Not the Marrying Kind: Gay Burns and Allen

Television was introduced in 1949, just in time for the formative years of the first Boomers (the generation officially started in 1945). Radio performers scrambled to make the transition. Some made it, most didn't.  Burns and Allen, a "married couple" sitcom starring comedians George Burns and Gracie Allen, made it. After 20 years on radio, they transitioned to television in 1950 and stayed on until 1958, stopped only by Gracie's passing.

They're shown here with guest star Steve Reeves.

I recently listened to an episode from the end of the radio run, in 1949.

The homophobic silence of Dark Age America was starting to break -- very, very slightly -- as radio sought to compete with television by introducing "racy" content -- hints and innuendos about s*x, and about same-s*x desire. 

The plot: George and Gracie, playing themselves, are trying to find a wife for painfully shy next door neighbor, musician Meredith Willson (who penned The Music Man).

 They recruit singer Eddie Cantor, who was subject to some gay rumors because he and his wife only had daughters. Maybe he could donate one?

So Gracie invites Eddie Canter over, and announces to Meredith, "We've found someone for you to marry!"

Thinking that they mean Eddie, Meredith says:  "Gee, I had my heart set on a woman."

Later Eddie explains to his potential son-in-law how a wedding works:

"The minister says 'I now pronounce you man and wife, and then you kiss."

"Even if you've just met?" Meredith asks, thinking that he means kissing the minister.

Meredith (or at least the character he is playing) is too shy to talk to women, let alone marry one.  He complains: "I can't get married if a woman is [at the wedding]."

Again and again, joke after joke brings up the idea that Meredith is considering marrying a man.

What's going on?

If being gay is really beyond the boundaries of what can be known, then the characters are playing with an absurdity, a play on words like Abbott & Costello's "Who's on First" routine.

But people knew about being gay, even in 1949. The Kinsey Report (1948) revealed its existence to millions.  George Burns and Gracie Allen worked with gay people in Hollywood.

Their television series often implied that teenage son Ronnie Burns (or at least the character he played) preferred the company of men.

Maybe that's why Meredith Wilson's character trips easily over the boundary between "confirmed bachelor" and "gay."

At the end of the episode, everyone agrees that he "should never get married." At least not to a woman.

Even in the darkest of the Dark Ages, there were still hints and innuendos.

In real life, Meredith Wilson was married to women three times.  But there are some queer codes in The Music Man.

See also: Ronnie Burns: Gay Teen of the 1950s

Robert Ellis: Gay Best Friend of the 1950s

Ben Pajak plays the gay kids of Wolverine and Paul Blart, Harvey Milk, Max von Essen's buddy, and a gay Corey Haim.  He was also in The Music Man.

Justin Ellings: Kyle from the awful clown episode of "Modern Family" plays Corey Haim and Sean Giambrone, shows his physique and his d*ck

The Pontius Gemstone Horror Picture Show, with Stacy, Frank, Rocky, and a special appearance by Dolly Parton

 

Gay icons Dolly Parton and Tim Curry (Frank in "The Rocky Horror Picture Show") both died on August 25th, 2026. so I wanted to find some way to get them both in the same story, and Pontius and Stacy from "The Righteous Gemstones" seemed ideal as a modern-day Brad and Janet. 

Link to the NSFW version

There’s a light at the Frankenstein place

 It was dark, it was raining, the narrow country road was heading nowhere, and on the radio, there was something about demolishing the Washington Monument to build a 50-foot tall golden statue. 

"Turn that junk off!” Stacy told his boyfriend Pontius.  “I’m tired, I’m cold, and I’m not in the mood.”

 “Ok, ok, chill, Stace.  How about Dolly Parton?”

 “Your Grandpa’s bff?”

“She was actually my Grandma’s bff.  They recorded an album together.”  Pontius didn’t like to talk about his family much, because it was so complicated – and seedy. It seemed like someone with a grudge against his granddad, world-famous Evangelical preacher Eli Gemstone, showed up every single year.  There were kidnappings, murders, assassins on bikes.  He actually met Stacy when the guy was shoot by a serial killer targeting Grandad Eli.  

“Go ahead, put on some Dolly,” Stacy told him.  “ She always cheers me up.”

Pontius pulled up the “Greatest Hits” album his phone and sighed as she began “Two Doors Down.”

