Ginger Rogers Refused To Sit Next To Harvey Fierstein In 1984

Love Harvey. Good for him.

Wow....there was also extreme fear even in the gay community. But, I think we learned a valuable lesson...

Why is this a surprise? She was always a massive right-winger.

"Sit?" I think she was just rolling around in a wheelchair by then.

And I forgot, Ginger Rogers was a devout Christian Scientist.

They don't believe disease or matter is real. I guess ignorance and fear trumped her faith.

In 1984 there was little clear understanding of the disease and medical theories were contradictory and confusing. If gay guys in their bathhouses had shared this excess of caution maybe a million wouldn't have died.

R6 right blame the people who died

She was a cunt.

Uh, in 1984 most people were terrified of AIDS....and, unsure of how contagious it was.

Straight AND gay people would avoid contact with other gays.

Ginger Rogers was a Republican so piss on her but I can't condemn her for being scared about AIDS.

We all were.

Frankly, I wouldn't have been thrilled to have a sloppy ole bottom like Harvey Fierstein kissing me in 1984.

[quote] Uh, in 1984 most people were terrified of AIDS....and, unsure of how contagious it was.

As opposed to 2022 where people think Covid is nothing more than the flu

As already has been mentioned, Ginger was a devout Christian Scientist and they believe that disease isn't real; it's just a way for God to test your faith. So I doubt the truth of this story, despite my dislike for Ginger Rogers as a person.

Maybe it happened, but Harvey misremembered who the star was. It was nearly forty years ago, after all.

Ginger bearded for J. Edgar Hoover, with even talk of marrying him in the newspapers.

Her behavior doesn't surprise me.

She lost me when she sued Fellini.

R11 Here is Harvey appearance on The Tonight Show - and Ginger is nowhere to be seen on the couch

Nope,not going to hold that against her. As has been stated,nobody knew anything about aids and what caused it. Surely yall remember even in our own community the theories like "You only catch it if you had venereal diseases" or "you cant get it if youre a pitcher and not a catcher" etc. I thank god I was married to a jealous man who refused to share me and fucked me down for 12 years to make sure I didnt stray! otherwise who knows what I might have done.

No cheek to cheek with the homo!

Oh ! I forgot one of my favorite theories "You only catch it if you use poppers" . Yes,people truly believed that shit.

R11 The TV listing for that Tonight Show lists BOTH Ginger Rogers and Harvey being on the show

Tonight Show starring Johnny Carson

30May1984 NBC

Guest Host Joan Rivers

Guests

comedian David Brenner

actress Ginger Rogers

and actor Harvey Fierstein.

and if you look at the clip at R14 - David Brenner is sitting on the couch

Eleanor Powell would have stayed.

Wasn't she in a wheelchair by then?

Harvey was absolutely charming in that clip ! I miss that Joan. Not the nasty shrew she was in later years,but that funny witty Joan.

[Quote] If gay guys in their bathhouses had shared this excess of caution maybe a million wouldn't have died.

Most of those already had it by 1984. They likely caught it by the mid to late 1970s.

Nice to see the Righteous Brothers weren't as ignorant as Ginge.

Getting a big wet kiss from Harvey sounds pretty disgusting. Yuck.

I always hated that overrated, obnoxious bitch.

Maybe she just didn't want to be seen next to a hack.

R25 - Harvey or Ginger?

Harvey had less facial hair than ginger at that point

And yet, Ginger DID DIE many years later after Harvey spread the AIDS all over her. That’s what the libtards fail to tell you .

I moved to Boston in 1982 and came out of the closet as soon as I landed. By 1984, I knew if AIDS was casually transmitted, I would have caught it from riding the trains and busses. I had no fear of catching AIDS from being around gay men.

At the beginning of covid, people were wiping down their bags of Doritos with Lysol wipes. It's fair to say many people didn't know how it spread in 1984. If she did this in 1994, that would be a different story.

I always thought she was overrated.

It was the epidemiologists, before all the other scientists, who first figured out that the cause was a virus, just by studying the transmission patterns. But if you weren't around in the early 80s, as mentioned above, it was terrifying because nobody knew what the cause was or how you could get it. The theories were wild.

I disagree. I was a teenager who was a news junkie & knew that you could get it from blood related issues = sex, sharing needles, donating blood, etc. & not from a door knob or bench. CNN & other news outlets. had discussions on it by then. Why do you think "abstinence only" was popping up all over the country? Below is the CDC's big AIDS timeline which gives a better understanding of what was known about AIDS & when. I don't get why folks on here are giving GR a pass at the time when no one else (on stage or off) was up in arms over a "homosexual in close proximity" on the show.

Fuck, where were you all in 1984? I graduated from high school in 1983 and sat through a presentation to my health class on how HIV was transmitted and using condoms, and I lived in the middle of bumfuck nowhere. And like every other freshman the following year, I took the most popular elective at my school, human sexuality. We spent an entire quarter discussing every aspect of it, including homosexual behavior with an in-depth look at AIDs.

I doubt either of these classes are offered today. To much science encouraging us all to fuck like bunnies. Little did they know it terrified us.

Ginger Rogers was an ass.

The BBC documentary "Killer In The Village" (The Village = Greenwich Village) was broadcast in 1983. They were pretty certain it was blood/fluid transmission. It's shameful that the documentary wasn't popularized in the U.S.A.

