12 GAY PEOPLE'S CHRONICLE June 13, 2003
on the airoff the press
Coming out was like being 'smack in the middle of heaven'
by John Graves
Actor Richard Chamberlain (Dr. Kildare, The Thorn Birds) got June Pride off to a great start by coming out of the closet on NBC's Dateline June 1 in conjunction with the recent publication of his memoir, Shattered Love.
In excerpts from the book published in the June 9 issue of People, Chamberlain says, "As adolescence was approaching, I began to notice that I was more attracted sexually to boys that to girls. In high school I played the game and had wonderful girlfriends... but it grew ever more clear to me that my heart was elsewhere."
Still, the actor adds, "It's difficult for those who weren't around in the '40s and '50s to appreciate how deeply terrifying it was to be labeled a faggot, a pansy, a pervert."
Stories outing Chamberlain began appearing in the tabloids in 1989. Chamberlain didn't respond to the tabloid reports but couldn't find work for about a year. After then, Chamberlain says, "I realized that the time had come for me to deal with my deepseated fears. The tabloid headlines in themselves weren't frightening at all; in fact, they were sort of funny. My problem was my
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terrified reaction to them. Recently it has dawned on me that this whole painful drama of fear and loathing is a blatant travesty of reality. Sexual orientation is a benign personal matter, it is a total nonissue. This utterly novel experience of trust in the truth, in myself exactly as I was, and in the world as it was, was like finding myself smack in the middle of heaven."
Recognizing our marriages
Last month, some of my e-mail friends got upset when I described Reichen and Chip as "an openly gay married couple" competing on CBS' new Amazing Race 4. They pointed out that only two nations-Belgium and Holland-allow same-sex civil marriage and that by saying this couple is married, we might confuse people in our real political fight to get specific legal rights and responsibilities now reserved for opposite-sex couples.
While I recognize that lesbian and gay couples cannot get married legally, I am also African-American and I know how AfricanAmericans were not allowed to get married legally at one time. As a child of mixed-race ancestry, I remember that when I was in high
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school, marriages between people of different races were illegal in many states, including Ohio. Yet no one in my community ever felt those marriages were not valid.
I will recognize our unions whether or not they are legally recognized. I feel we must demand respect for our existing church marriages and civil unions and I will not be satisfied until those long-term relationships are also recognized by the law. If we don't recognize our own unions, who will?
So when Melissa Etheridge and her partner Tammy Lynn Michaels get married in a big ceremony this fall, I will honor and celebrate that marriage the same as I would any
heterosexual one.
Meanwhile, Reichen and Chip, who were married in a private ceremony, are still recognized as a married couple by CBS and they are right up there at the front of the pack on Amazing Race 4.
New 'Brideshead' is de-gayed
Screenwriter Andrew Davies, who adapted Pride and Prejudice and Sarah Waters' lesbian novel Tipping the Velvet for BBC Television, will play down the gay relationship between Charles Ryder and Sebastian Flyte in his upcoming adaptation of Evelyn Waugh's Brideshead Revisited.
According to a report in Gay.com, Davies will concentrate on how Catholicism destroys their relationship and their families.
Davies told Screen International, “I'm much less enamored of all that Oxford snobbery than some people. It's written from the point of view of someone who does not believe in the religious themes as Evelyn Waugh did. If God can be said to exist in my version, he would be the villain."
Victorian Village story to air
PBS stations on Tuesday will air Flag Wars, Linda Goode Bryant and Laura Poitras' study of competing economic interests between two historically marginalized groups, African-Americans and gays.
Shot over a four-year period, Flag Wars examines the politics and pain of the gentrification of Columbus' Victorian Village district where black residents, workingclass or poor and often elderly, are fighting to hold on to their homes and heritage while realtors and gay home-buyers see the enormous, often run-down homes as fixer-up-
pers.
