June 27, 2003 GAY PEOPLE'S CHRONICLE

on the airoff the press

They had a gay old time on TV at the Tony Awards

by John Graves

Gay actor and writer Harvey Fierstein won a Tony Award last month for best actor in a musical for his role as Tracy Turnblad's mom in the hit Hairspray. But, as expected, anti-gay activists had a fit when Scott Wittman and Marc Shaiman, personal and professional partners for 25 years, kissed on camera after winning the best score award for the same show.

According to New York Newsday correspondent Rob Kahn, the big moment came when Shaiman gave his partner a lengthy kiss after saying during his acceptance speech, "We're not allowed to get married, but I want to declare I love you and I'd like to live with you the rest of my life."

Denis O'Hare, who was honored as best featured actor for his role as a nerdy accountant discovering professional baseball in Take Me Out, thanked Hugo, his boyfriend of three years, for support at the ceremony.

"My relationship comes before my ca: reer," he said in a later interview. "There was never any question of me not thanking him, and it wasn't intended as a political statement. It would be a sad day if I had to..not thank my boyfriend."

After the awards ceremony, Shaiman and Wittman said they were sure they weren't the first gay couple to win a Tony. "But," Shaiman said, "we're the first maybe to not feel we had to keep it secret."

A CBS spokesperson said the network had received a "small to moderate" amount of negative feedback, "about 10 phone calls and 68 e-mails," chastising the theater community for how it portrays gay life.

Brendan Lemon, editor-in-chief of Out magazine, said, "Broadway' and 'gay' are not strangers, but the Tonys were certainly gayer than usual.”

Lemon said the true significance of the Shaiman-Wittman speech was in America seeing a gay couple that had been together for more than two decades saying, "That's a very powerful thing, because it goes against stereotypes."

Actress Michele Pawk quipped, “Men kissing each other on stage. Drag queens. Children. It's a perfect world," when she accepted an award for her performance in Hollywood Arms.

TV ratings for the award ceremony were about the same as last year, about 8 million viewers.

We knew it all along

Diana Sigfried, a new Hollywood columnist at the supermarket tabloid Globe, says it was no big surprise when actor Richard Chamberlain (Dr. Kildare, The Thorn Birds) came out earlier this month and wondered about all the fuss over what many thought was common knowledge.

"Come on!" Sigfried said. "It's not as if we didn't know. And more to the point, we didn't care. Any woman with a pulse was hot over Dr. Kildare. And the love-torn priest in The Thorn Birds. And the English major in Shogun. Gorgeous, chiseled Chamberlain swept us off our feet every time. As he explains it himself, 'It's called acting.'

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"The sad truth, however," Sigfried went on to say, "is that he was probably right to dodge the questions and deny the rumors. He felt that if he 'fessed up, his first role would be his last."

Noting the actor's comment that, "When I grew up, being gay ... was the worst thing you could be," Sigfried asked, "Is it much different now?"

"Forty-some-odd years later, when we're all supposed to be so much more enlightened, a movie star coming out still just might mean the kiss of death," she wrote. "After all, name one A-list American leading man who is openly gay. I can't. And, statistically speaking, there has to be more than just a few."

What are their phone numbers?

Two openly gay men, Miami physician Anthony Japour and Trey McIntyre, a choreographer living in Portland, Oregon; were included in People magazine's feature list of the "25 Hottest Bachelors."

Japour, who grew up in Detroit the son of deaf parents, told People he sells pieces from his personal art collection online, saying he

wants "to give as much as I can from my gallery to charity."

Japour won an AmfAr award for his AIDS research during his residency at Harvard.

As for his dream catch, Japour said, “To me, love is instantaneous and clear. I'm just waiting for the right person to smile at me and accept me for what I am.”

McIntyre, who choreographed a fulllength version of Peter Pan for the Houston Ballet last year, debuted his most recent ballet, Full Grown Man, in New York City last month.

