The Truth is Bad Enough: What Became of the Happy Hustler? (17 page)

The way Hollywood dealt with the issue at the time was by throwing gala benefits to create an illusion of compassion. But the reality was that no one gay—and, God knows, no one HIV-positive—was comfortable on a soundstage. They talked the talk but didn’t walk the walk. Our grassroots benefit would be less high-profile and more theatrical (read: gay) so that the issues—while raising money—weren’t being swept under the red carpet.

While Pickett and I continued to join forces on innumerable projects, we also maintained individual pursuits. I had been writing articles for the gay press since my Happy Hustler days. The book fictitiously labeled me as not only a hooker but also a writer.

The Advocate
editor Mark Thompson asked me to write an article on gay theater that addressed AIDS. Among the playwrights I interviewed for the piece were Rebecca Ranson from Atlanta and Robert Chesley from San Francisco, both of whom would play significant roles in my artistic and personal lives.

Warren
, Ranson’s heartfelt play about the loss of her closest friend, was one of the first “AIDS plays” to be produced. Simply staged, the one-act piece poignantly captured the heartbreak of friends and family dealing with a death before AIDS deaths became shockingly routine.

Chesley’s full-length, foreboding extravaganza,
Night Sweat
, could not have been more dissimilar to Ranson’s valentine. Chesley delved into the shadow aspects of the gay male psyche in relation to the disease that would define us for decades to come.

Night Sweat
was hysterical, political and judgmental; it was also sweetly romantic and disturbingly prescient. The premise of diseased men taking control of their lives by elaborately designing their own deaths, with ferocious theatrical flair, would give Jack Kevorkian pause.

Under the auspices of Artists Confronting AIDS (ACA), I directed the L.A. premieres of both plays, which ran simultaneously at the Déjà Vu and the Fifth Estate, located next door to each other. (Within a few years, almost all of the cast members of both shows would be dead.)

While Pickett immersed himself in writing a new play, I played an incidental recurring role on
Days of Our Lives
. Although it was simply coincidental, Thom Racina was one of the writers and after a brief chat on the phone, he promised to try to keep my character in the plotline as long as possible. The fact that Thom was writing lines for me yet again was all at once disconcerting and healing. Go figure.

On the subject of writing lines, I had met Charles Nelson Reilly when I’d interviewed him for
Drama-Logue
, an industry trade paper, and we had become chummy over many lunches and dinners at Adriano’s in tony Brentwood. Everyone knew him—even Warren Beatty sidled up to the table one evening to dish the dirt (some whisperings about “Shirley,” as in MacLaine).

I mostly listened and he delivered one-liners. I laughed uproariously and Reilly delivered more lines, most of which were pretty dang funny. He was a virtual encyclopedia of wicked showbiz anecdotes. But I came to love him.

He was obsessed with the film
An Englishman Abroad
, directed by John Schlesinger, which we’d watch repeatedly at his house in the hills. The film depicts the relationship between Guy Burgess, a gay British-born intelligence officer who worked for the Soviet Union, played by Alan Bates and an actress named Coral Browne, played by herself. I think Reilly saw himself in both roles—the drunken homosexual secret agent and the over-the-top star. Charles knew every word of the script, written by Alan Bennett.

He also knew the words to most of Ruth Draper’s monologues, which he introduced me to. The story is that Lily Tomlin would usher at the theater where the monologist played in order to inhale Draper’s miraculous work as a solo artist who created entire worlds, simply using her voice and body. The audience would leave the theater and swear that they had seen dozens of people on the stage, not one actor.

When Reilly called, unexpectedly, I was somewhat surprised that he was inviting me to come to Jupiter, Florida, ostensibly to assist him writing a book and working on his one-person show (
Save It for the Stage
). This was the person who guided Julie Harris in
Belle of Amherst
, her one-woman portrayal of Emily Dickinson. Why me?

“Because you get it,” he said, elongating each syllable. “You underst
aaaa
nd the subject m
aaaaa
tter.”

I assumed that meant that the “subject matter” was gay. These initial sessions would be on a trial basis to see if we were “artistically compatible,” he said.