The inevitable clashes expose prejudice and self-interest on both sides, as well as the common dream to have a home to call your own. Flag Wars airs June 17 at 10 pm.
Straight men among the gay dates dates Coming up in July, Bravo will begin airing Boy Meets Boy, a very gay take on the reality dating show genre in which a 32-yearold law firm employee must choose between 15 male suitors. The twist is that there are some straight men posing as gays in the group of 15 potential mates.
"Our goal is to push boundaries and blur lines," executive producer and co-creator Douglas Ross told Entertainment Weekly. "We wanted to challenge stereotypes."
Shot from May 9-17 in a pair of homes in Palm Springs, Calif., the gay bachelor will interact with the other men on group and oneon-one dates over the six episodes of the new miniseries and gradually eliminate those he
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isn't interested in until one winner remains.
Later in July, the NBC-owned Bravo will air Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, another new series which follows a team of gay males as they counsel fashion-challenged straight
men.
HIV around the world
On Sunday, June 15 at 7 pm, HBO will air parts 1 and 2 of the five-part documentary series Pandemic: Facing AIDS, in which Elton John narrates stories about dealing with HIV in different parts of the world.
Ellen's ready for the long haul
Coming up at 10 pm on June 28 on HBO, Ellen DeGeneres returns with her first standup comedy special since 2000.
"Sometimes I feel like some members of the audience are there for the wrong reasons," DeGeneres told Entertainment Weekly. "They're thinking that I'm going to do some kind of political speech, and that's not who I am now and it's not who I've ever been. So I have that kind of anxiety of, 'Please just be here because I'm a comedian and I just want to make people laugh.' That's all I've ever wanted to do."
DeGeneres is preparing to return to series television this fall with a daily hour-long syndicated daytime talk show premiering Sept. 8, which has already been picked up by several NBC affiliates. DeGeneres said she's optimistic about the new talk show.
"I'm going to be there for 15 years! They have me signed for five years, but I'll be there for about 15. This'll be the last thing that I do," she said.
Tomlin wins Mark Twain Prize
Lesbian actor and comedian Lily Tomlin is the 2003 winner of the Kennedy Center Mark Twain Prize for humorists.
Tomlin will receive the award at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. in October in a ceremony that will be aired at a later date on PBS stations. Previous honorees include Richard Pryor, Carl Reiner, Whoopi Goldberg and Bob Newhart.
Bianca's flame will stay
Olga Sosnovska, the actress who plays Bianca's new love interest on All My Children, has been signed to a contract that will keep her on the series for some time.
"I'm delighted, obviously," Sosnovska told Soap Opera Digest. "For the first three or four months, I went on believing each time that it was going to be my last time, so it was great to hear that they're going to keep me. Since I'm staying, what they have been doing is trying to bring me back into some sort of realm of normality and domesticity, because I can't continue to be evil and ruthless and extreme!"
E-mails tell of struggle for life
Chinese-American actor B.D. Wong (Law
& Order SVU's Dr. George Huang), who was once rumored to be dating bisexual KoreanAmerican comic Margaret Cho, comes out of the closet in his new autobiography Following Foo (The Electronic Adventures of the Chestnut Man).
Wong chronicles the story of how he and his longtime partner Richie Jackson started a family with the cooperation of Jackson's married sister, who donated the egg, and a surrogate mother. He tells of the life-anddeath struggle of their twin sons, Jackson and Boaz, who were born prematurely.
Unfortunately, Boaz died shortly after birth and his twin brother's life hung in the balance for some time. To ease the pain from the loss of Boaz, Wong chronicled the surviving son's fight for life in extensive e-mails he sent to family and friends, which are compiled in this memoir.
John Graves is the producer and host of Gaywaves, a lesbian, gay bisexual and transgender public affairs show on Cleveland's WRUW 91.1 FM Saturdays at 9:30 am, and at www.wruw.org. Dave Haskell, Jim McGrattan and Kim Jones also contribute to this column.