Why isn't Tom Tryon a bigger gay icon?

He never slept with any men let alone CD. Weird assertion, OP. Is this like the Mormon’s trying to backdate baptisms, but with dicksucking? And why Tyron of all people?

Ignore ^

Let's try again. Can we have another R1 please?

I like the novel Crowned Heads, which the movie Fedora is based on. Though the chapter about the Clifton Webb type character is too gruesome.

[quote]R2 Let's try again. Can we have another [R1] please? —OP

You can’t deny the man was MARRIED, OP. To a WOMAN!

Eldergays, wasnt there some story about Tryon found dead with a giant dildo up his ass?

MORE LIES ! ! !

Tryon did some minor butt stuff with his girlfriends later in life but nothing major and he certainly never owned a dildo or got pegged.

Tommy surrounded by eager, scantily clad women.

Proof. [italic]Not[/italic] gay.

Nice link, lazy fat whore OP.

^^ This is the trailer for FEDORA, the Billy Wilder movie adapted from a section of Tryon’s CROWNED HEADS. The book’s broken into four parts, each examining the separate lives of four film actors who once worked together.

Aside from Fedora, there’s Lorna, Willy, and Bobbit.

Some nobody discusses the film in more depth here:

[quote]Is Billy Wilder’s “Fedora” Actually More Profound Than “Sunset Blvd?”

No. Wilder's pictures got much smaller.

Who were the four stories about? I assumed "Fedora" was about Garbo and "Willie" was about Ramon Novarro.

My last boyfriend had a one year affair with Tryon many years ago. Said he was very handsome and quite smart but into such kinky dark stuff that my friend had to break it off.

"The Other" is still in print from NYRB Classics.

Otherwise he's pretty much forgotten.

Not quite smart, but wrote one of the best-regarded horror novels of the era, The Other? Also made into a film, a very fin one.

I find it hard to believe that Tom Tryon would ever go anywhere near this queeny messy toad.

OP, this thread is a mess. Why are you trying to make this happen?

He was hot as hell in Three Violent People (with Chuckles Heston)

"Tom was a lovely man, and gorgeous, but he was not a natural actor. He had enormous charm offstage, but on camera he became wooden." - Carol Lynley

He and Donovan broke up because Donovan was having too much fun being flown around the world for sex weekends with sheikhs and barons.

Not sure Carol Lynley was in a position to call anyone else wooden

[quote]R14 Who were the four stories about? I assumed "Fedora" was about Garbo and "Willie" was about Ramon Novarro.

I know this book because my mom had a copy, and when I was little I hough it was glamorous and tawdry. (And it is!) The characters aren’t really based on real stars - they’re just composite types from the Golden Age of Hollywood.

LORNA is a perennial starlet who was never unemployed, but in only one good movie (because she was fucking the producer.) Now she’s aging, adrift, and on a downward slide at a Mexican resort, where she becomes obsessed with a handsome, much younger flamenco dancer/waiter.

WILLY is an elderly Hollywood fixture, sort of like Clifton Webb or David Niven. He invites a cater waiter home from an event but the hunk’s friends show up instead. A Manson Family night of horror ensues, where they torture him and look for a famous movie prop he supposedly has.

BOBBIT is a former child star who resurfaces as a vagabond storyteller in Central Park. He survives by selling his Bobbit movie memorabilia collection bit by bit, and is a pathological liar.

FEDORA is a reclusive beauty who made a middle aged comeback, magically looking 20 again. A biographer has unearthed her secrets and is going to publish a book now that she’s dead.

I enjoyed Harvest Home as much as a The Other, and it may be even more of a page turner.

Also, Lady isn't a bad read either.

Everything he wrote after that is unreadable to me.

"The last image I have of Otto Preminger was from a taxi coming down Park Avenue. We stopped at a light and here came this figure trudging across the street. I thought, Holy God, that's Otto Preminger. I thought, 'Tom, that's the man who destroyed your life.'" - Tom Tryon

[quote] He was hot as hell in Three Violent People (with Chuckles Heston)

I hear they're going to re-make that with Will Smith, Ezra Miller, and Stacey Dash.

I can tell that R8 devoted decades faithfully peeking through Tryon's windows.

[quote] Why isn't Tom Tryon a bigger gay icon?

True icons are saints or gods. Tryon was neither.

R26 Why did the bully Otto Preminger choose the good-looking piece of wood named Tom Tryon to carry this expensive 3 hour long dirge?

He failed.

