Lather up, ladies! It’s our weekly roundup of the most SCINTILLATING hunks ON THE PLANET, after the jump!

Nick Jonas shows us his backside filming a music video for the song Voodoo from his new album Last Year Was Complicated

Alexander Skarsgard seen house hunting in Los Angeles

Wilmer Valderrama – who just keeps getting hotter and hotter – arrives at Dave Grutman’s wedding at the Wynwood Walls in Miami

Those lips! Those eyebrows! That alabaster skin! Logan Lerman spotted on the set of Sidney Hall filming at a Downtown Brooklyn Park.

Ginger bae Prince Harry attends the Service of Commemoration and Thanksgiving at Westminster Abbey as UK marks Anzac Day centenary, London

Daddy lover Matt Damon on the set of his new movie Downsizing

(Photos: Pacific Coast News)

The post Hunks Du Jour: Wilmer Valderrama! Alexander Skarsgard! Nick Jonas! And MORE! appeared first on The WOW Report.

RuPaul’s DragCon 2016 is fast-approaching! May 7th and 8th! DO YOU HAVE YOUR TICKETS YET?

Every day between now and then, we’re going to be highlighting a wowlebrity that will be in attendance! Today, were have the lovely and talented Kelly Mantle.

KELLY MANTLE is an entertainer extraordinaire. Whether she’s singing live, lip syncing & dancing, or brandishing her sardonic comedy as an emcee, her high-energy shows captivate audiences worldwide and leave them wanting more.

Audiences will immediately recognize Kelly from season six of RuPaul’s Drag Race. But this isn’t her first time on TV. Kelly has been a working actor (in and out of drag) in Hollywood for the past ten years with a list of credits longer than her legs.

Kelly is also a singer, songwriter, and musician. To date, Kelly has recorded three albums, which have been hailed by critics everywhere: Ever Changing, Rock N Glow, and Satellite Baby. Kelly’s cover & video of “My Neck, My Back” has won over thousands of viewers on YouTube, including the song’s originator, Khia.

Kelly performs with the band, Tranzkuntinental, which includes fellow Drag Racers Willam Belli & Detox. Kelly also performs with Tammie Brown in a band called The Rollz Royces.

Kelly grew up in Oklahoma like her uncle, the late great Mickey Mantle. (Yep…Kelly’s a switch-hitter too.) Kelly received a B.F.A. in Theatre from the University of Oklahoma. Kelly is also a graduate of Second City in Chicago. Which means she’s funny. The End.

Follow Kelly on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook.

Watch the video for her single “Keyboard Courage”

And her instantly iconic post-elimination song “Eliminated”:

The post RuPaul’s DragCon 2016: Meet Kelly Mantle! appeared first on The WOW Report.

It’s an all-new Fashion Photo RuView! This week the queens serve not one, not two, but THREE looks on the runway of the main stage on RuPaul’s Drag Race and of course Raja and Raven are here to ‘Toot & Boot’ the looks.

The post RuPaul’s Drag Race Fashion Photo RuView: RuPaul Book Ball appeared first on The WOW Report.

Avan Jogia, the handsomest man on the planet (with the best hair on the planet)(not negotiable), has written and directed a three-part short The Last Teenagers of the Apocalypse. The plot?

“Grim (played by Landon Liboiron – the humpy werewolf from Hemlock Grove) has just died. He’s thrown into purgatory and suffers from amnesia as he tries to understand his situation. He’s guided by his guardian angel Neon (Carlson Young) while also being haunted by Bones (Avan Jogia) who is trying to collect his mortal soul. Also, Instagram won’t refresh.”

Watch episodes 1 and 2 below:

Slightly corny, but OH THOSE BOYS!

Episodes 3 and 4 come out next week.

The post Digital Shorts OTD: Last Teenagers of the Apocalypse appeared first on The WOW Report.

If you need any proof that mankind is regressing as a species then, well, you probably need to pay more attention to the world. Take a look at these signs for instance, compiled by Bored Panda. They shouldn’t need to exist. But they do. Why? Because humans are getting stupider, that’s why. Well, either that or sign-makers are getting funnier. Perhaps it’s a bit of both. Who knows. Whatever the truth of the matter, all we know is that they’re pretty funny. And as long as we have our sense of humor then there is surely hope for mankind. Although Darwin might disagree. (via Bored Panda)

The post #CaptainObvious: 21 Signs that Humanity Is Devolving appeared first on The WOW Report.