I agree R35. I went to a midwest Catholic private school to boot in a area with under 100,000 pop. & knew how it was transmitted in 1984.

It was even discussed in my school in depth & nothing was demonized in class

which looking back kind of shocks me considering the Vatican's mentality on sex ed, same sex issues & needle exchanges.

Do you think that old cunt Ginger kept up with the latest science? And it was the epidemiologists who figured it out first.

I met Ginger Rogers as a lowly office assistant at Vanity Fair Magazine and she couldn't have been nicer and cooperative and fun to talk to.

I understand the fear of AIDS and the fact that no one knew how you got it and if you did contract it, it was a death sentence within 6 months of exposure. I can't blame her for having a fear of it. I was scared back into the closet! It was marketed as a Gay disease. The media is to blame for that. More straight people contracted it then Gay men, but that wasn't reported.

Yet you people didn't DEMAND that her Oscar be taken back! FU!!!!

R38 She obviously did not but that shouldn't have been Harvey or the Tonight Show staff's burden to deal with her dumb ass.

Yes the scientists did figured it out first Rose (go figure) but they didn't keep all the data to themselves in 1982 & 1983.

You queens don't seem to realize that this is Harvey's version of what happened? Ginger's career was mostly in musicals which was filled with flaming queens so I doubt she was homophobic. Her pal Lucy cast tons of gays on her shows. I think Harvey has embellished this tale to get some attention.

Show respect to Ginger. She has one more Oscar than G, Amy Adams, and Bradley Cooper!

My main point was the EPIDEMIOLOGISTS before ALL the other scientists.

R42 NO ONE SAID SHE WAS HOMOPHOBIC!

SHE WAS AIDS PHOBIC FROM HER BELIEFS/ACTIONS & STEREOTYPED GAY/BI MALES AS ALL HAVING IT AT THE TIME.

JOAN & BRENNER DID DO THE SAME STUNT SHE PULLED SO NOT EVERYYONE WAS UNEDUCATED AT THE TIME.

R44 EPIDEMIOLOGISTS ARE SCIENTISTS & YES ODDS ARE THEY WOULD"VE FOUND THAT OUT BEFORE GEOLOGISTS DUH!

^ & JOAN & BRENNER DIDN"T DO

When you do it backwards in heels, you'll catch the AIDS.

She never did it backward in heels. That's an old myth. She wasn't that good. And far from his best dance partner.

R45, take it down a notch or 10, meemaw. Stop screaming at people or ask somehow to show you how to turn off the ALL CAPS lock.

[quote] Joan loves for all the guests to stay after their interviews. It makes for a more partylike atmosphere.

Joan may love it but I refuse to hang around like some lap dog being polite to non-entities.

[quote] I always hated that overrated, obnoxious bitch.

Oh, R25, you must write us a list of all the other Academy-Award winners you've always hated.

R45 is Harvey Fierstein

[quote]I don't get why folks on here are giving GR a pass at the time when no one else (on stage or off) was up in arms over a "homosexual in close proximity" on the show.

That's not entirely true, r84. In 1985, people were freaking out about Rock Hudson's "Knots Landing" kiss because they thought kisses might spread HIV.

It's not reasonable for Ginger Rogers to think that just sitting next to someone would spread it -- no one had a problem with acting in the same room as Hudson, it was the kiss that was the problem -- but you're also really overstating how much people knew about contracting the virus back then.

"Knots Landing"

Oh, dear.

[quote] it was terrifying because nobody knew what the cause was or how you could get it. The theories were wild.

We didn't know if the disease was transmitted in water, air, saliva sperm or blood.

Princess Diana created a sensation as late as '88 or '89 by visiting an AIDS ward, shaking the patients' hands and sitting down beside to talk to them. That late, the general public was still scared to be around people with AIDS.

[quote] I graduated from high school in 1983 and sat through a presentation to my health class on how HIV was transmitted and using condoms

Do you expect a 73 year old movie performer to go get sex education lessons in school?

Dataloungers just LOVE to scold.

They'll scold people for a 5 minute interaction from almost four decades ago!

There's no evidence Rogers was a homophobe but she was a huge Reagan friend and supporter, so people know she, at the least, had no problem with rancid homophobes.

I'm not sure I buy Harvey's story, because she wouldn't have thought she could catch it in the first place, and even if she did, it would be eradicated by diligent prayer. I'm not saying this never happened to him because I lived through the 80s, I'm sure it did, but I am not sure it was with Ginger Rogers.

Someone slap R58, please!

R50

This so-called "Party atmosphere" is VERY disrespectful.

A-List American guests shouldn't have to mix with B-List local guests.

Would any of you want to sit next to Harvey Fierstein?

The Rock Hudson Kiss with Linda Evans was scandolous because Rock didn't reveal he had AIDS before they shot the scene. It came out publicly after his death. Then people were OUTRAGED for poor Linda Evans (which was valid outrage at the time).

It wasn't valid outrage at the time, r63, but it DOES illustrate how little people knew about how AIDS was transmitted, even years after this incident with Harvey and Ginger.

People were trying to say that most knew that it couldn't be transmitted with casual contact in 1983, and that's just not true.

People were outraged at Rock's saliva on Linda Evans and they would've have had even more reason to be outraged at the copious amount of spittle discharged by this dribbler—

r64 Then you're agreeing with me. Trust me, I was there in the 80s. I lived through it. People were freaking out about how to avoid getting AIDS!

