Yah know the kicker in all of this is EVERYONE KNEW. So what's the big deal?
Sounds to me that some Hollywood folks LIKE their homphobic lives.
Tough. That attitude is sooooo 1950. As the Queer Nation slogan goes, "We're here, we're queer, GET USED TO IT!"
Howie Kurtz? The Husband of a Major Republican Operative?
PLEASE!
I find it intresting that even in death, the closet still remains closed for some. I think that Michelangelo is right in thinking this thing goes beyond simply trying to protect a dead man's secrets. They've stepped into First Admendment issues. Guider (ironic about her surname) should have had the intestinal fortitude to stand by Ray's article being that it went to print. Smething is going on beyond what we know.
As with everything, corporations call the shots at the end of the day. I covered this story for my blog on Saturday morning, and got some good response.
Great stuff on your blog, Phil. Especially "Christopher" who saw Merv with a "much younger boyfriend" at a party at Luther Vandross' place.
Talk about Gay Hollywood!!!!
I just put this up at Huffington.
Check the casket. There may be another dead guy in there with Merve in a 69 position waiting to come out. Knock Knock on wood.
Great article David. Few days ago I posted a comment about Griffin and his ilk were "of a diffrent generation". The more I read the articles and the writings on the blogs, the more I think that the men of that generation should have been pioneers, not closet cases.
I'm not sure my diary, 'Merv Griffin died a closeted homosexual', wasn't noticed by the powers-that-be as scrolled down the right column of the website on the day of Merv's funeral. Someone did ask me to delete it, though there were far more requests for me to keep it up.
But frankly, the Hollywood Reporter article didn't say anything I didn't know... And I honestly didn't think I was doing anything controversial, posting the diary I did. Obviously, there's a generational difference in the gay community, as reflected in the reaction to Merv's death.
QuickSilver there is nothing wrong in posting the diary entry. I saw on another blog "you can't slander the dead". If Hollywood has a problem with those Merv who "knew" Merv telling tales, they need to grow up and grow a set. Once dead, your life and how you lived it becomes so much grist for the mill.
E&P simply isn't read by "anyone" not in the publishing/newsmedia industry or people whose livelihoods intersect with news reporting (campaign managers, media critics, etc). It certainly doesn't get quoted in mainstream media, any more than Columbia Journalism Review does. So why bother censoring E&P?
Hollywood Reporter is read by a much larger audience in the entertainment, entertainment news, advertising, etc businesses, and news there is far more likely to be disseminated in MSM. I can easily believe that the HR editor would be told to pull the Merv story by the same management that ignores the E&P.
Merv Griffin was hardly closeted. He was a bisexual married man who fathered a son and was often seen in the company of both men and women. Big fucking deal.
Anybody who knew him, knew his friends, or went to his parties was very aware that he didn't exactly lead a closeted life.
Fathering a son makes you bisexual? You couldn't get any gayer than me and I could father a son, all that takes is working plumbing. Oh and I could also be "seen in the company of women", doesn't mean I'm fucking them. Even if I was trying to insinuate that I was, like Merv did with his beard Eva Gabor. And if it's no "big fucking deal" that Merv was gay, why all the ruckus when Ray Richmond reported that to be the case?
This editor is a complete tool of the industry -- 18 years at Variety. She knew exacty what beast she had to feed.
But she and the beast underestimated the outcry. Great work. Now let's get to the bottom of this.
Over 17 years since Malcomlm Forbes died and the closet is still being reinforced and superstructured by Republican bigots. So little progress.
Blame Arnold. He's another closet case. He didn't want there secret to get out.
Arnold surely has some big business connections with Merv. If the family asked the Gov on the day of the funeral mass he was speaking at, you know the Gov called THR. The poor little editor didn't have a chance.
Yep, the Republicans pulled the story. LMFAO You really need to quit smoking that stuff.
The guy is dead, who gives a fuck! Good ridance.
YOU give a fuck, "Ron."
Why else are you posting in here?
UUUMMMM, because I like Michaelangelo's show and his website????? Ya think? It certainly isn't the first topic I have commented on.
Merv is old news, let it go already.
No.
Fallout from my Merv Griffin column:
http://www.pastdeadline.com/2007...ng-the-
rec.html
Thanks for your support, Mike!
Ray
Sorry, but I just can't muster up a lot of sympathy for someone who was too concerned with his own dinner-party status to advocate on behalf of his community and himself.
And I say the same to every self-serving prick in the public eye: your silence is tantamount to aiding and abetting a demonic frame to be applied to the lives of ordinary, out queer Americans by those who are terrified of difference. F*ck you and your thrones of privilege - y'all deserve to be outed!
It's not like this bastard had to really fear for his job in later years - certainly not in the way that the Joe Schmoe "little guy" can be fired in 31 states just for being gay.
Hope you learned something on your way to small-h hell, Merv - and it's something Audre Lord could have told you: your silence will not protect you.
Advocate on behalf of WHAT COMMUNITY? The only thing that unites us into a community is that we like to suck cock or fuck or get fucked by males. THAT'S IT!
Blame it on Harry Hay for creating a "community" where none existed. Sure, it was a great organizing tool in the 1950s in the same way that steel workers, plumbers, carpenters, and longshoremen were organized. And after all, Harry Hay was a union organizer, so he knew what that paradigm was all about.
But the concept that we are any kind of COMMUNITY is absurd!
Merv Griffin was out. Raymond Burr was out. Lily Tomlin is out. There is no need to go on about how they weren't out *enough*. That's like saying someone isn't "black enough" (thanks, Brian Copeland!)
Just because someone doesn't kowtow to your inflated ideas of "community" does not make Merv Griffin any less a fag than any of the rest of us, nor does it warrant the criticism he and his memory have received.
Merv Griffin DID NOT OWE ANYBODY anything in terms of being more vocal. He was most certainly not in denial about being bisexual. Those of us who knew him or knew people who associated with him know the truth. The rest of you are losers trying to latch onto some celebrity to gain status for yourselves.
Be ashamed.
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