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silverfoxesclub-digest In this issue: -Dame Edna's American Tour Subject: Dame Edna's American Tour For those whose interest in this great female impersonator/cross-dresser
may have been piqued by the article I submitted here yesterday, please
see the attached animated gif I made for you today. She is presently
appearing in Minneapolis through November 5 and will them go on to other
American cities well into 2001.
Her show schedule is
on the Web Subject: New Welcome Message Profile
The following Profile Form now appears in the Welcome Message of the
list. Present members may wish to fill it out and submit it. ========================== Send it to: silverfoxesclub@queernet.org
SUBJECT: My profile
My handle: Subject: Schlessinger May Come Out Swinging in TV Return Ben
Boxer notes: Dr Laura will never say die until NOBODY will sponsor
her and NOBODY watches or listens to her. Therefore, she will prolly
be around for a long time. Gays should continue to attack her at every
turn when she steps out of line. Rush Limbaugh's continued success gives
the lie to the hope many gay people have that this sort of demented
bigotry will go away if ignored. It won't. It never will, being firmly
entrenched in religion and the middle class. But a snarling wolf pack
of gays and lesbians certainly helps to keep it at bay. As other civil
rights movements have taught us, when you relax the struggle against
bigotry because you think the battle won is when you discover that this
dark face of human nature then dons a new mask, rather like George W.
Bush wearing his oxymoronic compassionate-conservative mask to hide
the unchanged viciousness of the Republican Party's platform. It's still
there, but he hopes you won't see it.
Headline: Text: LOS ANGELES -- Is Laura Schlessinger being given the go ahead
to take off her gloves? The New York Post reports the somewhat subdued
version of "Dr. Laura" trotted out by nervous Paramount Television executives
this fall has been such a disastrous ratings failure, the show's producers
have decided to let the embattled Laura Schlessinger be Schlessinger,
unleashing her harshly judgmental personality that is part of her appeal
on the radio.
Schlessinger took to the nation's television airwaves on September
11. The show made its nationwide premiere over the fierce objections
of activists and volunteers associated with StopDrLaura.com and the
Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation. The two groups, working
with their respective audiences, organized demonstrations, sold t-shirts
and circulated quotes and out-takes from Schlessinger's broadcasts berating
gay men and lesbians as "biological errors" and as "sexual deviants."
Together, they have developed a highly effective strategy informing
jumpy advertisers the community would be watching. The tactics worked.
The absence of major packaged goods advertising (shampoo, soap, laundry
detergents, cereals), airlines, car advertisements, travel services,
credit card companies and other mainstream staples of commercial television
on her program showed the success of the inform and protest strategy.
Dashing the inflated hopes of its host and producers, the September
premiere of "Dr. Laura," did far worse than industry executives predicted.
The low ratings coupled with the defection of major national advertisers
such as Procter & Gamble Co., GEICO Corp., Kraft Foods, Xerox Corp.,
American Express Corp., AT&T , Gateway Inc., and scores of others, called
into serious question the show's future.
In September, production of "Dr. Laura" was suspended for what producers
euphemistically called a "retooling" just two weeks after its debut.
The Post reports the newly reformatted show will include a "Moral Dilemma
Hotline," for "viewers to schedule an appointment" for a visit by "Dr.
Laura's" traveling television crew. The show will also reportedly debut
a forum for Schlessinger's detractors, though it is unclear what form
the presentation of these opposing points of view will take.
In October Schlessinger issued a weak apology in an obvious attempt
to end gay led protests and urge a halt to an advertiser boycott that
has crippled her broacasting career. "While I express my opinions from
the perspective of an Orthodox Jew and a staunch defender of the traditional
family," she wrote in an ad taken out in Variety, "in talking about
gays and lesbians, some of my words were poorly chosen. Many people
perceive them as hate speech. This fact has been personally and professionally
devastating to me and many others."
The gay community's response was chilly, noting that a reference to
her professional devastation in the wake of the harm she had caused
members of the community couldn't be more self-serving and insincere.
