Outing TARGET Hollywood : What...

For decades, the unwritten rule for film and television stars has been: It’s OK to be gay as long as you don’t flaunt it, publicly acknowledge it or get caught at it.

But the rules are changing.

Outing--revealing the homosexuality of closeted celebrities and public figures--got started a year ago in a segment of the gay press. Now, it’s crossed over to the tabloids and even to some mainstream publications and TV shows. Names have been named, photos published and details of sex lives discussed.

Not surprisingly, it’s causing anger, anxiety and fear in Hollywood, where a sexy, heterosexual image seems crucial to many lucrative careers.

“If the public knows you’re gay, it has a whole different perception of you,” protests a successful TV and film actor, who’s discreetly gay and upset by the outing trend. “It freaks the audience out. . . . This thing can completely destroy careers.”

“That’s why there’s so much talk and concern, especially in the entertainment business--because we’re selling and projecting images,” adds Neil Koenigsberg, a personal manager and former publicist. “And because Middle America wants its stars ‘normal.’ It’s unfortunate that it should even matter, but it does.”

It clearly matters to those who have made their fame and fortune on the screen. Despite the liberalization of social mores, the increased political clout of gays and supposed tolerance within the entertainment industry, there has never been a major TV or film star who has publicly “come out.”

For the most part, a cooperative press has respected a perceived right to privacy by sidestepping matters of romance and sexual orientation when covering certain personalities.

Until now:

* In a January cover story, the Star informed readers of the alleged lesbianism of the daughter of a popular performer.

* Michelangelo Signorile’s March 18 cover story in the gay magazine OutWeek, “The Secret Gay Life of Malcolm Forbes,” following the death of the publishing tycoon and family man, generated the first serious national attention to outing. Newsweek, USA Today, People magazine and a number of newspapers, including the Los Angeles Times, all picked up OutWeek’s allegations about Forbes.

* Since then, the alleged homosexuality of certain living Hollywood figures have been reported in such media outlets as Newsweek, USA Today, the Washington Times, the Associated Press, a number of major metropolitan newspapers, Daily Variety, Advertising Age, Los Angeles magazine, and, on TV, “Larry King Live” and “The Joan Rivers Show.”

* Some of the allegations have been printed in an almost casual manner. After the Star ran a story in which a former model claimed she had a relationship with a prominent TV and film actress, the woman was booked to discuss the alleged relationship on the “Sally Jessy Raphael Show.” Raphael decided to cancel the taping, however, telling Daily Variety’s Army Archerd, “You’ve got to know where to draw the line.”

Ironically, in reporting Raphael’s decision, Archerd used the actress’ name. The ex-model later told her story on a “Geraldo” segment on outing, but the actress’ name was bleeped out before the show was aired.

Los Angeles magazine casually dropped four famous names when its gossipy Insider column made a reference to the outing of gay actors in the tabloids. “We faced a dilemma--a real tough call,” says senior articles editor Ed Dwyer, who oversees the column. “But how are you going to write about what other publications are doing without explaining what it is they’re doing--and who they’re doing it to, for better or for worse?”

Such allegations haven’t been the subject of lawsuits yet. Legal experts say even a suit based upon a right to privacy would be difficult to win, if the story is accurate.

Some gay activists today applaud what they consider to be a new honesty in acknowledging the homosexual lifestyles of the rich and famous.

They argue that being “out” has been the cornerstone of the gay movement. With the AIDS crisis, they contend that the movement needs increased gay visibility and the political power that comes with it. And by exposing closeted gays in positions of political power or media image-making, they believe they can provide the public, and particularly younger gays, role models among the prominent and successful.

Signorile, features editor of New York-based OutWeek and the man generally credited with starting the outing trend, maintains that Hollywood career concerns are trivial when compared to gay rights and the AIDS epidemic.

“The gay movement can’t sit around and take second place to the Hollywood dream factory, so some people can make a lot of money,” Signorile says. “I look at our gay leaders who (oppose outing and) are upset about this and I ask, ‘Why are you talking about a select group of millionaires when the issue involves the salvation of millions of people?”

But others question the value of role models dragged against their will into the open, and express skepticism about the motives of those doing the outing.

“I think a lot of the political reasons (they cite) are so much bull,” says the gay actor, who has helped in AIDS fund raising and education efforts. “I think it has more to do with the envy of celebrities. It’s just nuts to want to wreck people’s lives. It’s misplaced anger, and if encouraged, it could get very out of hand.

“AIDS has to be conquered. But outing is just another AIDS-related disease.”

Many power brokers and image makers in the entertainment industry consider outing an issue unfit for print, and declined to discuss the subject with Calendar. But some were willing to go on the record with comments.

Veteran publicist Pat Kingsley calls outing “shameful,” adding that “some people are extremely delicate emotionally . . . this is putting some actors through something they may not be able to deal with.”

