Hollywood Gays (48 page)

Why does it threaten some people that everyone isn’t alike? Diversity is the most obvious fact of nature, including human nature. Some people insist on asking, about the minority, why they’re that way, what “causes” the difference? Studies have been needlessly done to determine what causes left-handedness. Whatever causes some humans to be left-handed is what causes the others to be right-handed; it’s called nature.

And what insecurity or obsessive need for control causes so many members of majority groups to feel the need for 100 percent? Heterosexuals are a reported—if one doesn’t count bisexuality—90 percent, yet the more phobic ones never seem happy unless under the delusion that at least 99 percent of people are like them. It’s rather like the male chauvinist who, back when India and the UK had female leaders, threw up his hands and muttered, “Women are taking over the world.” Two nations out of over 150, and females were supposedly eclipsing the male of the species! (Like they could do any worse a job than the patriarchy has.)

A reviewer of one of my gay-themed books wrote something that this non-fan might have: that it’s “a gay fantasy” that all stars are secretly gay. Baloney! On the contrary, it’s a “straight” fantasy that in all showbiz, only the stereotypical likes of Liberace or Boy George are gay. Do a book about six or ten gay stars, and the threatened type of reader or reviewer feels like you’re declaring that all Hollywood is gay, all the world’s gay. Never mind that they’ll turn around and pretend that only the most obvious stereotypes are gay or lesbian.

Of course, that the average heterosexual is even able to believe that he or she has never met somebody homosexual or bisexual is finally due to the cooperative invisibility of the vast majority of non-heterosexuals. However, that is changing.

Someday, sooner or later, very few fantasists will be able to deny the truth: that there is
nobody
, not one individual on this planet, who doesn’t have a gay or lesbian relative, friend, coworker, and/or role model or favorite Hollywood star.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

With warm thanks to those mentioned in this book, and to: Jim Backus, Michael Cart, Carlos Clarens, Tom Connelly, Carl David, Samson DeBrier, Richard Dyer, John Erman, Lee Graham, Colin Higgins, Stan Kamen, Sheila James Kuehl, Joan Nestle, George Rose, Tom Steele, Steve Turner, and Richard Valley.

Also Lyle and Carole Stuart, Sandra Lee Stuart, Lisa Beck, Bonnie Segall, and everyone at Barricade Books.

And of course, Linda Fresia.  

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Boze Hadleigh is a very successful author of celebrity gossip books, including
Conversations with My Elders
,
Celebrity Feuds,
and
Broadway Babylon.
He has appeared on
Entertainment Tonight, Larry King Live, Showbiz Today,
and
E! True Hollywood Story
. Hadleigh also writes extensively for magazines, and his work has appeared in more than 100 publications, including
TV Guide
,
Playboy
, and
Us
. The author splits his time, when not traveling the world, between Beverly Hills and Hong Kong.

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