That English show called Parkinson also attempted that painful "Party atmosphere".

There was some American —I can't remember if it was Cybill Shepherd or Susan Sarandon— but she left the set because she didn't want to play second fiddle to the final guest which was Liza Minelli.

Huh? Graham Norton has had nothing but a party for years. All guests at once. With wonderful success and a far less dull kind of talk show. Johnny Carson invented this idea anyway. The guests moved down the couch. Some superstars would have to leave because "they had another engagement." But the majority of them just moved on down the couch.

Both Ginger Rogers and Harvey Fierstein are crudely gross and busting with fake humility and phoniness. Who the fuck cares? I wouldn't want to kiss him now. Who knows where that mouth has been.

Both would be flattered that roughly, 60 fags are talking/bitching about them YEARS after their deaths!

R68, why all the Harvey hate? You're a douche. HOW RUDE!

Most people have no doubt where Harvry's mouth has been.

I remember going to the Realtor open house at Rock's, and hardly any agents showed. They were afraid of catching it in the house.

My mother is reading her autobiography and said she was an insufferable phony bitch. It is apparently so awful that mums doesn’t even know if she can soldier through it. The only other book in recent memory my mom felt this way about was Jeanne Carmen’s terrible book of bullshit. That really says something about Ginger.

Thank you, r72 ! This is how crazy it was! The Zoomers don't understand what it was like, even though, they are living through a pandemic! Imagine if COVID was blamed solely on the Gays!

[quote] Johnny Carson invented this idea anyway. The guests moved down the couch. Some superstars would have to leave because "they had another engagement." But the majority of them just moved on down the couch.

None of the talk show mediocrities so far this century could have worked so well

Rock Hudson's house was a dump?!

To Linda Evans credit she didn't lash out at Rock Hudson for the kiss

She said it was "touching" how Hudson tried to protect her and said she was never afraid of getting AIDS

Later she even co-hosted the 1985 Commitment to Life benefit that was dedicated to Hudson

Linda Evans shows A LOT more class than Ginger Rogers

R59 read R18

“ She was a cunt.”

Yes, but backwards and in high heels.

Some things need to be mentioned and remembered.

In the early 1980's here in NYC, the closing of the bathhouses resulted in protests VERY much similar to the anti-mask rallies. More than a few of the victims knew how it was transmitted but could not give up the sex. Those gay men all died, and the ones who stayed away lived......and that is a good reason why gay men have higher Covid vaccination rates today.

I seriously doubt the veracity of Harvey's story.....the ending is just too perfect.

R80 then why wasn't Ginger Rogers on the couch in link R14

Contrast that with Estelle Getty, who at the same time was trying to go to hospitals to visit her friends and TST co stars who were afflicted with it and either being turned away or having to cover up from head to toe to be admitted.

Yeah, there was a lot of fear and ignorance, but there were people who were trying to understand and show an ounce of compassion as well.

R80 The ending might be stretching the truth, but I've no doubt that Ginger said that to one of the staff. You can plainly see she's not sitting on the couch but everyone else is. And this was happening frequently.

I was the Doubting Thomas at R11 (I think) and I accept that the story is apparently true. I guess Ginger's faith failed her when it came to AIDS.

Why would Harvey's story be doubted? Is he privately known as a bullshit artist? I'm figuring that some of you theater people might something about him from personal experience.

Gene Barry Refused To Share Elevator w/ Chorus Of La Cage Aux Folles

Because he was afraid of catching AIDS - that according to Harvey Fierstein's book

First Ginger Rogers refuses to sit next to Harvey (for fear if catching AIDS - see link below)

Now Gene Barry - maybe the irrational fear was generational

President of the Ginger Rogers fan club - James E. Skinner Jr. died of AIDS in 1994 at age 35

I guess Ginger didn't go to the funeral

[quote]Eleanor Powell would have stayed.

???

'Do you expect a 73 year old movie performer to go get sex education lessons in school?'

On DL of course we do. At 73 one is barely out of high school.

Why the hell would she have stayed on the couch? You think she was going to risk another big wet slobbering kiss from that mastiff?

R89 she was boycotting the couch BEFORE she even got kissed by Harvey

Harvey's just bitter because Ginger was more convincing as a Drag Queen.

R71- Back in the 1990's Howard Stern one day on his radio show referring to Harvey Fierstein said - ( It was VERY homophobic- but I laughed anyway)

You'd think all that semen would clear up his throat.

OP Some moms and dads and siblings and partners and friends of people with AIDS didn’t want to be near them for the same fear. There’s enough blame to go around, particularly with Reagan.

The leading researchers at the time said that "household contact" could be deadly

During this period I lived in Chicago in the area that became Boystown. I took the bus downtown everyday to work. People would avoid sitting next to anyone who even appeared gay and would exit the bus if a guy got on with visible lesions. (Unfortunately not an uncommon sight in the neighborhood at that time.) Landlords were kicking gay tenants out of their apartments because other tenants were complaining that they didn't want to use the same laundry room and elevators. No one knew what was causing the spread, only that is was some kind of 'gay cancer' spreading through the community. Some people at the gym I went to thought it might be transmitted through sweat.

[quote] Some people at the gym I went to thought it might be transmitted through sweat.

