My late Mom had a gay co-worker at a Federal agency back at the height of the Mccarthy era in the extremely homophobic 50's. She had to sign a buttload of affidavits swearing she was "not now nor was she ever a member of the Communist party".
My Mom became very close friends with him; they went on several platonic "dates", and he even took her to a gay bar once. She mentioned feeling very uncomfortable, as she was the only woman there. They left fairly quickly, as it was obvious the patrons were less than pleased by her presence.
Anyway, to get to the point, my Mom's friend was from San Francisco, and his ex-boyfriend had worked as part of the crew at a couple of the major studios in Hollywood in the forties and early to mid fifties. He knew all the gay dirt on all the big names.
Here are the names my Mom's friend told her.
Remember, this was way before the mainstream media even hinted at these actors being gay/bi.
Errol Flynn Rock Hudson Tyrone Power Van Johnson Peter Lawford Monty Clift Cary Grant Danny Kaye Laurence Olivier
Of course, several years later, all those names have been discussed as being gay/bi, except for one, who to my knowledge, has never been mentioned: Jerry Lewis.
My Mom's friend claimed it was well known in Hollywood circles that Lewis was gay, or at least bi.
Concerning Van, her friend told her that Van was picked up by the cops a couple of times for soliciting underage boys. The studio had to pay a fortune to hush things up and keep it out of the papers.
An extremely homophobic co-worker had it in for my Mom's friend. It goes without saying that even a hint of being gay in those days, especially at a Federal agency, would have been grounds for immediate termination.
Not sure how this other co-worker found out, as her friend was in the closet (or tried to be), but he approached my Mom one day and told her "Stay away from that fag if you know what's good for you".
My Mom told her friend, and out of a combination of a fear of being fired/outed, and a desire to return to SF to try and reconcile with his boyfriend, he quit and returned to SF.
My Mom and he continued to correspond for about a year. One day my Mom got a letter from his sister; her friend had committed suicide. My Mom was devastated. Although she denied it until the day she died, I'm convinced that despite his being gay, he was the true love of her life. I'm pretty sure she would have married him had he asked her. I even think she could have accepted his relationships with other men.
She kept his picture all those years later. He was very handsome; tall and well built. He had been a print model for Arrow shirts back in SF. He had a great sense of humor, and enjoyed my Mom's company immensely. He took her to all the hit shows, and the best restaurants and clubs.
My Mom wrote back to his sister and asked about the circumstances of his suicide; she never heard back. My Mom seemed to think he might have been despondent after breaking up with his boyfriend again.
I hope you all don't mind my sharing the above memories with you. Thank you for understanding.
