November 7, 2003 GAY PEOPLE'S CHRONICLE

11

on the airoff the press

LGBT television characters are popping up all over

by John Graves

Lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender characters are popping up so fast on TV this season, it's been hard to keep up.

One of Nick's law partners on the CBS drama The Guardian (Tuesdays, 9 pm) is going through a difficult coming-out process and is so deeply closeted he beat up his lover, a young gay man. Nick was helping him to get custody of his newly orphaned brother and sister, out of fear he would be outed.

There's also a very out, and angry, lesbian teen on Joan of Arcadia, a CBS Friday night series about a young woman (Joan) who gets messages from God to perform simple tasks that lead to great good through chain reactions. In the episode I saw, Joan encourages her brother to ask the alienated and angry young lesbian if she would like to team with him on a class project they have both shown interest in.

More gay parents are also showing up on TV this season. TV Guide's Michael Ausiello reports veteran sitcom actresses Valerie Harper (Rhoda) and Joanna Kerns (Growing

TG 'twist' reality show canceled

Sky One satellite TV has pulled the plug on Find Me a Man, a reality show which set up six male contestants with a gorgeous woman. The twist is that they don't know that the woman, a South American brunette named Miriam, is a pre-operative transsexual.

According to Britain's Ananova news service, Sky canceled the show's premiere this month after the contestants hired a London law firm to prevent the network from airing it. Among other things, they allege that Sky One and the show's producers conspired to commit sexual assault, defamation, personal injury and breach of contract.

Some of the contestants on the show, filmed in Ibiza this summer, "reached levels of 'intimacy," "with Miriam, "including kissing."

The men's lawyers claim the contestants were "horrified" when they found out the truth about Miriam at the end of the show.

A spokesperson for Sky One confirmed that the show had been removed from the schedule.

Pains) have been signed to play the lesbian King to play judge

moms of bisexual actor Andy Dick's character Owen on the ABC sitcom Less Than Perfect. The producers originally offered the roles to Cagney & Lacey stars Tyne Daly and Sharon Gless, but Daly turned the offer down. Less Than Perfect airs on ABC Tuesdays at 9:30 pm.

It's a dog's fabulous life

Entertainment Weekly interviewed Triumph the Insult Dog (a regular puppet character on NBC's Late Night With Conan O'Brien) for the magazine's weekly tonguein-cheek feature "Stupid Questions," and asked if he was worried about retaliation from another famous dog star over his song Benji's Queer.

"Yes," Triumph said, "I'm really worried about reprisals from Benji's posse. They might attack me in a dark alley somewhere and frost my hair."

Judging from the photo accompanying the article, Benji does look like his hair has been frosted.

Lesbian tennis legend Billie Jean King will guest star as a judge on an upcoming episode of her favorite TV show, NBC's Law and Order.

USA Today says two of the show's stars, Jerry Orbach and Sam Waterston, offered King the role during the October 17 Women's Sports Foundation tribute in New York. King, captain of the U.S. Federal Cup tennis team, is the founder and honorary chair of the Women's Sports Foundation.

Channeling Liberace

Elton John is taking his act to Las Vegas. John has agreed to perform 75 shows over three years at the Colosseum at Caesar's Palace in Las Vegas while Celine Dion is on vacation from her show there.

"There are no ostric feathers, but there will be sequins flying around," John told reporters. He will receive $50 million for performing his show, The Red Piano, five.

Love beneath the barbed wire

IGOR NIKISHIN

Max (Brian Richeson, left) and Horst (Barry Wakser) star in the Players Guild production of Martin Sherman's Bent, a story of Nazi persecution of gays directed by Carla Derr. Max and Horst have both been imprisoned in a concentration camp during the Holocaust. While helping each other to survive, they fall in love, sharing the daily joys and terrors of living through the darkest days of the 20th century.

The play, which contains adult language, sexual content and brief nudity, plays Friday through Sunday until November 16. Show times are 8 pm on Fridays and Saturdays, 7 pm on Sundays, and tickets are $10.

The Players Guild Theatre is located at 1001 Market Ave. North in Canton. For more information, call 330-453-7617, or log onto www.playersguildtheatre.com.