Interesting how that and the other early Aids theories and fears have now been whitewashed away. Doesn't mean they weren't widely spread putting the general population in an environment of confused concern.

The privilege of being old is to pretty much do and say what you want without being held accountable, barring assault or murder.

This woman was old by that time. Grandma age to the youth of that time.

[Quote] I guess Ginger's faith failed her when it came to AIDS.

A religious type was a phony? Blow me over with a feather!

Like I posted above, people were afraid to go into Rock Hudson's house. And yes it was a dump- great lot, it was torn down by the director that bought it. Deferred maintenance (although it could have been restored maybe), but his furniture! All that tacky Spanish style from the 50s/60s- with the half-matador painting/sculpture stuff. For a queen, he had taste for shit.

I have tried to understand the Christian scientist view of that, because I have some relatives who believe that stuff.

As far as I can tell, they believe something like being ill or developing an illness means you are not accommodating to "spirit".

It's not "pray illness away" because they don't believe you can pray anything away. I would say it's much more similar to maybe Buddhist thought--your prayers/meditations are supposed to make you more in tune with what "spirit" wants and then you'll stop being ill because your illness was a product of you.

The founder herself had many psychosomatic conditions that were apparently alleviated by prayer, but she did not believe that prayer altered the world through intercession because "what God wants to be is, and how dare you think you know how to better Creation".

1984 was the year before Ryan White became an international news story and even after his plight became known people still thought you could get aids from casual contact. I remember people thought Linda Evans could’ve gotten AIDS from kissing rock Hudson on dynasty. I think it took until close to the end of the 80s for people to university understand how HIV was transmitted. I mean there were plenty of big city hospitals that isolated AIDS patients in wards and medical staff that refused to go near them.

That year Ginger co-starred in the TV movie "Glitter" with... Timothy Patrick Murphy.

R80 here.....I do think Ginger expressed concern, however I do think now-67 year old Harvey - almost Ginger's age then - "embellished" his story for 2022 audiences.

Kudos to the person who brought up the now-forgotten part Fauci played back then in disseminating ridiculous information. I do wish he'd retire already.

Right-wing creep!

[quote] "embellished" his story for 2022 audiences.

Even if Harvey did, Ginger still refused to breath the same air Harvey did.

[quote] I mean there were plenty of big city hospitals that isolated AIDS patients in wards and medical staff that refused to go near them.

Then Ginger should've gone one step further, and refuse to appear on the show, and ask to be rescheduled so she would be nowhere near Harvey

It is funny how those are defending Ginger by saying "people were so uninformed back then" and we look today where people are dismissing Covid and saying "Its just the flu" and refusing to wear masks to protect the un-vaccinated,

Can you guys who are defending Ginger have one narrative and stick with it? Because I seriously doubt those defending Ginger, and also saying that we still need to be vigilant about Covid - as there are still things we don't know about this airborne virus

That was then, this is now. Ignorance when the info environment is cluttered is not the fault of the ignorant, no matter how much strange equivalency you try to throw in the mix.

Wtf does what Ginger Rogers thought almost 49 yrs ago have to do with today and covid?

[quote] Wtf does what Ginger Rogers thought almost 49 yrs ago have to do with today and covid?

They are both a virus - in more ways than one

If you haven't figured out how similar the AIDS crisis was in the 1980s to the Covid discussion today

Open a newspaper and stop watching InfoWars

How is being confused because the information one is getting from even the "authorities" is wrong the fault of the confused?

Try sticking to the argument at hand rather than descend into false predictions and slurs about who I am and what I think.

[quote] How is being confused because the information one is getting from even the "authorities" is wrong the fault of the confused?

Thanks for proving my point

It does not matter, if we knew in 1984 how HIV/Aids was transmitted. There were a lot of ignorant people then, who willfully paid no attention to science and were guided by their bigotries.

Ginger Rogers is an example.

Guess what? There are still a great many ignorant people around!

Why all the putdowns of Harvey? I thought he was a DL fave gay.

R110, your original argument is how can one defend Ms. Rogers and then keep that consistent with whatever it is that people "believe" today about Covid.

People don't need to be consistent about two different events involving different people in different times.

I am personally consistent because I say the ignorant now or then were dealing however they could with a confusing information cluttered environment. It's no surprise when that happens that people are doing and thinking the wrong thing.

For instance, the CDC and various other authorities worldwide, 2 years later, are still totally de-emphasizing the airborne spread of Covid. They know it spreads this way, yet are still subtly misleading the public by emphasizing non-sterilizing vaccinations and a variety of tests with various inaccuracies.

People are being told by authorities that they can take off masks and go out to dinner. Can we blame them when they do? Can we blame Ginger Rogers, an old lady, for being hypervigilant when confusion about AIDS transmission lingered until the late 80s?

[quote]As already has been mentioned, Ginger was a devout Christian Scientist and they believe that disease isn't real; it's just a way for God to test your faith. So I doubt the truth of this story, despite my dislike for Ginger Rogers as a person.

You don't think people really follow their religions, do you? That adorable.

Ginger should never have won the 1940 Oscar, should have been Joan Fontaine for Rebecca.

[quote] Can we blame Ginger Rogers, an old lady, for being hypervigilant when confusion about AIDS transmission lingered until the late 80s?

