15 gay facts about "White Christmas": gay actors, beefcake dancers, drag, Spartacus, and the source of your holiday depression

I'm not a big fan of the Holiday Season -- too big, bright, and noisy, with forced exuberance, and way too much melancholy.  I try to stay away from Christmas songs, movies, trees, holly, mistletoe, parties, and depression.  But I'll make an exception for White Christmas (1954).

1. It's not a Christmas movie.  It's a backstage musical that just happens to end at Christmastime.  Backstage movies were well-known for gay subtexts.

2. The song "White Christmas," by Irving Berlin (who was Jewish), first appeared in the backstage musical Holiday Inn, with Big Crosby and Fred Astaire. 

3. It's been covered by everyone, including gay favorites Bett Midler and Lady Gaga.

4. White Christmas is about two showbiz partners, Bob and Phil (Bing Crosby, Danny Kaye), who find their relationship threatened by women.

5. A musical based on the movie, Irving Berlin's White Christmas, opened in St. Louis in 2000. Lara Teeter (a guy with a girl's name) played Bob, and gay actor Lee Roy Reams played Phil Davis.

6. Phil has also been performed by Tony Yazbeck (top photo) and David Elder, who Google Images thinks is cowboy star Clint Walker (left).

7. The women in the movie, Judy and Betty (Vera-Ellen, Rosemary Clooney), are sisters.  At least, they perform as sisters, although their numbers would work well in a drag act.

God help the mister who comes between me and my sister
And God help the sister who comes between me and my man!

More after the break

Bix Beiderbecke: First Gay Jazz Musician

If you grew up in the Quad Cities, you couldn't help but hear about Davenport, Iowa native Bix Beiderbecke (1903-1931).  We listened to him in music class, and researched him in Mr. Manary's American history class.  Scott, the cornetist who died, was a fan.

There was a  Bix Beiderbecke Jazz Festival every year.  There was a bust of him in Leclair Park in Davenport. (My Grandma Davis wasn't from Rock Island, but she had some of his records.)

 But no one told us, or no one knew, that he was gay.

Beiderbecke was one of the pioneers of jazz, playing and composing for the cornet and piano. He performed with the legendary Paul Whiteman's Band in New York. He influenced Hoagy Carmichael, Bing Crosby, and the "cool jazz" of the 1950s.  But he had a tortured personal life, became an alcoholic, and died of pneumonia brought on by exhaustion in 1931, only 28 years old.

His first biographies, and the teachers in Rock Island, never suggested for a moment that he might be gay.  

But in Remembering Bix: A Memoir of the Jazz Age (2000), Ralph Berton writes that Berton's brother Eugene, a gay opera singer, took Bix  to a gay sex party in 1920s New York.  Bix kept exclaiming "Iowa has nothing like this!"

In Bix: The Definitive Biography of a Jazz Legend (2005), by Jean-Pierre Lion, Eugene and Bix have a brief romantic escapade.  But, Eugene complains, "It meant absolutely nothing to him. His attitude toward sex, with men or women, was 'What the hell?'"

What women?  His biographies try to pair him up with this or that woman, but with limited success and lots of conjecture.  But it's not hard to find Bix talking to men, working with men, spending his life with men.  His roommates include Eddie Lang,  a young Bing Crosby, and gay musician Jimmy McPartland (left, with his future wife Marian, who knew that he was gay and didn't care).

Of course, the "accusation" has some jazz fans up in arms.  Even more than country-western music, the world of jazz is known for its homophobia.  There have been some lesbian jazz singers, but very, very few gay men, and even fewer open gay men, especially in instrumental "pure" jazz, where macho men in smoky rooms refer to non-aggressive musical styles as "faggy."


 "I don't even know one jazz musician who is [gay]," Dizzy Gillespie said.

I know one.