 It had been a bad day from the start.  Well, not waking up with Stacy in his arms at the Charlotte Hilton.   Breakfast was ok.  But the last session in the Queer Youth Conference was bogus, all about handling internalized homophobia and religious guilt.  It was 2026.  Who felt guilty about being gay or bi anymore?  They wouldn’t have gone at all, but they promised to report to Uncle Kelvin, who was running the queer youth ministry at the Salvation Center.

They got a late start, and then they had to detour around Columbia, and then they took a wrong turn onto an endless country road in rural South Carolina.  No mile markers, and the GPS wasn’t even working.   

Crunch!  A flat tire.  Of course!  Stacy pulled over to the side of the road.

 “Do you have roadside assistance?” he asked.

 “Sure. but…no bars.  I can’t call.”  He hesitated.  “ I’m a poor litle rich boy – we had drivers, chauffeurs, and auto mechanics on staff, so I never learned how to do anything but get gas – maybe.  I don’t suppose you know how to change a flat tire?”

 Stacy giggled.  “Do I look  know anything about cars?”

“I don’t know,” Pontius said.  “When I look at you, all I can see is how hot you are.”   He drew Stacy in for a kiss.

“Hey, didn’t we pass a castle a few miles back?  We could stop by and see if they have cell phone reception.  Or maybe they have a land line.”

“A castle in South Carolina, Stace?”

 He shrugged.  “Maybe it’s part of a Medieval Times restaurant, or a miniature golf course.  Anyway, unless you have a better idea….”

The “castle” was more like one of those counry mansions built by the robber barons in the 19th century, all Gothic spires, with a central tower and a greenhouse dome.  When they knocked, a middle aged man, balding but with long blond hair, answered the door and said “Hello” in a weird faux-British accent.

“Hi, I’m Pontius, and this is my boyfriend Stacy."

He stared.  “You can call me…Riff Raff.”

 “Underdog role playing -- cool!  So, Riff Raff, our car broke down.  Could we use your phone to call a tow truck?”

 He continued to stare.  “Hmm…I think you’d better ask the Master about that.”

 The Master?  Pontius nudged Stacy.  Were these guys into a BDSM master-slave relationship?

He led them through the parlor, past a huge assortment of Goth  relics – stone gargoyles, a statue of a bear, a skeleton in a coffin.  The Master must be a Heavy Metal rocker.

“You’re very lucky that the Master is home tonight. Usually he’s out with his…um…affairs.” 

“You’re lucky!” came a voice from above – It was a woman with frizzy black hair, dressed in a maid’s outfit, sliding down the staircase bannister!  “I’m lucky, we’re all lucky, ha ha ha!”

 When she got to the base, she curtseyed. “What’s your favorite color?”

“Huh?”

 “Magenta!  My name is your favorite color, Magenta! Like pink, but hotter!”

 “Oh – I was going to say blue,” Pontius told her.  “I’m digging the French maid outfit, but your accent is slipping.  It sounds Eastern European.”

 “It’s Transylvanian!  We're aliens from the planet Transylvania."  She paused expectantly.  Did she think they would be surprised?

"Cool," Pontius said, covering a yawn.  "My brother dated Jimmy Olsen, who works for the Daily Planet, and one time in Metropolis he introduced us to..."

"Shall we continue?" Riff Raff interrupted.  "It's astounding -- time is fleeting. Madness takes its toll."

 Through two more knicknack-filled rooms and into a space that looked like a ballroom. 

 “The Master will be down presently,” Riff Raff said.  “He’ll want you out of those rain-soaked clothes.”  He started pulling off Pontius’s shirt, and unzipping his pants.   The maid Magenta did the same with Stacy. 

 A blond hunk fumbling with his shirt?  His cell phone had bars now, but calling a tow truck could wait….

 Stacy was not as enthusiastic about Magenta. “Wait a minute – I’m gay!  Could I get Riff Raff? My boyfriend Pontius is bi – maybe he’ll be into the French maid scene.”

 She sneered. “Transylvanian maid.  But you can relax, femme boy.  I just like to watch.  In another dimension, with voyeuristic intention, well secluded, I see all.”

 “Ok, then, we’ll both take Riff Raff,” Pontius said.  He reached down and tried to fondle his chest, but the blond dude pushed his hand away. 

The Sweet Transvestite

With a loud clank, an old fashioned elevator descended, and out came a hot guy in a dominatrix outfit, with fishnet stockings, high heels, pearls, glam makeup and an old-time movie star hairdo.  Pontius nudged Stacy “Dibs.”

