Homophobic stars from Classic Hollywood?

Henry Fonda, who was married 5 times.

Read this, OP.

Susan Hayward, sad to say.

Susan Hayward liked individual gay people,. Yet, she did have one homophobic outburst to a gay man. She felt terrible afterwards and she apologized to him. This is per a biography of her life, “Red”.

William Shatner... don't quite know if he could be classified as "Classic Hollywood," but he sure is a fossil and relic of the past!

Jane Wyman

Re. Wyman, fifth point:

Every Repug I imagine

Barbara Stanwyck was a die-hard Republican, but she had no problems working in a gay bar before hitting the big-time.

Buddy Ebsen.

Fernando Lamas

What's the Jane Wyman story?

Pretty hard to use 2022 sensibilities and standards of language around homophobia apply them to 50 or 75 years ago. Hollywood has always been incredibly tolerant of same sex actors, directors, set designers, film editors, etc., as long as they remained discrete (in the closet) publicly if not quite on the set and at private functions.

R2, oh thank you

R9, I always got a dyke vibe from Stanwyck.

So did I R15.

Joseph Cotten.

"The only person who made a comment that he intended me to hear was Joseph Cotten, who said he deplored “half men.” He said it with a real professional actor’s ability, to be sure that I would hear it but not Chris."

Probably Victor McLaglen, unless his little fascist movement was based on underlying homosexuality.

Jack Paar:

[quote]There used to be a time when it looked like the Communists were taking over show business. Now it's fairies. They operate a lot alike, actually; both have a tendency to colonize. Just as there used to be no such thing as one Communist in a play or movie, now there is no such thing as one fairy. Where you find one, you usually find a baker's dozen swishing around. I had a little game I used to play when I was an actor in Hollywood, back in the days when Communists or Communist sympathizers were nearly as plentiful in the film capital as yes-men. If I spotted someone in a picture who was a Communist or leftist, I could usually pick out several others. They always came in sets. Now I play it a different way. When I hear that some fairy is producing or directing or acting in a play, I can often name some of the rest of the cast, even if I've never heard it. But Communists and fairies do differ in some respects. The Hollywood Communists had their "Unfriendly Ten," who refused to testify before a Congressional Committee, but the fairies are overfriendly. They do say no occasionally. "When a fairy says no," Alex King has observed, "he almost throws his back out of joint." The poor darlings, as they sometimes call themselves, are everywhere in show business. The theater is infested with them and it's beginning to show the effects. "The New York theater is dying," the late Ernie Kovacs complained recently, "Killed by limp wrists."

I’ve always thought Parr was a closet case- common in his time, but for me kind of obvious- as a kid I kind of put him in the same boat as Liberace. I’ve also thought Jack Benny might have been gay- I liked Benny, I thought he was sweet and very funny. Parr reminded me of the bitchy old antique store and art gallery queens on Nantucket- a type that spooked me. The Sklar in the Lion King.

Liver Raunchy.

PS, and Parr was a huge Garland fan. Self loathing gay man- thanks for the article.

John Wayne

Evidence on Wayne?

Does internalized homophobia count?

Asking for a friend..

Joseph Cotton

John Wayne was a fag

Define "classic Hollywood", little homosexual boy

Ernest Borgnine was disgusted by gay men and didn't want to be around any of them, cast or crew.

r2 beat me to it. It was a 600-post thread and about as comprehensive as you can get.

Ernest Borgnine. Couldn't bring himself to vote for Brokebsck Mountain as best picture because of his homophobia.

Borgnine was ugly.

Didn't Ernest work with Rock Hudson?

He also worked with Spencer Tracy and Roddy McDowell—he just probably resented that no self-respecting fag would give him a second look.

Francis Bushman

Jackie Gleason

Charlton Heston.

There were rumors about Heston being bisexual.

R37, that stuff he said about the Boy Scouts is really vile. I guess he thinks we're all molesters

Shirley Jones didn’t want to be associated with any event for gays? Jack was bisexual and she couldn’t compete with that. In her estimation gay is bad…or less than.

But she boasted about her sons endowments the same way some mothers brag about their children’s school trophies. She’s disgusting. I never liked her anyway.

Judy Garland appeared on “The Jack Paar Show” many times. She was fun, lively and had a great time with Jack and the audience.

Years later, she was on “The Tonight Show” with Johnny Carson. She seemed almost uncomfortable, she wasn’t animated and was aloof.

Of course, she loved Jack Paar, because he might’ve been gay. Johnny Carson was straight.

In the book on Follies there is an anecdote about Alexis Smith commenting on one of the chorus boys she saw knitting. Not sure you can call it homophobia. Apparently she was amused that this knitter was playing one of her love interests.

Wasn’t Alexis a big old dyke anyway?