Redford and Beatty tested for the part, but both Preminger and his wife, Hope (who, unlike her husband, grew to like Tryon), thought Tryon's test was better. Some have speculated that Preminger wanted to build a publicity campaign around the relatively unknown Tryon in a "star-making" role, as he'd done with Jean Seberg in "Saint Joan" five years earlier. Carol Lynley later said they should have gone with Redford...

[quote] as he'd done with Jean Seberg in "Saint Joan

That movie was laughably bad and she went on to commit suicide. I admit that George Bernards Shaw's incomprehensible moralising would be difficult for an English film-maker but Preminger's version was hopeless with quality thespians like Anton Walbrook and John Gielgud standing around in the background while incompetents like Seberg and Widmark made fools of themselves in the foreground.

[quote] OP, this thread is a mess. Why are you trying to make this happen?

I know nothing about him except what i posted. He was well known in gay circles in New York and i was eager to hear more about him, especially from the Eldergays.

[Quote] Nice link, lazy fat whore OP.

Don't call me fat!

Well, there was that whole thing about his being a monster from outer space.

Wasn't he also the lover of Clive Clerk, the CHORUS LINE dancer/actor?

Something that gorgeous and rich married to a dog like that??!!!

R35, no, he was not.

"Crowned Heads" sounds interesting. Can someone ever lend me a copy? I see it is out of print. TIA.

I think you can buy it for $5.46 on Amazon.

Tryon was to have a small role in Marilyn Monroe’s unfinished film “Something’s Got to Give” (1962)

You can see his scene at the [bold]30:00 mark [/bold]here:

R24, WILLY was obviously inspired by the grisly fate of Ramon Navarro.

When I was a little boy I didn't realize that Tom Tryon and John Gavin were two different people.

Tom Tryon used to live across the street from Andy Warhol, and he turns up in the Diaries the day after a small fire broke out in Andy's townhouse:

[quote]Remember when Tom Tryon used to live across the street and I would watch him in his window writing? Now I'm living a nightmare like one of his stories.

Did Tom write that book about Dinah East?

R35, yes, he did

Thanks, r45. Thought so.

[quote]R41 WILLY was obviously inspired by the grisly fate of Ramon Navarro.

Yes. But the New York Times noted the author draws from dozens of actual lives, “dodging identification.” Willy’s murder is like Navarro’s, but the character of Willy is nothing like the sexy Navarro. Willy’s more like a prim Fred Astaire. He played a singing, dancing butler in a Disneyesque franchise made with the child star, Bobbitt.

I never thought I’d discuss this somewhat trashy book stop this extent. The story does leave you with a soiled feeling : ( All the characters come to a bleak end. FEDORA is the most compelling section, which is why it’s the one that was filmed.

^^ TO this extent - not STOP this extent.

(Though perhaps it is time to stop, as well.)

I didn't say WILLY was based on Navarro I was careful to say inspired by. Not the same thing and I chose my words delierately.

[All the characters come to a bleak end]

I remember Bobbit's being somewhat uplifting, r47. Am I misremembering?

Wiki...

[quote]R50 I remember Bobbit's being somewhat uplifting. Am I misremembering? —It was a l-o-n-g time ago

No, you (and r49) are right. I am oversimplifying.

Bobbitt is somewhat redeemed. He eventually has a new start on life thanks to a loving friend (that old character actress who played his nanny in the movies.) But my faith in his future isn’t all that solid, as it’s quite hard for disturbed people to simply get over their issues.

I guess practically all drama is about people overcoming obstacles, so perhaps Bobbit has a chance, too. His fake, manipulative facade made me squeamish when I read it, though, so maybe that’s why I give up on him too easily.

[quote] Tryon was to have a small role

But a spectacular one at R40. He's sexy and makes old Dino Martin look like a grizzled dog in comparison.

I guess this tiny scene, Ty Hardin and Matt Lattanzi are the only examples of George Cukor's erotic taste in men on screen.

There’s also lingering shots of some beautiful male extra in a crowd scene in ROMEO & JULIET (1936). Someone said, “There’s no reason for those shots!”and Cukor answered, “Oh, there’s a very good reason.”

[quote] some beautiful male extra in a crowd scene in ROMEO & JULIET (1936)

I enjoyed the silk purses on display in that movie.

I'm glad we're back talking about his acting and writing rather than OP's fever dreams about his sexuality.

What fever dreams? His relationship with Donovan has been written about elsewhere

^^

R56 may have been in regards to some of us insisting (mock aghast) that he was gay.

