Hollywood Gays (34 page)

A: Well, I guess I wasn’t too typical. I did work out, and I went in for sunshine. Too much sun.

Q: The boy next door.

A: I wouldn’t say that. Background’s too different for that.

Q: Oh. You mean Southern and well-to-do?

A: Well, yes.... What else about Cary?

Q: It’s been said that once his star solidified in Hollywood, he tried to become less English and cut the ties with England.

A: How does that go? “England. Where they separate the men from the boys—with a crowbar.” (Laughs.)

Q: It’s always somewhere else, isn’t it? But I know what you mean. In America, and no less in Hollywood, the stereotypical Englishman is upper-class and effete.

A: A bunch of Oscar Wildes.

Q: Who was neither English nor upper-class. Things are seldom as they seem. And perhaps Grant wanted to reinvent himself—a new country, a new beginning.

A: He didn’t want to be limited by all that. I can see his point.

Q: But in trying to universalize oneself, doesn’t a performer lose real parts of himself, or seem to?

A: Or seem to...I getcha.

Q: It’s interesting how some British actors remain so, like David Niven, while some, like Ray Milland—

A: (Loud cough.) Not one of my favorite names.

Q: Not his real one, either. Born Reginald Truscott-Jones.

A: Not one of my favorite people, regardless.

Q: Why?

A: He disliked Cary and used to bad-mouth him.

Q: Why? (No reply.) They even looked alike when they were young, except for the chin dimple.

A: Very similar to a stranger or a viewer. But the resemblance was superficial, and only physical.

Q: Did it bother Milland that Grant was the bigger star?

A: Could be. But Milland did win the Academy Award (for
The Lost Weekend
, 1945; Grant never won an Oscar).

Q: Was it that people might think the two resembled each other sexually, and Milland resented that?

A: I think by now we’ve spoken enough about Mr. Grant.

Q:
You’re
not a matrimaniac.

A: A what?!

Q: Have you heard that word? It’s very apt for Hollywood. A matrimaniac is someone who’s been married time and time again, for whichever reason....

A: Are we still, or are you, speaking about...?

Q: You-know-who? Kay Francis was also said to be a matrimaniac, marrying men even though she had little use for them personally.

A: Personally?

Q: Sexually. Her costar Phil Silvers, to name one, said so. In print. Which was daring, then.

A: I’ve heard that. What questions do you have about me?

Q: You were a male model?

A: I was a male model. Yes. (Chuckles.)

Q: Even that was “daring” in those days.

A: Everything was, in a way.

Q: I read that in the 1930s, magazines wanted photos of you, but with “girls” in them too.

A: Every photo had to tell a story.

Q: Only one story. Do you think being a male model cast you in a lesser light, in Hollywood’s eyes?

A: In some quarters. Sure. But my big break wasn’t really how I looked. It was more how I sounded.

Q: The Gary Cooper connection?

A: Ha-ha! You’ve done your research. Yes. I spoke pretty good for a guy from Virginia.

Q: What do you say to repeated talk—hardly ever in print—that on his way up, Gary Cooper engaged in some homosexual relationships?

A: I wouldn’t even say relationships.

Q: Casting couch?

A: Casting couch. That’s just...everybody’s been propositioned. A hell of a lot of actors and actresses, or actresses and actors, did whatever was expedient. Depended how ambitious a body was. And what you felt.

Q: Like lust?

A: (Laughs.) Most producers inspired anything but lust.

Q: I meant a big star giving a starlet, male or female, a boost in return for a sexual favor that’s usually a pleasure for both men. (No reply.) It’s been said about a lot of people—Clark Gable and—

A: Yes, I’ve heard that. In his case, I’m sure it was just expedient.

Q: Gary Cooper was reportedly very grateful for your helping improve his...diction.

A: He was grateful.

Q: Cooper lived for a time with a fairly openly gay millionaire.

A: He wasn’t a lot older than Gary, if he was older.

Q: That’s right....

A: Anyhow, he went back to Lupe Velez.

Q: I imagine he was predominantly heterosexual. But so much of a man’s public behavior is shaped by what is officially acceptable.

A: I see what you mean. But I agree with you about Coop.

Q: It’s well-known in Hollywood about Ray Milland’s homophobia. Yet the director perhaps most responsible for making him a star was Mitchell Leisen.

A: Yeah (chuckles). They worked together often enough.

Q: The stories say Milland was terrified of encountering Leisen in the Paramount fitting room (Leisen began as a costume designer).

A: Maybe he didn’t want to be fitted....

Q: One story says Milland turned down a role in a period picture—set during the Borgias—because he feared Leisen might personally fit him for a codpiece.

A: (Laughs.) That’s ridiculous! Though I’d doubt that was why the guy said no.

Q: Milland’s fears seemed so extreme, one wonders what was really behind them.

A: “The lady doth protest too much”?

Q: You know Shakespeare.

A: Not personally. Bit before my time.

Q: Indubitably. I meant that behind most obsessive homophobes, or inside them, I should say, is a secret or latent homosexual or bisexual.

A: That could be. Anyhow, so much for Milland. He might have been happier in that fitting room with (Paramount designer) Edith Head.

Q: Because of her gender or...?

A:
Or
. If he didn’t want to be...propositioned.

