John Ford: was he gay?

He died in 1973. That we know.

[quote]He died in 1973. That we know.

Indeed. Wikipedia is excellent for trivial facts like that. Anyway, back to his sexuality...

Jeanne Cooper (Katherine Chancellor, The Young & the Restless) was in his 1953 film, "The Man From The Alamo".

Queer cove? What does that mean?

Maureen O'Hara outs Ford in her autobiogrpahy "Tis Herself."

He was married to the same woman for decades, but I heard through several sources that he would take a young man as a bedmate while on location. It was an open secret.

R5, my dead grandmother never typed that old.

I wouldn't have thought Maureen O'Hara was the type to out a closet case.

She certainly kept quiet about her friend John Wayne's secrets.

Speaking of O'Hara, she turns 95 on August 17th!

r5 Many thanks! That's a book I must read. I just had a quick search along those lines and found a site summarizing the book. On Ford:

"She depicts him as a lying, posing, bullying creep, and that's before the director punches her in the face at a dinner party. O'Hara also thinks Ford was in the closet; at one point she catches him kissing a big-time (and unnamed) Hollywood actor. "

I wonder who the Hollywood actor was?

[quote]She certainly kept quiet about her friend John Wayne's secrets.

According to the above site's precis of the book, she remained a committed friend of Wayne's all his life, so that may explain why she doesn't spill anything on him; but she does out a few others, including Richard Boone and Peter Lawford.

Katherine Hepburn's relationship with Ford (circa 1935-6), in almost every way was a precursor to her relationshp with Tracy (from the early 40s). Both were binge-drinking, Catholic, closet cases who never left their unglamorous wives, but needed being "mothered" by KH.

Kate was not at all Catholic! Her grandfather (who performed her wedding ceremony) was an Episcopal priest.

R11, R10 did not say that Hepburn was Catholic, but that Ford & Tracy were Catholics.

Yes O'Hara did out him. He also loved to cast handsome men in his films like John Agar, Patrick Wayne, Jeffrey Hunter, and Harry Carey, Jr. And don't forget he had a long friendship with John Wayne well before he became a movie star. In fact Ford made him one. Many famous directors had some gay feelings. Howard Hawks, and Alfred Hitchcock always had a character in their films who was gay. It may not be a question of being in the closet but of being in power when inside you are very insecure. But as an Irish Catholic I can tell repression is a gift that come with communion. How can you not be repressed when the priests are repressed and looked up to for that very reason.

Maureen O'Hara, Ward Bond, Robert Francis, Tyrone Power, Phil Carey, Donald Crisp, and Peter Graves in his most Irish-American of Irish-American films -- The Long Gray Line.

John Wayne was 100% all he-man!

Maureen O'Hara even appeared in front of a Congressional committee to speak in favor of honoring John Wayne.

[post redacted because independent.co.uk thinks that links to their ridiculous rag are a bad thing. Somebody might want to tell them how the internet works. Or not. We don't really care. They do suck though. Our advice is that you should not click on the link and whatever you do, don't read their truly terrible articles.]

Dang, I'll try that again.

[quote]Howard Hawks, and Alfred Hitchcock always had a character in their films who was gay.

The gay British writer Peter Ackroyd recently published a biography of Hitchcock and this was touched on in a lot of the publicity for the book:

[quote]Something that surprised Ackroyd in his trawl through the films was Hitchcock's effeminacy. "I had no idea he was like that. You occasionally get little snatches of documentary film, in which he's behaving – not outrageously, but in a rather camp way. I think it was a component of his personality, but of course he was too scared and undemonstrative to allow it to take over." In the book, he says: "It would be an interesting parlour game to name any [of Hitchcock's] leading characters who were not intimated to be bisexual." Seriously? What, Richard Hannay in The 39 Steps? "Well, OK, not him," Ackroyd says, smiling. "But they all seem a bit… funny, don't they? Michael Redgrave in The Lady Vanishes? Cary Grant in North by Northwest? The two men in Strangers on a Train? They're all fey and unserious and camp. And he treated his heroines as more masculine than the men."

Actually, Kate was an avowed atheist.

There were rumors about him and that beautiful silent film actor George O'Brien.

George with Spencer Tracy

r21 I saw a documentary about Spencer Tracy last month and they said that, early on, he and O'Brien were inseparable and would go to the theater together every week.

Hitchcock being a repressed gay would explain a lot of things. Like how he liked to design the outfits his leading ladies wore.

O'Brien was hot R22, I'd sit through a boring play just to sit next to him.

[quote] Jeanne Cooper (Katherine Chancellor, The Young & the Restless) was in his 1953 film, "The Man From The Alamo".

R3, John Ford did not direct "The Man From The Alamo". It was directed by Budd Boetticher.

Who cares about a guy no one has heard of, except someone that is due to die next week.

[quote]Who cares about a guy no one has heard of, except someone that is due to die next week.

Yeah!!! What kind of person would care about stuff they haven't heard of???

Richard Boone was a homosexual.

[quote] Who cares about a guy no one has heard of, except someone that is due to die next week.

Damn, these Bernie haters find their way into every thread. But since you are here r26 we care about old people here especially those oldsters who at 74 are vital enough to run a cash raising scheme cleverly disguised as a Presidential Campaign

So nice the 200 year olds have a thread. The REAL Golden Girls.

Don't quit the day job, r29.

Don't quit the day job, [R29].

Really? That is a job?

If r29 s day job is writing trenchantly funny things about that old coot Sanders who is snowing a whole generation into believing he is Santa Clause, I want that job.

This thread has lots of fascinating tidbits strewn through many of its comments and links if one digs.

I'd love to hear more about Peter Lawford and Richard Boone in the Australian boys bordello.

Peter Lawford was gay?

Peter Lawford was a bottom, right?

Peter Lawford was bi.

He said Nancy Reagan, when she was a young actress, gave the best head in Hollywood.

[Don't quit the day job, [R29].

—I don't think humor is your thing

are you by chance the Dorothy Parker @r26 who wrote

[quote] Who cares about a guy no one has heard of, except someone that is due to die next week.

If so, forget about a day job honey, you would be fortunate enough to get any job

When Peter Lawford was a young leading man at MGM in the late 1940s he was extraordinarily handsome and sexy. He must have been very lazy and unambitious, as well as not particularly talented, to have stalled so quickly. Or perhaps he didn't put out for the right producers and directors? His career as a movie star was essentially over before the 1950s got going.

You need to post pictures. We eldergays have no idea who you're talking about.

Was Michael Wilding bi or just gay? Elizabeth Taylor was truly fond of the gays, wasn't she?

George O'Brien, mentioned above.

George O'Brien, mentioned above.

More George O'Brien.

More George O'Brien.

The guy who had access to the Howard Strickling files and used to post here claimed Peter Lawford had a fling with MGM hairstylist Sydney Guilaroff

Nkopk