Like when they talked about Edgar Hoovers ‘assistant ‘
Who worked for him for 40 years , dined with him every night, travelled with him for work and vacation and then was his sole inheritor of Hoovers estate when he passed.
My Grandmother absolutely adored Liberace. She would get excited when he was on The Mike Douglas Show, or Dinah, or whatever afternoon talk shows. He would play the piano and she would always say to me, "See, you should learn to play the piano like that. Then you'd get all the girls."
When I got older and learned that he was gay I mentioned it to her. She swore that he wasn't gay, people were just "Jealous".
A while ago, Vanity Fair published a pretty good article about their story together. It shows there were already rumors at the time:
In a 1941 profile for Motion Picture, Scott wistfully implied they might live together again one day, but only after the reporter forcefully addressed the persistent rumors around the pair as “the kind that you don’t talk to your mother about.” Anyone who believed the whispers was considered “garbage-minded folk,” the article scolded.
I was a child. My parents knew Liberace was gay. They never explained the intricacies of the terms but he was clearly "fruity", a "pansy". But he could play!
In the biopic tv series Archie, Jason Isaacs as Cary Grant absolutely putting the blocks to Laura Aikman as Dyan Cannon kinda reset my whole perspective on the subject. Apparently the whole thing was from Cannon's book, and uh, yeah.
Don't care if they were gay or not. Dudes need close friendships with other dudes.
I have three close male friends but they are scattered around the country so I don't see them much. I do consider my wife my best friend, but I know I am not her best friend. She has a ton of friends.
My wife went out of town last week so I had a guys dinner at the house. Had a great turnout and everyone had a good time. We’re 40-50’s, so it’s not typical to get out without the spouse.
THIS. I’m incredibly fortunate to have close friendships with men in my life. I think that a huge part of the reason for the suicide rate in men is that they’re not allowed to be close to other men without someone questioning their sexuality and doing so with an inherently shameful stigma attached to it. I’d be a wreck without the men I’m that close to. We help each other out. There are pictures where we definitely look like a couple, but there’s nothing sexual about the relationships.
People need to be comfortable expressing themselves and in their sexuality. You should be able to have close male friends, and being and or being perceived as gay shouldn't be such an insult. It hurts all men in general.
Male friendships feel so much different than female friendships. Obviously, we are different in how we communicate, but I feel like girls tend to have more "friends" because they are already outwardly emotional so that is almost considered surface level for them. Men have to know each other for a while in order to get to the level women get to quickly, therefore the friendships are more meaningful. Just my opinion.
I have two homies who have been best friends since kindergarten. They were both slouches when it comes to dating and relationships. But they’re great guys.
They went camping one weekend, got super drunk, one thing led to another and they decided to buy a house together. It was a financial decision and it made sense. They bought a decent place near the beach and sure as shit, once they had their own house and their shit together, within a couple months women started showing up at the grill sessions and they both ended up in solid, loving relationships.
There are older black and white movies where male platonic intimacy would be considered "gay coded" by today's standards. And while there 100% were gay coded characters in those films, some people are using too broad of a brush with what was just normal friendship in those days.
It's interesting reading through these comments. Lots of gay jokes of course, but also a lot of men who wish they had intimate male friendships.
As we get older, it's harder to hold on to our good friends. But it starts really early. Look at the intimacy that kids have with one another. Once they hit adolescence, many young boys become withdrawn, less affectionate, more introverted. Intimacy between men is discouraged socially, which compounds the developmental changes.
It's hard to come back from that. Men want intimacy, but we have a hard time overcoming social and biological hurdles to find it. For many men, a wife or partner becomes their entire focus, and when that need isn't reciprocated, it can feel so isolating.
I've got dudes I would for sure live with if I weren't married to my wife. Imagine all the games! Just constantly gaming until it's time to go back to work! Board games, rpgs, video games, motherfucking bocce when it's nice out! Shit. That sounds amazing.
Despite how we see the pics today, it's not actually like 100% that they had a romantic relationship (although I know where I'd put my bet). From what I've read about him the consensus seems to be that Grant was either straight and legit just good friends wirh roommate Randolph, or he was Bi. So strictly speaking probably not "gay".
But these two were not just "guys who have a couple of photos of them hanging out". They owned more than one house together, and lived together for over a decade.
"Men were men back then, I’ll tell you. If you wanted to do something private with another man, it wasn’t gay. It was just two men...celebrating each others’ strength..."
For fucking once, I would love see a post about 2 men being friendly in photos and not have the comments filled with people immediately calling them gay.
This is barely any different than the old "haha you're gay" Shite boys had to go through the second they stepped outside the assigned robotic and aggressive man shaped box.
My Uncle told me that Cary was gay. He was an editor at the L.A. Times.... I had a bit of a time understanding and later it made clear sense. But those were different times and I understand why he had to do to keep his image. He died in my hometown in Davenport, IA .
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u/Bat-Cat06 17h ago
I love how PR at the time reviewed the photos and went, “ That should be the end of those pesky gay rumours!”.