"The anger Schlessinger's words have caused is too great and too profound
to simply go away after a qualified admission of some guilt," said GLAAD's
Joan Garry. "Our community deserves better and awaits genuine words
backed up by authentic actions." Subject: mailing list
Hi Ben! Please - take me off your mailing list? I'm getting far too
much email...thanks! leoncc Subject: Sir John Gielgud, Great but Gay
Ben Boxer notes: The wry Johnny Gielgud outlived the other famous actors
of his time to become unrivaled dean of the English theatre, but always
dogging his footsteps was society's insufferable opinion of his homosexuality.
To them, he may have been the greatest surviving actor, but he was also
just a "pouf"!
Headline: Sir John Gielgud, Great, but Gay Text: SIR John Gielgud, one of the greatest British actors of the 20th
century, was prevented from working in America for four years in the
mid-1950s because he was gay. In 1953 Gielgud had been fined #10 for "importuning male persons for
immoral purposes". He was due to lead the Old Vic theatre in an American
tour later that year, but the British Council became worried that he
might be refused entry to the United States - still in the grips of
McCarthyism. Fear about possible damage to Anglo-American relations
led the British embassy in Washington to write to the Foreign Office,
warning that Gielgud "would likely be refused entry as an undesirable".
Gielgud did not go to America until 1957.
Sheridan Morley's official biography, for which he has had access to
more than 500 unpublished letters, will be out in March, while an unofficial
version by Jonathan Croall will be published next month.
"The case and fine had the most marked impact on him," said Morley.
In one letter to his friend Lillian Gish, the actress,written shortly
after the case, Gielgud revealed how close he was to committing suicide.
"He went on to say, 'I suppose I was a coward not to take my life',"
said Morley. "He adds, though, that he also 'probably wouldn't have
known how to'."
Gielgud, who is still best known in Britain for his Shakespearian roles,
also wrote sympathetically to Lord Montagu of Beaulieu, who was imprisoned
for a year in 1954 for sex offences with a young man. "There, but for
the grace of God, go I," he told Montagu. Morley, who has previously
written biographies of Noel Coward, Gladys Cooper and Audrey Hepburn,
was asked by Gielgud not to bring out his book until a year after his
death. He believed Gielgud was "quite probably" framed over his offence:
"Some of the police recall there was a particularly homophobic policeman
who seemed to have it in for John."
It is also known that David Maxwell-Fyfe, the then home secretary,
was determined to gain convictions for homosexuality, which was a criminal
offence until 1967. According to Croall's biography, other well-known
men such as Benjamin Britten and Cecil Beaton also attracted the attention
of the police. The climate in the mid-1950s was so homophobic that when
Sir Malcolm Sargent, the conductor, was asked to meet Gielgud, he replied:
"I don't think I can. You see, I mix with royalty."
Croall writes that Gielgud's brother, Val, who was head of BBC Radio,
defied Gielgud's manager Hugh "Binkie" Beaumont, who thought it better
for the actor to keep away from the stage so the furore would die down.
"But Val threatened that unless his brother was allowed to continue
acting, he would publicly expose the homosexuals who worked at Binkie's
agency, Tennents," said Croall. Beaumont, who was gay himself, relented.
Morley believes that although the fine and humiliation had a lasting
influence on the actor, it also helped to begin a debate on homosexuality.
In 1954 Sir John Wolfenden was asked by the Tory government to look
into whether it should remain illegal. His 1957 report suggested it
should not, but it was another decade before Labour decriminalised it.
Gielgud, whose career was discussed yesterday at the Cheltenham Literary
Festival by Morley, Croall and Gyles Brandreth, the former MP - whose
updated book on the actor will be republished soon - was regarded as
extraordinarily ignorant about the world outside the theatre. He once
found himself sitting beside a member of Clement Attlee's family - and
indicated that he had no idea Attlee was the prime minister. He also
said he was "not interested in politics, as he could not tell the difference
between the Whigs and the Tories". Croall said he was a patriot, however,
even if he did not serve in the second world war as did his contemporaries
such as Laurence Olivier, Ralph Richardson and Alec Guinness. End of silverfoxesclub-digest V1 #23 ************************************
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The
revelation, in one of two new biographies since Gielgud's death in May,
is one of many examples that show how homophobia blighted the actor's
career - and why he battled to keep his personal life as private as
possible.