First time I noticed homosexuality…. Paul Lynd, he just didn't seem like other men on TV, he was so animated and gesticulating. My mother and grandmother would always editorialize about whoever was on TV, so I figured that "boychick" meant gay. Rock Hudson was a boy chick, I heard Cary Grant swung both ways. A confirmed bachelor was suspect. Then I started drawing conclusions --- that Max in "The Sound of Music" was probably gay too.
Of course, I thought Tiny Tim must be queer because he was just so weird. But in fact he was quite straight.
Favorite films and scenes: Laurence Olivier's scene in "Spartacus" dealing with "oysters and snails" --- it was so pregnant with innuendo, but you couldn't actually SAY that Olivier was trying to seduce Tony Curtis. The sensuality went over my head as a child, but as a young adult, it dawned on me.
Other films: The Crying Game, Death in Venice, The Bird Carge (first saw the original La Cage aux Folles), and of course, the gay characters in "The Producers".
In literature I was always fascinated by the Truman Capote, Oscar Wilde, and their works.
I was also an avid reader of Armistead Maupin, the outrageously gay columnist who wrote San Francisco's "Tales of the City".
Thirty odd years ago gays in film and TV especially were clownish caricatures, sidekicks, and rarely more than 2 dimensional players cast comedically.
thank the gay rights movement, and social evolution for today's gay characters in TV, film and theatre who may be seen as fully realized and leading character, not only as people we laugh with(at).
