Tag Archives: entertainment

Don't want to trudge out to the movies? - WATCH: CHER'S One-Woman Remake of "West Side Story" (1978)

Don’t want to trudge out to the movies? – WATCH: CHER’S One-Woman Remake of “West Side Story” (1978)

Entertainment, Gay History, , ,

On April 3, 1978 the Cher … Special aired on ABC-TV

As the show begins, there is a spotlight on the floor and the voice of Cher’s mother, is heard calling her young daughter: “Cher? Cher? Cher, is that you? I thought I asked you not to mess up my record albums.” Cher steps into the spotlight, made up to look like a younger version of herself with her hair in pigtails. The young Cher sits on the floor and tells her mother that she is upset because she is not blonde and she says that all the pretty girls have blonde hair and blue eyes. Her mother tells her daughter that she is beautiful and someday she will realize just how special she really is. Cher tells her mother that she will try to understand and explains that she got into the record albums so that she could learn the songs from West Side Story for school. When her mother asks Cher what part she is going to play, Cher replies, “all of them”.

Cher stands up, looks directly at the camera, and says, “Ladies and gentlemen, for tonight’s entertainment, I am proud to present West Side Story. I will be playing all the parts. Thank you.” For the next fifteen minutes, Cher sings and dances to a medley of songs from the musical, playing both male and female characters.

Ladies and Gentlegays we now present West Side Story starring the incomparable Cher.

Gay History – November 26, 1939: Happy Birthday Wayland Flowers and Madam (VIDEOS)

Entertainment, Featured, Gay History, , , , ,

wayland-flowers-and-madam

The thing about puppets is that they get to say and do things that ordinary people aren’t allowed to do. Maybe that’s why Georgia-native Wayland Flowers took up puppetry and created “Madame,” which Hofstra University’s Patricia Jukliana Smith aptly described as “a grotesquely ugly and flamboyantly ribald old crone festooned in outrageous evening gowns, tiaras, and rhinestones.”  Madam was said to be based on movie star Gloria Swanson’s Sunset Boulevard  character Norma Desmond and also is rumored to be based on a Washington, DC waitress and restaurant hostess Margo MacGregor

In other words Madam was an outrageously campy drag queen in wood and wire, a hideous hag who thought herself glamorous and who spoke in double entendres and bitchy take-downs.

Madame was created by Flowers in the mid-1960s in night clubs and gay bars throughout the 1960s before landing frequent appearances on Laugh-In.

The act then appeared as a recurring comedy skit on Solid Gold before eventually replacing Paul Lynde as Center Square on Hollywood Squares. In 1982, Madame was star of her own sitcom, Madame’s Place, a half-hour syndicated program that ran five days a week for one season. Madame’s talk show within the series drew Debbie Reynolds, Foster Brooks and William Shatner as guests.Flowers’ first big break was an appearance on the The Andy Williams Show.

Flowers died on October 11, 1988, five weeks after collapsing during a performance at Harrah’s resort in Lake Tahoe. The family attributed his death to cancer, and asked that no other details about his AIDS-related death be released to the public.

Be sure to watch the last video, Wayland and Madam UNCENSORED from 1977.  

It’s a hoot!

Veteran General Hospital Actor Fired Over Anti-Vaxx and Transphobic Statements

Veteran General Hospital Actor Fired Over Anti-Vaxx and Transphobic Statements

Entertainment, Featured, Gay News From Around The Globe, , , , ,

Australian actor Ingo Rademacher who has portrayed the character of Jasper Jax on “GH” for over 25 years has been fired over his numerous anti-vaxx and anti-trans comments.

Rademacher who has been an out-spoken anti-vaccine nutjob on Instagram is not vaccinated, and doesn’t believe in it, . even after co-star Steve Burton (Jason) disclosed that he had tested positive for COVID and claimed to have been exposed to the virus at work. (GH has since become the only soap opera with a vaccine mandate.)

Rademacher posted a video to Instagram in which he called his fans “Bigots” and “morons” for criticizing him.

In November, Rademacher shared to his Instagram a hateful anti-trans meme; it did not go unnoticed. “I am aware of a transphobic post shared by a fellow General Hospital actor,” tweeted Cassandra James, the transgender actress who plays Terry. “Shame on you. You have some serious unlearning and education to do. I feel deeply disappointed that such a public display of ignorance could come from our General Hospital family.