^^ was NOT gay. Oh god

Cutie pie...

His eyes were too close together

^ Not at all. Look closely. It's the lighting or his eye (gasp) makeup.

He tried the Crowned Heads format again with All That Glitters...

[quote]Ty Hardin and Matt Lattanzi are the only examples of George Cukor's erotic taste in men on screen.

Aldo Ray would like to have a few words with you. He said in interviews he just looked at the ceiling and thought about his girlfriend.

^ Cukor deserved better than that big lunk.

[quote]Tryon was to have a small role.

Almost an hour of SGTG need to be shot when Fox pulled the plug. Tyron's role was much larger than his scant introduction. Fantasy island sequences among others.

[quote]Tryon was to have a small role.

It's the part played in the original film (My Favorite Wife) by Randolph Scott - not a small role, it's the second male lead.

[quote]That movie was laughably bad and she went on to commit suicide.

What does the movie have to do with her committing suicide?

Seberg died at the age of 40 in Paris, with police ruling her death a probable suicide. Romain Gary, Seberg's second husband, called a press conference shortly after her death at which he blamed the FBI's campaign against Seberg for her death. [Because of her support for The Black Panthers.] Gary mentioned the FBI-planted false rumors with American media outlets claiming that her 1970 pregnancy was a Black Panther's child, and said that the trauma had resulted in the child's miscarriage. Gary stated that Seberg had attempted suicide on numerous anniversaries of the child's death, August 25.

[quote]I admit that George Bernards Shaw's incomprehensible moralising would be difficult for an English film-maker but Preminger's version was hopeless with quality thespians like Anton Walbrook and John Gielgud standing around in the background while incompetents like Seberg and Widmark made fools of themselves in the foreground.

Widmark may have given a (rare) poor performance in Saint Joan, but that doesn't make him an incompetent. I'm sure Walbrook and Gielgud would have appeared incompetent had the attempted to play some of Widmark's roles.

*they

What was the dark scary kink that he was into?

Saint Bernards, r69

[quote] I'm sure Walbrook and Gielgud would have appeared incompetent had the attempted to play some of Widmark's roles.

Of course, but Walbrook and Gielgud weren't attempting to play some of Widmark's roles.

My complaint is that talented performers like them are under-used in small roles while incompetent performers (ie Seberg) was utterly exposed as incompetent in THE major role of the saint. The French people were furious that the French religious martyr was played by this corn-voiced Midwestern teenager.

Preminger might just as well have cast Sandra Dee or Annette Funicello or Tippi 'Plastic' Hedren as the teenage saint.

What is "corn-voiced"?

I doubt r71 knows, r72. He just wanted to sound really bitchy and dramatic.

R72 This teenager pretending to be a 'French saint' came from America's Capital of Corn.

Jean Seberg was nothing short of enchanting, not to mention a Civil Rights revolutionary, and all would be well advised to shut their bestial traps if considering criticizing her.

Our St. Jean is sacred.

I liked three of his books: "The Other (made into a movie)", "Harvest Home (made into a tv movie)" and Crowned Heads (one chapter made into a movie). The first two were horror novels. "The Other" was quite effective as a horror story. The movie based on it deserves a remake; if done right it could really be something. "Harvest Home" was interesting but very preposterous.

The chapter "Willie" in "Crowned Heads" is about a Hollywood star from the Golden Age; Willie Marsh, witty, elegant, in his older years he's called "The Grand Old Man of Hollywood>" Willie seems similar to Clifton Webb but the chapter is heavily derived from the Ramon Navarro murder. He's not gay, but do to a mix up a trio of unsavory young people gain entry to his house; one of them is a Charles Manson type, the other two are his followers. He tries to be a genial host to them (as Navarro did for the two young hustlers who were in his home) but they get him drunk and eventually proceed to destroy his house and torture him slowly to death while they search for an antique they believe will net them $5000. The killers of Navarro tore his house apart looking for $5000 in cash they thought he had hidden somewhere. Willie reads the palm of the Charles Manson character; Navarro did the same for one of his killers. Yes, "Willie" is indeed based on the Navarro murder.

Who was Dinah East supposed to be?

Any truth to it?

Let’s stick with Seberg and stay away from Tryon, okay? Fat OP can’t keep his facts straight and keeps making things up.