"I'm looking for someone who has opinions," said McIntyre, who lives in a Victorian cottage in Portland. "I'm also looking for someone who is really kind and treats their friends well."

Rosie depicts the world after 9-11

The June 30 issue of People also includes never-before-seen art works by Rosie O'Donnell. She started making collages and paintings to deal with her feelings about world events after 9/11, telling the magazine, "Every time I read a newspaper, I couldn't throw it out if there was an image that I was so stunned or moved by."

O'Donnell said she has created more than 1,000 art works in a studio on the grounds of the Nyack, N. Y. home she shares with spouse Kelli O'Donnell and their four children.

"Kelli does their homework with them, and when they're done, they hang out in the studio with me," she said.

O'Donnell's work can be seen on her gallery web site at www.rosiesgallery.com Great Danes

The Danish dance pop duo Junior Senior was selected as the "It Gay/Straight Alliance" for Entertainment Weekly's It List of "the 100 most creative people in entertain'ment." The magazine says the duo's dance party song, "Move Your Feet," is a big hit in the U.K. and is beginning to get air time on American radio. It described the song as "an aural assault of hip-hop, techno, garage, punk and house."

Senior, the gay member of the duo, said he and his partner Junior (a straight woman) do not have much luck picking up groupies like other rock stars saying, "We are so bad at hitting on people.".

Junior Senior's first CD, D-D-Don't Stop the Beat, is scheduled for release in the U.S. August 8.

Serving the Lesbian & Gay Community for Over a Decade

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Is it 'Lebanese'?

Showtime has renamed Earthlings, the cable network's upcoming lesbian drama series starring Mia Kirshner, Jennifer Beals, Laurel Holloman, and Pam Grier. The show revolves around around the lives and loves of a group of mostly lesbian West Hollywood, Calif., women. It will be known as The L Word when it debuts sometime in January, according to the Advocate.

Showtime also says Eric Mabius (I Shot Andy Warhol and Gregg Araki's Splendor) has been added to the cast, replacing Scott Bairstow as the boyfriend of a young writer played by Kirshner. After she gets to know the lesbian couple played by Beals and Holloman who live her next door and their friends, the writer begins to question her own sexual orientation.

Bad dog, go back to Kansas

The rock band Toto has apologized to fans after putting a hoax announcement on their web site that a band member is transgendered.

According to 365gay.com, guitarist Steve Lukather wrote a statement on the site June "10 that said keyboard player-vocalist David Paich, "will be missing the summer tour due to a sex change operation. His dreams of becoming who he really is, a woman, need to be realized. The lie he has been living has been difficult for his family and for us as a band. It will be our pleasure to introduce 'Davida' in the fall."

After that statement was picked up by the media, Johns reports the web site ran a message that read, "As most of the fans have realized immediately, the last band state-

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ment regarding David Paich's absence of the summer tour was a joke and just partially true. It is correct that David won't be able to do the summer shows, however the band wanted to bring a lighter and more funny note to this sad news! There is already much too little laughter in the world!"

The new message posted on the web site goes on to say that the real reason Paich is staying home is because he's going to be spending time with a close family member who is seriously ill. The band also says that if the press had called its management to verify the story, "they would have been informed that the story was a fake."

Good TV coverage of Pride

After coming home from last week's glorious Cleveland Pride celebration, I tuned in to the 11 o'clock news to see how local TV stations reported on the event. WEWS Channel 5 came through with the best coverage featuring shots and interviews from all around the festivities, with only a token report on the flag controversy in Lakewood in the middle. Although I was too late to catch the WJW Channel 8 news at 10 pm, Jim and Dave tell me they did a bang-up job at 6 pm with live coverage and on-site interviews.

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. See what's coming on TV in the Couch Potato Report, under "Entertainment" at www.lgcsc.org. Dave Haskell, Jim McGrattan and Kim Jones also contribute to this column.

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