Norman Mailer, the Pulitzer Prize winning American novelist, was famous for his writing, and infamous for his womanizing and chauvinism. Salacious stories are now coming out, though, from one of his female companions who "suspected him of having an affair with a male friend, was worried that he might contract Aids and refused to indulge his fantasy of three-way sex with a gay man."

An archive of personal papers from model Carole Mallory was bought by The National Enquirer Harvard University, and they reveal intimate details of their relationship, as well as some surprising accounts of Norman's alleged gay desires. from the article:

At one point in April 1990, when Mailer was 67 and married to his sixth wife, Norris Church, Mallory worried that her lover of the previous seven years “could get Aids”. Three weeks later, she wrote that Mailer had asked her what other men she would like to sleep with. When she mentioned a man named Paul, Mailer is said to have replied: “He’s gay. Why don’t we all three f***?” At another point she writes: “He asked me to wash his bottom. So SAD. He is so ashamed of what he likes."

Despite that fact that the last quote is one of the most unintentionally hilarious things ever written, there's no proof that Mailer, was in fact, a "bottom washer", and because he died last year, there's no way for him to refute or confirm it. What's obvious is that this is either a classic case of a "woman scorned", or a classic case of a man seeking to repress his gay curiosity behind a wall of hyper-heterosexuality.

Or maybe he just liked having his bottom washed. The world may never know the truth.

Dead Hollywood legends are a curious subject. Admiration and reverence have to go hand in hand with conjecture and idle gossip. There's a book out by David Bret called Clark Gable: Tormented Star that is very heavy on the latter. One of the most respected of all early Hollywood stars, he earned the moniker "King of Hollywood" in the late 1930's. Gable won an Academy Award for the classic It Happened One Night (and the urban legend still persists that after he was seen shirtless in the film, sales of men's t-shirts plummeted). He was nominated again for Mutiny on the Bounty, but of course, he is best known for one of the most iconic roles in history, Rhett Butler in Gone With The Wind.

He was linked to many women, and married to one of the greatest comedic actresses of all time, Carole Lombard until her tragic death. But according to Bret's biography, Lombard turned a blind eye towards his affairs with men. Carole was known to be one of the most gay friendly of all Hollywood stars, and Bret "suggests" that her gay BFF, the acclaimed silent film star/interior-designer-to-the-stars William Haines had an affair with Clark.

There is little actual proof of any of this, and some common terms in the book are "Alleged" and "It could be". He also "alleges" that early in his career, Gable was "gay for pay", and would regularly prostitute himself, and to keep the secret of his homosexuality, would out other men to throw suspicion off himself. The New York Times has a scathing review of the book out, and it's typical of the response. Hey, I'm all for conjecture and idle gossip (I read and re-read Hollywood Babylon 1 & 2 so many times growing up, the pages fell out), but there's a difference between good trash...and this.

Okay, the whole reason I write for this site is so I can say stuff like this: “When I was chatting with Wilson Cruz yesterday, he told me….”

Of course, I realize that my ability to drop the names of Very Important Gay Personages that I’ve interviewed is not why you read what I write, so let me get to the part you will care about: Guess what Wilson Cruz said he’d be doing come November?

He’ll be filming the Noah’s Arc movie! Yes, for all of us who have been in withdrawal since the end of the second season, it looks like our long dark night of the soul will soon be over.

I asked Wilson about his upcoming projects, and he casually mentioned he expected to start filming the Noah’s Arc movie soon. I perked up and, showing the amazing journalistic skills for which I’m justly renowned, gushed a little and said, “Oh wow, what’s going on with that?”

Wilson Cruz: Well, we have a script. We should be shooting before the end of the year, maybe November-ish.
Me: Is it definite?
Wilson Cruz: It looks that way, yeah.

Here's an odd bit of television gossip that should likely be taken with a bit of salt...

Apparently George Michael appears in the special final Christmas episode of the hit Ricky Gervais show Extras, playing himself and spoofing his own past drug and public bathroom sex antics. Now, Extras was known for having celebs make self-effacing appearances (Sir Ian McKellen was nominated for an Emmy for his, and celebs like Daniel Radcliffe, Kate Winslet and Orlando Bloom have made similarly hilarious turns), but making a joke about a rather big scandal (which resulted in his coming out) would be pretty daring.

Michael does have a history of poking fun at his own image, as he did in a special for Little Britain and looks ready to do in his recurring role as an angel on Eli Stone. And Gervais reportedly played a trailer for the Christmas special at a standup performance last week, and Michael appeared in the trailer (along with Clive Owen, David Tennant, Gordon Ramsay and Barry from Eastenders). So who knows? Maybe we should have "Faith" in the story after all...

UPDATE: Fox News (cough!) is disputing the news, although even their coverage has no quote from the Wachowskis themselves. The original post referencing the Cinematical story is below...

And then there was one Wachowski Brother.

They used to be Andy and Larry Wachowski — The writing directing team who together created Bound, The Matrix series, and V for Vendetta.

Back in 2003, Larry split from his wife and began to make public appearances dressed as a woman, but the filmmaker never spoke publicly to explain the cross-dressing. Was he merely a transvestite on the order of Eddie Izzard, or was he headed for a sex change?

According to an article on Cinematical today, it’s now official: Larry has undergone gender re-assignment surgery. Now it's Andy and Lana Wachowski.

The siblings will soon be promoting their spring 2008 project, Speed Racer, and according to the same Cinematical article, Andy will largely be handling press duties so that questions directed to Lana/Linda about the sex change won't overshadow the marketing of the film. I can see how that might happen — surely I’m not the only one who thinks Lana's gender reassignment is far more interesting than a remake of a seventies Saturday morning cartoon.

I have to agree with the HotButton columnist David Poland, who said the emerging woman looks a lot happier in photos than Larry ever did.