Critic Roger Ebert says vehemently “It’s character assassination. If you understand McCarthyism, you understand outing.”

But Terry Sweeney, an unabashedly gay cast member of NBC’s “Saturday Night Live” during the 1986-87 season--best known for his drag impression of former First Lady Nancy Reagan--favors what he calls “gentle, non-vindictive” outing. It’s partly because of a painful childhood, he says, when he grew up lonely and full of self-hatred, but with no identifiable role models.

“One little name (of a prominent gay person) would have made all the difference in the world to me,” he says, “and nobody gave me that name.”

He also argues that the continuing impact of AIDS “calls for extreme action. (For a gay celebrity) not to come out now, to me, it’s being loyal to your shame. That’s the issue I keep coming back to--loyalty to shame. . . . By not saying you’re homosexual, you are making a public statement. You’re a co-conspirator in gay oppression.”

But Richard Rouilard, editor of the Advocate, says the gay biweekly newsmagazine, “will not out anyone, unless the person is a homophobe who is effectively hurting gay people, either in politics, the church or society.”

“The (gay) movement is about personal choice and it’s about privacy. These (outings) are complete violations of the very tenets of the movement. It’s really that simple.” The recent turn in the media’s coverage of gay celebrities began with the advent of AIDS, particularly the 1985 AIDS-related death of actor Rock Hudson. Before then, Confidential magazine and other scandal sheets of the ‘50s had run stories about the alleged gay activities of a few budding stars (crippling their careers), but gay exposes remained largely off-limits in the mainstream press, even as it became increasingly bold covering the private lives of heterosexual celebrities. But AIDS put homosexuality on the front page with unprecedented explicitness.

When OutWeek was launched a year ago, Signorile--himself just out of the closet with his own family--began hinting at the same-sex orientation of movie stars and, especially, media power brokers in his weekly column, Gossip Watch.

In the beginning, the column was read chiefly by gay readers in New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco. It was emulated by several other gay publications--and watched closely by the tabloids. Then, after the Star ran its story about the actress’ allegedly gay daughter, the tabloids began a flurry of outings, paying ex-lovers to provide photos and details.

But who decides what and who is gay? Is a married actor who once had a youthful affair with another man homosexual? Three affairs? Five? Who sets the definition, chooses the label? What about the anguish such exposure might cause spouses, parents, children?

Signorile bases his items, he says, primarily on information from unnamed sources, “at least two independent sources that had (a sexual) experience with the person. That is, in most cases.” And in other cases? “Sometimes, a person is generally known within their social circles to be gay.”

The tabloids also require more than one source--as well as tape-recorded interviews with alleged sources. “And our lawyers look over each line,” says a longtime National Enquirer reporter.

“We’re now treating gay liaisons with about the same nonchalance as we do heterosexual. What wasn’t permissible (a) number of years ago is now permissable,” insists Richard Kaplan, editor of the tabloid, the Star, referring to expanding limits of the public’s taste and curiosity.

Amid all the startling headlines, and sometimes intimate details, there has to date been no legal action.

“Nobody has even threatened to sue at this point,” Signorile says. “You always think about (possible) libel, but if you are printing the truth, you have protection.

“When you become a famous person, you make a deal with the public that your life is an open book. There is a trade-off. So you’d better be truthful about everything, from the actual color of your hair to your sexual preference.”

The tabloids also report that no lawsuits have been lodged against them regarding gay exposes.

Barry Langberg, a leading libel lawyer who successfully waged Carol Burnett’s much-publicized 1984 case against the Enquirer (unrelated to outing), says a win-able libel lawsuit against an outing article would require false allegations. A case could possibly be made for invasion of privacy, he adds, but such a lawsuit wouldn’t challenge the accuracy of what was reported.

“If what’s printed is the truth,” Langberg feels, “it’s going to take a pretty courageous person to press for a case.”

Harvard Law School professor Alan Dershowitz says that existing statutes and legal precedent protect the press’ right to publish accounts of a celebrity’s homosexuality if they are true. However, Dershowitz says, “At some point, I could see a judge (establishing) common law right of privacy regarding sexuality. . . . Law isn’t static. It reflects changing phenomena.”

Currently, he adds, “No court is going to say that calling someone gay is legally defamatory, because to say that is to buy into the notion that being gay is somehow bad. On the other hand, you and I know that being exposed as gay can be harmful to a person.”

James Goodale, formerly the general counsel for the New York Times, now an adjunct professor of law at Fordham University who specializes in communications law in private practice, says, “Perhaps a (right to privacy) suit could be filed if (the printed allegation) is highly outrageous to the average person. (However), to be gay isn’t as highly outrageous as it used to be. As time has gone on, the issue has become less explosive.”