Yes because she should've read a newspaper, as there is no excuse for her to be that ignorant. Especially considering the President of her fan club was openly gay AND she was surrounded by gay men her entire career.

If there was anyone who should've been more compassionate towards the gay community, it should have been HER.

BTW in 1984 Ginger Rogers was 73

She was divorced so many times

[quote]"Sit?" I think she was just rolling around in a wheelchair by then.

In puddles of urine. No Depends for Ginger!

Guess i shouldn't be mad then for laughing at that vicious parody of Ginger and Katharine Hepburn that French and Saunders did.

While the story is amusing, I don't think it was very nice to make an old woman paranoid about her health worry like that.

It would have been better to have let Ginger know that he had heard her by saying from the door "I'm sorry I won't be seeing you, Miss Rogers. I used to be such a fan."

[quote] an old woman paranoid about her health worry like that.

She was only 73 in 1984, the same age Ronald Reagan was at that time and he was President

Did anyone go running around saying Reagan was a "old man paranoid about his health that way?" when it came to the AIDS crisis?

[quote]Did anyone go running around saying Reagan was a "old man paranoid about his health that way?" when it came to the AIDS crisis

What's an....AIDS crisis?

R9 What people don't understand is how little verified information was around and how complicated some things were before the internet. I was a very young teenager in 1984 and I thought you could get it like the flu or from spittle. No one ever talked about it, so you filled in the blanks. I finally asked my family doctor (I cannot remember when - maybe in 1986 or something) and was hugely relieved after. However, you could never just google anything. You had to personally go somewhere and talk to someone who you thought knew what you were asking, especailly on an evolving topic where there wasn't any literature about yet. It's dangerous to anticipate the knowledge we have to day and demand that people should have known better. I'm not saying Rogers wasn't a cunt; I have no informaton about this one way or the other. I'm just saying that she might have been honestly afraid because she didn't know better.

Helen Lawson did the same thing with Wayland Flowers on the Tonight Show.

"I'm not sitting next to that fairy with his hand up the puppet's ass. I'm afraid I'll get that weird bug all the queers are getting."

[quote] I finally asked my family doctor (I cannot remember when - maybe in 1986 or something) and was hugely relieved after.

You said it yourself - you sought out information.

Which just shows how ignorant Ginger Rogers was.

The same year Ginger Rogers refused to sit next to Harvey Fierstein

Brooke Shields does a PSA for AIDS

Meryl Streep PSA on AIDS

You can believe the rumors or you can get the FACTS

and Ginger should have sought out the FACTS like Meryl Streep did

Very First L.A. AIDS Benefit in 1983

Brought out women in the SAME AGE range as Ginger Rogers

Mamie Van Doren, Sheree North, Terry Moore, Adele Jergens, Vivian Blaine, Virginia O'Brien, Betty Garrett, and Patti Page

Those women sought out the facts, why not Ginger Rogers?

Madonna AIDS PSA

If it would make you feel better, r129, why don't you go and spit on Ginger's grave?

R131 - pay for my airfare and I will.

Madonna supporting the LGBT Community

Vivian Blaine said it best at the video in R129

"Something had got to be done about it, it cannot be swept under the rug"

I wouldn't give you 88 cents, r132.

R135 then why bring it up, if you are not serious

R115, Vivien Leigh should have won her second Oscar for Waterloo Bridge.

I love Ginger but I'd have no trouble believing she was let's say difficult. Sondra Lee who created the role of Minnie Fay in the original cast of Hello Dolly said when Ginger took over the lead she was wonderful to her. A friend saw her in it and said she was a very generous performer. This as opposed to Ethel who Danny Lockin who played Barnaby with all the name Dollys including Babs said was the only one who never gave anyone else anything when acting with others.

Lew Ayres was Ginger's husband during her golden period of Astaire musicals during the 30s. They divorced because they never saw each other they were so busy with their careers. Her personal secretary at the end said that Ayres was the love of Rogers' life. There is an interview with him on youtube when he is very old and he talks about what a wonderful person Ginger is. She was to die shortly after this. He I understand was a very classy gentleman. He gives one of my all time favorite performances in Holiday.

Lew Ayres was a hot piece. I definitely would've hit that ass.

Cum to daddy!

"I'm afraid I'll get that weird bug all the queers are getting."

Oh Helen, everyone knows only homosexuals get it. It's God's punishment. His way.

"Brooke Shields does a PSA for AIDS"

We thought it was those diet candies.

So, can we back up a moment. Did Harvey have AIDS/HIV when Rogers made that decision OR was she assuming that because he was gay, he had AIDS?

Another thing: Regardless, it speaks volumes that Joan holds his hand at one point. People can be incredibly cruel to her--hey. Its DL--but she was one of the only pro-gay voices that were out there in the 80's and as a kid from that period, I adored her for it. Never forget the original allies.

R143 Ginger Rogers assumed because Harvey was gay, he had AIDS?

Harvey mayn't have AIDS but he recently exchanged bodily fluids.

[quote] Madonna supporting the LGBT Community

Unimpressive. By this point her body had proven immune to any STD

Cher, Diana and Barbra did nothing for gay men, except take their money.

By May 30, 1984, when this episode aired, it was known that HIV caused AIDS and that the virus was not transmissible through air or casual contact.

[quote] it was known

No, it was not known.