The Master began to sing: Don’t get strung out by the way I look – don’t judge a book by its cover.  I’m not much of a man by the light of day…

“Don’t say that,” Pontius interrupted.  “There’s nothing wrong with being femme.  Actually, I prefer femme boys.”  He put his arm around Stacy.

 “Um…ok….I’m just a sweet transvestite from  transsexual Transylvania..”

 “Not cool, dude,” Stacy said.  “Those oldster terms are offensive.  You’re a drag queen, not a transvestite, and it's transgender, not transsexual.  And how can everybody on a whole planet be trans?"

 “It's just to set the mood, ok?  My planet is actually named Trafalgador."

Pontius held out his hand.  "I'm Pontius, and this is my boyfriend Stacy."

"Charmed.  My name would be too complicated for your tiny human minds to comprehend, so you can call me Frank.  Frank N Furter.”

 Pontius and Stacy both started giggling.  “You’re an advanced alien species, and that’s all you could come up with?” Stacy said. 

 “Do you have a brother named Meat Loaf?” Pontius asked.

Frank glared at Riff Raff.  “Um…have you met my boy toy, Rocky?   When I was just a sweet young thing, I built a man...with blond hair and a tan.  He’s good for relieving my…tensions.”

  Rocky was a silver fox muscleman, in his 50s, wearing only a golden jockstrap.  He flexed as he walked.

 Stacy nudged Pontius. “Dibs.”

Rocky held out his hand and grunted.  

"I'm afraid my man is nonverbal.  I never could get the esophagus right, but everything else works.  A deltoid and a bicep, a hot groin and a tricep makes me...shake.  Makes me want to take Charles Atlas by the..."

 “We have a flat tire, “ Pontius began.  “We came in to use your phone, but we have bars now, so we can be on our way.  Unless…” he said hopefully.

Frank began to sing: Why don’t you stay for the night? I could get you both rooms. We could listen to some Dolly Parton tunes. Or if you want something visual, that’s pretty groovy, We could take in an old Steve Reeves movie.

“Who?”

More after the break

An Old Steve Reeves Movie

20 years before Arnold Schwarzenegger personalized the bodybuilder, a decade before William Smith brought bodybuilding Western heroes out of the closet, Steve Reeves became an icon for gay and straight men -- but mostly in Italy, with his voice dubbed in by someone else.

Born in 1926 in Montana, Reeves developed a massive physique during the 1940s, when it was still considered a weird affectation.  After minor roles in U.S. movies and tv sitcoms -- and physique shots in Bob Mizner's pro-gay Physique Pictorial -- he moved to Italy, where the peplum or sword-and-sandal genre promoted Italian nationalism through man-mountains in togas who wandered around the ancient world, fighting oppressors.

Reeves' Hercules (1957) became a sensation, even after it was released in the U.S. in 1959, and spun Reeves into a sequel, Hercules Unchained (1959), as well as a Hercules fad in comics and on tv.

 Soon Reeves was playing every ancient hero the studio could dig up or invent, 15 in all: Goliath (not the Biblical Goliath), Glaucus (from The Last Days of Pompeii), Morgan the Pirate, The Thief of Baghdad, Agi Murad,  and Phidippides  (I've never heard of most of them, either).

The plots were similar: Hercules, or Goliath, or Agi Murad fights to help a civilization throw off the yoke of a tyrannical oppressor, gets captured and tortured, rejects the advances of an evil black-haired woman and rescues and marries a good blonde-haired woman.

His lines were dubbed in English in post-production, so no one heard his real voice except in two American movies, the bodybuilder-exploitation Athena and the police drama Jailbait.

There is minimal buddy-bonding, as in the original Hercules, where the demigod tags along with Jason and the Argonauts.  But both Hercules and Jason fall in love with women, and at the end of the movie they part.

In Romulus and Remus (Duel of the Titans, 1961), Romulus (Steve Reeves) and Remus (Gordon Scott) are raised as brothers, and fight the evil oppressors together.  But then one becomes good, and the other evil, and they must duel to the death.

Gay fans had to make do with Steve Reeves' superlative musculature, which was displayed extensively in every movie.

He retired in 1967 after an injury,  and devoted the next 33 years to promoting fitness and raising horses on his ranch in central California.  No information on whether he supported his gay fans, but since they were an integral part of his fame, one imagines that he enjoyed  the homage in The Rocky Horror Picture Show , where Dr. Frank-N-Furter tells Brad and Janet:

If you want something visual, that's not too abysmal,
We could take in an old Steve Reeves movie.

