Profile in Courage: Tribute to George Maharis

Travolta in drag. Saturday Night Fever meets Hairspray, and people complain about Disco Divas? Ricki Lake? Tab Hunter? How Divine!

Frankly, John Water's Pink Flamingos, Hairspray, and Polyester always struck me as too farcical, if not a tad bit demeaning (except in a campy way), while Travolta's Saturday Night Fever, alas, was already horribly passe. Neither I, my lover (at the time), nor our gay and straight friends could keep a straight face throughout Fever, having done the authentic gay discos like Cabaret, Rendezvous, Mineshaft, Studio One, Oil Can Harry's, etc., years earlier. The pathetic imitation of the "gay-for-straight" disco in those silly Travolta's clothes! No gay dude would be caught dressed like that!

While Travolta has always been the "subject" of intense speculation of the Anderson Cooper, Rock Hudson, and Tab Hunter type, some of us prefer to avoid speculating about their closets, their second-guessing, their drag persona, their impresarios, their double-lives. But concealment has been part-and-parcel of Hollywood Homophobia for generations.

Which affords me the opportunity to again acknowledge the two most important "public figures" instrumental in breaking-through much of that homophobic mold: talk-show host Phil Donahue and actor George Maharis. The entire gay community has largely ignored their enormous influence, salutary contributions, their impetus to Gay Liberation, and showed courage that could lead to events like Stonewall, WhiteNight-Riots, Defeat of Briggs (Prop 6) Homobigotry, etc.

When responding to my own sexual interests, in my early teens, it was not my sexuality and preference, but the "stereotype" that was the single greatest barrier: the stereotype of effeminate, emasculated, pathetic man -- the Liberaces, Paul Lyndes, Truman Capotes -- that was the barrier. It was the hyper-emasculated stereotypes portrayed by the likes of Rex Harrison and Richard Burton in their homophobic caricature Staircase (1969) followed by the despairing travesty of Boys in the Band (1970) , which initially served to inhibit many gay men from "coming-out." The false presumption was: gay equals effeminate, dysfunctional, and unhappy.

It was not that the effeminate men existed, it was the presumption that all gay men are necessarily effeminate, dysfunctional, and miserable, presenting an intense self-image barrier to many gay men in the nascent days around Gay Liberation. Perhaps, the effeminate characteristic is so stereotypical because it is impossible to conceal, or perhaps gender-bending made them caricatures for straight audiences to mock in smug depreciation. But for many, it was these very stereotypes that created barriers for gays to "come-out." Not that the stereotype was itself a problem, but the presumption that all gays were perceived in that light, creating a self-image that many gay men did not perceive as their own. Donahue's guests and Maharis' honest openness were the first two individuals to trounce those monolithic stereotype caricatures boldly.

First and foremost, Maharis may be a tad bit older, but he's still damn sexy. Secondly, he is unquestionably manly. Third, his "spread" in Playgirl showed all his virile gorgeous Greek manhood to anyone who desired to look (and many of us looked). Fourth, his open and honest sexuality, sensitivity, and artistic temperament were unlike the stereotypes hoisted on the masses by the Hollywood "arbiters of homophobia." Sixth, his "being busted" for "doing" a L.A. undercover cop in the Sixties was a badge of honor he wore proudly (not the "bust," per se, but the reason for it). Seventh, he chose honesty and openness to "closets" and "concealment," encouraging others to follow suit.

Watching Maharis next to Rock Hudson on McMillan & Wife (1974) brought-out the difference in character not confined to acting. Most Southern California gay-guys knew both were gay, Maharis openly. Every L.A. queen knew Hudson was an insatiable "bottom." And every L.A. queen speculated on every other "actor" as if it really mattered in the final analysis. But few had the courage of his convictions to be "open, out, and proudly a gay man." Not Hunter. Not Perkins. Not Hudson. Not Chamberlain. But, George Maharis was one actor who had that courage in spades. That honesty. And no one questioned his manhood, manliness, or virility, much less his honestly handsome good looks.

Even into the Seventies, most people knew of the Hollywood Tribe's Homophobia and its Aversion to Subversion. The studio executives remained mostly Jewish, and their own homophobia was already legion, permeating into Christianity and Islam. It's reflected in their scriptures, in their obsessive purity laws, by their "pathologizing" and "curing" of homosexuality, by their mocking depreciation of gays through stereotypes, by portrayals of GLBT as sick, demented, etc. So, in defense of many of the "closeted" actors and actresses, their careers were at risk by the studio bosses, e.g., Warners, Goldwyns, Cohens, Zanucks, etc., if they dared to be "open, out."