I decided once to try to see all of Preminger's movies, so I saw The Cardinal, with Tryon, as well as his two with Jean Seberg (who was disarmingly honest about her lack of skills in Saint Joan). In his biography, Kirk Douglas talked about how Preminger screamed at Tryon while they were making In Harm's Way - and how he urged Tryon to do something - like, walk off the set - but Tryon never stood up to Preminger - nor did Seberg, according to one of the actresses who appeared with her in Bonjour, Tristesse - Mylene Demongeot.

The Cardinal is not that bad a movie. According to IMDB, "At one point during filming, Preminger fired Tryon in front of his parents when they visited the set, then rehired him after being satisfied that Tryon had been sufficiently humiliated."

Did you even sit through SKIDOO?

What sick shit was Tom into that it scared off his slutty boyfriend?

R80 No. I didn't see it. I don't think I could find it. I just tried to see everything, I actually didn't, but I saw almost all. I had already seen a lot of his films.

Unfortunately, it's on Youtube...

R83. Thanks. I think.

[quote] Jean Seberg was nothing short of enchanting, not to mention a Civil Rights revolutionary, and all would be well advised to shut their bestial traps if considering criticizing her.

Our St. Jean is sacred.

"Played Out" by David Richards is a good bio of Sebring. She was a train wreck, prone to psychotic episodes and pathologically gullible. As one friend said of her "the biggest asshole in the world could be Jesus Christ to her." She finally committed suicide and when they found her in a hermetically sealed car in the summer she was rotted almost beyond recognition. There was absolutely nothing "enchanting" or "sacred" about her.

The unraveling St. Jean could have made a good Lorna in “Crowned Heads” if it were made in the 70s.

The chapter in "Crowned Heads" entitled "Lorna" is the tale of Lorna Doone. She was named after the book not the cookie, but "Cookie" becomes her nickname. She's blonde, busty, long legged, pretty....so she tries to be a movie star although she possesses no acting talent. She gets into the movies but only amounts to a B-actress. She later becomes known as "The Perkies girl" after she stars in a series of commercials for Perkie's Pop Up Breakfast Tarts. Lorna Doone is a kleptomaniac, a pyromaniac and a nymphomaniac. In other words, she compulsively steals, sets fires and fucks around. She goes to a Mexican resort to vacation and get away from her mounting legal difficulties. There she develops a sexual fixation on a young Mexican man who works for the hotel she's staying in. She's probably three times his age and he has no interest in her at all and has a girlfriend but her obsession with him does not abate. Her stay at the resort is supposed to help her maintain a "back to sanity and health" regime but she becomes more and more unstable and cracks up in truly spectacular fashion. The Lorna Doone chapter is as devastating as the one about Willie.

[quote] Preminger fired Tryon

Preminger was a bully-bitch and all his bloated movies smelled bad.

The SKIDDOO soundtrack is worth finding. It's by the great Harry Nilsson. Carol Channing's rendition of the title song, And all the film's credits are sung.

[quote]Preminger was a bully-bitch and all his bloated movies smelled bad.

Anatomy Of A Murder and Laura are two of the best movies ever made.

[quote] Anatomy Of A Murder and Laura

They must have the two least-bloated of his stuff.

What amuses me is that he got let in because the studio owners assumed he'd be another Ernst Lubitsch. He was the opposite to Ernst Lubitsch.

By all accounts Clive Clerk was Tom Tyron's most long lived gay relationship. Their apartment (well rather Tom Tyron's on UWS, but obviously Mr. Clerk lived or spent huge amounts of time), was featured in AD magazine since CC did the interior decorating.

Tom Tyron's second longest gay relationship was with Casey Donovan who he took up with after Clive Clerk. That lasted about three or four years but ended as TT became anxious about carrying on with an out and increasingly known gay porn actor.

Cannot find cause of death listed for Clive Clerk, but Casey Donovan/Calvin Culver died of HIV/AIDs related illness in 1987. Tom Tyron died in 1991 of stomach cancer (official cause of death), but executor of his estate claims TT was also HIV+ which contributed to his death.

Thank you, R87. Lorna’s section in the book is really alarming. She just sinks lower and lower, losing all dignity. Plus any sanity she had.

A worn Ann-Margret might have brought the right melodrama to the part. I guess United artists originally planned to make 4 separate movies from it, but then FEDORA wasn’t a hit and they scrapped that idea.

It is time for the chapters of Crowned Heads that have not been filmed to be made into movies. Or all made / remade as a limited series. Ryan? You there?

