When I chatted with George Takei and his husband Brad Altman last month I asked the Star Trek icon what keeps him so young.
Brad had the answer for that one: ‘I do!”
Love that answer!
George had been known as Sulu for decades but he is now best known for being George Takei.
He has almost eight million followers on social media, is an outspoken activist for LGBT equality and the subject of a new documentary To Be Takei.
“When director Jennifer Kroot approached us with the idea for this documentary, Brad and I thought it was a wonderful opportunity to do away with the perceptions that people have about same-sex marriages,” George told the Globe and Mail last week.
“We’ve been together for more than a quarter-century. We have a genuine partnership. This is an opportunity to show the normality of our loving marriage.”
“It was a very difficult decision for Brad. He is profoundly camera-shy. And in some scenes he might look like that proverbial deer caught in the headlights. But bless his heart, he agreed to do it, even though it was an excruciatingly uncomfortable proposition.”
The great Lena Horne, who died in 2010 at the age of 92, left behind so many wonderful performances and I’ve chosen three of them for Showtune Sunday.
My absolute favorite is Believe in Yourself from The Wiz. I remember being blown away when seeing her belt it out when watching the film in a theater way back when.
But then, Miss Horne had been playing audiences away for decades by the time of that 1978 film.
Here as well are her performing Stormy Weather and Moon River.
Warhol superstar Joe Dallesandro is considered to be the most famous male sex symbol of American underground films of the 20th century.
He starred in such films as Four Stars, Flesh, Trash, Lonesome Cowboys, Andy Warhol’s Frankenstein and Andy Warhol’s Dracula.
He was also photographed by some of the top celebrity photographers of the time and he graced the cover of Rolling Stone in April 1971.
New York Times film critic Vincent Canby wrote of Dallesandro: “His physique is so magnificently shaped that men as well as women become disconnected at the sight of him.”
Everyone is reacting to Nick Fallon who essentially hasn’t really done anything
So, let’s hope he is up to something otherwise this is all a big waste of time!
Anyway, Will laments bringing up custody agreement with Gabi and goes to EJ for advice. Rafe meanwhile is focusing on figuring out what Nick has over everyone.
So I’m visiting my mom in OC and Sex and the City 2 came on the TV and I’m just glad it was the edited version.
My mom is a churchgoing 76-year-old woman so an uncensored Samantha, Miranda, Charlotte and Carrie would be too much and she had never seen SATC television shows or movies.
Anyway, watching the flick served as a reminder to do a SATC Saturday post!
This episode focuses on Carrie’s computer crashing and the strain it causes on her relationship with Aiden who I always felt was the perfect man.
When I snapped this photo of Kim Novak and Tippi Hedren last week at the TCM Classic Film Festival, I thought how good they both looked in very different ways.
Tippi, 84, has aged gracefully and looks terrific. Kim, 81, has battled the aging process differently and she’s caught plenty of snark for it – especially after her appearance at last month’s Academy Awards.
Well, the movie legend is speaking out against the haters in an open letter: “I will no longer hold myself back from speaking out against bullies. We can’t let people get away with affecting our lives.”
“I’m not going to deny that I had fat injections in my face. They seemed far less invasive than a face lift,” Novak added. “In my opinion, a person has a right to look as good as they can, and I feel better when I look better.”
Novak said in an interview that the Oscar backlash “really did throw me into a tailspin and it hit me hard” and she did not leave the house for days.
‘ … It got to me like it gets kids and teenagers’ who are attacked, she said.
“I realized that I had to stand up not only for myself but for other people that don’t have the courage to do so,” Novak added. “I feel like I have a mission.”
Oh, the things you learn flipping through the pages of People magazine.
Oscar winner Colin Firth took a trip down memory lane in the current issue by looking at photos taken during his career and commenting on them.
He had good things to say about photos with such co-stars as Renee Zellweger (Bridget Jones Diary), Nicole Kidman (The Railway Man) and Catherine Zeta-Jones (Out of the Blue).
But when asked about a photo from his first movie, 1984′s Another Country, he looked at an image of he and co-star Rupert Everett and said: ‘We didn’t like each other very much and went through that photo shoot without a word exchanged.’
British romantic historical drama is set in a 1930s Eton-esque public school. Everett played openly gay student Guy Bennett and Firth played his friend Tommy Judd. Both feel like outsiders – Judd because he is a Marxist.
‘We started off as friends, then it went horribly wrong about two weeks in,’ Firth recalled. ‘He was incredibly unpleasant. He described me as a “ghastly guitar-playing socialist.” I did not have a guitar.’
But the two managed to patch things up and work together again – most notably in Shakespeare in Love.
I’m so glad that HBO will be airing The Normal Heart beginning Sunday, May 25. With stars like Mark Ruffalo, Matt Bomer and Julia Roberts, the story of the early days of the AIDS crisis will be seen by a wide audience.