Harvey had one good(ok terrific) play in him. That was it. Over and done. Unless you think a lifetime career repeating you are only true to yourself if you are a drag queen is some sort of achievement. Ginger starred in an original Gershwin musical and made a number of classic and good films. Jesus she had Gershwin, Kern and Berlin writing for her. Harvey should be at the bottom of the ocean.

[quote] Harvey had one good(ok terrific) play in him.

Which one?

La Cage Aux Folles, Hairspray, Kinky Boots, Casa Valentina or Newsies?

R139, In her later years, Ginger admitted that was the divorce she regretted the most.

R129 Fun clip! Mamie and Terry are still with us, I think that’s it.

Maybe not next to Harvey Fierstein but she’d sit on Harvey Weinstein, the whore.

Has everyone forgotten The Golden Girls episode where Sophia marks all of Rose’s dishes because she thinks Rose may have AIDS? The fear was real.

[Quote] Why all the putdowns of Harvey? I thought he was a DL fave gay.

DLers hate fatties.

[Quote] she was one of the only pro-gay voices that were out there in the 80's and as a kid from that period, I adored her for it. Never forget the original allies.

And yet she didn't support her writers going union.

Listen, don't think some of us have forgotten Harvey's role in associating being gay and wearing dresses mainstream.

He is way more than an accomplice.

Nurse! DL's resident T obsessive is out!

"And yet she didn't support her writers going union."

Oh, no! She had an opinion! Burn her!

An opinion? She was cheap!

GR should've listened to Hollywood AIDS activists like the late great Zelda Rubinstein who was willing to take a career hit

(& ZR said she did with even super compassionate Jack Nicholson trying to talk her out of doing it)

in order to save people's live with getting the facts out.

A true humanitarian legend =

Thanks R162

There's a youtube clip that has been posted of Dick Cavett interviewing her and then Leonard Frey (of Boys in the band/Fiddler on the roof fame) and she just came off so stand off-ish and silently sour, even rude (she left in the middle of their interview because she apparently had to catch a flight) which threw me off because Frey was so utterly charming and funny and the audience seemed to adore him). I just got a vibe from her. So, not surprised to hear this (though I'm not a huge Fierstein fan either).

[quote] she just came off so stand off-ish and silently sour, even rude

Didn’t you know? She was up for the role that Frey got in Boys in the Band.

Did she in fact get the AIDS?

Ginger was neither red haired or Rogered. Discuss.

If you think that ignorance is gone, you are sadly mistaken. People like DeSantis are counting on it!

She enjoyed her tulips!

[quote]I graduated from high school in 1983 and sat through a presentation to my health class on how HIV was transmitted and using condoms, and I lived in the middle of bumfuck nowhere. And like every other freshman the following year, I took the most popular elective at my school, human sexuality. We spent an entire quarter discussing every aspect of it, including homosexual behavior with an in-depth look at AIDs.

And Ginger Rogers didn't do any of this.

To be frank, I'm a DLer and I wouldn't be keen to sit next to Harvey Fierstein today.

Why is there now this obsession with dragging old, dead celebs through the mud and applying the current mores on these people who were born near the turn of the century?

R172 Exactly. She was born in 1911. Childhood fatal diseases like german measles were rampant TB. Spanish flu. Polio. Vaccinations and penicillin were not around. She was in entertainment since 14 or 15 and was uneducated. She lived through the depression and WW2. Someone like Ginger Rogers wasn’t paying attention to the nuance of a new disease. Diseases were probably all the same to her and her survivor instincts said “flight,” not “fight.”

True Fact: The phrase, "Dancing on the Cieling" comes from Ginger Rogers' legs being in the air so often.

I'm Still Here was written for Ginger Rogers!

Now we're supposed to believe that Harvey Fierstein can sing.

He's an admitted cocksucker. And he drools. Who wants to sit near that?

Ginger practiced Christian Science, so naturally she would want to avoid endangering her health, especially in the 1980s.

[quote] Who knew she was such a homophobe?

Eh… it’s not that surprising, OP.

The really amazing thing is that she had to ask if Harvey Fierstein was a homosexual.

She knew the answer. She wanted to justify her position.

R179 It was sarcasm.Sorry it went over your head.

It was without wit, which is your bag, no doubt.

R181 One of us is without wit, for sure.

[Quote]The really amazing thing is that she had to ask if Harvey Fierstein was a homosexual.

Not all of us are very obvious about that!

I think this is the only time I ever actually enjoyed a Harvey Feirstein performance

I guess you didn't see the original Torch Song on stage. He was very wonderful in it. The film was a pale copy of that epic(really)experience.

It’s hard to picture the humble low-key pacifist Lew Ayres clicking with brassy Republican Ginger. He got her at her best in the 1930s. Maybe if they’d stayed together she wouldn’t turned into such a Grand Stah with her terrible post-1940s performances.

I never thought of Ginger Rogers as brassy. What are examples of her being brassy, or of her brassy performances?

Rogers gave Astaire ASS and he gave her Brass. What else was Ginger other than brassy? A few things, though never a beauty. She had a different body type and build than other actresses of her day. Or even most other film dancers from that time.

Ginger Rogers, like Rita Hayworth had an ideal dancer's body. Long limbs. Shorter torso with a narrow ribcage, an articulate but unexaggerated neck, lovely arms and hands. Great legs, beautifully proportioned. Strong ankles and gorgeous non classical feet. She was most elegant AND a hoofer too. Hayworth was an even better dancer within a smaller range. Astaire did say that Rita was his favorite partner, though people like to dispute it. He did. And she was. And he made them all look good.