The Dandy and the Gay Cult: The Last Days of Pompeii

When I was a kid, my church didn't like anything "worldly," not even literature.  Novels were at best a waste of time, and more likely they would promote heresies like atheism, Catholicism, and witchcraft.

But they made an exception for historical dramas set in or around the time of Christ: Ben-Hur, Quo Vadis, The Robe, The Big Fisherman,  Barabbas, and even Sir Edward Bulwer-Lytton's Last Days of Pompeii (1834).

Later I discovered that Bulwer-Lytton (1803-1873) was gay, and a member of the Dandy movement, about well-sensitive, highly refined gentlemen who obsessed over fashion and grooming, swooned over opera arias, enjoyed hedonistic vices, and wrote poetry.  During last days of the Romantic Era (1770-1830) and the first days of the Victorian, "dandy" was code for "gay."

Most of the Dandys weren't great writers; in fact, Bulwer-Lytton gave his name to a contest every year to see who can write the worst opening for a novel.  I only got through a few pages of the purple-prosed Last Days of Pompeii. But apparently, if you slog through the romance between Roman citizen Glaucus and the "beautiful" Ione, you'll meet the evil Egyptian sorcerer Arbaces, who seduces and "destroys" Ione's brother Apaecides -- he sings a song of "love" and then leads him to "a curtain on the other side of the chamber."

Now Apaecides is a priest for the evil cult of Isis, which engages in all sorts of decadent activities.  Not to worry, he renounces Isis and converts to Christianity before Arbaces murders him.

At least the destruction of Pompeii is not caused by God's wrath against the sodomites.

There have been several film versions, mostly skipping the gay subplot.  In the 1959 peplum version, Glaucus (bodybuilder Steve Reeves) gets a gay subtext with his best friend Marcus (Mario Berriatua), but the character of Apaecides, renamed Antonius (Angel Aranda, left, from a Spanish movie) is insignificant.

In the 1984 tv miniseries, Nicholas Clay (left) plays Glaucus, Ernest Borgnine Marcus, and Benedict Taylor Antonius, in a minor plotline that gets him a girlfriend.  There's also a new hunk, the gladiator Lydon (Duncan Regehr, top photo, posing with phallic symbol).

See also: The Flowers of Evil

Sword and Sandal

Steve Reeves didn't invent the genre of Italian peplum ("toga")  or sword-and-sandal, about a toga-clad demigod fighting oppression in a vaguely ancient Greek or Roman setting.  But he introduced it to the world.  Between 1957 and 1967, peplum was the most popular Italian movie export, even more popular than the artistic masterworks of Fellini and Antonioni.  

The hero was always a legendary muscleman: Goliath and Samson from the Bible, Hercules from Greek myth; Maciste from ancient Rome; Ursus from the movie Quo Vadis (1951).  Alan Steel (right) played both Samson and Hercules. Samson Burke was a rare bodybuilder who played mostly villains.

  But the plots didn't worry about historical accuracy.  Hercules fought the Mongols; Maciste found his way to the 16th century Aztec Empire; another Hercules (Giuliano Gemma) visited the Incas; an Arabian Nights setting involved Samson, who was born 1500 years before Mohammed.  There were even science fiction and horror movies; the hero fought vampires and moon men.


Many Mr. Universes (such as Ed Fury, right) were hired to play the mythic hero, giving bodybuilders their first roles other than self-absorbed beach-bunnies, and giving millions of gay boys their first crushes.

Kirk Morris (left), discovered while working as a gondalier in Venice, played Hercules, Maciste, and Anthar.  His villains included headhunters and the Tzar of Russia.

The peplum hero was a man-mountain, able to destroy entire enemy armies by flexing his superheroic biceps.  He was usually tied up and tortured two or three times, so he could struggle, his muscles glistening in the firelight of the Tzar's dungeon.  Sometimes other parts were clearly visible, as when Gordon Scott, a future Tarzan, played Maciste.

But buddy-bonding was conspicuously absent.  Men were sometimes comrades, but more usually competitors and back-stabbers.  Plots rarely involved rescuing men or sailing into the sunset with men.  Instead, there were always two women: an evil brunette (whom the hero spurned) and a virtuous blonde (whom he fell in love with).

The heroes were nice to look at, but they offered no glimpse of a "good place."

The very informative Peplum blog gives a rundown of many of the movies.