Tom Selleck's gay rumors

The word is "anecdotes" not "rumors."

Mmmm leaves a lot to the imagination

well, there was that voice.

Years ago, when David Ehrenstein still posted here, he claimed he knew Selleck was gay because he saw Selleck at some steam room in LA. Another poster said something like "What's so gay about inhaling steam?" to which he responded "He wasn't inhaling steam, he was inhaling cock"

I sort of doubt Selleck would be open enough to go to a steam room. He was on the fame track while still in college. I think he'd be pretty cautious.

^ I think David E. said it was before he was famous (the pre-Magnum era)

I'm reading his autobiography. He's very defensive about his first wife. Says he won't discuss her and defends her. Says all the stuff that has been said about her is mostly bullshit.

That of course made me wonder what was said about her.

Wasn't there a gay actor Joel Crothers who looked like Selleck?

My former boss lived in Hawaii during the time that Magnum PI was filming. Former boss went on set and saw one or more of Selleck's boyfriends. The way my former boss was talking, it was like there was no question about it. Anyway, I am convinced.

I had no idea he was married before Jillie Mack.

r3 He had to go in and dub his first movie because they didn't like the way he sounded. (too gay?)

Joel Crothers was a regular on Dark Shadows. He was gay and eventually passed from AIDS at the age of 44. Yes, he did resemble Selleck in his later years.

I don’t notice guys much, but he was something in his youth.

Who was that other mustachioed actor with brown, wavy hair who had his own tv show either in the 80s? I'm wracking my brain but I can't come up with his name or the name of the show, but he was an investigator or crime fighter or something along those lines.

Matt Houston! And Lee Horsley was the actor.

undressing for Battle of the Network stars

bump

Here's my story:

When I was in college, I was dating a guy whose family owned one of the "Pawnbrokers to the Stars" businesses in L.A.

One night, we had a date, but first, he had a late-evening appointment with a client at their home up in Hollywood Hills. (The guy was a gay hairdresser at one of the studios - un-stereotypically a masculine top, though.) I was going to wait in the car, but my boyfriend told me to come in with him, so that I could meet the guy, whom he also considered a friend. (I think he wanted to show me off... lol.)

Anyway, my boyfriend didn't know his friend was hosting a dinner party, so the introduction was short, and I just waited in the entry hall while they went upstairs to quickly do the pawn transaction (Yes, there was a briefcase of cash involved chained to my boyfriend's wrist no less.)

While waiting, I could see into the dining room area. There were about six men at the table (no women). They were all about mid-30s, same age as their host. I immediately recognized one of the men as Tom.

The only reason I knew who he was is because we watched Y&R in my house growing up, and he'd had a role on the soap opera from 1974-75, which included a famous shower scene. (Gay executive producer John Conboy's idea probably!)

When I asked my boyfriend if he also recognized him, he said he didn't know who he was. This was something like July 1980. The general public hadn't been introduced to "Thomas Magnum" yet, because there was a SAG-AFTRA strike going on at the time. The TV season started very late that year, and the first episode of the series didn't hit the airwaves until December 1980, so he hadn't really become a television sensation yet. I remember him giving an interview once where he said that while he waited for the strike to end he worked as a handyman for $7/hour.

I realize this story doesn't prove anything, but he was there, and my boyfriend said it was one of his friend's typical gay dinner parties.

So add that to another one of the "anecdotes."

[quote] ^ I think David E. said it

Who?

After all these years I still can't believe it....."Rumors"?????? THAT FLAMING NELLY QUEEN??????

In his past, I found him as a big, somewhat awkward guy who was clearly not comfortable in his own skin.

Now, even with solid TV show income, he continues to whore himself out with the senior-focused commercials.

His appeal is lost to me, but he’s got a great wig.

I was invited to his wedding, but I didn't go. Years later I got stuck next to him and his wife on a long flight. He was truly insufferable. Absolutely full of himself!

Magnum in his short shorts was so gay.

He writes about the shorts in his book, Short shorts were the style in the 80s he says.

They actually were, R23.

R21 Elaborate!

Closet Fag Forever!

Long before Magnum, Selleck was on the Rockford Files with James Garner. He was also all over print ads for Salem cigarettes, TV ads - he was known.

The gay rumors even followed him across the Atlantic, to the Netherlands, where my mother is from and where I spent part of my childhood. I remember a popular, openly gay talk show host boasting to his audience back in the late eighties or early nineties that Selleck had cruised him as they were both checking out a shop window (in Amsterdam, I think). He said Selleck was "slowly licking his lips while making prolonged eye contact" or somesuch. I didn't know whether to believe the story at the time; after reading all this, it does seem slightly more plausible.

Prior to Magnum, "known" would equate to some people simply recognizing him as a handsome actor they've noticed on an episodic television show or believe he's a model, because they think they've seen his picture in a magazine or a commercial on television, but they don't know his name.

Even the pro-Selleck Magnum P.I. Wiki explains his casting as the lead in the television series as follows:

[quote] He began his career with bit parts in smaller movies, including Myra Breckinridge, Coma, and The Seven Minutes. He appeared in a number of TV series, mini-series and TV movies. Still struggling as an unfamiliar television actor. Selleck had a recurring role (two episodes) in the 1970s as "too good to be true" private investigator Lance White in The Rockford Files.

[quote] Selleck, an accessible but relatively untested actor, spent years receiving little interest from the entertainment industry. His big break came when he was cast in the lead role as Thomas Magnum in Magnum, P.I. Selleck played the role of Thomas Magnum in 1980 after filming six other TV pilots that were never sold.

I've told this one before. It isn't first-person.

I was sitting with a group of frat brothers and a few other guys in the dorm cafeteria at University, and we were not talking about anything remotely gay. For some reason, Tom Selleck's name was mentioned and immediately, this one (very hot blond) guy, who was indeed from Hawaii, said "He tried to pick me up at the country club gym when I was in high school!" - and the entire table went completely silent. The frat boys didn't know what to say to that.

This would've been either Fall of '87 or Spring of '88.

EL has covered him before. The old personal stylist trick.

[quote] This aging former A list mostly television actor from a hit network show turned A list mostly movie actor turned mostly television actor on another hit network show is married. His wife and everyone knows on the set of his show though that his stylist does no styling and is his long time male lover. Our actor refuses to ever come out of the closet and at this point in his career after hiding for decades, no one really expects him to. Saturday, October 18, 2014

R28, what was the name of the talk show host over in The Netherlands you mentioned? I’d like to watch some of his videos on YT.

My second cousin's dog used to be walked by this guy who got hit by a car but apparently before he died he told his dentist that he had passionate love affair with this guy who said that Tom Selleck was gay.

Case closed.

Magnum PI has homoerotic undertones to begin with. A hot young guy living under the care of an unseen older man (sugar daddy?) and another queeny older man who orders Magnum around and quarrels with him like they are lovers?

I love the show BTW, but it amazes me that not many see the subtext.

R32: the Dutch talk show host's name is Jan Lenferink and his show was named "RUR." Quite daring for its time. Note the signature glass of milk beside him.

BTW Lenferink also claimed to have shared a hot tub (and more) in a gay sauna in Amsterdam with Soft Cell singer Marc Almond, who has always been openly gay. He made the celebrity gay world seem really small (I also remember an anecdote he told about the members of Queen being in a female brothel and the straight members all getting hookers. Freddie was sulking in a corner because there were no Burt Reynolds types there for him [his masculine ideal]. So much for his supposed bisexuality, then).

plus Magnum has two hunky friends who like to take their shirts off too r34

I never thought he was hot. Many did but not me.