Broadway Gay

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Most people know Cole Porter for 1948's Tony Award winning Broadway musical "Kiss Me Kate." Based on William Shakespeare's "The Taming of the Shrew," this was neither Cole Porter's first or last work.

A very accomplished musician, Cole Porter was born to a wealthy pharmacist and his wife on June 9, 1891, in Peru, Indiana. Cole was the only surviving child of three. His siblings died in infancy. His mother doted on him, and she began his musical training at the early age of six with the violin. He began piano at eight, and with the help of his mother wrote his first song, "Song of the Birds," by age ten.

Even though his talent as a musician was evident at an early age, it was his father's wish for Cole to become a lawyer. Cole went on Yale and Harvard. Cole was never to become a lawyer, however, and at a dean's suggestion, he switched his major to arts and sciences.

Cole wrote his first hit song in 1916, entitled "Esmeralda." This was quickly followed with a taste of failure, however, when his first Broadway production, "See America First," based on a book by Larrason Riggs, ran for only two weeks before closing as a complete flop.

Cole then moved to Paris, France, where he lived on an allowance provided by his mother and grandmother. It was there he met and married Linda Lee Thomas, a wealthy Kentucky born divorcee. The marriage was rumored to be a business arrangement, as he was known throughout his career to have had many male lovers. Many of his hit songs were supposedly written for several of these men.

Although still writing songs, Porter sat out most of the 1920's. Reportedly, he helped with war efforts throughout Europe. He is even joined the French Foreign Legion, and his uniform can still be seen on display today.

Cole Porter reintroduced himself onto Broadway in 1928 with his musical, "Paris." The score included the hit song, "Let's Do It, Let's Fall in Love."

Continuing to work on Broadway, Porter introduced Ethel Merman in 1935 with "Jubilee," after which he included her in five more of his productions because he loved her brassy voice and wrote songs to showcase this trait. Cole then wrote several musical productions which included Fred Astaire's last stage show, "Gay Divorce," in 1932. Over these years he also worked with Bob Hope and Jimmy Durante.

In 1937, tragedy struck. Cole Porter's legs were crushed during a riding accident. While awaiting rescue, Porter wrote the song "At Long Last Love." Cole was hospitalized for two years and restricted to a wheelchair for five. Over the remainder of his life, this talented musician endured over thirty surgeries to his legs.

During the next twenty years, Cole Porter was nominated for four Oscars. In 1961, he finally won a Grammy for best soundtrack album from a motion picture for 1960's "Can-Can."

"Can-Can" was Cole Porter's last major production. He lived out the rest of his 73 years in relative seclusion, refusing even to attend events held in his honor. Cole Porter followed his wife in death. She died in 1954 from emphysema. He died on October 15, 1964 in Santa Monica, California. He was returned to Peru to be buried at Mount Hope Cemetery between his wife and his father. His mother preceded him in death from a cerebral hemorrhage in 1952. Upon his death, Cole Porter left his 350 acre estate, known as Buxton Hill, to William's College.

Remembered for his sophisticated, sometimes ribald lyrics, clever rhymes and complex forms, Porter was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1970. His estate continues to bring in revenue in excess of three million dollars per year, which is dispersed among several family members.

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The Time for Gay Protagonists in Mainstream Mysteries Has Come

Tamara Kaye Sellman of the Writer's Rainbow Literary Services asserts on the cover of my gay detective novel, The DVD Murders, “The time for gay protagonists in all sorts of commercial fiction has come.” Has it? Is the straight world really ready for an invasion of gay heroes into all genres of mainstream fiction, such as fantasy, romance and mystery? Will the girl next door become the boy next door, Plain Jane, Plain Jim, or the clueless husband, the clueless domestic partner?

Gay characters have made great strides on network television. The Jodie Dallas character as portrayed by Billy Crystal on Soap in the late 1970s is generally regarded as the first openly gay male as a regular cast member in a series. Thinking has progressed until we now have such credible gay characters as the precocious Justin Suarez on Ugly Betty and the sociopath Andrew Van De Kamp on Desperate Housewives.

Sometimes you may get the impression that everywhere you look on TV these days you see a gay, lesbian, or bisexual character. Not quite. According to estimates by the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) such characters account for only 2.6 percent of all the regular characters in TV Series in 2008-2009 season. While that was up from 1.1 percent of the previous year and was a positive sign, more work is needed to achieve fair balance. Cable, with its two gay-oriented channels, Logo and here, customarily offers a greater number of GLBT characters.

Hollywood, on the other hand, has not kept pace and seems stuck in the twentieth century. True, the major studios have turned out many films with gay characters over the years. Most of them, however, have been in minor roles, such as the flighty costume designer in Broadway Melody, closeted characters like the female schoolteacher in The Children's Hour, stereotype jokes, such as the policeman in Wild Hogs, or victims like the AIDS patient in Philadelphia.

In the four years since the groundbreaking Brokeback Mountain the major studios have only produced one gay film, the award-winning Milk. Hollywood execs claim a lack of high-quality gay scripts or that TV has a lot more time over the course of a series to develop a character whose sexuality is only a part of his life while a film only has two hours. Others suggest movie executives tend to be older and therefore less comfortable with homosexuality.

Whatever the reason, Hollywood is out of touch. Attitudes have changed, particularly among young people who tend to be more accepting of alternative lifestyles. Unfortunately, as of yet, this acceptance has not carried over into mainstream mysteries. Ask any typical mystery lover: when was the last time you read a whodunit that had a gay detective?

Gay characters have appeared in mystery novels for a long time, but like the movies they were mostly cast in minor roles as villains, victims or freaks. It wasn't until Joseph Hansen introduced the Dave Brandstetter series that we had a detective--here an insurance investigator--who was unashamedly and unapologetically gay.

The relative success of the Hansen novels paved the way for other gay protagonists and was followed by the breezy mysteries of Nathan Aldyne's gay gumshoe Daniel Valentine, the lesbian amateur sleuth Jane Lawless in the Ellen Hart books, and many others. Few, however, have made the crossover to mainstream mysteries, unless you count the Alex Delaware novels of Jonathan Kellerman which feature Milo Sturgis, a gay cop friend of the protagonist or the lovable bisexual psychopath Tom Ripley in the Patricia Highsmith novels.

Despite the many advances made for gays and lesbians, and in particular the legalization of same-sex marriages in a growing number of states, some readers because of religious beliefs or prejudice are simply not ready to accept a gay protagonist in a mystery novel or any other work of fiction. That's too bad, especially if you are a mystery fan, since not only do these novels provide us with more rounded and realistic images of gays and lesbians but some of them are simply crackerjack mysteries.

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i like him... thats why I want to know if he is gay?

ok... so i aksed a question earlier and people were saying it is none of my business but... i reallly really like him, and i don't want to find myself liking someone who isn't gay

The other things you listed like liking broadway and acting Girl are pretty good indicator but a sure fire dead give away is that he had a bf for 4 months !!!!!!!! Since you are looking at him as a potential bf I can see why his sexual orientating is important to you. But he is under no obligation to come out to you or anyone else if he doesn't want to. You do have enough indicators to conclude there's a good chance he is gay, so just cross him off our list, stop trying to figure out his sexual identity and move on.

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