TMZ is reporting that Santa Clara County Sheriff’s deputies are on the Apple campus in Cupertino, CA, investigating a “possible suicide.”

According to the sheriff’s dispatch call there was a female employee involved in an argument on the campus — and she was being escorted out by security when she sustained a head wound … possibly from a gunshot.

As deputies were responded, they were unclear if there were multiple people involved. One portion of the dispatch exchange describes a body being found in a conference room, and that person had a gun.

Story developing…

UPDATE:

11:42 PM PST — A Sheriff spokesperson says the person found dead was a Hispanic male who worked at Apple … there was no one else involved. It’s still unclear why officers said there was a female with a head wound in the dispatch audio.

The post Breaking News: Body Found at Apple HQ appeared first on The WOW Report.

This year, the screenings at RuPaul’s DragCon are a freakin’ doozy! There will be three movie screenings with Q&A sessions! First up is Jawbreaker with a Q&A following with director Darren Stein and one of the film’s stars Rebecca Gayheart and will be hosted by cinefile Peaches Christ. Then we have a screening of Gregg Araki‘s Mysterious Skin featuring a Q&A with Gregg following the film. After that, there’s a screening of the WOW and Blue Oyster Films produced film Dressed As A Girl and it will be followed with a Q&A with director Colin Rothbart and stars Amber Waze, Holestar, and John Sizzle. All this AND a special screening of Viva!

Jawbreaker

17 years ago, she killed the teen dream in the 90’s and we’re still dealing with it today. Get out your brightest crop top and join us for a special screening of the cult classic Jawbreaker followed by a Q&A hosted by Peaches Christ with Rebecca Gayheart and the remarkable director Darren Stein.

Mysterious Skin

From the director of The Doom Generation, Totally Fucked Up, and The Living End, we’re pleased to announce an intimate screening of the poetic and transcendent filmMysterious Skin. Stick around after for a special Q & A with the poignant and incomparable director Gregg Araki.

Dressed As A Girl

UK director Colin Rothbart in his feature film debut rips off the wigs and wipes away the mascara to find the real people behind the figureheads of East London’s much-hyped alternative drag scene. Following in the tradition of Paris Is Burning and The Cockettes, DRESSED AS A GIRL paints a compelling London portrait that pulls audiences beyond the performances into a mesmerising and previously inaccessible underworld.

Filmed over six years and following six cult stars as they swim against the tide (Jonny Woo, Holestar, Scottee, Amber Waze, Pia Arber and John Sizzle). The film follows the literal highs and graphic lows of this popular tribe, revealing the personal struggles of each heroine. Dressed as a Girl demonstrates how the power of friendship can ensure survival against all odds, and how individualism is a group activity. These radical, iconic, players come together to form a sturdy house of cards, and no matter how high the tide is – there’s always a laugh to be had.

Screening will be followed by Q&A with director Colin Rothbart and cast members Amber Waze, Holestar, John Sizzle

Viva

VIVA stars Héctor Medina as Jesus, a young hairdresser working at a Havana nightclub that showcases drag performers, who dreams of being a performer himself. Encouraged by his mentor, Mama (Luis Alberto García), Jesus finally gets his chance to take the stage. But when his estranged father Angel (Jorge Perugorría) abruptly reenters his life, his world is quickly turned upside down. As father and son clash over their opposing expectations of each other, VIVA becomes a love story as the men struggle to understand one another and reconcile as a family. VIVA was a hit at the 2015 Telluride Film Festival, and is Ireland’s entry for the Best Foreign Film Academy Award this year.

The post 9 Days to RuPaul’s DragCon: Screenings of ‘Jawbreaker,’ ‘Mysterious Skin,’ ‘Dressed As A Girl,’ and ‘Viva’! appeared first on The WOW Report.