Rademacher has not directly commented on his firing but has doubled down posting an Instagram message yesterday stating, “I will stand with you to fight for medical freedom.”

Well he’ll have a lot of free time to do that now. Won’t he.

Billy Eichner To Play Paul Lynde In Upcoming Biopic ‘Man In The Box’

Billy Eichner To Play Paul Lynde In Upcoming Biopic ‘Man In The Box’

Entertainment, Featured, Gay History, , , ,

Gay actor-comedian Billy Eichner is set to play TV icon Paul Lynde in the upcoming biopic Man in the Box,

Eichner and producer Tom McNulty have optioned a script by Edwin Cannistraci on Lynde life. While Lynde never officially “out,” his sexuality was well-known in front of and behind the camera throughout a run on television beginning in the ’50s up until his death in 1982.

Said Eichner in Deadline:

One of the main reasons I want to do this is…because gay actors are never, hardly ever, I should say, allowed to play our own gay icons. Harvey Milk, Freddie Mercury, Elton John. Where are the gay actors? When it really comes to some big project about a gay icon, the one everyone’s throwing awards at…we love the spectacle of rewarding a straight actor, for quote unquote, transforming himself into a gay person.”

Eichner also talked about the very real consequences for actors coming out and how they are often career-ending:

When someone comes out of the closet, we celebrate them. We applaud them. We put them on the cover of magazines. We say, thank you for living your truth, and thank you for being brave, and you’re such a role model for our gay kids. And then instantly, that actor gets taken off so many casting lists in the business,” he said. “This is exactly what happened to Paul, and it’s still happening today, which I can tell you from my own career, having lived it on the day to day, for almost 20 years now.”

In addition to “Man in the Box” Billy will also be writing and starring in an upcoming gay romantic comedy from Judd Apatow’s production company for Universal Pictures. The untitled project will be the first major studio movie with a gay lead since last year’s “Love, Simon,”

A BIG CONGRATULATIONS to Billy Eichner on his much needed upcoming gay themed projects! Also Billy if you are reading this and need a gay historian for research on the Paul Lynde project I am available.

I’ll be waiting to be called on in the center square.

#PRIDE50 - WATCH: Matt Bomer Sings "People Like Us" from Doom Patrol - VIDEO

#PRIDE50 – WATCH: Matt Bomer Sings “People Like Us” from Doom Patrol – VIDEO

Entertainment, Featured, GayGeek - All Things Gay and Geeky, , , , , ,

Hey everybody loses it
Everybody wants to throw it all away sometimes
And hey, yeah I know what you’re going through
Don’t let it get the best of you, you’ll make it out alive
Oh, people like us we’ve gotta stick together
Keep your head up, nothing lasts forever
Here’s to the damned to the lost and forgotten
It’s hard to get high when you’re living on the bottom

WATCH: Bette Midler Performs In My Life/Friends at the 1991 Benefit for the AIDS Project of Los Angeles - VIDEO

WATCH: Bette Midler Performs In My Life/Friends at the 1991 Benefit for the AIDS Project of Los Angeles – VIDEO

Featured, Gay History, , , , , , , , ,

In 1991 Hollywood’s one of the largest responses to the AIDS epidemic, a $1 million+ fundraiser was held at the Universal Amphitheater in Los Angeles, California.  Bette Midler, Carol Channing, Tyne Daly, Melissa Manchester, Lainie Kazan, Richard Dreyfuss, Jennifer Holiday, and others gathered  to support the AIDS Project  of Los Angeles 

Bette received APLA’s “Commitment to Life” award along with MCA Inc. President Sidney Sheinberg and AIDS research specialist Dr. Joel Weisman in recognition of their work in battling discrimination and the disease.

Midler seemed downbeat about Hollywood’s response to AIDS. “I didn’t start running for the hills like a lot of people did,” she said, referring to the mid-80’s when Hollywood responded tepidly and nervously to the epidemic that has ensnared the film community. She said, in a cracking voice, “Nearly everyone I started out with has died.”

In 1991 alone, 29,850  Americans died from HIV infection

This is what life was like in 1991 

Heart-wrenching.

