The lesser known Lavender marriages in Hollywood

June 2024 ยท 4 minute read

I knew someone who claimed that Newman and Woodward used her spare room on 52nd street in Manhattan when they were both married to other people for loud, passionate sex. She knew a lot that turned out to be true about people in "show business", so that while not above exaggerating her role in affairs, I believed her. Newman was widely said to have same sex affairs on movie sets that ended when the movie did, he was ruthless about enforcing this. I heard this from a lot of people, so I assume it was true, at least now and again. I have never heard that Woodward was gay; many women "in the business" simply tolerate "flexibility" in the man they love or want/see an advantage to be with, whether they are "flexible" themselves or not.

The Lunts were very closeted, he told a young Monty Clift to hide his sexuality, butch it up and find an understanding woman (as cover if nothing else). Since Monty had just made a pass at him that was pouring cold water over things.

The story is a famous one told in various versions but is narrated in detail in The "Fabulous Lunts" by Jared Brown. Brown avoids the couple's gayness (widely known) and the number of bi or gay members of their company, which toured endlessly in between Broadway runs (Sydney Greenstreet was in the company. Though married to a woman who became schizophrenic, he was quite the queen but Brown again downplays this without entirely denying it).

Charles Laughton and Elsa Lanchester were also a gay man and a bi tending straight woman who were married, not always happily.

Many English actors married, despite conflicted sexuality. Michael Redgrave was not only strongly attracted to men but also very much into BD/SM (there's a famous, well attested story of John Gielgud greeting him with "Sir Michael Redgrave, I'll be bound!"), but appears to have loved his wife (apparently intermittently bi) and daughters. One of them, Vanessa Redgrave married Tony Richardson, who died of AIDS but evidently was bi. Natasha was their daughter.

Alec Guinness married but admitted toward the end of his life, that his devout Catholicism had caused him huge suffering, since his various homosexual affairs occasioned tremendous guilt.

Although it's likely that many of the stories about Olivier are untrue, he seems at least to have been bi throughout his life. There appears to be good reason to believe that both he and Joan Plowright, his wife at the time, had affairs with Peter Finch.

No one above mentioned Tony Perkins, as big a queen as ever queened, marrying Berry Berenson. They had two sons; he died of AIDS, she died on 9/11.

Also, no one mentioned Moss Hart, who married Kitty Carlisle. I knew Steven Bach who wrote the compendious bio of Hart called DAZZLER and he showed me some of his research. Bach got Kitty to cooperate by promising to keep Hart's homosexuality out of the book as much as possible. One of the elderly ladies, still alive who had known Hart well is quoted in his notes as saying, "WE ALL wanted to marry Moss, he was the most fun of any man ever. He had to be married for his career. But he picked her. We all had only one word when we heard, "WHY??" Kitty did try to rein in Moss' gay life, and couldn't (she spent a year in a "facility" to try and come to terms with that). He did stop cruising the subway johns, getting arrested and beaten up, and eventually she put a stop to his all male/bathing attire discouraged pool parties. But he continued to have sex with men, though they had two children, an idiot, and a brilliant daughter who was a distinguished AIDS researcher in the early days of the epidemic.

No one mentioned Hal Prince who is gay and his straight very sweet wife, Judy Chaplin. They had two children, also a threesome with John Guare, bi -- at least -- but known in his youth and mid years for making passes at male cuties. Nor did anyone mention Bernie Gersten or his monster wife (three daughters). He and Guare were finally thrown out by Joe Papp for queening it up too much but of course landed at Lincoln Center.

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