Yes Cyd Charisse too, but that's another thing. She was ONLY an accomplished dancer. That could be enough. But she was soulless and uninteresting. The furthest thing from sexy or charming. Her work is dated. She worked over her leading men.

As stated in other threads over the past few years, no one could tell Ginger Rogers anything. From the late-sixties onwards, she'd basically walk through her "dance" numbers -- with her GAY backup dancers -- refusing to do even basic steps that Ann Miller was doing in her sleep at that age. She was also very bitter about not being given the glory that Fred Astaire got, even though she didn't deserve it. Teaming with him was what made her a star, and while she was indeed probably his best partner overall, she wasn't his most talented. Even her taps had to be dubbed by Astaire's co-choreographer, Hermes Pan. Another gay man, btw.

R188 Cyd Charisse...The furthest thing from sexy

You're obviously gay

[quote]Even her taps had to be dubbed by Astaire's co-choreographer, Hermes Pan.

Taps are usually dubbed. She wasn't prevented from dubbing her own taps, and it wasn't because because she wasn't talented enough.

Cyd Charisse was only SEXY to gay men, in my opinion. Her dancing was sometimes beautiful but she was not.

It's like the OLD gays of DL going on about Candice Bergen being so beautiful when she was young!? Intellectually so, maybe. But not to a real man. She was coldly pretty and far too pointy looking.

Cyd Charisse laid on the classy femme fatale shit and few straight men with working dicks find that sexy. I never said she didn't have a fuckable body. But she was not a sexy prescence or dancer on screen - hard as she tried.

R191, none of his other partner's taps were dubbed. Only Ginger's.

She did marry a hunk back in 1954. But look how craggy she looks way back then -- THIRTY years before the show w/Rivers.

Another pic of Ginger and Jacques...

R192 I don't care who your boyfriend is. Also whatever you're saying makes very little sense. And yeah, a lot of straight men think Cyd is hot because I've known a couple. Thanks for your opinion but not many people share it.

Cyd was very sexy when she was dancing. She does a great femme fatale in Singin in the Rain and The Band Wagon. It's true she was not a very accomplished actor. Though neither was her husband, and he was a fantastic singer. Not everyone can be a triple threat. A great talent in just ONE field is rarity enough.

Ginger Rogers was a good, not great dancer but she gave Fred something he never had with any other actress and that is romantic chemistry.

BTW, I love Fred and think he is magnificent and charming in a sexless way...like a puppy or kitten.

Ginger is just a bit tight in the shoulders and paying a bit too close attention to being perfect - but she has moments of being sublime. Truly this is one of the best dance numbers ever on film. The film Swing Time is lit.

Her body is perfection. There is a swoon to her movements at times. It is romantic.

Ginger did not appear at or participate in Fred's AFI Life Achievement Award tribute in 1981, though in his acceptance speech he mentioned that she had sent him a congratulatory letter.

You shouldn't care a lot about my BF. He's not interested in ancient white men of DL.

Cyd Charisse is a footnote in musical films. She certainly starred in a few but no one would recognize her face or remember anything about her. She's headless and voiceless. Her legacy SHOULD be more than that, but it's not because she simply made no real impact and left no lasting impression. Your example does her no favor.

If you know straight men who find Cyd Charisse to be "HOT" R196, you must be at least 90 years old!

Siphon off what you can get.

Why is that little Latin boy sad in R196?

Cyd Charisse pissed in R201's Cheerios.

Cyd almost acts in a very good color noir—Nick Ray’s Party Girl. 9th or 10th in line to the Marilyn Monroe throne, Barbara Lang also has a small role.

Cyd is sexy in the opening of "The Silencers."

Cyd is terrific in both IAFW and Silk Stockings all the way through. Her dancing is spectacular She is one of the great joys of the Hollywood musical. And though I don't think I'm one to say if straight men of the period found her sexually attractive I would say yes. My father liked her and he was as straight as they come.

You have to be nuts to think she's a footnote in movie musical history. Her one dance with Kelly in SITR has given her immortality in the genre. And there are a number of others on other films that are sublime never to be matched by others ever again. The dance to the song Silk Stockings where she strips off all her clothes and redresses herself to me is perfection.

Vicki Gaye

We've all been in that dirty barn, Cyd.

'Cyd Charisse' has to be some fake name, isn't it?

Anyway she has a rather Slavic face which I feel is rather similar to my favourite British star Valerie Hobson.

Cyd was some porno kind of girl. The things she did for a solo!

Ginger didn't dub her own taps in those silly films because she was too busy making 10 or 20 other movies while Fred was still ironing his ties and perfecting his line. Ginger was not interested in being the greatest ballroom dancer on screen. She had higher aspirations. It's kinda too bad.

Because other than with Rita and Garland, Fred was perfectly charmless.

R209 I don’t even need to look this up because it’s burned in my mind: Cyd’s birth name is Tula Ellice Finklea.

Cyd was not well liked by her co-stars, with the exception of Kelly. If you notice her in interviews she is icy as hell.

A little warmth, not to mention acting ability, and yes, she may have been remembered like Rogers, Debbie Reynolds, or even June Allyson.