CHAPTER 31
               

Charles was directing a play at the Burt Reynolds Dinner Theater and living at Burt’s luxurious beach house, where I would have my own quarters. Still sensitive about being around alcohol and aware of Reilly’s history in that department, I was relieved to learn that he was “on the wagon.” There’s nothing more triggering than being subjected to the antics of another alkie.

Considering what I’d been through in my life, it seems entirely implausible to suggest that I went into this proposition innocently. But I could not have possibly predicted the series of events that would unfold, like a Joe Orton plot.

A limousine driver met me at the airport and drove me to Burt’s pad, where I was greeted by an ebullient Reilly, who had placed fresh flowers in my room, next to a copy of a book about Ruth Draper, the famous monologist.

The first several days were fabulous. He’d go off to rehearsal and I’d lounge around the house, looking at the Dinah Shore paintings on every wall, or lie on the beach and imagine Burt and Sally (Field) lying in the exact same spot. In the evening, we’d have dinner and spend a few minutes discussing the play and/or the book.

I’ll admit that I also had plans for the two of us. I had the first draft of Pickett’s new play,
Dream Man, and
wanted Reilly to direct it.

“Why don’t you read it to me?” he suggested one evening. As I read the piece, equally dark and hilarious, I could sense his unease as he adjusted his glasses about three or four hundred times and made wordless grunting and gurgling sounds.

“Are you kidding?” he shrieked, after I finished. “No one wants to hear that crap. It’s pornography—that’s what it is.” He was doing his best version of the flabbergasted fop, literally spitting out the words of indignation.

While the subject matter was not dissimilar to the themes inherent in the prospective book and show he was purportedly planning, the play was Too Gay. Too real, too authentic, too fucking much for someone who was a product of the Hollywood machinery that practices homophobia in the same way that it practices cosmetic surgery.

Reilly and a slew of his contemporaries who were known to be gay made careers out of playing castrated clowns. As long as they didn’t fall into the leading-man department, their fruitiness was not only tolerated—it was a commodity; the eunuch with a punch line.

In startling contrast, the character that Pickett created in
Dream Man
was drawn without a trace of camouflage. Written in purple prose,
Dream Man
was red hot with sinewy language and spectacular sensuality. The character may have been sardonic and silly and even a bit effete at times, but he was always, as the title suggests, a man. With balls, honey.

Reilly was as attracted to my gayness as he was repelled by it. It was a classic love/hate duet. For the next two days, leading to my departure, Reilly took every possible opportunity to hatefully demean me—from the way that I dressed to the way that I cleaned a cake knife, nothing was off limits. He also unleashed a thesaurus of descriptive words that reflected hustler: manipulator, narcissist, user, grifter.

On the morning that I was scheduled to leave, he began pounding on the door to “my room” with such force that I thought it would split into smithereens. After the percussive hissy fit, he shouted, “The limo is on the way.” It was hours before my scheduled flight, but I scrambled to get ready. When the doorbell rang, I thought I’d be able to escape without any additional confrontation. Creeping up behind me as I opened the front door, he whispered in my ear, “What is the limousine driver’s name?” referring to the limo driver I’d met only once, a week prior.

“I don’t know,” I said over my shoulder, as I lifted my suitcase and headed for the car.

“Aha!” he shrieked. “That proves how unappreciative you are, how self-centered. A user. User, user, user.”

He was then standing on the majestic entryway to the Reynolds’ estate, wearing a pumpkin orange caftan, without the trademark hairpiece, so that tufts of wild wispy hair framed his bald head. Nonplussed, the driver rolled up the windows as we pulled away while the sad clown continued to squawk.

The clincher to the story was that he changed my plane ticket from tourist to first class. Was he drunk? Since I never witnessed him taking a drink, I honestly don’t know. I will say that he was monstrous, truly monstrous. Changing that plane ticket only confirmed the pathology.

After I returned to L.A., I began rehearsing for
Dream Man
, embarking on a journey that was magical, truly magical. It would take me places, literally and figuratively, where I’d never ventured.

CHAPTER 32
               

“Mr. Hudson is suffering from anorexia nervosa,” Ross Hunter lied to the media, standing in the shadows of the ailing actor’s estate. That announcement—made with a straight face, as it were—sent shock waves through my system, giving birth to my role as an activist. The degree of anger I experienced would motivate me for years to come.

