Ask the Flying Monkey! (May 20, 2009)

Have a question about gay male entertainment? Ask the Monkey! (Please include your city and state and/or country.)

Q: I was always under the impression that Dom DeLuise, like other 1970s B-level comic figures such as Paul Lynde, Rip Taylor, and Charles Nelson Reilly, was a not-very-closeted gay man. I was surprised, then, that when he died last week, there was no mention of that in any article I saw. I did read that he had a long marriage to a woman and several grown children (certainly not proof of heterosexuality, but nonetheless). Was I just misinformed? -- Thomasina, Alabama

Dom DeLuise

A: You and the Flying Monkey both. I also always simply assumed DeLuise was gay, so I was as surprised as you were to read last week that he’d been married for 44 years and had three children.

That said – and I’m not necessarily saying anything about DeLuise, because I have no idea what the truth is – gay men of that generation, especially actors, sometimes had an extremely strange relationship with public declarations of homosexuality.

Last year, when we referred to Rip Taylor as “openly gay” (because IMDb and many other sources list him as such), we received an email from him, stating, “You don't know me to summarize that I am openly gay. I don't know that you're not an openly heroin user. You see how that works? Think before you write.”

If that email reads like it came from an alternate reality, it did: a distant time when an indication of gayness was enough to get a celebrity drummed out of his chosen profession, perhaps for good.

In other words, the comedians you mention, and others, were allowed to be “colorful” and “flamboyant” – but only as long as they never ever actually said they were “gay” (although Paul Lynde, envelope-pusher that he was, sometimes came very close). Gay leading men, meanwhile, were “allowed” their private lives – but only if there was no evidence of their gayness whatsoever, often even around their “liberal” straight Hollywood friends. Rock Hudson wrote in his autobiography that he actually resented out gay people, and blamed them for anti-gay bigotry. Such is the mind-warping power of the closet.

And sometimes, as you say, the bargain these actors made with the mainstream meant dating or marrying women.

Still, it’s hard for me to judge the choices made by a previous generation, who know far better than I what they had to do to survive.

Q: I was wondering if you knew if the singer Jon McLaughlin is a gay ally. I know he is straight and I’ve seen him live and he is amazing! – Travys

Jon McLaughlin

A: He is indeed down with his gay fans. The handsome singer, who sang the song “So Close” in the movie Enchanted (and saw his career take off after he performed the nominated tune at the 2007 Academy Awards), grew up in sometimes-conservative Indiana (after which he titled his second CD, Indiana). But Jon spent his childhood and teen years doing musicals and plays – which, stereotypes be damned, meant spending a lot of time around gay people.

Next page! Hey John Schneider, how's it hanging?