Month: January 2020

WALTER REUBEN CATALOG 45|2020

WalterFilm.com’s fourth catalog (#45/2020) contains 96 pages that include vintage original photographs, posters, programs, pressbooks, lobby cards and film scripts. The categories encompassed are: Featured, Film Noir, Directors, Poster Art, LGBTQ, Comedy, Women, Literature and African Americana.

The catalog’s cover (above) is the original poster from the play PORGY by Dorothy and Dubois Heyward, which became the source for the opera PORGY AND BESS with book by Dubois Heyward and music and lyrics by George and Ira Gershwin.

African American Film Scripts, African American Movie Posters, African-American Memorabilia, Black Memorabilia, Collecting LGBTQ Hollywood Movie Memorabilia, Collecting Movie Scripts and Screen Plays, Film Comedies, Film Directors, Film Noir, Hollywood Movie Memorabilia, LGBTQ Original Vintage Film Scripts, LGBTQ Original Vintage Movie Star Photographs, Literature Into Film, Movie Star Photos For Sale, Original Vintage Lobby Cards, Original Vintage Movie Posters, Poster Art, Women In Film

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FIVE GAY ACTORS IN MID-CENTURY HOLLYWOOD

by David Ehrenstein

Now that gay actors like Nathan Lane, Jim Parsons, Victor Garber, Jonathan Groff, and Neil Patrick Harris are “out of the closet” and on the rise, it’s hard to imagine just how different things were in the relatively recent past. Not only was the notion of being openly gay and having a viable career unimaginable, but gayness itself was also a concept polite society couldn’t countenance. “Homosexuals” subsisted on society’s margins, mentioned only in whispered gossip, fearsome psychiatric studies, and Conservative diatribes decrying perversion.

Hiding In Plain Sight

Still, in spite of it all, gay men managed to make their way to very top of the acting profession in the gilded closets of Hollywood. In this covert context, bigtime careers and personal lives proceeded with a calculated risk that can fascinate us today. Here are five of the most noteworthy examples of gay actors in mid-Century Hollywood.

Anthony Perkins, Gay Actors, gay male movie stars, Gay Movie Stars, George Maharis, Liberace, male movie stars, Rock Hudson, Stephen Sondheim, Tab Hunter

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