Hunter was the director of Rock’s greatest romps with Doris Day (
Pillow Talk
and
Lover, Come Back
) and obviously took his job—to make Hudson believably heterosexual, onscreen and off—with somber seriousness.

While Hudson lay dying of AIDS, which had been widely reported, Hunter pathetically continued to attempt covering up for his gay leading man. Every homophobic act that had been perpetrated upon Hollywood was summed up by Hunter’s refusal to divulge the truth. Two truths, in fact: Hudson was gay and dying of AIDS.

Like the son who has to deliver the news of his diagnosis as well as his sexual orientation to his parents, this was a double whammy that Hollywood would be forced to acknowledge. But there was resistance and not only from the duplicitous Ross Hunter.

The media wanted the response of “Hollywood’s openly gay actor.” I vociferously castigated Hollywood on ABC’s
Nightline
while offering a somewhat softer analysis to
People
magazine: “I have this fantasy. Tomorrow they discover a cure for AIDS and Hudson recovers. I wonder, would he be ostracized from the business? Would he be relegated to playing screaming queens? Or would he simply be allowed to continue his career as an openly gay actor? Would he simply be respected?”

My responses to Hudson’s death didn’t end there. Yes, I was angry that his handlers couldn’t dignify his demise by telling the truth. In the midst of Ross Hunter’s denials, there were reported deathbed acts of valour which were obvious sound bites fabricated by the image makers.

The feeling that eclipsed all of the others was a deep sorrow. I flashed back to our brief dance. Hudson’s life was a tragic one, played out in an atmosphere that obliterated much of his authentic self. I prayed that his death would not be in vain.

Oozing with queer authenticity, actors David Stebbins and Joe Fraser had fallen crazily in love when they both appeared in Chesley’s
Night Sweat
and Ranson’s
Warren
. Our shared links to both of those playwrights would cement our bond. When I read Chesley’s
Jerker
for the first time, I was paralyzed by the time I reached the final scene. Never had I experienced such a reaction to a piece of theater. I was sitting, outside in the sunshine, on a lounge chair, and as I closed the script and attempted to stand up, I couldn’t. It was as if I’d been frozen in an abyss of emotion.

The idea of Joe and David playing the characters who fall in love over long-distance lines was ignited, to some extent, by their offstage chemistry. Not only were they both in their thirties and hot, but thank God they could act.

I had begun touring in
Dream Man
and, thanks to Rebecca, I had a gig in Atlanta. Not only would I perform the role of the phone hustler; I would open the evening playing the tortured bartender, John, in Pickett’s
Bathhouse Benediction
. While in the process of studying the new role that I was taking on, I received word that my father had died.

The nurse I spoke to told me that during his final days, he would watch the television and identify every male actor who appeared on the screen as his son. “There’s Mike,” he’d say. “That’s my son.” It didn’t matter what the TV actors looked like; he saw me in every one of them. “That’s my boy,” he’d tell anyone within earshot. The irony of his mania, considering that he had never once come to see me in a play, was strangely comforting. In the end, he did know that I existed, confirmed by multiple versions of me “visiting” him as he lay dying.

Determined not to let the freshness of my feelings fade, I rushed to the theater after getting the news. John, the character I was about to play, was also dealing with the death of his father, so I would explore John’s feelings while simultaneously dealing with my own. Life marries art.

Joe and David, along with Pickett, came with me to Atlanta and the first reading of
Jerker
took place in Rebecca’s backyard. This was quite a trajectory from the theatrics I had concocted in the backyard of my childhood. To suggest that the play was shocking was only part of a larger context. The title not only referred to the dirty talk scenes of masturbation but also subliminally defined the play’s genre: tear jerker. Response to the raw reading was uncommonly enthusiastic, confirming that Joe and David were destined to create the roles of the star-crossed lovers.

Before leaving Atlanta, I was asked to speak at a gay church that was doing a tribute to Atlantans who had died of AIDS. I remembered that John Austin, my high school hero, lived in Atlanta, and not very long into the list, somewhere between Adams and Ayers, I heard his name. John Austin. I knew it was him.