The Tribe's Homophobia was only part of the problem, though. Obsessive self-scrutiny after the House on UnAmerican Activities (HUAC) of the McCarthy-Kennedy Era had exposed the Tribe to accusations of an inordinately-disproportionate number of Jews-as-Communists working throughout Hollywood at the outset of the Cold War. The intense scrutiny caused the Tribe to avert any and all further suspicion of other "subversives" in the post-war of American social norms. The casualty included "blacklisting" all forms of "homophilia" as well as "communist" sympathizers. Many were slaughtered in that holocaust.

Ergo, any portrayal of "normative gays and lesbians" on the large screen would only draw more suspicion to the Tribe in yet another anti-American "subversion" along with the "Red Scare." Thus, their own homophobia, coupled with their risk-aversion after the McCarthy-Kennedy Witch Hunts, caused them to ban all portrayals of GLBT in any fashion, and also to ban openly-gay actors and actresses. Reinforcing the ban, was the insistence that men who sucked cock would ruin their matinee idol image of screwing women. Their contracts often specified it. Hide or be fired became standard studio clauses.

To distance themselves even further from any and all subversive suspicion, all normative "sexual difference" was not only banned, it was deliberately "mocked" by the use of stereotypes, and darkly implicated in psychosexual sociopathology, just as their psychoanalysts had done in psychology. And "mock" GLBT they did. Even the 20th Century Fox travesty of Harrison-Burton as hyped-up effeminacy in Staircase (1969) was filmed in France to deflect domestic criticism of its grotesque homophobia and embarrassment to its actors, each of which was paid a million for their contributions (Fox was then headed by Schenck, Zanuck, and Goetz).

Sidney Lumet's Dog Day Afternoon (1976), starring Al Pacino, was the very first film to break the stereotype, in part, by Pacino acting "manly" in his bank robbery to pay his boyfriend's sex change, not necessarily normative behavior in most gay men's lives, but at least Pacino looked and acted like a man. William Friedkin's homo-homocidal Cruising (1980), again starring Al Pacino, as an undercover cop infiltrating the gay S&M leather scene was reviled by the gay community. Lewis Force summarizes the criticism:

Friedkin . . . presents us entirely with characters who are abhorrent, sleazy or totally ambiguous. Indeed, ambiguity is the film's raison d'etre - we are never sure of anything, and this becomes both the pictures great strength and source of much audience frustration.

Unless, "slashing and stabbing" fulfills your gay fantasies. Then, the only "breakthrough" came after Rupert Murdoch's acquisition of Fox studios, the first studio to produce an openly-positive gay film, Making Love, in 1982, but it was not commercially successful as the executives had hoped. Watching Harry Hamlin kiss Michael Ontkean seemed to upset some audiences (not gay men, I assure you). But even gay audiences felt heartbreak for Kate Jackson, the wife who is last-to-know. Thus, the bleak, miserable, defective motif continued to dominate the gay-themed motif.

Even 2005's Brokeback Mountain was produced and filmed predoinantly outside the Hollywood studio system, and clearly did not win the hearts and minds of Hollywood's Academy members, winning best director and cinematography, but not best picture. Yet, the film succeeded in Great Britain with top honors, including best picture and supporting actor in addition to Hollywood's paltry regards.

Obviously, Hollywood's homophobia persists, as the hypocrisy and double-standards of the Washington-Knight incident vis-a-vis Mel Gibson's drunken anti-Semitic tirade continues to demonstrate. Of course, Gibson's anti-Semitic remarks had no basis in the fact that his Passion of Christ was accused of being anti-Semitic by the Tribe. But challenge the Tribe's homophobia and get charged with anti-Semiticism for the truth. Let's just call it DENIAL. HYPOCRISY. DOUBLE STANDARDS.

So, for George Maharis to "buck" the studios in the Sixties was in itself an incredibly brave, if not career-destroying, act of courage. Homophobia repeatedly "blacklisted" him from starring in Hollywood's film roles, despite his handsome, masculine, leading-man good looks. He continued to act in television bit-parts, until retiring to pursue other artistic endeavors in 1993.

George Maharis is a pioneer. A legend. A hunk. A man of courage. A man of his convictions. A man which many of us are proud to pay tribute to his (and Phil Donahue's) courage, to buck the powers that be, to give voice to authenticity, to prefer honesty rather than duplicity, and accept no double-standards. He gave many of us who came of age at the time and thereafter the courage to stand proudly on a pioneer's shoulders, to be an honest, out, virile, openly gay man, to reject all stereotypes, especially the dreadful monolithic anti-gay caricatures and stereotypes, to reject the reviling mockery of emasculated weak men portrayed on the silver screen, and to accept ourselves for who we are, regardless of who disapproves, regardless of who approves, despite the costs. And to accept that handsome male virility is just as gay as it is straight, as are effeminate men, and everything "in between."

I like camp. I might like Hairspray, II. I just happen to like authentic men more -- especially men like George Maharis!