clubs are the best places to hit if you want to be exposed to cool new music," Spears said. "My gay friends are like my best girlfriends. We go shopping and hang and just have a blast. My best gay male friend will tell me straight up about anything, like 'Girlfriend, those pants are making your butt look big.' You've gotta love that kind of honesty."

New 'Queer Duck' episodes

At long last, the gay online cartoon Queer Duck, once popular on the failed Icebox.com Web site, is back on the net with new episodes on Sho.com.

The show is written by Mike Reiss, who has won three Emmy awards for his other animated series, The Simpsons and The Critic.

Look for a new adventure with Queer Duck and his gay friends Bi Polar Bear, Oscar Wildcat and Openly Gator on every Wednesday.

York Daily News. "But she felt so strongly 'Ally McBeal' costar engaged

about this injustice that she wanted to speak out."

On February 14, the ACLU took its case against Florida's gay adoption ban to a federal appeals court in Atlanta. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit is expected to hear arguments in the case later this year.

Warner Books, which will publish O'Donnell's autobiography Find Me in April, has confirmed that O'Donnell talks about her romantic relationships with women in the book.

Britney and her friends

Larry Flick talked to pop star Britney Spears about her popularity in the gay community and why she believes her new movie Crossroads will be a hit with gay audiences.

"Let's face it," Spears told Flick in Pridesource.com, "Gay guys are more deeply in touch with their emotions. They're more open, and they're not fearful of revealing their hearts. That's why I believe they'll like this movie. It's a movie that you can go to with your best friends, have a good cry together, and then leave feeling good about that bond you all share. Actually, the more I think about it, the more I love the idea of a bunch of guys going to see this movie together."

Co-starring Zoe Saldana, Taryn Manning, Anson Mount, and Sex and the City star Kim Cattrall, Crossroads tells the story of three childhood friends separated for eight years who decide to go on a cross-country trip together to renew their friendship. The trip proves to be life-altering for them and teaches them they should always follow their dreams.

With all the ballyhoo over Rosie O'Donnell's coming out joining stories of the engagement of Ally McBeal costar Portia de Rossi to longtime girlfriend Francesca Gregorini in the mainstream media (Us Weekly March 4), the supermarket tabloids might be at a loss. But the National Examiner ran a 26-page special report on "Who's Gay and Who's Not" in the world of celebrities in its February 26 issue.

Listing genuinely out lesbians, gays and bisexuals in Hollywood, politics and sports; gay characters in film and on TV; closeted gay stars of the past and stars that are "dogged by rumors" today, the report was remarkably free of the lurid headlines and rumor-mongering so common in the tabloids.

Gregorini, the daughter of Barbara Bach and the step-daughter of her husband Ringo Starr, reportedly exchanged rings before friends and family at de Rossi's birthday party at her home in Los Angeles on February 1. Photographs purporting to show the couple snuggling romantically have been featured in the tabloids for several weeks

now.

Nathan Lane in Congress?

Gay actor Nathan Lane, who has just ended his run as star of the hit Broadway play The Producers, plays a TV star who becomes a U.S. representative in Life of the Party, a sitcom pilot for CBS' fall lineup. Hatch is deared of assault

On February 5, a Newport, Rhode Island judge overturned a September conviction of openly gay Survivor winner Richard Hatch.

He had been found guilty of assaulting his former partner, Glenn Boyanowski after police were called to break up an altercation between the two last August.

Liz Taylor to present GLAAD award

Actress and longtime AIDS activist Elizabeth Taylor will present a special award to actress Shirley McLaine, and Annette Bening will present an award to gay writer Alan Ball (American Beauty and the critically-acclaimed HBO series Six Feet Under) at the April 13 Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation Media Awards ceremony in Los Angeles.

Gay actor Nathan Lane will be honored at the GLAAD Media Awards ceremony in New York City on April 1.

they were going with their film."

Albrecht told Weinraub he wasn't buying Zucker's story saying, "It's not credible. The people who work for him knew, the producers knew."

NBC's film stars Stockard Channing and Sam Waterston as Matthew's parents, Judy and Dennis Shepard. Matthew is played by Canadian actor Shane Meier.

J Lo plays lesbian in action film

Jennifer Lopez will play a lesbian in Gigli, a new film by Martin Brest (Midnight Run). Ben Affleck co-stars as a hit man who kidnaps the attorney general's mentally challenged brother.

Lopez plays a fellow crook who quite possibly turns the tables on Affleck. Unfor-

Networks feuded over Shepard films tunately, Gay.com reports, Lopez's representatives say the film will not have any lesbian love scenes.

NBC and HBO feuded over the airtimes of conflicting projects about the gay-bashing murder of University of Wyoming student Matthew Shepard in 1998.

Bernard Weinraub of the New York Times (February 11) says HBO was upset because NBC planned to air its movie, The Matthew Shepard Story, on March 16 at 9 pm, the same night The Laramie Project, the HBO adaptation of the off Broadway play by Moises Kaufman, was set to make its debut.

When HBO learned of NBC's plans, it moved The Laramie Project ahead a week, to March 9 at 8 pm.

Chris Albrecht, HBO's president of original programming, pulled no punches when he told Weinraub, "We never looked at these as competing projects. This was obviously the same story but two different movies. One is a fairly traditional movie of the week. The other one, ours, would be considered more of an independent theatrical film. For whatever reason, they either wanted to damage our film at the cost of their film-which is a $3 million torpedoor they didn't have a lot of confidence in their film."

In response, Jeff Zucker, NBC's entertainment president, told Weinraub, "With all due respect, we don't follow the booking of HBO's projects. From our standpoint it was a total coincidence. We had no idea when

Gigli also features performances by Al Pacino and Christopher Walken in supporting roles. Gay.com says that Lopez, who joined the cast after Halle Berry dropped out, was also rumored to be playing Frida Kahlo in Francis Ford Coppola's biopic about the bisexual painter, but that project has been temporarily shelved.

Fifteen times the power

Finally, I have some great news for fans of my Gaywaves radio show which has been broadcasting from the studios of WRUW 91.1 FM in Cleveland for over 20 years.

The Federal Communications Commission has finally approved WRUW's power increase to 15,000 watts, fifteen times the power we were broadcasting at a few years ago.

Hopefully, with the power increase, reception will be much better on the West Side and other areas that we had trouble reaching in the past.

John Graves is the producer and host of Gaywaves, a lesbian-gay public affairs show on Cleveland's WRUW 91.1 FM Fridays at 7 pm, and at http://radio.cwru.edu. Dave Haskell, Jim McGrattan and Kim Jones also contributed to this column.

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