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Although few
gay male film actors
have been permitted the luxury of openness, many have challenged and
helped reconfigure notions of
masculinity and, to
a lesser extent, of homosexuality.
Clifton Webb
Dirk Bogarde (1921-1999) was a
film star often called "the British Rock Hudson."
Raymond Burr (1917-1993) will
always be identified with the Perry Mason character he played on
television, but he was an accomplished film actor as well.
Montgomery Clift
(1920-1966) was a spectacular actor. He was also an
isolated and tortured gay man who used drugs and alcohol to
escape his pain.
Brad Davis (1949-1991) was a gay
film icon who has been called "the first heterosexual actor to die of
AIDS," though he was widely known as bisexual in the entertainment
community.
James Dean (1931-1955) became an
enduring icon of American film whose brooding non-conformity helped challenge rigid notions
of masculinity.
Divine (1945-1988) was a
versatile character actor, nightclub singer, and cult star who
generally performed his stage show and movie roles in drag.
Rupert Everett
(b. 1959) has been notably open as a gay male actor ever since he came
out in a press interview in 1989.
The
Film Sissy had his heyday in the
1930s, but persists as a film archetype, subtly reminding audiences that
there are alternatives to conventional heterosexuality.
British Actor Stephen Fry (b. 1957)
won accolades as Oscar
Wilde in the film Wilde. He is also an accomplished comic,
novelist, memoirist, and philanthropist. |
