Whose gay life should be made into a movie?

[operafan]

Just having gotten through weaping through the entire movie, World Trade Center, part of what made the movie so strong was the back and forth between the two trapped men and their families. I couldn't help but wonder if the movie would have been made if one of the two men had been gay and the family we watched was his husband's fretful wait to see if his guy was rescued.

Then I wondered whose story might be made. Just having read the article on James Loney (peace keeper who was kidnapped in Iraq) and his partner, Dan Hunt, in the Adovcate made me wonder if their story might have a similar drama. Hunt talks in the article how that once Loney was captured, they frantically tried to remove all references to Loney's homosexuality from the Web. Hunt also talks about how he was forced to stay in the background for fear of exposing Loney to more danger and how lonely and forgotten he felt in the process. Some of Loney's family was very supportive and kept Hunt in the loop, but it was still excruciating for him. So, I think the movie might have possibilities.

Other possibilities for gay, heroic, family, drama, etc. that Hollywood ought to consider but probably never will?

 

[pausanias_usa]

There was that gay guy on the plane that crashed in Pennsylvania, but of course the media didn't parade any boyfriend around afterwards.

 

[Soilwork]

yeah... the gay heros of 911 were very quickly forgotten or removed.

Gay heros are often either forgotten or shoved to the side.

Most of the Christian TV stations ignored the gay Ex-military man who helped storm the cockpit on fight 93 and instead talked about the cowardly Christian man who sat in his seat and prayed (for all the good THAT did).

 

[Paws]

Whose gay life should be made into a movie?

Mine.

Blahblahblah 10 characters filler.

 

[operafan]

I just was reading a review of Invincible, the guy who played football for a couple of years with the Eagles.

This reminded me of Esera Tuaolo's life as a closeted gay man who came out big time after leaving football. Lots of potential there for drama - and he he is pretty good role model.

Don't see it happening soon, however.

 

[Christopherb36]

Barry Manilow...

 

[irish1]

I think that it would be GREAT if Hollywood would make a movie about Ian McKellan. He is an actor of great talent, and has been in two of the greatest trilogies that have been made: X-Men, and Lord of the Rings.

In one of them he plays a villain, the other, a savior.

He is open about his sexuality, but has never been overly-zealous about it.

I also melt when I hear him speak...

 

[slobone]

Bruce Chatwin. A complex, elusive man and an erratically brilliant travel writer. What was he getting up to with those African men?

Christopher Isherwood & W. H. Auden -- they weren't lovers, although they were occasionally friends with benefits. But both were brilliant writers who emigrated from England to the US. Might be interesting to contrast their lives over the years.

Other good choices might be:

Noel Coward -- could be a marvelously fun period piece
Allen Ginsberg
Adolphe de Custine -- 19th century French nobleman and travel writer
Jean Cocteau
Roger Casement -- early Irish freedom fighter

Some of the best ones have already been done: Walt Whitman, Guy Burgess, Alan Turing, Oscar Wilde of course.

Great question!

 

[Centexfarmer]

I can't believe that no one has suggested Harvey Milk yet!

The first openly gay elected official in America.

He was listed as Time Magazine's 100 most influential people of the 20th Century. http://www.time.com/time/time100/heroes/profile/milk01.html

Two bullets actually entered his brain. It was Nov. 27, 1978, in city hall, and Mayor George Moscone was also killed. Fellow supervisor Daniel White, a troubled anti-gay conservative, had left the board, and he became unhinged when Moscone denied his request to return. White admitted the murders within hours.

I heard that Randy Shilts' "Mayor of Castro" has already been written into a screenplay, but nothing ever seems to come of it.

So Harvey Milk would be my choice of a "gay life...made into a movie."





“If a bullet should go through my head let that bullet go through every closet door.” ~Harvey Milk

 

[Yves]

Good question. Great choices so far, from 911 victims to Auden & Jean Cocteau.

Other alternatives:
- Billy Strayhorn: brilliant composer. To be black, gay and a jazz musician way before the civil rights movement.
- Harvey Milk (Thanks centexfarmer!). A gay man with a political conscience.
- Marguerite Yourcenar: brilliant writer with a particular affinity for historical characters.
- Stephen Sondheim: one of the greatest American composers.