-Anthony Glassman

times a week for five weeks a year beginning next February, according to the Associated Press.

Tomlin wins comedy's top prize

Lesbian comedian and actress Lily Tomlin (West Wing) received America's highest award for comedy when she was awarded the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor at the annual Kennedy Center Awards in Washington, D.C. on October 26.

"Lily is not the kind of comedian who tells jokes. She's like Mark Twain. She tells us the truth about ourselves and we laugh to keep from crying," Dolly Parton told the crowd, according to 365Gay.com's Doreen Brandt.

Whoopi Goldberg, who attended the ceremony and posed for a group hug with Tomlin and 9 to 5 co-star Jane Fonda, said in a video tribute to Tomlin, "I probably wouldn't be here if it wasn't for Lily Tomlin, because Lily made it possible for me to do what I did. Without you, most of us would not be able to do what we're able to do."

Tomlin took some time to thank her longtime domestic partner Jane Wagner during her acceptance speech, which Brandt says, "literally left people rolling in the aisles with laughter."

The Fab Five get a raise

Ellen's new talk show is a hit

Ellen DeGeneres has hit pay dirt with her new talk show.

Gail Shister of the Philadelphia Inquirer says that since the show began airing September 8, The Ellen DeGeneres Show averages more than 1.6 million viewers and is the second-most-watched new syndicated show, behind Sharon Osbourne's new talk show.

DeGeneres told Shister, "I hope I'll always remember how lucky I am to have such a great job. I get to do stand-up every single day. I talk to the audience, getting that energy exchange. The time constraints are challenging, but I think I'm getting smoother at saying, 'We'll be right back'."

DeGeneres also noted that this year's stand-up tour Here and Now would be her last, saying, "I just didn't announce it, like Cher. She keeps coming back. I felt this was due for a long, long time."

DeGeneres said that although she was very happy with her partner, former actressturned photographer Alexandra Hedison, there are no plans in the immediate future for a commitment ceremony like her good friends Melissa Etheridge and Tammy Lynn Michaels.

"If gay marriage were legal," DeGeneres told Shister, "I would do it . . . I don't need to do anything as a statement any more."

After many reports about the Fab Five grousing about their low salaries when Queer Kudos to Cleveland newpapers Eye for the Straight Guy turned out to be a ratings hit, NBC and Bravo are about to sign new contracts that will pay the five gay style experts $8,000 per episode, more than double their current salaries.

The new contract also guarantees compensation for episodes that are rerun on NBC-a concession not offered to the men when the show began airing this past sum-

mer.

Tom Musbach of Gay.com/PlanetOut.com says one reason the gay style experts earned much less than other professional TV stars is that Queer Eye is considered a "reality" show, which costs much less to produce than scripted shows.

The Fab Five are also not covered by a union contract.

Jayne Wallace, communications director of the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, said, "More than likely, if the original shows had been covered by AFTRA, the cast members would receive. residuals anytime the episodes aired elsewhere."

Wallace said that the union has approached NBC/Bravo about having subsequent seasons of Queer Eye covered by an AFTRA

contact.

According to the Hollywood Reporter, NBC and representatives for the Fab Five declined to comment on the new deal.

Bravo, NBC and Scout Productions agreed last month to produce 40 new episodes which will begin airing November 18.

Finally, a belated thanks and standing ovation to Patrick Shepard, president of the Cleveland Stonewall Democrats, for the outstanding work he and his group have done to give our community a political voice, and for his wonderful National Coming Out Day essay that was published on the Forum page of the Cleveland Plain Dealer.

Also, thanks to Plain Dealer columnist Connie Shultz for her very LGBT supportive columns. A tip of the hat to the newspaper itself and reporters Margaret Bernstein, John Kappes and Frank Bentayou for last Sunday's front-page story on the new resurgence in the LGBT civil rights struggle, and to the paper's editors for endorsing the domestic partner registry initiative in Cleveland Heights.

Kudos also to the Cleveland Free Times for its endorsement of the Cleveland Heights registry.

Boos, however, to the Call & Post and Sun Press who asked readers to vote no on the measure.

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 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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