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Sometimes when celebrities I
interview won’t talk about
gay—related issues, they reveal
more than when they will.
• Their most common reasons for
declining are fear and apathy.
In the latter category is Don
Ameche, who recently
appeared at Atlanta’s
Harlequin Dinner Theatre. He
takes a laissez-fairre attitude:
“They’ve (gay people) never
interfered with me and I’ve
never interfered with them.”
On the subject of gay rights: “I
think I’m better off staying out
of all that.” As far as he knows,
Ameche says, he’s never played
a love scene opposite a lesbian.
Dick Cavett, who begins a
nightly 30 minute talk show on
PBS October JO, straddles the
fence on most issues, calling
himself a “political indepen
dent.” In a nationwide press
conference over closed-circuit
TV, I asked him whether he
would have Anita Bryant on his
show and, if so, how he
proposed to have an intelligent
. conversation with her.
“An intelligent conversationg
with Anita,” he quipped,
“would be a little one
sided!... Anita once fixed my
collar in the dressing room of
the Merv Griffin Show; I won’t
say what else she did.” Cavett
described Bryant as “danger
ous” but also said she’s “sincere,
unfortunately, not a hypocrite”
and suggested that “she might
have an idea or two lurking
there that might* have an
intelligent base.”
Otherwise, Cavett’s responses
were basically pseudo-liberal
non-committal: “I believe in
equal rights for any group...Al
though I find gay rights
activism strident at times, they
certainly deserve all the rights
they can get.”
Rock Hudson, who came
through Atlanta in a dreadful
summer tour of Camelot,
fenced with reporters who tried
to dig into his private life. To
my direct question about his
stand on gay rights, he gave a
direct answer: “I don’t take a
stand on anything.”
November, 1977, The Barb — Page 5
: :
*
Star-Gazing
by
Steve Warren
Shelley Berman
Shelley Berman, the comedian
who appeared at Atlanta’s.
Midnight Sun Dinner Theatre
last summer, also refuses to
take a stand, for reasons he
explains; but he lets his true
feeling? be known. “I don’t give
a damn about (gay rights),” he
says.
“If the movement is about
denial of rights,” he adds in
response to another question,
“that’s where I’m at. I’m for
everybody having their rights,
but I’m not going to endorse
any specific group.” He’s
afraid, he elaborates, of
alienating part of his audience
and losing potential employ
ment, if he expresses an opinion
on a controversial issue.
Later Berman relates an
anecdote: ‘When I was in
elementary school, we had one
teacher who wore his hat too far
over to one side — he wore a
fedora — and he lisped slightly.
No body knew what that meant
and nobody gave a damn. All
we knew is that he was the best
teacher in our school and
everybody wanted to be in his
class!”
But many celebrities are on
our side and don’t mind saying
so. When I talked to Marjoe
, Gortner, evangelist turned
; movie star, he said he was
booked on Good Moring,
America the following week!
and that Anita Bryant was
supposed to be on the same day.
“I hope I’m on right after her,”
Marjoe said. “I’ve got it all
worked out: I’ll come out and
walk right- past her without
looking at her, and then plant a
big smooch on David
Hartman!”
Did anyone catch that show?
I I’d like to know if it ever came
about.
Burt Reynolds is so open and
sincere in expressing his feelings
about equal rights and his
contempt for Anita, I don’t
know where to begin quoting
him. Perhaps the most
surprising thing he told me is
that he thinks his large redneck
following would be more likely
to accept him playing a gay
character than doing a love
scene with a black woman.
(He’s been offered a movie with
Diana Ross, he says, and is still
considering it because he thinks
they’d be good together.
Reynolds has some hilarious
dialogue about gay athletes in
his next movie, Semi-Tough,
which open in November.
Two actresses I’ve spoken with
twice had some interesting,
positive things to say about us.
Kathryn (Mrs. Bing) Crosby
was taken aback at a press
conference when I pointed out
some similarities between her
and Anita Bryant: Both are red-
. haired female entertainers borr.
in the Southwest and raised in
the Baptist church. Both were
runners-up in beauty contests
and both are seen selling orange
juice on TV. Do they, I asked,
'have the same feelings about
gay people?
She was too startled — most of
the previous questions had
dealt with Bing’s gold game —
to lie; and her response, though
[disorganized, was a good one.
t “I think love is the answer to
everything,” she said, and went
on to tell of a gay couple she had
worked with in San Francisco
who celebrated their anniver
sary the same day as hers and
Bing’s.
“I think everyone in the whole
world has full rights,” Crosby
said. “I don’t feel I’m capable of
condemning anyone’s
lifestyle...”
A month later she thanked
for raising the question when ,
and how I did. It had been
asked again “much less
pleasantly” — in Ohio.
Fred Williamson
The only somewhat negative
comment I’ve heard all year was
from ex-football player Fred
Williamson, who showed more
ignorance than machismo when
he said that gay athletes must be
a recent phenomenon, because
he never got groped in the
locker room!
Cloris Leachman demanded
and got a retraction from the
Atlanta Constitution because
their reporter insinuated she
was opposed to equal rights for
igays.
The Constitution reporter,
who described me as “a long
haired, male newsman who has
made no secret of his support
for the gay rights movement,”
■ thought she had witnessed the
1 opening shot of World War III,
that Leachman had put her foot
in her mouth and made a hasty
i attempt to retrieve it.
It’s significant that, of all the
inaccuracies in a bitchy article
that described her as “looking
wrinkled and fiftyish,” the only
thing Leachman wanted
corrected was the implication
that she might be in the Bryant
camp.
Leachman and I had discussed
the subject- last year and I. was
familiar with her views. When I
caught the Californian drinking
orange juice, I explained that
we don’t touch the stuff in this
part of the country. When I
mentioned the sunshine
sweetheart, Leachman started
• raving about what a wonderful
I thing Anita had done —
^meaning, as I understood and
(she went on to explain that
| she had united gays and spurred
fus to fight for our rights.