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During the spring of my senior year in high school. I devised a clever scheme to avoid having to date girls: I would ask out a supermodel-cheerleader, way out of my league. Then, when she laughed hysterically and hung up, or more graciously had to wash her hair that night, my parents would "console" me by letting me borrow the car anyway. So on Friday nights I went out with boys, to movies, to get pizza, to Leonard Bernstein's Mass at Augustana College, to the spring musical.
We would get back to my place or his place about 9:00 and turn on the tv set just in time to hear the jazzy, risque theme song to Husbands, Wives, and Lovers ("and luuv-errrrs"), produced by gay-friendly comedian Joan Rivers.
It was the first time any man and woman on tv had lived together without being married, and hearing about it made us feel grown-up and sophisticated and sort of dirty. Luuv-eerrrrs....
I just wanted to watch the beefcake-heavy opening credits, in which five women approach men in the hope of amorous activity, and are rejected. (I don't know the names of any of the characters).
1. Cynthia Harris tries to get the elderly Stephen Pearlman interested, but he's listening to his own heartbeat with a stethoscope.
1. Cynthia Harris tries to get the elderly Stephen Pearlman interested, but he's listening to his own heartbeat with a stethoscope.
Stephen Pearlman (1935-1998) appeared on L.A. Law, Seinfeld, and Die Hard with a Vengeance. He is not related to Michael Pearlman of Charles in Charge, starring Scott Baio (left)
2. The vain Charles Siebert wrests a mirror from Claudette Nevins' hand and uses it to admire himself.
Charles Siebert (1938-2022) appeared on Trapper John MD, Dallas, Matlock, and the Love Boat. Although he posed for gay magazines early in his career, he was married to a woman for 19 years.
3. Lynne Marie Stewart tries to get hunky, open-shirted Eddie Barth (left) interested, but he's busy eating a sandwich.
Eddie Barth (1931-2010) appeared in Alice, Magnum PI, Fame, Night Court, and Men in Black: The Series.
4. Mark Lonow waits in anticipation while Randee Heller strips, but he doesn't like the results, and rejects her.
More after the break
Mark Lonow. born in 1944, has appeared in Charlie's Angels, The Rockford Files, Rude Awakening, and Sabrina the Teenage Witch. His son Michael Rapaport (left) starred in The War at Home, as a conservative father who takes in a gay kid rejected by his family.
5. Ron Rifkin argues with Jessie Welles, takes a pillow, and storms off to sleep elsewhere.
I thought Ron Rifkin, born in 1938, played the head of NBC on Seinfeld, but that was Bob Balaban. Ron has appeared on Soap, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, ER, Sex and the City, and Brothers and Sisters., where he played a gay guy (dating Stephen Collins, of 7th Heaven). He is straight in real life.
Left: Bob Balaban. The resemblance is...well, I haven't seen either of them in years.
Wait -- none of these men were attracted to women?
I knew that I would have to get married some day -- everyone said so, again and again. Adulthood meant job, house, wife, and kids. There was no escape. But at least I could pretend to be asleep, or be eating a sandwich, or say "no" whenever my wife approached to ask for...yuck, thinking about it made me nauseous.
We didn't continue watching; we changed the channel to Monty Python's Flying Circus on PBS.
We didn't continue watching; we changed the channel to Monty Python's Flying Circus on PBS.
Apparently lots of people were changing the channel: Husbands, Wives, and Lovers ended after only nine episodes. Maybe because nobody wanted to see an hour long comedy? Or because it aired right after a two-hour block of kid-friendly superhero adventure shows like Wonder Woman and The Incredible Hulk?
Or because the elderly people home at 9:00 pm on Saturday nights took offense at lovers, and switched to Quincy, M.E.?
Or because the elderly people home at 9:00 pm on Saturday nights took offense at lovers, and switched to Quincy, M.E.?
But for gay kids struggling with a dire future of job, house, wife, and kids, it was a godsend.
See also: David Naughton: The cutest guy of the Disco Era tells us to "Be a Pepper" and shows us his d*ck
