March 29, 2002 GAY PEOPLE'S CHRONICLE 11:

on the airoff the press

McKellen fell in love with New Zealand and a new partner

by John Graves

Celebrated and openly gay British actor Sir Ian McKellen fell in love with his role, New Zealand and a new partner when he was on location filming The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Rings.

When he was offered the role of Gandalf the wizard, McKellen, who had never read J.R.R. Tolkien's Ring trilogy, told the San Francisco Chronicle's Edward Guthmann that he was "a bit vague as to what it was, really."

"I rapidly realized on my web site," McKellen said, "that there were thousands, possibly millions worldwide anticipating this film with considerable dread [because] it wouldn't be their version of Middle Earth. Well it couldn't be, could it? It was [director] Peter Jackson's."

McKellen himself was dubious about his chances of winning an Oscar, for which he was nominated, saying, "I was told by an awful lot of people three years ago that I was going to win the Oscar for [playing] James Whale [in Gods and Monsters]. So when people tell me I'm definitely going to win for Gandalf, I don't believe them."

McKellen said he fell in love with New Zealand. "I had a bit of an epiphany, a revelation that it's possible perhaps in that country, more easily than others, to lead a good life."

And, as if to prove his point, McKellen met his current partner during the last days of filming there, an art student named Nick.

"We just met on the street, which happens in New Zealand because people actually look at each other and smile and they talk to each other. Part of what I love about him is what I love about the country he comes from. Very honest."

To have and to hold

Cable's Bravo Channel will introduce Gay Weddings, a new 30-minute reality series on lesbigay weddings, sometime in August. According to Philadelphia Inquirer columnist Gail Shister, the show will follow the joys and tribulations of four gay and lesbian couples up to and including their wedding days.

Shister reports Bravo has ordered eight episodes of Gay Weddings from executive producers Greg Stewart, Douglas Ross and Kathleen French.

'Will & Grace' renewed through 2005

NBC has put together a $300 million deal to keep the Emmy-winning series Will & Grace on the air through May of 2005. The network will pay a license fee of about $4 million or more per episode to its in-house producer, NBC Studios, reported Daily Variety. This makes the show, described by NBC Entertainment president Jeff Zucker as "the biggest comedy hit of the last four years," the fourth most costly in prime time television.

Look for Cher to make a return visit to Will & Grace when she will play a "heavenly character" on the show's one-hour season finale. Other upcoming guest spots include Michael Douglas as a gay police detective on April 25 and Glenn Close as a celebrity photographer on May 2.

Rosie finds she voiced film for cult

Rosie O'Donnell has asked that her name and voice be removed from an Oscar-nominated documentary she narrated after learning that the filmmakers are involved in a group that has been described as a homophobic cult.

The talk show host came out as a lesbian mom and a vocal proponent of gay adoption when she was interviewed by Diane Sawyer March 14 on ABC's Primetime Thursday.

In Artists and Orphans: A True Drama, a New York theater group travels to the former Soviet republic of Georgia to help orphaned and abandoned children

The film lost its Academy Award bid to the documentary short Thoth.

O'Donnell volunteered to narrate the short and then found out in mid March that the

filmmakers—including director Lianne Klapper McNally-are involved with the Fourth Way School, a group that emphasizes personal development, but, according to newspaper reports, bans gays and lesbians and believes they shouldn't be parents.

"If Rosie had known the truth about this organization, she never would have consented to lend her name and voice," said O'Donnell's publicist Cindi Berger. "Rosie is angry that the background wasn't disclosed to her."

O'Donnell told her audience she was angry about her association with the film during her March 20 show after she learned the true nature of the group.

Rick Ross, a New Jersey cult expert and lecturer who helped deprogram Branch Davidians in the mid-'90s and says he has spent hours talking with former members, said the Fourth Way is a cult and excludes gays.

"They must renounce their sexual preference and work toward becoming heterosexual," he said.

Russo thanks mom's lesbian friends

The day after Rosie O'Donnell came out to Diane Sawyer and viewers on Primetime, actress Rene Russo came out about her lesbian mom during an interview to promote her new movie Showtime on ABC's Good Morn-

Michael may have tried to get caught Irwin face up to the rejection he had faced from

Gay pop star George Michael told BBC Radio 1 that he may have deliberately attempted to shake up his life when he was arrested for lewd conduct in a Los Angeles public toilet in 1998.