It needs to be.
It’s been more than 30 years since that awful, awful time and there have been excellent documentaries like We Were Here and How to Survive a Plague in recent years. But I know those have not been widely seen – even by gays.
It’s so important to know about the people who fought this lonely battle and to never, ever forget.
Wasn’t familiar with today’s Morning Man, Jason Derulo, until I flipped through this week’s issue of People magazine and read a review of his new album, Talk Dirty.
The reviewer only gave it 2.5 stars (out of four) but the sexy photo with the review is what got my attention!
Jason is just 24 and is dating American Idol champ Jordin Sparks who starred in the film Sparkle.
Since his debut as a solo recording artist in 2009, Jason has sold over 30 million singles and has achieved five Top 5 singles including Talk Dirty, The Other Side, Ridin’ Solo, In My Head and Whatcha Say.
Cannot believe I have never seen this before! It’s Barbara Walters interviewing Judy Garland shortly after her oldest daughter, Liza Minnelli, married Peter Allen. With Liza out of the nest, the great star is flanked by her younger children Lorna Luft and Joey Luft.
She’s in good form here – clear and charming.
Miss Garland wanted to be a grandmother and was eager to babysit.
So sad that two years later she would be dead from an accidental overdose.
In this interview, she denies drug and alcohol abuse and being temperamental: ‘I’m as difficult as a daisy.”
She clearly was a loving mother but she did not have a loving mother herself. Judy has nothing good to say about her mother: “My mother was truly a stage mother – a mean one. She was very jealous because she had absolutely no talent.”
‘She was so wicked.”
The sweet interview with Miss Walters ends at the 16:30 mark and segues into coverage of her 1969 funeral then a 1991 interview with Mickey Rooney, one with Liza and more.
Rosie O’Donnell has hit a milestone in her weight loss efforts: she has taken off 50 pounds!
Rosie, who suffered a massive heart attack in 2012, is looking great. She posted these before and after pics today on Twitter with this message: “Almost 50 lbs off – I can see it now.”
Gabi’s involvement with Nick is causing major problems, of course, but she remains re-smitten.
Will wants to protect the interests of his daughter and tells Gabi that he wants a formal custody agreement after she threatened to move out because of Sami calling her a selfish bitch and all the rest.
Meanwhile, Gabi big bro Rafe – normally relegated to a very boring romance with Jordan – is getting involved in this storyline again by wondering what the heck Nick has on everyone.
He’s got no idea what a doozy it is: Gabi bashed his head in with a rock then she, Kate and Sami dumped him into the river thinking her was dead. Even when he came to after hitting the water, they still decided to cover up his “death.”
In the five years since Dustin Lance Black won the Academy Award for his Milk screenplay, he’s been a highly effective leader in the fight for LGBT equality and he’s spoken at over 40 major universities including Harvard’s Kennedy School, Penn, UCLA, and USC.
Last year he was also given the Distinguished Alumni Award from the Community College League of California.
But there’s a guy named Anthony Fellow, president of the board of Pasadena City College, who thinks that having Black be a graduation speaker could somehow give the school ‘a bad name.’
The reason?
Photos of Black and an ex-boyfriend having sex that were leaked online back in 2009.
It’s ancient news and Black was clearly the victim in the incident as the photos were lifted from the ex’s computer by people hoping to cash in on Black’s newfound fame.
Black has written an open letter to the students he had planned to address at graduation. I’m written a story about it over at Gay Star News with excerpts from it – see it HERE.
Orange Is The New Black returns for season 2 on Netflix on June 6 and I know there are plenty of people who are chomping at the bit for that day to come.
After writing about him for several months now, it was so nice to finally meet Guy Wilson face-to-face last Saturday night at the GLAAD Media Awards.
I found him to be very smart, thoughtful and articulate during our chat in the red carpet and hope to talk to him more down the road.
It’s been more than three months since Guy stepped into the role of Will Horton on Days of Our Lives. He replaced Greg In Hollywood fave Chandler Massey who had been an absolute triumph in the role with a pair of Emmys to show for it.
I am not only a fan of Chandler’s acting ability, but fond of him as a person.
Still, I was open to Guy taking over the role from day one because, frankly, what choice did I or anyone else have? Not everyone was. I got some of the most sick and twisted anti-Guy emails and comments about it from people who can only be described as a special kind of crazy.
With the Will and Sonny wedding over, Guy seems to made the role his own. His chemistry with Freddie Smith is solid and their kisses and love scenes are pretty steamy.
‘We both have our favorite brand of breath mint and we use a little chapstick,’ Guy says. ‘We have a good time with it. Freddie Smith is a very good looking guy. I could be doing a lot worse with the love scenes. It’s good.’
