EXCLUSIVE! Wesley Eure of TV's "Land of the Lost" Comes Out

AE: Do you still have the gold chain?
WE: It was stolen from my house. I used to throw a lot of big parties. Everyone would be there. I had a ranch and stuff and the Pointer Sisters, Travolta, everybody would be out at the house. We'd have huge barbeques. But anyway, somebody walked into my bedroom one day and stole it.

AE: No! Do you at least still have the shirt? Or I guess there must have been fifty identical shirts.
WE: [laughs] No, I don't. I've got the backpack, and the knife, and I think the maps someplace that we used for two of the seasons, they're on rawhide, and a couple of the old lunch boxes. Of course, they've re-pressed the lunch boxes, and they're releasing them with the DVD set. That's kind of cool, and odd to see.

AE: I don't suppose you get a piece of that either.
WE: Well, on the DVD's, we did some behind-the-scenes stuff, so that's covered. I get a little piece, like $1.75. [laughs]

AE: Did you know at the time that you were being cast as a teen idol? Was that part of it?
WE: No. Listen. The truth of that is that I was billed as just Wesley at first.

AE: Oh, yeah! No last name, just “Wesley”! What was that about?
WE: Hello! It was managers and people going, "Oh, you're a teen idol. You're going to be a teen idol." My first series I got was actually with Kaye Ballard, and it was called The Organic Vegetables. I was cast as the leader, the drummer and singer, of a rock group called The Organic Vegetables, and it was produced by the people who made The Monkeys. It was right after The Monkees ended, and I went to an open call and got it.

It was an organic restaurant, Kaye Ballard ran it. They sold it [the show], it was scheduled, and then there was a writers' strike before we started filming this thing. Then I got Days of Our Lives, and Tiger Beat and Teen Beat were all over me. And they said, "Oh, you should just be Wesley." And I was like, "Uh, okay. I'll be Wesley." Of course, I look at it now, and I just bow my head and cringe.

AE: Are you single now?
WE: I have a partner, for two and half years.

Wesley's partner, Richard

AE: Is he in the industry?
WE: He was a baseball player. He played for the Yankees.

AE: When you met, did he recognize you?
WE: No.