Gay subjects in movies??

[delalluvia]

You are right!

You must see it, since it is such a wonderful film!

Yes, they, these actors, were both said as you say.

When I lived in Hollywood, Los Angeles for many years and many times, it was said that Sal's murder was NOT solved!

Is it now, does you or anyone know??

Hugs!!

From Wikipedia:

"...By 1976 Mineo's career seemed to be turning around again. Playing the role of a gay burglar in a San Francisco run of the stage comedy P.S. Your Cat Is Dead, he received substantial publicity from many positive reviews and moved on to Los Angeles with the play. Arriving home after a rehearsal on February 12, 1976, Mineo was stabbed to death in the alley behind a West Hollywood apartment building. He was 37 years old. He was stabbed just once, not repeatedly as first reported, but the blade struck his heart, leading to immediate and massive internal bleeding. Mineo was interred in the Cemetery of the Gate of Heaven in Hawthorne, New York.

According to Warren Johansson and William A. Percy's Outing: Shattering the Conspiracy of Silence, he was murdered under circumstances that suggested "a homosexual motive". Investigators reportedly found gay pornography in his home. Mineo identified himself as bisexual in a 1972 interview, published after his death, but his biography notes that he dated men exclusively in the last years of his short life.

A career criminal named Lionel Ray Williams was later sentenced to life in prison for killing Mineo.[citation needed] Although there was considerable confusion relating to what witnesses had seen in the darkness the night Mineo was murdered, Williams was reported to have boasted of the crime, which turned out to be a botched mugging. Williams claimed he had no idea who Mineo was. Williams was paroled in 1990, after serving 12 years, but was jailed numerous times afterwards for parole violations..."

Such a shame.  He was sooooo good looking.  My mother thought he was hot.

[Artiste]

Thanks!

I did not know that that Williams was thought to be the one who murdered Sal!!

Was that Williams anti-gay?

Did he continue to harm gays after his prison term, and even before did he to others gays??

And where is he to-day?

I wonder if we ever get such replies??

...

I figured that Sal was a brilliant actor!! And which films he did you liked??

Hugs!

[delalluvia]

Thanks!

I did not know that that Williams was thought to be the one who murdered Sal!!

Was that Williams anti-gay?

Did he continue to harm gays after his prison term, and even before did he to others gays??

And where is he to-day?

I wonder if we ever get such replies??

...

I figured that Sal was a brilliant actor!! And which films he did you liked??

Hugs!

Who knows if the killer was even homophobic?  He claims he didn't even know who Sal was and it was just a random mugging gone wrong.

I don't have a favorite Sal Mineo movie.  I just remember seeing him in old movies and my mother pointed out how good looking he was and wasn't it a shame he was dead and I agreed completely.

[Artiste]

Thanks!

Sure would like to read Sal interview where he says that he is gay!

Wonder if any clip of that?

Or any written article on the internet or in a newspaper??

Hugs!

[oilgun]

Thanks!

Sure would like to read Sal interview where he says that he is gay!

Wonder if any clip of that?

Or any written article on the internet or in a newspaper??

Hugs!

I love that film with a passion!  Even though Plato (Mineo) was looking for a father figure there was definitely sexual tension between him and Jim (Dean).  According to this article there was a lot going on both on and off the set...


Here's a link to an interesting article called: Finding the Father: A Psychoanalytic Study of 
Rebel without a Cause 

http://www.sensesofcinema.com/contents/00/5/finding.html

An excerpt:

During the filming of Rebel, sexual tensions among Nicholas Ray, Natalie Wood, James Dean and Sal Mineo eerily reflected the repressed sexual desires inherent among the film's characters. According to Spoto, rumors "circulated of an erotic relationship between Dean and Ray...The suggestion, however unverifiable, is not outlandish: it is easy, for example, to imagine Ray making love to the image of himself...It is equally understandable if Jimmy had tried to please another respected mentor-father" (220). Dean had never recovered from his father's abandonment of him after the death of his mother, and he sought a father figure in Ray.

Dean, however, was not the only actor with whom Ray purportedly had an illicit affair. "Early during the preparations," writes Spoto, "Ray...easily seduced sixteen-year-old Natalie Wood, and throughout the production kept her in the thrall of a fierce sexual passion...She had already endured an unhappy home life with her mother...and father" (218-19). Both actors seemed intent on gaining their surrogate father's attention.