Amazon Prime Shows Censored Version of "God's Own Country" Gay Sex Scenes Cut

Amazon Prime Shows Censored Version of “God’s Own Country” Gay Sex Scenes Cut

Entertainment, Featured, Gay News Domestic & U.S. Politics, , ,

Recently God’s Own Country a 2017 movie about a relationship between a gay British farmer and a migrant worker has been available on Amazon Prime, but it was discovered that the sex scenes between the main characters, both men had been cut from the version being shown.

On Tuesday, GOC Director Francis Lee tweeted that he had been made aware that Amazon Prime’s streamed version of the film had been “censored.”

“It is not the film I intended or made,” he wrote.

On Wednesday, Lee said that he discovered who was responsible and that it was Samuel Goldwyn Films – the company that distributes independent and foreign films in the U.S. – that cut the gay scenes and “butchered the streaming version without consultation to get more ‘revenue.’”

Via Deadline :

A source at Amazon said that distributors directly upload films for the Prime Video Direct streaming service. The source said that sex scenes would have triggered an age restriction, so the distributor might have cut those scenes so that more people could watch it and so that they would get more revenue from it.

God’s Own Country was the 2017 British Independent Film Award winner for Best British Independent Film and the entire basis of the movie is two men, from different backgrounds falling in love. Had it been a heterosexual sex scene depicting the love between a man and a woman, it would not have been cut.

Samuel Goldwyn Films should be ashamed and apologize not only to director Francis Lee but also to the entire LGBT community.

Roy Horn of Siegfried and Roy Dies of Coronavirus

Roy Horn of Siegfried and Roy Dies of Coronavirus

Entertainment, Featured, Of Interest, , , ,

Roy Horn, half of the famous Siegfried & Roy magic and entertainment act in Las Vegas, has died after being infected with the coronavirus.

Partner Siegfried Fischbacher released the following statement:

Today, the world has lost one of the greats of magic, but I have lost my best friend. From the moment we met, I knew Roy and I, together, would change the world. There could be no Siegfried without Roy, and no Roy without Siegfried.

Roy was a fighter his whole life, including during these final days. I give my heartfelt appreciation to the team of doctors, nurses and staff at Mountain View Hospital who worked heroically against this insidious virus that ultimately took Roy’s life.”

Roy Horn’ tested positive for the virus that causes COVID-19 in mid-April and had been responding well to treatment”. However, his condition deteriorated and he died at the age of 75 on May 8 at Mountain View Hospital in Las Vegas.

WATCH: The West End Production of CABARET (1993) Starring Alan Cummings and Jane Horrocks - FULL MUSICAL

Shut-In Showcase – WATCH: The West End Production of CABARET (1993) Starring Alan Cummings and Jane Horrocks – FULL MUSICAL

Entertainment, Featured, Of Interest, , , , , ,

 In 1993, Sam Mendes directed a new production of Cabaret for the Donmar Warehouse in London’s West End. It starred Jane Horrocks as Sally, Adam Godley as Cliff, Alan Cumming as the Emcee and Sara Kestelman as Fräulein Schneider. Cumming received an Olivier Award nomination for his performance and Kestelman won the Olivier for Best Supporting Performance in a Musical. Mendes’s conception was very different from either the original production or the conventional first revival.

Linda Ronstadt Trashes Mike Pompeo At Kennedy Center Honors Dinner

Linda Ronstadt Trashes Mike Pompeo At Kennedy Center Honors Dinner

#RealTalk, Entertainment, Featured, , , , ,

Linda Ronstadt, Sally Field and the disco-funk band Earth Wind and Fire awaited their turn in the spotlight Sunday night as part of the latest group of recipients of the Kennedy Center Honors for lifetime achievements in the arts.

According to Sam Greisman, a movie writer and the youngest son of Sally Field, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was having a major sad at the State Department dinner for Kennedy Center honorees.

The White House said Friday that neither Donald Trump nor Melania Trump would attend because they planned to host a Christmas party for members of the Secret Service and their families. Mike Pompeo attended instead and at one point asked asked aloud when he would be “loved”. That’s when Linda Ronstadt replied to his question and she pulled no punches.

Brava Diva!

We are all waiting breathlessly for the video.