While he had his detractors at first, Guy feels plenty of fan support now: ‘It touches me on a very personal level. I’m just grateful to be here, to be a part of it.’
Okay, this is just a little appetizer to the interview with Guy which I have posted over at Gay Star News. He talks about the atmosphere on the set the day of the Will and Sonny wedding and what it means to him to be a part of the first same-sex daytime wedding between two men.
This week’s episode was called Tested and it’s another all New York affair featuring some of my faves: Blaine and Kurt and Sam. Here is a trio of numbers – including one with the magnificent Mercedes singing one of my all-time favorite songs I Want To Know What Love Is.
I was very excited to hear from writer-director Dane Whitlock today whose productions Are You There God? It’s Me, Karen Carpenter and Prairie-oke! are two shows I enjoyed tremendously in LA in recent years.
He’s got a new show called I Totally Know What You Did Last (Donna) Summer which debuts on May 2 at the Cavern Theatre in Silver Lake, that terrific venue downstairs at Casita del Campo restaurant.
Dane tells me the show is a parody of the Scream/I Know What You Did Last Summer franchises set to a Donna Summer soundtrack.
I love it already!
It’s got the same cast of actors that have been in his last two show including the brilliant Drew Droege who plays a riff on the Courteney Cox in Scream character – “Windy Storms.” He will be singing up a storm with such songs as She Works Hard for the Money and On the Radio.
Ed Quinn has got to be one of the most handsome men currently walking the Earth.
Good grief, he is gorgeous!
The 46-year-old is probably best known for his years playing Nathan Stark on the Syfy Channel series Eureka From 2006 through 2008. He’s also had recurring roles on True Blood and CSI: NY.
I love the way he describes himself on Twitter: @OfficialEdQuinn: Actor. Musician. Writer. Male Model Survivor. Waterman. Jack of all trades, master of… Some?… Maybe?… Anyone?(sigh)
With all the progress in recent years in the fight for LGBT equality, watching the trailer just now for the upcoming film Burning Blue made me feel upset and sad.
It just took me back to a time, not so long ago, when so many of us had to hide who we are in order not to lose things important to us.
In the case of this film, which hits theaters and video on demand on June 6, that thing is the US Navy where, until Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell was dismantled in 2011, you could be discharged for being gay.
Burning Blue is about a close-knit squadron of male Navy pilots whose ties begin to splinter after a series of fatal accidents. As a government agent digs to uncover the cause of the accidents, two of the pilots engage in an affair which is exposed and a scandal ensues.
The cast is quite attractive as you will see in the trailer below. It includes Trent Ford, Morgan Spector, Rob Mayes, William Lee Scott, Cotter Smith, Michael Cumpsty, Michael Sirow, Mark Doherty, Chris Chalk, Tracy Weiler, Gwynneth Bensen, Jordan Dean, Johnny Hopkins, Haviland Morris, Karolina Muller, Dylan Rafferty Brown and Tammy Blanchard.
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When I chatted with George Takei and his husband Brad Altman last month I asked the Star Trek icon what keeps him so young.
The great Lena Horne, who died in 2010 at the age of 92, left behind so many wonderful performances and I’ve chosen three of them for Showtune Sunday.
Warhol superstar Joe Dallesandro is considered to be the most famous male sex symbol of American underground films of the 20th century.
Everyone is reacting to Nick Fallon who essentially hasn’t really done anything
So I’m visiting my mom in OC and Sex and the City 2 came on the TV and I’m just glad it was the edited version.
When I snapped this photo of Kim Novak and Tippi Hedren last week at the TCM Classic Film Festival, I thought how good they both looked in very different ways.
Oh, the things you learn flipping through the pages of People magazine.
Wasn’t familiar with today’s Morning Man, Jason Derulo, until I flipped through this week’s issue of People magazine and read a review of his new album, Talk Dirty.
Cannot believe I have never seen this before! It’s Barbara Walters interviewing Judy Garland shortly after her oldest daughter, Liza Minnelli, married Peter Allen. With Liza out of the nest, the great star is flanked by her younger children Lorna Luft and Joey Luft.
Gabi’s involvement with Nick is causing major problems, of course, but she remains re-smitten.
This is pretty unbelievable.
After writing about him for several months now, it was so nice to finally meet Guy Wilson face-to-face last Saturday night at the GLAAD Media Awards.
I was very excited to hear from writer-director Dane Whitlock today whose productions Are You There God? It’s Me, Karen Carpenter and Prairie-oke! are two shows I enjoyed tremendously in LA in recent years.
Ed Quinn has got to be one of the most handsome men currently walking the Earth.
With all the progress in recent years in the fight for LGBT equality, watching the trailer just now for the upcoming film Burning Blue made me feel upset and sad.