Attorney Tom Stoddard, executive director of Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund--the country’s largest legal organization for gays--points out that such a case would doubtless result in bringing further attention to a celebrity. “Most individuals aren’t going to sue, because of the idea that they further the injury to themselves.”

If such a lawsuit were filed, says Stoddard, it would stand a better chance if filed in California--”the only jurisdiction where the courts have begun to touch on this question,” and where the right to privacy comes under the state constitution, as well as various statutes.

Not everyone would be protected, Stoddard argues. He points to the situation of a well-known actor who for years volunteered details about his heterosexual love life and denied allegations that he was gay. The actor was recently alleged in a detailed tabloid article to be bisexual and to have had a gay affair.

“If someone wants to invoke a right to privacy, they have to live according to that dictum,” says Stoddard, who frequently debates Signorile on his outing tactics. “Celebrities that lay open their private lives are opening the doors to rebuttal (investigation). . . . They can’t have it both ways.”

Hollywood is not without high profile individuals who are openly gay and who continue to work successfully.

A handful of popular singers have acknowledged being gay or bisexual in recent years. And film directors John Waters (“Hairspray,” “Cry Baby”), Pedro Almodovar (“Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown”) and Gus Van Sant (“Drugstore Cowboy,” “Mala Noche”) have all discussed their homosexuality in print.

But so far, no major American film or television star--has been as forthcoming. (British actor Ian McKellen publicly came out last year and continues to work in films.) One reason is the fear of being labeled. According to a close friend of a noted--and politically liberal--comedienne widely known within the industry to be lesbian, “She’s not personally ashamed of it. But she wants to be known as an actress--not a lesbian actress.”

One closeted gay actor fears “the reaction in Peoria,” but anti-gay sentiment can apparently be just as damaging close to home.

“I hear that (kind of discrimination) all the time,” says Wallis Nicita, a former casting director and now a film producer. “I’ve seen directors shy away from an actor because they think he or she is gay. It’s because of society’s stereotypes. ‘Maybe he’s too soft.’ . . . It’s not fair, but it definitely happens. It’s a reality.”

Mike Fenton, president of the Casting Society of America, insists that he has never encountered such blatant discrimination, but also feels middle America is probably not ready for gays who “flaunt”--his word--their affection. If there is a reaction within the industry to a star being exposed as gay, he concedes, it will most likely come from studio marketing executives, “who can certainly have their input” on casting choices and “are the ones who have to sell a film . . . If you were head of a studio or the head of marketing, perhaps you’d feel (an) allegiance to stockholders.”

Since the mid-’70s, the Screen Actors Guild contracts have prohibited discrimination against an actor based on his or her sexual preference. No Guild member has yet filed a claim, says SAG national president Barry Gordon, who admits it would be a hard case to prove.

Outing, he says, “is something we’re going to have to address. . . . This is a town which type-casts. And there certainly is a risk that a romantic leading man could be harmed if the public perceived him as gay. The public is not at that level of tolerance. . . .”

Screenwriter Barry Sandler (“Crimes of Passion”) came out publicly in 1982 with the release of the gay-themed “Making Love,” based on his screenplay, and says he’s happier for it (“I found the less I had to hide, the less there was to hide”). It hasn’t hurt his writing career, he adds, but he isn’t sure actors would fare as well.

“You’re looking up at that big screen and you have to believe what you’re seeing,” says Sandler, who’s vehemently against outing. Yet it’s a no-win situation for gay actors, he concedes--the American public probably wouldn’t want to see known gay actors playing gay characters on screen, especially if intimacy were involved. “There’s probably a certain comfort (for the straight audience) in knowing that William Hurt’s not really gay when we see him in ‘Kiss of the Spider Woman.’ ”

One studio marketing executive says, “All you have to do is look at the movies Rock Hudson made, and ask yourself, would he have gotten to make those movies if the town--and the country--had known (absolutely) that he was gay? The answer is, of course not.”

Nicita talks of a special bond between star and audience that depends greatly on mystique and fantasy. “There’s something between the audience and the screen that has its own feeling,” the producer says. “If audiences knew (an action or romantic hero) was gay,” she adds, a “collective giggle” might be felt in theaters.

Vito Russo, an outspoken gay activist, film journalist and author (“The Celluloid Closet: A History of Homosexuality in the Movies”), feels that “the public, on a very deep level, wants to believe stars are in reality what they play on the screen.” He thinks that “the really fine actors would survive (being exposed). Those who are more personalities than actors will have more trouble.”

As for outing, Russo says, “You don’t want to defend this kind of McCarthyism.” But he’s pleased the issue is being examined. “America is finally being pried loose from its fantasies. And that’s an absolutely healthy thing. It would be ideal for any gay actor to be able to play a heterosexual character. But first we have to discuss the issue. We have to grow up.”