According to the report, Michael, whose latest single Freeek was released in Britain the day of the interview, said that he may have tried to get caught to "make my life about me. I think, with hindsight, I did it to myself and I tried to work out why."

He added that, at the time, he had been grieving after the deaths of his mother and his former partner, Anselmo Feleppa.

As a result of his arrest, Michael was fined $800 and ordered to perform 80 hours of community service for masturbating in the restroom. Soon after his arrest, Michael came out with the single and video Outside, which poked fun at the police tactics that got him arrested.

After that, he told BBC Radio, he "sank again" into mourning for his mother.

"I was very impatient with myself all the way through that and thought I should be through it. I couldn't understand why my writing wasn't coming together, was very tough on myself, but actually I think that was what it was about, making my life about me and for that moment in time it worked."

ing America. Russo also said how grateful Sipowicz and John are buddies

she was to the lesbians who raised her after her father left.

During the interview, a tearful Russo said, "I wasn't going to say this, but I was just listening to Rosie O'Donnell and I have to tell you, I wanted to burst into tears. First of all, I want to say thank you to her. Second, I'd like to say that when I was born---oh, I'm going to cry, but this is for you, Rosie-my dad left and it was women in my life that were gay that raised me and that helped and nurtured me."

"I wanted to call my mom to say, look, mom, I'm going on national television to say thank you for all your friends, because she was just pretty much abandoned and a lot of her friends came and helped her to raise me and my sister," Russo continued. "And if it weren't for that, I don't know where we'd be."

'Opposing view' gets a grilling

As expected, Rosie's coming out as a lesbian mom drew a flood of opinion, pro and con, from media pundits, gay activists, antigay activists and letters to the editor. Perhaps the most surprising was the roasting that right-leaning Fox commentator Bill O'Reilly gave Republican Florida State Rep. Randy Ball over his opposition to gay adoptions.

Ball, a graduate of homophobic televangelist Jerry Falwell's Liberty University in Lynchburg, Va., was the only repre-

sentative from the Florida legislature who would agree to appear on Primetime when Rosie came out.

O'Reilly invited Ball to give the "opposing view" even though Ball had already given his opinion at length on Primetime. O'Reilly led off his show by saying he thought the ABC show was a "valentine for Rosie." But when Ball tried to trot out the same propaganda "scientific evidence" he'd cited on Primetime, O'Reilly offered to tear apart Ball's arguments then and there. He was incredulous that Ball still opposed gay adoption in light of his state's poor record in providing adequate foster care and adoption.

8 million coming-out stories

As for my own take on Rosie's coming out, I think she did it with grace and style and she did it with maximum impact for our community. O'Donnell proved to be an articulate speaker on our issues and I look forward to hear more from her in the future.

To paraphrase the intro to that venerable police show The Naked City: Whether it's to parents and friends, Primetime Thursday, the supermarket tabloids or the Jerry Springer Show; there are 8 million coming-out stories in this naked world. This has been one of them.

One of the oddest relationships in network television is the friendship that has developed between the oft-times bigoted Detective Andy Sipowicz (Dennis Franz) and gay police clerk John Irwin on ABC's NYPD Blue. On last week's episode, Sipowicz helped

his father for being gay to be at the man's bedside as he lay dying in the hospital.

Speaking of that developing friendship, "When Sipowicz's wife died, he hugged me," openly gay actor Bill Brochtrup, who plays Irwin, told TV Guide columnist Mark Schwed. "Now I'm baby-sitting his kids and giving him haircuts, and he's giving me romantic advice. It's taken eight years for them to get to this place."

"The truth is," Brochtrup went on, “I have enjoyed doing this show so much it doesn't matter how much or how little there is for me to do. It's always good. I have no complaints."

'Nightline' has week-long gay series.

ABC's Nightline will air an in-depth look at the complexities of the lesbian-gay experience in a week-long series April 8 to 12. “A Matter of Choice?" was originally set to air last September, but was postponed after the terrorist attacks.

The series seems better than its title would imply. It talks to members of an LGBT retirement community in Florida, looks at the Danny Overstreet murder in Roanoke, Virginia, examines the life of a lesbian couple raising children and discusses the hardships of gay teens. The final segment is a live town hall meeting in Roanoke, moderated by Ted Koppel. Nightline usually follows the late news at 11:35 pm on ABC affiliates.

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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