Q: I getcha. (Both laugh.) May I ask about a particular DuPont? One who was lesbian.

A: But not anyone in my private life.

Q: Do you know which DuPont I’m referring to?

A: Hmm. It’s a colorful family. Rich but colorful.

Q: Full of individualists, I’ve heard from people in Delaware.

A: Do you mean Louisa? (Louisa d’Andelot Carpenter Jenny.)

Q: Yes. A tall, blonde woman ahead of her time. Chiefly remembered as the lover and companion of Libby Holman.

A: But Libby had that husband—tobacco heir. Some folks figured she shot him. And she had a son, who died very young.

Q: Holman was bisexual. At one time she was linked with Montgomery Clift, who was predominantly gay.

A: I doubt she and Clift had a romantic relationship.

Q: They seemed romantic about each other, but it may not have been sexual.

A: That’s what I sometimes say. Romance, sex, sex or romance. Not always the same thing.

Q: In the Middle Ages they were supposedly quite separate.

A: But Louisa.... She did have some achievements. If I have it right, she was the great-great-great-granddaughter of
the
Mr. DuPont, the founder. And she was kind of...known for liking to go around shirtless—or topless—in private.

Q: An outdoorsy lass. She loved horses.

A: You may not know she was the first lady master-of-hounds in this nation. And one of the first licensed lady pilots. She wasn’t ugly, either.

Q: No, quite good-looking. But she didn’t want to be an actress, she wanted to produce—for the stage. I think that’s how she met Libby Holman.

A: I do remember that back around the time of the Crash (1929), Miss Holman was being escorted about Manhattan by Richard Halliday.

Q: The story editor at Paramount? (Gay Halliday later wed lesbian actress Mary Martin, a divorcee with a son—Larry Hagman.)

A: That was the first time I
wondered
about Miss Holman.

Q: Because of Halliday?

A: She
had
to know. She was pretty sharp.

Q: It was hinted in tabloids of the time that Holman sought the favors of attainable female performers like Jeanne Eagels and Josephine Baker.

A: Things did make their way into the papers sometimes.
Some
papers. But you know, Louisa did marry at one point.

Q: Yes. A DuPont employee surnamed Jenny, to escape her father’s house and please her mother. She adopted a daughter who lived with Louisa, Libby, and Libby’s son Topper.

A: That does sound familiar. They were rather fascinating personalities.

Q: I know someone who was going to write a joint biography of Holman and Tallulah Bankhead. Then her editor died, and the publishers decided the project was “too risky.”

A: As I heard tell, Libby and Tallulah were...you know.

Q: Lovers?

A: Yes.

Q: Did anybody not sleep with Tallulah Bankhead?

A: I didn’t. If I dare say so myself (chuckles). You might keep that under your hat.

Q: What else would I do with it?

A: I’ve just remembered. Louisa’s daughter was Sunny. Whether it was her nickname or...I don’t know. But everyone called her Sunny, and Sunny’s godfather was Clifton Webb. He should be well-known to you (chuckles).

Q: Well, he was a famous actor. Played Mr. Belvedere and all that.

A: You know just what I mean.

Q: One of Webb’s good friends was Noël Coward, who was a very good friend of Cary Grant.

A: Meaning?

Q: Leading up to a question. Coward was a houseguest of yours and Cary’s at your Santa Monica beach house.

A: That isn’t a question. But it’s true. And?

Q: And I sometimes wish I’d been alive in the 1930s. Where are these people today?

A: Hmm. Gone with the wind. Gone…I suppose I have been pretty lucky, the people I’ve known, people who’ve passed through my life and that I was a part of theirs. Many were real nice folks. The rest were at least colorful.

Q: As you were wealthy, you didn’t have to act for a living. Did that dull the edge of your ambition?

A: Some. It was different for me than most actors.

Q: Like Cary Grant? He grew up in poverty and reportedly has never learned to believe in his wealth.

A: I’ll talk about
myself
. (Sternly.) I was lucky. Of course I was. But show business seemed appealing, and the people in it exciting. I wanted to be involved in it, and when I no longer had an interest in making pictures, I stopped.

Q: How many films did you make?

A: Probably too many.

Q: Any favorites?

A: Oh, that kind of thing doesn’t interest me. So I don’t think it’ll interest you.

Q: That’s all right. Was it known to you, doing so many westerns and perhaps researching some of them, that Wild Bill Hickok was homosexual?

A: I don’t think this part’s for
Interview
, is it?

Q: No reason it shouldn’t be. History’s history. But it’s true, Warhol and company aren’t much for the pre-assembly-line past.
Hickok
?

A: Wild Bill...yes, I knew that. But not from research.

Q: You just heard it somehow?

A: I don’t think Guy Madison knew it when he did all those TV and radio shows playing the fella. (Grins.)

Q: Or Howard Keel in the same role in
Calamity Jane
, where Doris Day’s heterosexual version of another gay historical figure misled and reassured most in the audience?

A: But that’s Hollywood’s business.

Q: Lies?

A: Fiction. That’s a better word.

Q: Both apply, and yield the same result. Did you ever read up on gay characters—I mean real life—from the Old West? (Pause.) I forgot, there probably weren’t any books which admitted their existence.