The most flamboyantly feminine actor in the 1970s was not Paul Lynde or Charles Nelson Reilly: it was Dom Deluise (below), who played gay-coded roles in many of his buddy Burt Reynold's movies (
Smokey and the Bandits II, Canonball Run, The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas), and many of his buddy Mel Brooks' movies (
Blazing Saddles, Silent Movie, The World's Greatest Lover). It seemed that you couldn't go to any comedy where Dom wasn't camping it up.
His characters were all gay stereotypes -- in fact, they were rather homophobic -- but you never saw positive portrayals of gay men
anywhere. Just depicting them as vivacious, fun-loving, and
not monsters was a step forward in 1976.
Dom continued to work steadily during the 1980s and 1990s, moving into voice work, appearing as himself everywhere on tv, and publishing some best-selling cookbooks. No movies with "real" gay characters, except for
Girl Play (2004), in which a director casts two women to play lesbian lovers, and they end up falling for each other.
With all his flamboyance and camp, and his close friendships with closeted gay performers like Liberace and Jim Nabors, most people assumed that Dom was gay. Maybe he was, but that didn't stop him from being married to Carol Arthur from 1965 to his death in 2009.
His three sons are all actors, but they have resisted the family tradition of flamboyant, gay-coded characters, playing mostly cops and other macho types:
1. Peter (left), born in 1966, is best known as Officer Doug Penhall on
21 Jump Street.
2. Michael, born 1969, had a recurring role on
The Gilmore Girls.
3. David (top photo), born in 1971, is best known as the father of a family of wizards in the Disney Channel's gay subtext
Wizards of Waverly Place.
I think he was gay... many men back then (and even some today) don't come out and stay married and have kids because it's what society expects. More so older men, being gay was so much more taboo. My (ex-but forever always) brother in law used the church to try to "not be gay".. he fought it all his life. After him and my sister got divorced he never had another gf. He got in shape, did a lot of going out, I'm guessing did a lot of soul searching. finally after 20 years, he recently married his partner in 2021 and is living his best life and I couldn't be happier for him. it's a shame all the hate in the world. Someone being gay affects me IN NO MANNER SHAPE OR FORM.. so WHO FREAKING CARES! ;)
ReplyDeleteWell said
DeleteHaving children with his wife doesn't have to mean anything. I saw an interview on TV about a man that grew up as a mormon, so he married very young. He and his wife had four children I think, but after fifteen years he divorced and got himself a boyfriend. He said that all those years he was married to his wife, and all those times they had sex, he only had two positive sexual experiences with her (and I'm very curious about those two times). But he did his "duties" anyway.
ReplyDeleteYou cannot be completely gay if you get an erection and have sex with a woman.
DeleteLike the previous poster I know plenty of "straight" married men with kids who are in the closet- it also may be ethnic thing- this is very common in Latino culture. Deluise was a very funny actor and he produced some fine looking sons
ReplyDeleteDom DeLuise was of Italian heritage, so he was NOT Latino!
DeleteTo add to the above, it was typically also a matter of what you did. You were only considered "funny" if you actually enjoyed being penetrated, but many boys from puberty until college enjoyed masturbating with male friends, and some working-class men 16 and up would sell their bodies (or at least their dicks) to men at the docks, or model in under the counter magazines and schedule private modeling sessions, hence rough trade.
ReplyDeleteI interviewed Deluise in the late 70's when I was writing about film and theater. I have to say, I didn't get any kind of ping on my gaydar, and the man was a total delight, very very funny and very nice to a dopey twentysomething just starting his career. He did mince, but I think it was just shtick; maybe I was too young and naive to "get it" (although I certainly "got" Rip Taylor and Paul Lynde, even when I was much younger.) Dom even did his "Dominick The Great" routine into my tape recorder for my grandmother, who worshipped him.
ReplyDeleteI don’t think he was gay at all but he was a delightful person and a great actor, and as for the person who thinks the Latino community is more likely to have gay tendencies I hate to inform you but all cultures have gay tendencies in their communities. We are all equal.
ReplyDelete