The Crosby Kids

Bing Crosby (1903-1977), roommate of gay jazz legend Bix Beiderbecke, grew up to be the laid-back crooner that had 1940s teenyboppers swooning, starred in White Christmas, and had six sons. Growing up as celebrity kids took its toll on them, as did Bing's harsh, authoritarian parenting style, and his insistence that they follow in his footsteps.  None of them became famous, but they had some success in the early 1960s performing as the Crosby Boys, and some of them were familiar to the Boomer generation as actors.

1. Gary (1933-1995), left, starred in some lightweight romantic comedies, such as Mardi Gras (1958) and Two Tickets to Paris (1962), and guest starred on many tv series.  In middle age he played authority figures on Adam-12 and Emergency.

2. Davis (1934-1991) acted only occasionally, notably with his brothers and the Rat Pack gang in Sergeants Three (1962).

3. Philip (1934-2004), Davis's twin brother, had two buddy bonding roles, in Robin and the Seven Hoods (1964)  and None But the Brave (1965).  Coincidentally, he buddied with Rat Packer Frank Sinatra in both.

4. Lindsay (1938-1989) starred in several outlaw-biker movies, including The Glory Stompers (1967) and Bigfoot (1970).

5. Harry (born 1958), left, was best known to the Boomer Generation, playing Bill, the camp counselor who plays strip Monopoly and gets slashed in Friday the 13th (1980). He had small roles in several other movies. Today he is an investment banker.

6. Nathaniel (born 1961) (left, hugging Harry) stayed out of acting, and coincidentally the only one who has any gay rumors.  He's a professional golfer.

Homophobic Moment in History: Bob Hope's AIDS Joke

Bob Hope (1903-2003) was probably the most famous and beloved entertainer of the 20th century, from the 1940s Road movies with Bing Crosby (Road to Morocco, Road to Singapore) to 30 years as a radio staple to a series of tv specials in the 1950s and 1960s.

He was known for his snide, snarky one-liners -- over 500,000 through his career, contributed by an army of over 100 writers on his payroll.  Most commented on current fads, fashions, Hollywood stars, and politics.

From the 1950s:

Eisenhower admitted the budget can't be balanced and McCarthy says the communists are taking over. You don't know what to worry about these days ... whether the country will be overthrown or overdrawn."

From the 1980s:

Everything Reagan does, Gorbachev does him one better. Reagan wears the flag of his country on his lapel. Gorby wears the map of his country on his forehead.

During the 1970s and 1980s, gay activists often complained about the raw homophobia in his jokes, but Hope shrugged them off: "They're threatening to get together and hit me with their purses."

Until July 4th, 1986.

Hope was performing at a dinner to commemorate the hundredth year anniversary of the Statue of Liberty.   The aging entertainer told the audience of patriotic Liberty enthusiasts, who paid $1000 apiece to be there ($2000 today):

I just heard that the Statue of Liberty has AIDS.  No one knows if she got it from the Mouth of the Hudson or the Staten Island Fairy.

Ronald and Nancy Reagan laughed, but the rest of the audience sat in stunned silence, horrified by the slur against Miss Liberty's sexual habits.  The Los Angeles Times said:

Hope's "joke" was worse than obscene. It was abusive and unworthy...It is both sad and shameful that a man who many have considered a national treasure should think it would be funny to besmirch Miss Liberty on her 100th birthday.

Gay activists complained again about the raw homophobia,, and AIDS activists complained about the horrifying misinformation.  Hope didn't actually apologize, but he said:  "I've known so many people like that over the years, worked with so many.  But it's different now.  Now they fight back."

Hope continued to make homophobic jokes until 1988, when a reference to "fags" on The Tonight Show prompted GLAAD to demand an apology.  Hope agreed to participate in an PSA, which aired only on local gay tv programs:

"I was amazed to discover that many people die each year in anti-gay attacks, and thousands more are left scarred, emotionally and physically.  Bigotry has no place in this great nation, and violence has no place in this world."

He was amazed to discover that anti-gay violence exists?  Really?

Gay people are not mentioned in the 2015 biography, Hope: Entertainer of the Century.  

See also: Bing Crosby