"I think there are a lot of people who have trouble coming to terms with that because they see marriage as traditionally between a man and a woman. But I also know that when couples are committed to each other and love each other that they ought to have, I think, the same sort of rights that everyone has."—Laura Bush tells Larry King her views on gay marriage and how she feels it's an inevitability. See how smart you become when you read?
The big story this week was what's been termed as a homophobic rant which was written by a homosexual. The piece "Straight Jacket" by Ramin Setoodeh appeared in Newsweek, and was subtitled "Heterosexual actors play gay all the time. Why doesn't it ever work in reverse?" A provocative question. Alas, Ramin's first example was Sean Hayes heading the cast of the Broadway revival of Promises, Promises—the same week Hayes by-and-large got good reviews and received a Tony nomination. The gauntlet was taken up by Hayes' Promises co-star, Kristin Chenoweth—who, ironically, has by-and-large gotten bad reviews and was snubbed by the Tony committee. Kris wrote a letter saying that Setoodeh's article is "horrendously homophobic" and that his missive offends her "because I am a human being, a woman and a Christian." While she states that she has seen nothing "wooden" or "weird" in Hayes' performance, I assume she also thinks she is perfectly cast—and, on that point, there appears to be little question. Others have joined Chenoweth in condemning the original article—although many of the responses make it clear that they either didn't read the article or have limited comprehension skills.
Setoodeh did himself a grave disservice by attacking individual performances that he finds lacking. If we go back to the subtitle, the point is that there has yet to be an openly gay man who has successfully played a heterosexual romantic lead—and I'm using "successfully" in a financial way rather than a critical one. Let's leave the Brits out of this argument for the time being ( or check out Rupert Everett's endless whining ) . And women don't seem to have this issue because straight men, inexplicably, all want to sleep with lesbians. In fact, I'll go further than Ramin and say this is not a gay or straight issue. It's bigger than that. The truth is, the more we know about ANY actor's private life, the harder it is for them to disappear in a character. Tell me any of you can look at Tom Cruise in a movie and not have the words "nut job" or "wacko" cross your mind. Or Mel Gibson and "Nazi" or "drunk". Or...well, you get the point. So, yes, openly gay actors need to be vocal for a myriad of social reasons. But it doesn't necessarily help them in their profession. Plus, let us not forget, entertainment is about fantasy. People watch movies or shows to forget about reality. If they wanted reality, they'd sit home and read this column!
Sometimes straight actors have issues playing gay roles. For instance, we now learn that Mark Wahlberg turned down a role in Brokeback Mountain based on the advice of a priest! Whatever happened to separation of church and cinema? Reverend James Flavin became a close friend when Mark was a 15-year-old troubled youth. Ever since, the elder has been an advisor on spiritual and professional matters. Father Flavin told Mark to take The Departed, to pass on Ocean's Eleven, and nixed Brokeback Mountain. But, the padre ain't always right—he told Mark to do Max Payne. How many Hail Marys did he have to say to pay penance for that one?
Last week was the annual Broadway Beauty Pageant, which was a benefit for the Ali Forney Center for Homeless LGBT youths. The winner was Charlie Williams, termed as "Mr. Memphis" since he appears in the Broadway musical Memphis. Behind the scenes, he organizes all the fundraising that his cast does for Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS. He's personally very hands on raising money for BC/EFA and GayLifeNYC.org, which helps people living with HIV/AIDS. He's also the poster boy for the upcoming Broadway Bares benefit, and certainly doesn't mind showing off his body—which is certainly something to behold. So, of course, everyone wants to know if he's gay. Well, in the pageant he danced to Barbra Streisand's The Main Event. When asked how he knew the song, he said, "Oh, please! It's Barbra Streisand. What kind of gay man would I be if I didn't know?" Later he added, "I'm still searching and discovering who I am. I don't want to limit myself. I've been with guys and I've been with girls." And he'll be on BillyMasters.com for your viewing pleasure.
Obviously there have been oodles of rumors about Jesse Metcalfe. Was it gay rumors that got him sacked from playing a romantic lead on a hit show? Or did he brush some people the wrong way? Or perhaps the brushing stopped. No matter the reasons, he may well be on the comeback trail—with nary a Cherry in sight. He recently shot a pilot called Chase and NBC has already picked up the show for the fall. So Jesse's got a job. That's the easy part. He gets plenty of jobs. As Bette Midler says in The Rose, "But keeping 'em's the hard part."
Let's end with a bit more "Desperate" dish. It looks like John Barrowman is not necessarily leaving at the end of this season. Although that was the original plan, FOX has extinguished the proposed US version of Torchwood, so Johnny's datebook is remarkably empty. Aside from hitting Wales for the holiday season to play Aladdin ( I kid you not—photos on our site ) , he's got nothing but time, and the network ( and Mr. Cherry ) would like to keep him around by possibly rehabilitating his character. A good start might be to calm down on the make-up and Botox. My god, it was like Lypsinka was playing those first scenes with Drea de Matteo! At one point, I thought he'd have to say, "It may not look it, but I'm angry!" What does he have? A Botox drip? Stop the insanity...
When Botox can be listed as a dependent, it's definitely time to end yet another column. On topic, beefy and long ... just the way I like 'em. So I'll just remind you to check out www.BillyMasters.com because I'm sure some of this brilliance will get cut in print due to space. For your personal needs, I suggest you send an e-mail to Billy@BillyMasters.com and I promise to get back to you before Marky Mark and Father Flavin star in a production of "Doubt"! So, until next time, remember, one man's filth is another man's bible.