Another anecdote comes from Stewart Stern, the screenwriter of Rebel, who claims that Ray was "'the maypole around whom everyone needy and dependent swirled and danced, and he enthroned himself as guru at the Chateau Marmont, where he seemed to possess the souls of James Dean and Natalie Wood'"(qtd. in Spoto 219). Faye Nuell Mayo, Wood's stand-in and double, also recalled that Ray's Sunday afternoon gatherings at the hotel were "'sometimes a bit wild, because everyone was avidly competing for the director's attention and approval'" (219). Wood and Dean, like Judy and Jim, were searching for a father who would help initiate them into the symbolic world.

If there is sexual tension between Plato and Jim in the film, then sexual tension between Mineo and Dean was also present on the set. "'I realized later that I was homo-sexually attracted to him,'" Mineo later recalled of Dean. "'When he showed love to me, when he said it, that did it. He was really overwhelming'" (qtd. in Spoto 220). Although nothing sexual ever transpired between the two actors, Plato's obvious desire of Jim, both sexual and familial, is indicative of Mineo's attraction toward, and deep respect for, Dean.

[smellykellyjay]

"Celluloid Closet" is a good movie to watch to see gay subjects in movies up to the late 80s/early 90s.  It's a documentary that shows the progress -- or lack of it -- in how gays have been portrayed in movies.  This link lists the movies featured in the film, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Celluloid_Closet. 

As for homo undercurrents, "Top Gun" is gayer than Paris in spring.  And maybe it's just me, but I thought the scene between Matt Dillon and Kevin Bacon in "Wild Things" was pretty homoerotic.  Considering the twists and turns in that movie, I expected them to get it on at any moment.  The fact that Kevin Bacon showed his half-tumescent pecker in the scene may have something to do with it. 

It's not a movie, but on "Melrose Place"'s sixth season, there was a story with Kyle (Rob Estes) and his old Marine buddy Nick (Scott Plank) that was pretty homoerotic.  Even though Kyle was the resident hetero stud, Nick really hated Kyle's wife, and both guys got very emotional with each other.  They both got teary when Nick left town.  On the same show in the the first couple of seasons, Michael and Matt seemed to have an odd relationship, and I've read that Doug Savant (Matt) wanted to really play up the fact that Matt was in love with Michael. 

[opinionista]

As for homo undercurrents, "Top Gun" is gayer than Paris in spring.  And maybe it's just me, but I thought the scene between Matt Dillon and Kevin Bacon in "Wild Things" was pretty homoerotic.  Considering the twists and turns in that movie, I expected them to get it on at any moment.  The fact that Kevin Bacon showed his half-tumescent pecker in the scene may have something to do with it. 

I saw Top Gun a long time ago and frankly I don't have much recollection of it, except that there was zero chemistry between Tom Cruise and Kelly McGillis. However, I don't recall perceiving any homo undercurrents anywhere in the movie, so now I'm renting it since your comment made me curious!

[MaineWriter]

I just read something about Top Gun and someone commented on the shirtless volleyball games and that there were one too many shower scenes. LOL

I watched The Celluloid Closet just a few weeks ago. It's very good but a little bit out of date (it was made in 1995). Still, it is worth watching.

L

[TOoP/Bruce]

I saw Top Gun a long time ago and frankly I don't have much recollection of it, except that there was zero chemistry between Tom Cruise and Kelly McGillis. However, I don't recall perceiving any homo undercurrents anywhere in the movie, so now I'm renting it since your comment made me curious!

The director of "Top Gun" is Tony Scott (brother to Ridley Scott), who is openly gay.  who was widely rumored at he time to be gay.

[Edited to correct for factual content.  I've confused rumor with fact on this point.  My apologies.]

The widely told story of "Top Gun" is that after Tony Scott turned in his "final" cut, the studio wanted to add a couple of scenes to underscore the "heterosexuality" of Tom Cruise's character.  (The studio execs were reportedly aghast that with the all the shirtlessness and locker room scenes, the film looked like a gay softcore.) Kelly McGillis had already cut her hair for another movie, ("Witness" perhaps?) and so the added scenes were the elevator scene (she wears a hat), and the bedroom scene at the end (the gauzy fabric isn't just for romance, it's to keep you from figuring out that the hair she is wearing isn't entirely her own).

[oilgun]

The director of "Top Gun" is Tony Scott (brother to Ridley Scott), who is openly gay. 

Doe his wife know?