 

[blooeyz]

I always read here and there about famous queers. But you never see a compendium of them all.
There should be a miniseries on all the famous gay men and women.
there's got to be thousands
Maybe something on PBS
we could get a grant fromt he Bill and Melinda Gates foundation

 

[josher]

Bruce Chatwin. A complex, elusive man and an erratically brilliant travel writer. What was he getting up to with those African men?

So true, but it would end up as another AIDS movie. His last year or two of life was very sad. I was sure I saw something from British TV about Isherwood and Auden, but I may have imagined it because I read a book about them. I can't believe no one's done a film bio of Noel Coward.

 

[Kurn]

I vote for some totally hot, modular, articulate brother from JUB!!

But also Harvey Milk.
Jack Kerouac? (Bi?)

 

[Franion]

One of our own!

Not sure if I should name him - but he's sometimes known as "the Pope".

He's dropped so many fascinating snippets, I'd at least like to read the book.

 

[dynk]

My dear Franion, maybe you and I should get together somethimes and start writting that book. I do not make an interesting writer. Thank you

 

[slobone]

I think the life of Denham Fouts would make an interesting movie ... from the moment he was picked up as a pump-boy at the age of 16, his career as, well, he was once described as "the most expensive male whore in the world", and then the twilit last years in Paris, as a near-catatonic heroin addict.

Great choice! He knew a lot of these other people too -- Isherwood and Auden, Cecil Beaton, Stephen Spender, Gore Vidal, Truman Capote, Paul Bowles, Brion Gysin -- so I suppose William Burroughs, etc.

 

[slobone]

So true, but it would end up as another AIDS movie. His last year or two of life was very sad.

But he was so gorgeous, any young hunk like Brad Pitt would kill to play him. And the travel scenes could be quite thrilling.

I was sure I saw something from British TV about Isherwood and Auden, but I may have imagined it because I read a book about them.

Well, in a sense, of course, I Am a Camera and Cabaret are about Isherwood, since the book on which they were based is at least semi-autobiographical.

The movie (or better yet, BBC miniseries) would be parallel lives -- Isherwood's wildly promiscuous sex life, followed by a long relationship with Don Bachardy. Auden's somewhat pathetic infatuation with Chester Kallman. Preceded probably by their travels together to Germany and China, and the controversy over their emigration to the US at the beginning of the war. Contrasting lives in the US -- Isherwood going native in California, Auden always the British ex-pat in New York.

I can't believe no one's done a film bio of Noel Coward.

Daniel Massey, who was one of his godsons in real life, played him in the movie Star!, the Gertrude Lawrence biopic starring Julie Andrews. But of course they didn't go into any of the gay part of his life.

Which in any event isn't easy to get to the bottom of, as he was quite reticent about it -- NOT the same as closeted!

He had two long-term relationships, one rather unhappy one with an alcoholic American bisexual, and an apparently happy one that lasted 30 years until his death. But you have to read between the lines of his diaries (which I highly recommend, BTW) and the biography written by his secretary to figure all this out.

He was perhaps the most brilliant all-around man of the theater of his time. See if you can find the movie In Which We Serve if you want to see him in action.

In his private life, apparently, he mostly hung out with other actors, making an occasional exception for the absolute top tier of British society -- the Duke of Westminster, Lord Mountbatten, the Queen Mother.

 

[slobone]

- Billy Strayhorn: brilliant composer. To be black, gay and a jazz musician way before the civil rights movement.

Duke Ellington's alter ego, for those who don't know. He rejuvenated Duke's career. I don't know how much is actually known about his gay life.

- Stephen Sondheim: one of the greatest American composers.

Absolutely. And very influenced by Lorenz Hart as a lyricist. Another gay man whose sex life is a bit of a mystery.

 

[nwdavis]

How about a movie about Freddie Mercury and Queen? It would be an interesting movie about him and the group.

 

[slobone]

How about a movie about Freddie Mercury and Queen? It would be an interesting movie about him and the group.

I saw a good documentary about him. Apparently he was married at the time he realized he was gay.

I didn't realize that he had collaborated with Montserrat Caballé at one point. Did an album come out of that? Has anybody heard it?