http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2009/nov/29...role-cadwalladr

Interesting article from one of the most visible gay actors of our time.

What do you guys think?

I never heard of him. The interview shows him to have been misunderstood, maligned, etc because he came out as gay. That's not unusual for gays born before 1970. We got a black US president before a gay one.

I wrote a long complex novel about a famous hero who's handsome, loving, saving, caring, and happy. And he's gay. Which reduces its chances of being published.

Ian McKellen is a gay actor with a successful career. Rupert Everett is a primping queen.

Edited December 4, 200916 yr by endure

lol endure.

I think he is correct. There is still a lot of misunderstanding and distrust of gays. The hatred has eased in a statistical manner, but the discrimination is still there and it's still strong.

Much of the acceptance of gays is due to political correctness and the fact that some people are genuinely nice and you don't have hat them any more. But accept them....no. There's a ways to go.

By the way, thanks Boo, it's a good article and gives food for thought.

How can a man who's had an affair with Paula Yates and shagged some French bird complain that coming out ruined his career? He's not gay - he's just a tart.

We got a black US president before a gay one.

How do you know that?

To say that, "He had Hollywood at his feet at the age of 25," is overstating it a bit, don't you think? He continues to make about a movie a year....just about his average over his whole career.

I don't like him that much. He's okay. I don't go to a movie because he's in it. Then again, I don't go to a Tom Cruise movie because he's in it.

I think he should stop whining.

We got a black US president before a gay one.

How do you know that?

Good point. There was a president, can't remember which one, who was suspected of being gay. His 'boyfriend' was sent off to be ambassador of some small country. It was never confirmed if the president gay, but his boyfriend sure was!

We got a black US president before a gay one.

How do you know that?

Good point. There was a president, can't remember which one, who was suspected of being gay. His 'boyfriend' was sent off to be ambassador of some small country. It was never confirmed if the president gay, but his boyfriend sure was!

During Clinton's sex trials, I asked a presidential historian how many US presidents had fornicated or adulderated. He said most had stuck their Willie into the wrong Wilhemina. So maybe they stuck it into William or Bertram.

I would think, tho, that a gay actor who portrayed a stud or was a romantic lead would find his career seriously impeded by coming out. Think Rock Hudson, sure that was a long time ago, but lets say a similar romantic lead of our day came out and said he was gay, how many more leading roles would he get?

So, just curious, how many forum members felt that coming out impeded your career or you didn't do so for fear it would impede your career?

I have always his admired his forthrightness and he used to be stunningly handsome. But he is a Brit and it is his duty to complain, so he does.

I believe he has had some unfortunate plastic surgery recently which also might hinder his career. He now looks stretched beyond recognition. Such a shame cause he was very attractive & had a lot of character in his cragginess.

There is virtually no career where being completely 'out'- that means to coworkers and the public at large- is any kind of advantage. If anything, it is almost uniformly likely to cause one some problems at some point because of heterosexual privilege- i.e., no one would be attacked simply for being straight, but there's always going to be some nutter who wants to take an ill-advised and insecure potshot at a person with a perceived vulnerability that appeals to their bigotry and ignorance. A gay worker or boss might come out to make a point, but it would be in spite of the risks rather than in absence of them.

The reputation of Everett's sexuality has overshadowed his acting reputation, but in his case that is almost completely his own fault. However, to be fair, it takes someone of McKellen's age and unquestionable pedigree even to have a chance at being out without that being the single most important public fact about him.

Did mckellan actually ever "come out" in the sense we understand it today? Or did he, over the years, just become less reserved about hiding his sexuality?

He's been quite outspoken- he has a kind of website blog where he has discussed his sexuality, and quite long ago he was in stage plays that explored gay issues (there was a really brutal one about the arrest of homosexuals in Nazi Germany). I think he also said in an interview that the only reason he was in such a movie as X-men is because of the discrimination parallels between mutants and gays.

Did mckellan actually ever "come out" in the sense we understand it today? Or did he, over the years, just become less reserved about hiding his sexuality?

He came out in a 1998 debate about Section 28 on BBC radio against Peregrine Wortshorne - not sure if it was Radio 3 or 4.

We got a black US president before a gay one.

How do you know that?

As a young man Abraham Lincoln's (a republican, har har) closeness to two other young men would have put him into the gay camp by modern definition.

Lincoln's story becomes interesting when Tripp discusses real people. In 1831, when he was 22, Lincoln moved to New Salem, an Illinois frontier town, where he met Billy Greene. Greene coached Lincoln in grammar and shared a narrow bed with him. ''When one turned over the other had to do likewise,'' Greene told Herndon. Bed-sharing was common enough in raw settlements, but Greene also had vivid memories of Lincoln's physique: ''His thighs were as perfect as a human being could be.'' Everyone saw that Lincoln was tall and strong, but this seems rather gushing.

Six years later, Lincoln moved to Springfield, where he met Joshua Speed, who became a close friend; John G. Nicolay and John Hay, two early biographers, called him ''the only -- as he was certainly the last -- intimate friend that Lincoln ever had.'' Lincoln and Speed shared a double bed in Speed's store for four years (for two of those years, two other young men shared the room, though not the bed). More important than the sleeping arrangements was the tone of their friendship. Lincoln's letters to Speed before and after Speed's wedding in 1842 are as fretful as those of a general before a dubious engagement. Several of them are signed ''Yours forever.''

http://www.gayheroes.com/abe.htm

Here is some more juicy stuff from wiki including a gay content bawdy poem written by the great president himself! --

In his biography of Lincoln, Carl Sandburg in 1926 made an allusion to the early relationship of Lincoln and his friend Joshua Fry Speed as having "a streak of lavender, and spots soft as May violets." "Streak of lavender" was slang in the 1930s for a "sissy" or an effeminate man; later "lavender" connoted homosexuality.[5] Sandburg did not state that either was homosexual or that the relationship was sexual in nature.[6]

Lincoln wrote a poem that described a marriage-like relation between two men. It is an open question whether the poem is a sign of his homosexual feelings or whether it was intended to ridicule. It included the lines:

“ For Reuben and Charles have married two girls,

But Billy has married a boy.

The girls he had tried on every side,

But none could he get to agree;

All was in vain, he went home again,

And since that he's married to Natty.

Edited December 5, 200916 yr by Jingthing

Can't agree more with endure on this person... every time I see him, my gay ass and I get the impression that being gay to him is probably just something he wears on his sleeve... kinda like having madonna as a "friend".

Rupert Everret, thinks coming out is an actors career killer?

So is being a <deleted> actor Rupert.