Yesterday, I posted a sickening line-up of 60 cameos and behind-the-scenes shots of the new Ab Fab movie and TODAY we get a first look at what the movie holds; London, glamor, stars galore and one embarrassing situation after the next. It features just a few of the other big names I didn’t mention yesterday like: Jon Hamm, Rebel Wilson, Cara Delivingne, Kim Kardashian West, Joan Collins, Dawn French, Jerry Hall, Emma Bunton, and Eddie’s old fave, Lulu.

Pats and Eddie leave London to a place where “everyone’s a criminal” – the French riviera – and hatch a plan to make their escape permanent. Watch.

(T/Y Tad; via Towleroad)

The post #FirstLook: The Full Trailer is Here & It’s ABSOLUTELY FABULOUS!! Watch. appeared first on The WOW Report.

World of Wonder: It’s not just drag queens, party monsters, and cut-throat real estate agents!

Three WOW cult classics – Chopped Off: The Man Who Lost His Penis, The Perfect Penis, and The World’s Biggest Penis – have been repeating on UK C4 and doing very well, and winning over a whole new generation of viewers.

Knob, dick, tool, John Thomas, spam javelin, schlong, the sergeant with the one blue stripe who loves to stand to attention: You’d be surprised how little you know about the skin chimney. Although many men may brag, people rarely talk about the little chap. In this unique trilogy of frank documentaries we examine the myths, the realities and the stories behind the last taboo.

Watch clips from the shows below.

Chopped Off: The Man Who Lost His Penis

Chopped Off: Then Man Who Lost His Penis – What happened to John Wayne Bobbitt after he got sliced and diced? It’s been a long road for John Wayne since 1993, when his Ecuadorian wife, Lorena, took a Ginsa knife to his manhood in the middle of the night, driving off with his severed penis and chucking it in a field. Police managed to retrieve the thing and surgeons re-attached little John to big John. And then John Wayne ‘Frankenpenis’ Bobbitt’s story really began. This is a tale with many twists: from porn career (‘Frankenpenis’) to failed stand up comedian); a brief stint as a minister in a Las Vegas church; limo driver for a brothel; a prison sentence and a botched penis enlargement. This documentary hangs out with man with the world’s most talked about penis and discovers that even now, as a simple furniture removal man, his life is as dramatic as ever.

The Perfect Penis

The Perfect Penis – In search of perfection, by any means necessary. For some men, bigger – whether by mechanical, herbal or surgical means – will always be better. This film meets the men desperate for extreme surgery to give them what nature hasn’t, and those for whom the unregulated world of penis enlargement surgery has produced agonising results. In Moscow a pioneering Russian surgeon shows us an enlargement operation that sees the penis grafted on to the human arm, and which he hopes to market as the new “cure” for small men everywhere. And, just when you thought it was safe to unzip your trousers, meet the man with a truly enormous penis for whom bigger can never be big enough.

The World’s Biggest Penis

The World’s Biggest Penis – the bittersweet gift of having what every man wants! No doubt about it, society celebrates the big penis. Seen as a sign of adequacy, virility and manliness, those lucky enough to be well endowed are heralded by both sexes and all sexualities. As women have always maintained, and men have always thought, size matters, but not in the way that most of us imagine. Sometimes having a Big Johnson is a bigger problem than you’d guess. The World’s Biggest Penis reveals there is a bittersweet side to nature’s gift, lifting the veil on a taboo subject and showing the reality of what it’s like to have what all men dream of.

FABULOUS! Wasn’t that fun? Every week, we plan to bring you classic WOW treasures from the vault! Stay tuned for MORE!

The post Penis Post! Penis Post! Exclusive Clips from the WOW Trilogy “Penis Envy” appeared first on The WOW Report.

The seventh annual Turner Classic Movies Film Festival, opens today in Los Angeles taking over several venues in Hollywood. A few of the movies at the festival provide a look at the time when homosexuality could not be spoken of, or a little later, when it could be spoken of, but only negatively. According to The Advocate, The Closet on Celluloid is a particularly interesting segment,

Tea and Sympathy (above), from 1956, is about a young man (John Kerr) bullied for being “sensitive” and the older woman (Deborah Kerr) who takes it upon herself to prove he’s not gay. Darryl Hickman, who played John Kerr’s roommate, will be in the house for the film, showing at 2 p.m. Friday at the Chinese Multiplex.

