Monday, October 07, 2019

At last! The quartet is complete again.

While these four men lived to varying degrees as ridiculous gay stereotypes on stage, TV and screen--at least from today's perspectives--they still managed to carve out their unique and rather successful niches in an industry and a world that frankly hated gay people. I was at once fascinated and amused and sometimes horrified by what they seemed to represent when I was a kid--but Paul Lynde played Uncle Arthur on Bewitched and my middle name is Arthur and I felt a kinship with him that I couldn't easily articulate in my early teens and that was all enough to make us soul brothers as far as I was concerned. These four made me feel less alone in the late 1970s and early 1980s as I figured out I was gay and what gay meant in the larger world. I know some of them lived tortured personal lives because of their homosexuality, but I thank them for what they gave me and I hope they're finally at peace ... and unapologetically gayin' it up together again wherever they are.

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