Eldergays, could you please explain Edward Everett Horton?

Just watched him in Arsenic and Old Lace

Get one OP

What can today's Eldergays say about this guy? Maybe if they ask their grandparents.

Over 50 is not necessarily 200.

Those inverts make me sick. Thank God I have a wife and kids to go home to. And a few little chippies on the side, too!

There were a lot of coded gay performers back then

Bert Lahr, Noel Coward, Marlene Dietrich, etc.

The Code specified “sexual perversion”. Being effeminate (or butch) wasn’t enough to cross the line as long as your character was asexual.

The Hayes Code, that is

R5 And some of us are merely out here with our walkin' petunias, fanning ourselves and just wiltin' in the summer sun!

Edward Everett Horta=on and Edna May Oliver are among my favorite movie actors from that era. Also Marie Dressler, May Robson, C. Aubrey Smith, Beulah Bondi, among the host of wonderful character actors from the 30s and 40s.

I'm not in my nineties but I love old movies and part of what makes them special is the fabulous dialogue and quirky actors. I really enjoyed the actors who played the supporting parts in the Thin Man series for example. Some of those gangsters were hilarious.

He romanced me real good.

EEH is wonderful in everything...and in Holiday in particular. Plus, the narrator on Rocky & Bullwinkle. What a treasure.

He was wonderful as the narrator of Fractured Fairy Tales in the Rocky and Bullwinkle Show, which delighted me as a child. Still does.

1934? These phantom "Eldergays" you fools babble about must be over 100. Lol.

r5 Add Richard Haydn to the "Coded" list. Also wondered about Ed Wynn.

There's a short dead-end street in my neighborhood named for him. In the mid-1960s, he lost about half of his ranch estate -- named Belleigh Acres (ha!) -- to the construction of the 101 Freeway through Encino. As a consolation/thank you, a small portion of Amestoy Ave. between the freeway & Burbank Blvd was re-named in his honor.

Fun Fact for DL: Vivian Vance lived in one of Belleigh Acres' guest cottages for a while.

[quote] Fun Fact for DL: Vivian Vance lived in one of Belleigh Acres' guest cottages for a while.

r14 Never heard of him. But Ethel has cachet.

[quote]EEH is wonderful in everything...and in Holiday in particular. Plus, the narrator on Rocky & Bullwinkle. What a treasure.

Late in his career, he became known for his Native American roles: Screaming Chicken, a member of the Hakawi tribe on "F Troop," and Chief Screaming Chicken on the 1960s "Batman" TV series.

Ewwww, looks like the bastard child of Marjorie Main and Strom Thurmond.

He was among those categorized as playing the sissy in The Celluloid Closet.

Another "sissy" actor of the 1930s was Eric Blore. He and Edward Everett Horton appeared together in three Astaire and Rogers movies.

Your average DL "Eldergay" saw Return of the Jedi in the theater...as a teenager. He can explain celebrities like David Cassidy, Jon Bon Jovi, and Downtown Julie Brown.

He's Gen-X, or maybe a later Boomer. His parents probably weren't even born yet in 1934.

Babygays have no sense of timeline. The past is just one big blur to them.

I’m gonna be 50 yrs old and I can’t wait!

He was dependably professional. Though his roles were generally light, he didn't just walk through them--he took his performances seriously. Some fun moments (scattered; also at the end) with Horton in this clip from [italic] In Caliente [/italic] .

Never thought of Bert Lahr in this category.

Were all his roles playing silly sissies?

He played opposite Agnes Moorehead as Queen Elizabeth I in that weird cheapie move I haven't seen for years.

Horton is supposed to be very good as Count Volsky, an unexpected dramatic ole in this.

R23, that clip is a gem. The backless dresses amazing. You don't see women in fashions like that anymore.

Edward Everett Horton, Eric Blore, and Fred Astaire.

Enjoy

[quote]Horton is supposed to be very good as Count Volsky, an unexpected dramatic ole in this.

And making an "Olé!" dramatic takes real skill.

Edna Mae got an Academy Award nomination for Drums Along the Mohawk. She’s great in it. She plays a warm-hearted battle axe!

Eric Blore has a great part in The Lady Eve, one of the funniest comedies ever!

Massive pussyhound. Big Roosevelt supporter.

“What of it?”

The Pikes? Why, I positively swill in their ale…for r31. Forgive me if I messed up the line?

Horton also has a (mostly) dramatic secondary role in von Sternberg's [italic] The Devil Is a Woman [/italic] (with . . . Marlene Dietrich . . . as an ex-lover of hers) . . . but he manages to get in a funny moment there too.

r30: I think that's her last movie, alas.

R34, “Pike’s Pale! The ale that won for Yale!”

Good lord, r26, that sounds like a laugh riot.

The Gang's All Here

It was the Hays Code, R5.

Yes OP Liberace in The Loved One (1965)

'Your flame is in service 24 hours a day'

Miracle on 34th Street

Unless you were flaming like Liberace, I don’t think people back way in the day were thinking, “Is he gay?”

I think people pretty much figured Horton was gay. A lot .of character actors came across subtly and sometimes not so subtly gay. I really think in some ways the general public knew and figured that was their own business.

Isn't he sorta a Step and Fetchit character for the gays?

[quote]Isn't he sorta a Step and Fetchit character for the gays?

No. That would have required some kind of acceptance of gays, which didn't exist in the 1930s.

Where’s the “oh, dear” poster to correct R46 (& R47)?! The character was named Stepin Fetchit.

My grandparents were of that time. So were my older aunts and uncles. They all knew he was gay. They knew about other actors who were less obvious, too. Some of it by association. Horton was in movies with Fred Astaire who was friends with Cole Porter. His songs were written for Astaire. Maybe they saw it that way. Hollywood had gay parties known all the way back in the 20s. Maybe cause we're NYers and NYers are hip to things but it was no secret.

Liberace was afraid of everyone 'finding out'. Heck that was so obvious. Everyone knew about him. He was so likeable who cared. You couldn't find a kinder guy. Women adored him. I don't claim to know what everyone everywhere across the country thought about Horton but my guess is it was no secret.

R44 Rock Hudson, Tab Hunter, Roddy McDowall, Anthony Perkins weren't really flamers but people back in the day had gaydar and the studios arranged dates and in Rock's case marriage to offset the rumors.

Bette Rogge gets down with EEH...

You don't have to be n eldergay to know Horton. TCM, Blu-ray have many of his movies available. Horton's partner was Gavin Gordon, who played Lord Byron i n Bride of Frankenstein, and was in many other movies. Horton's two best films are the Lubitsch pre-code comedies Trouble in Paradise and Design for Living. In the latter, Horton plays a frustrated straight guy who tries to compete with Fredric March and Gary Cooper for the affections of Miriam Hopkins. Hopkins, March and Cooper are sex maniacs who live together, much to Horton's chagrin.

Here's Gavin Gordon, Horton's partner.

Did he hear Dr. Who?

from John Simon's review of Cleopatra (1963)

One absolutely inexcusable performance however is that of Roddy Mcdowall whose Octavian is a screaming peroxided queen