PeterRS Posted September 11, 2021 Share Posted September 11, 2021 What sounds like an interesting movie has just wrapped filming in Brighton, England. It tells the story of a loving married couple (man and woman) living in a happy menage a trois with the husband's male lover. "My Policeman" is an adaptation of a novel which covers the interesting period between the 1950s and 1990s when attitudes to sex and sexuality went through much change in Britain and much of the rest of the world. An article in The Guardian takes as its theme the role of the lover, played by the gay actor Rupert Everett. This, the writer suggests, is ideal casting as Everett has had to live through many changes in recent years following his starring role in the film version of the E. M. Foster novel, "Another Country" in 1984. Although homosexuality in England was not decriminalised until 1967, attitudes took time to change. Then came the gay plague AIDS which set advances back a few years. It also resulted in closet gay personalities like Rock Hudson and Liberace having to die with neither privacy nor dignity. The writer has interviewed many gay actors over the last 40 or so years. He wonders if the public as a whole actually was as homophobic as the media claimed. He is depressed that when interviewing the gay actors Richard Chamberlain and Sir Anthony Sher (the latter is one of Britain's most famous actors particularly for his roles at the Royal Shakespeare Company and the National Theatre and who became best known for his portrayal of Shakespeare's Richard III who first appears in silhouette on crutches rather like an overlarge spider), their PR masters had informed him that on no account could he discuss their private lives. Photo: from Anthony Sher, Year of the King - Nick Heron Books Like so many others, both hid their sexuality and Sher actually got married as a disguise. Sher, who sadly is dying of a serious unspecified illness, now agrees that not talking about his private life essentially was like having a neon sign over his head saying "This guy is gay!" Sher eventually came out and was one of the first to enter into a civil partnership with his long time lover. Some, like the macho Harry Andrews, was firmly in the closet despite being partnered. Interviewed when he was in his 70s, the writer thinks Andrews had wanted to come out but he was then being considered for a starring role in the hit TV series "Dynasty" as Blake Carrington's father. Had he been known as gay he would almost certainly not have got the part. Earlier in 1970 he had been cast in the role of a leading gay man in the film of Joe Orton's hilarious "Entertaining Mr. Sloane". It was almost as though he had wanted to send a signal by accepting this role, but was always reluctant to discuss his participation in that movie in his rare interviews. Others like John Schlesinger, the director who in 1971 made "Sunday Bloody Sunday" with its famous lips-on-lips deep gay kiss, was quite happy to be out. When there were media objections to Ian McKellen's award of a knighthood, he signed an open letter defending him. “I could hear a particular sound in my head the morning it was published,” Schlesinger told me, grinning. “It was teacups clinking disdainfully on saucers in Cheltenham as little old ladies said to each other ‘My dear, it’s so unnecessary’.” The writer ends the article by stressing - "Each of the actors I spoke to found his own modus vivendi. What’s not in question is that the tabloids and some politicians had made these relatively recent years a distinctly hostile environment for gay people." https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/sep/08/40-years-celebrity-interviews-attitudes-gay-men Lonnie and Lucky 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