But she was an ice cold bitch.

[quote] she is icy as hell.

R212 The lovely Valerie Hobson was considered as rather cool by some— I prefer to use the terms 'elegant' with an 'aristocratic hauteur'.

I've seen her in a number of interviews where she is not icy as hell but she knows she's on camera. I though would have no doubt that she was icy as hell in real life.

Astaire is wonderfully charming in Silk Stockings.

[quote]'Cyd Charisse' has to be some fake name, isn't it?

Charisse was her married name (first marriage). Her first husband was a dancer whose name was Nico Charisse. Sid was her nickname since childhood - it came from her brother saying it when he tried to call her "Sis." Arthur Freed (MGM producer) changed it to Cyd. (This info is on Wikipedia.)

I met her once - back in high school one of my friends and I were driving by the North Shore summer theater and we drove in to take a look around. We lived near there and were theater kids who went there to see shows a lot. We drove around the back and Cyd was there, just hanging out getting some sun or whatever (her show was playing there - with her husband, Tony Martin, I think.) We talked to her and she was very friendly and nice. Not aloof or cold.

She just wasn't a super-outgoing person as far as I can tell, she was somewhat reserved. Not "brassy" as a performer or person.

[quote]The lovely Valerie Hobson was considered as rather cool by some— I prefer to use the terms 'elegant' with an 'aristocratic hauteur'.

Just don't mention Christine Keeler around her, r213.

Ginger Rogers refused to sit ON Harvey Fierstein in 1984.

I’ve only heard good things about Cyd Charisse. If anyone disliked her, they’re not on the record about it

people were terrified about a scary unknown disease affecting a group of people. harvey was a bathroom kween look at her.

haven't you seen covidiots and how cruel and weird they are?

The tabloids in the 1950s must have had a field day when Ginger was married to that gorgeous French hunk, sixteen years her junior.

Ginger and Jacques Bergerac.

R218 I love Cyd more than anyone but there a few stories of her not being nice to colleagues and somebody on DL posted a couple of stories about her being needlessly mean and ungenerous. But Gene Kelly was an absolute prick and I love him too(just watched the 4k of Singin' in the Rain. He doesn't give a glimmer of the very real anger he had of being stuck with nobody Reynolds as his co-star.) so you temper your expectations of such enormously talented people.

I thought this said "Ginger Rogers Refused to Shit Next to Harvery Fierstein..."

[quote]Alice Jean Krope remembers Gene Kelly. She remembers him putting her on his shoulders as they walked up the stairs to their dance class in Johnstown. She remembers Kelly affectionately calling her “Alice Jean, the village queen.” “He was a wonderful teacher,” Krope said. “He could make a kid with two left feet dance. I never forgot that. Because there were some kids who were kind of clumsy, but after a while, they could dance.”

Maybe not an *absolute* prick, all the time. If he was that bad, everyone wouldn't have hung around his house Sundays when he and his wife Betsy had open house every week. They would have been all, "I'm not going to his house, he's an absolute prick."

[Quote] calling her “Alice Jean, the village queen.”

He called Papa that too!

Clever.

Papa gave you your dreams Liza. And lower lashes. Nail polish.

He also gave her tinnitus. Or so she said in an interview w/Robert Osborne. When she won the Oscar he yelled into her ear so loudly/close she got tinnitus.

R212 She also had no acting ability. All she could do was dance but anytime she's a leading lady, she completely fails to captivate. Debbie Reynolds may not have been as skilled a dancer but she could keep up with the best of them and she had charisma in spades.

A little of Debbie's "charisma" went a long way, if you know what I mean.

R230, She was a lousy lay.

That's because she liked/likes the ladies.

She liked/likes the ladies? Are you Rip Van Winkle?

Was Ginger able to have a baby?

Debbie Reynolds--dull as a doorknob.

Lots of sterility back in the day due to childhood illnesses and back alley abortions.

Weren't Joan, Barbara, and Ginger all sterile from abortions? And didn't Lana also say she had trouble conceiving for the same reasons?

Lana was stabbed in her uterus multiple times. By many men.

Debbie Reynolds preferred women. She wanted to be a gym teacher for gawd's sake. Her marriage to Eddie Fisher was a fraud, just like all her dates with the likes of Tab Hunter, John Saxon and Robert Wagner.

Debbie's marriages suggested that she wasn't a dedicated lez.

R231 Sez you

Cyd was beautiful. Check her out in Tension, a neat little noir from 1949 starring the always surprising Richard Basehart. She is supposed to play an average pretty girl, but she's so beautiful it's distracting to the plot.

[quote] the always surprising Richard Basehart.

He certainly was in this film. Tough guy isn't really how you think of Basehart but he did it very well here

SEX

R244 They could get away with a lot more sexy stuff in musicals that any other type of movie, in the later 40s and 50s. Gene Kelly actually had a lot to do with pioneering more mature content in Hollywood onscreen dance.

She was probably still sore after losing out on all that dick on the set.

She had Tony Martin’s dick at home, even if he wasn’t quite as hot as he’d been when he was Mr Alice Faye.

James Mitchell was quite the gay hottie…who had him?

She really, really didn't age well.

She looks great in those interviews where she's talking about her old movies from decades ago. Then she had a stroke.

If she'd gone for a different cut and color and kept a "no make up" make up look, she would have been fine.