R91 I saw Anatomy of a Murder recently and it would make a great double bill 12 Angry Men. Preminger's best film and one of the best courtroom dramas ever with a dream cast all superb: George C Scott, Lee Remick, Jimmy Stewart, Eve Arden, Ben Gazzara and future Mrs. Bing Crosby Kathryn Grant and she is very good. And Laura and Bonjour Tristesse are worthwhile films

I'd add BUNNY LAKE IS MISSING, ANGEL FACE, and ADVISE AND CONSENT to the list of his worthy films.

R97 I'm not especially on the Bunny Lake train, but those other two, absolutely. Carmen Jones is good, too. Daisy Kenyon, The Man With The Golden Arm...and I really like Exodus despite the length. At least, parts of it are very strong.

[quote]They must have the two least-bloated of his stuff.

[quote]What amuses me is that he got let in because the studio owners assumed he'd be another Ernst Lubitsch. He was the opposite to Ernst Lubitsch.

It sounds like you have not seen a lot of his films.

I dopn't know why that amuses you so much, who cares if he was nothing like Lubitsch?

I don't know why

...I REALLY don't know why. lol

Preminger took over direction of "A Royal Scandal" when Lubitsch got sick. Lubitsch had clashed with the star, Tallulah Bankhead, but she and Preminger got along very well: Preminger had admired her late father, the Democratic Speaker of the House under FDR, and they bonded over their shared loathing of co-star Anne Baxter.

One of the best parts of "Crowned Heads" was its coda "Salad Days", a lovely and sad ending that wraps up the novel on a bittersweet note.

[quote] I dopn't know why that amuses you so much, who cares if he was nothing like Lubitsch?

Because Lubitsch used a light touch where as fat Preminger was heavy-handed and BOMBASTIC.

NYT obituary...

For those who never bothered, it appears entire film "The Cardinal" is on YT.

[quote]Because Lubitsch used a light touch where as fat Preminger was heavy-handed and BOMBASTIC.

I don't think he was usually heavy-handed or bombastic. Which of his films was in that style? Have you seen any of his best work?

Anyway you missed my point. Who decided he his style should resemble Lubitsch's? Why would it, or should it?

OP he was bland and bland looking Not hawt!

Oh?

^ He's so outrageously good-looking no one could take him seriously as a parish priest let alone a cardinal.

Big Daddy!

Look at the picture at r109 and it baffles me that people still claim that TT did sex things with other men. Gay men don’t take pictures like that.

R109 I guess that's in the '80s or '90s.

R110

Miss Ghurl, that picture in R109 screams 1970's or 1980's gay daddy!

Either you weren't around, didn't get out much and or things just went over your head.

Only straight guys who went around looking like that were "Joey Bag of Donuts" Italian types, and of course slimy disco guys who thought they were starring in Saturday Night Fever.

R107 R108 sorry he's bland and blandly handsome and wooden and dull and less appealing and talented than John Gavin

And at least Gavin has Psycho on his resume.

and Spartacus, Imitation of Life, Thoroughly Modern Millie and Midnight Lace R114

I first read this as Tom Byron.

I'm glad someone else mentioned John Gavin because I was serious way back in the thread when I mentioned that when I was a kid I couldn't tell them apart and thought they were the same guy.

R117 Gavin's head was 15% wider than Tryon's.

R117

Then you needed glasses even as a child. John Gavin does not in slightest resemble Tom Tyron.

R110 is weirdly homophobic.

Also, t looks like all the gay-denial postd are from R110.

I can see the resemblance between Tom and John Gavin. Something about the overly wide-set eyes.

R119 but they were similar types and of the same age and entered films around the same time. Confusing them has little to do with their being identical.

[quote]"Joey Bag of Donuts" Italian types

Stereotyping ethnicities - a DL specialty!

Gavin and Tryon do look similar. Both tall, dark, and handsome hunks

and they were in the same mold R125 and I can see Gavin playing Tryon's role in The Cardinal (1963) Gavin had more warmth

[quote] Gavin playing Tryon's role in The Cardinal

It's ludicrous casting these mouth-wateringly beautiful men playing Irish-Boston celibates who use their shrivelled penises to urinate but are forbidden to fornicate.

R4 You can't deny that Rock Hudson was married to a woman. TO A WOMAN!

Where's the list of congressmen who knew they had broken the law and sought pardons? They must be disbarred from elected office.

Tom Tryon sought a pardon?

He begged my pardon when he stepped on my toe on the dance floor.

[quote] I first read this as Tom Byron.

I first read this as Lord Byron!

I read it as Toby Tyler!