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Did Raquel Welch strike out with actor Stephen Boyd because he was gay? Apparently so!

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A retrospective of Raquel Welch’s films took place over the weekend at New York’s Lincoln Center Walter Reade Theater.

The still-gorgeous star of such films as One Million Years B.C., The Three Musketeers, Myra Breckinridge and Kansas City Bomber talked about her unsuccessful attempt to seduce her Fantastic Voyage leading man Stephen Boyd.

“He was so hot with his cleft chin and he was so not interested in me. I tried to seduce him one time. I was so smitten with him and I was so excited every time I would come on the set I would see Stephen, and think, ‘Oh God, he’s so cute.’ He had what sounded like a Welsh (sic) brogue that was so charming.

“For my first trip to New York, when we opened the movie, we were both staying at the Plaza Hotel, so I thought, ‘Here’s my chance!’ So Darryl Zanuck took us all out to dinner at 21 and on the way back to the hotel we shared a cab. I said to him as we were going up in the lift, ‘So Stephen, would you like to come in for a drink?’

“We got out of the lift and he walked me to my room and he said, ‘I’d like to tell you a little story that was told to me by John Gielgud when I was working with the National Theatre (in London). You’ll have to think about it for a moment but I hope you get my drift: An actress is a little bit more than a woman, but an actor is a little bit less than a man.’

“I thought, ‘Oh! He’s not interested in me; I am the wrong sex!’

“Honestly, he was such a love and he’s not here anymore. Of course I’m sure a lot of people in the National Theater knew!”

Well, now everybody knows!

Boyd, best known for his role in the film Ben-Hur, died in 1977.

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Comments

(All comments are reviewed before being published, and I review submissions several times per day.)

16 Remarks

  1. Hooray for our side! A little late, but thanks for confirming what I always wished. And yes, that cleft chin was TDF.

  2. I always thought he was hot…wow, never know do ya! Cool interview! It was really bad to be gay in Hollywood then. I admire Matt Bomer so much for his remarks about his family!

  3. February 14th, 2012 at 1:43 pm
    Alan Douglas says:

    Stephen stars in one of the campiest films ever made “The Oscar”. It’s so bad, it’s good.

  4. February 14th, 2012 at 2:58 pm
    Gaspar Marino says:

    I agree he was a gorgeous man.

  5. Mark, what did you mean by Hooray for our side? Anyhow, Boyd was good in Ben-Hur.

  6. Stephen Boyd was a wonderful Irishman, and he was that above all. His role in Ben Hur will forever stir my heart…

  7. I seem to remember seeing a pic of him in the early 60′s posing in a posing strap for Demi
    Gods magazine. Could this be true?

  8. February 15th, 2014 at 5:37 pm
    roger berryman says:

    If Raquel Welch’s recall of Stephen’s words at the door to her hotel room lead her to believe that he has a sexual preference to be with men vs women, well she is not known for her intelligence. It is much more plausible that he was referring to his inability to remain true to his wife while alone in the room with her! Come on, we don’t need to feel better by believing another famous man to be gay!

  9. Just because Raquel Welch “assumed” that’s what he meant, does not make it so. I could care less one way or another, but let’s not post assumptions as reality. He was a talented, yet under appreciated actor, who died too young. Gay or not, he was very handsome. Just hate when things are posted AFTER someone’s death due to an assumption.

  10. This doesn’t really explain Stephen Boyd’s affairs with Brigitte Bardot and actress Marisa Mell. Marisa Mell tells the whole story in her own autobiography ‘Cover Love’. Sorry, Raquel – maybe you just weren’t his type.

  11. loved Stephen Boyd in The Oscar. A lot of critics said his acting was terrible–I thought he was magnificent in his performance of a callously rotten man who climbed from poverty to stardom by hurting all those closest to him. The ending of this movie culminates with Frankie Fane breaking down completely. What payback!!!!

    He was also very attractive actor and wonderful in his roles during his brief life.

  12. I don’t buy the gay gossip about Boyd…
    married twice, loved golf and no links to
    that lifestyle.. He once said in a rare
    tv interview that he didn’t like amatuers…
    so go figure on the Welch comments..sad
    that she isn’t beyond slamming a dead man…

  13. December 19th, 2015 at 10:34 pm
    Roger M. Angress says:

    “Hail Jupiter.” “It goes on Judah; it goes on.”
    “Where are they!?”
    “Look for them, in the Valley of the Lepers.”

    “Look to Rome Judah!”
    “You talk as if he were GOD!”
    “He is GOD Judah….”

    I remember delivering Newspapers in Lakewood, California at the news was given on the radio of Stephen Boyd’s passing.
    He died much too to early. He will always be Masalla, Charlton Heston’s nemesis in “Ben Hur.” Those were motion pictures meant to be seen. They just don’t make em like that any longer….

    Roger Michael Bakersfield, California

  14. The only person who ever hinted that Stephen Boyd might be gay is Raquel Welch – just because he didn’t go for her! Now the whole world regards it as the gospel truth just because she couldn’t believe how anybody could refuse such a gorgeous creature as herself. This reminds me of the BEN-HUR gay legend. Gore Vidal always quoting that nonsense in every interview just because he hated Heston so much.

  15. June 12th, 2016 at 12:59 am
    Stuart Wadsworth says:

    Racquel Welch also mentioned that Boyd was Welsh!

    She’s a beautiful woman but not the brightest button in the box.

    Why would a gay guy get married twice? Stephen Boyd was a very fine actor who

    was sadly underrated!

  16. From my experience, good-looking people can and often do have less colourful love lives than we expect. This is because they can afford to be choosy. Uglier people have often been around the houses a lot more.

    I have no knowledge of Stephen or anyone close to him but what I can infer from the information we are given is that he only once had am affair with his leading lady (Marisa Mell) and that only by the time they did their second movie together. He was a very private man and did not want the hassle and the exposure.

    I also think he had something of a moral compass and would not have gone around breaking up any marriages – notably he did not go out with Brigitte Bardot because he said that anyone he would consider marrying seriously would have to be capable of being faithful for at least 2 years.

    He enjoyed the bachelor lifestyle, and who wouldn’t? I think the fact he never had children sprung from the fact of his being one of nine. He must have seen the hardships his parents went through, and whilst he was able to support them, preferred a different lifestyle for himself, and who can blame him?

    He seems like an amazing, complicated character with a lot going on. Not just a pretty face but extraordinary interpretation of character and a marvellous sense of humour. In one of his interviews he said he wished he got to do more comedy, rather than serious drama all the time. I wish he had too, because he had the most wonderful infectious laugh!

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