Yet Russo, ill with AIDS himself, has decidedly mixed feelings.

“I don’t really have a lot of energy to defend closet queens,” he says. “All the excuses are crap. I’m tired of wasting my time defending their lies. People are dying and we need some help here.”

Lies? Or reasonable discretion? While outing has prompted debate about the purposes and potential hazards of exposing gay public figures, it’s also raised heated discussion of the media’s sometimes selective coverage of celebrities’ private lives. The journalistic accuracy and credibility of celebrity coverage is being looked at from a new perspective.

“Celebrity publications,” says Kaplan, who was editor at Ladies Home Journal and US magazine for a combined 17 years before joining the Star in 1985, “are lied to, up, down and sideways.”

“People are not duty-bound to reveal every aspect of their lives,” counters publicist Michael Levine, who abhors outing. “I find the charge of ‘lie’ very demogogic. I don’t find people massively deceiving. I find people omitting. “

Some celebrities--both gay and non-gay--have spurned publicity, putting discussion of their private lives off limits during interviews, or offering a “no comment” to certain questions.

And most media outlets--including, until recently, the tabloids--have traditionally cooperated by looking the other way when profiling certain personalities.

Sweeney contends that as long as journalists treat gay subjects differently than nongay subjects, they help perpetuate the stigma of shame that surrounds being homosexual. “To write about someone you know is gay and not mention it--to me, you’ve broken a code of ethics,” he says.

Janet Charlton, gossip columnist at the Star, admits that she’s “shocked” by the latest trend in journalism, but believes that now that it’s happened, “it’s as legitimate to write about gay relationships as it is to write about Liz and Dick. . . . To write about someone and not include information--if you have it--about their being gay, or having had gay affairs, is like saying it’s a crime.”

Richard Sanders, entertainment editor of People Magazine, takes a middle position. “Now that the tabloids have brought gay stars to the heartland,” he says, “our attitude (at People) is, either the star admits to his sexual preference, or you kind of tap dance around it. But you do not promote a (heterosexual) image you have come to believe is untrue.”

“The press has put on its glasses,” says Iain Calder, president and editor of the National Enquirer, “and now it can see.”

“The Star wants to sell papers,” Kaplan admits. “We are what we are--a jazzy, supermarket tabloid. We are in the business of saying the Emperor has no clothes. Our business is disclosure. I admit, sometimes it’s a tough judgement call. I can’t honestly tell you that I was enraptured by our (lesbian daughter) story. Especially as the father of two daughters. But it goes with the territory.

“I guarantee you, we are not on an outing orgy,” says Kaplan. “We don’t have a hit list. We are a celebrity magazine that is now, suddenly, admittedly intrigued by a new trend involving celebrity mating.

“You may think that we sometimes go too far in covering celebrities. Well, we sometimes feel the L.A. Times is in the hip pocket of celebrities. We have our own views of how the stars are covered in Lotusland.”

Where does it go from here?

Ebert senses that “people are getting bored by it all” and that the tabloids will soon move on to a new topic for titillation. Others disagree.

“Hundreds of stars are sweating, because it’s just not going to stop,” says Lance (he uses only his first name), one half of the Hollywood Kids, a pair of campy gossip purveyors (“The Joan Rivers Show”) who draw the line at outing. “We personally know of eight or nine (big stars) who are being investigated by the tabloids.”

“We’re sitting on hundreds of names,” boasts an Enquirer insider. Enquirer editor Calder maintains his paper has no agenda to expose gay stars, but adds, “We get story ideas and information from people all over the United States--especially Hollywood.”

Personal manager Lois Zetter, who lost her longtime partner to an AIDS-related disease, believes that “in this moment in history,” an admission of being gay could damage a career, “because of public fear and ignorance.” Yet she also feels strongly that “there are larger issues than our pocketbooks and the microscopic world of show business,” and would “work as best I could” with a celebrity client willing to “follow their heart” and come out.

“I have a deep fear that this whole (outing) thing is going to culminate in someone being so pained they’ll commit suicide or do something equally desperate,” says publicist Michael Levine. “I would beg people to consider (the possible harm), to let people come to their own decision and handle their lives in their own way.”

“Isn’t it time for all of us to begin living our lives with dignity again?” asks the publicist for a major television star recently subjected to tabloid outing.

Like many of her Hollywood colleagues, producer Nicita finds the subject complex and troubling.

“Maybe with education, the public will change (become more accepting),” she says. “I guess that’s what outing is all about. I understand why (gay activists) think people should be open and up front. Yet lives and careers could also be destroyed. It’s a tricky issue.”

OutWeek’s Signorile: “I’m not a psychic, so I can’t say no one’s career will be hurt. In every movement, there’s bound to be some discomfort . . . I guess this is sort of bursting some bubbles.

“I know that more bubbles will be bursting.”