Private Property is a noirish 1960 entry, also involves a man trying to prove his heterosexuality, with Warren Oates and Corey Anderson as drifters who try to seduce a beautiful woman. It’s on at 5:15 p.m. Friday at the Chinese Multiplex. In a different vein is an earlier noir with supernatural touches, 1947’s Repeat Performance, with Joan Leslie, usually an ingenue, in a more serious role as an actress who kills her unfaithful husband (Louis Hayward) but wants the universe to grant her a do-over. Richard Basehart, in his film debut, has a supporting role as a maybe-gay poet. Catch it Friday at 10 p.m. at the Egyptian.

And 1954’s All That Heaven Allows features not a closeted character but a closeted star — Rock Hudson — in a tale that served as at least partial inspiration for out director Todd Haynes’s Far From Heaven. Hudson romances older woman Jane Wyman, despite her family’s disapproval, under the direction of Douglas Sirk. See it at 9:45 a.m. Sunday at the Chinese Multiplex, with indiefilmmaker Allison Anders providing commentary.

For more info, check out TCM’s lineup here.

(T/Y Tad; via The Advocate)

The post #LGBTQ: TCM’s 2016 Festival Features a Look Inside “The Closet on Celluloid” appeared first on The WOW Report.

Last weekend, Mario Licato met some friends for lunch, went to a friend’s apartment in Brooklyn for the afternoon and around 8PM he took the F train to go to the Lower East Side. He got off the train at Delancey Street and, well, he told Gothamist,

“I was walking up the stairs. I had my head down—there were people in front of me—just to make sure I wasn’t going to fall.

I didn’t even see the guy. I just see his fist coming towards me. It knocked me, and while I was falling down the stairs, all I hear was, ‘This is because you look exactly like Shia LaBeouf!‘”

Licato lost consciousness when he landed at the bottom of the stairs, and when he came to his face was covered in blood, his glasses broken and a couple rushed to his aid and asked him,

“Did you know that guy?”

The couple, according to Licato, described the attacker as in his mid-20s, 6 foot to 6-foot-3, and muscular, kinda like a frat boy. Licato says he know the guy. The LaBeouf hater, as Licato says witnesses recounted, was running down the stairs when he punched Licato and kept going, then boarded a train.

“I was so confused. I was even more confused because I got up and I was like, am I crazy or did I hear him say, “This is because you look like Shia LaBeouf?“

And they were like,

“Nope. That’s exactly what he said as he was running away from you.“

The couple called 911 and helped Licato up the stairs to the sidewalk to wait for an ambulance. One arrived within minutes, but Licato says the emergency medical technicians who stepped out weren’t exactly comforting.
They got out of the car and the first EMT guy, while I’m gushing blood from my face, with my broken glasses, just says,

“Welcome to New York, buddy.“

My response was,

“Well, fuck you, I’m born and raised here. Are you kidding me? You’re standing in front of somebody who’s bleeding out of their face and that’s your first response?“

The EMTs checked him for a concussion and cops arrived, and Licato says they were helpful. And what about Licato’s resemblance to LaBeouf? Has he gotten that before?

“So many times. That’s why I knew I wasn’t that crazy. I got it three years ago. I’ve been stopped on the street before, at least 10 times in my life.

I wanna know what Shia LaBeouf did to him. What did Shia LaBeouf do to him that he punched somebody that looks like him? He must have did something so mean. Did he steal his girlfriend? Did he just see his last performance art piece?“

We’ll never know. But apparently Shia LaBeouf felt bad for the guy and left him a voicemail. Licito told Esquire,

“[Shia] left me a voicemail yesterday morning… it was a pretty long voicemail. He was like,

“Hey, this is Shia LaBeouf … I just read an article that you were punched in the face because you look like me?” And he was like, “Aw, man. That sucks. I’m so sorry. But I get it. It’s happened to me before.”

And then he was like, “I don’t know. I wish I was in New York. I’d come bring you soup.” He was just like, “This sucks. I don’t even know what to say. I’m sorry. People are just crazy. Just because you look like me?” I was obviously laughing the whole time. And then he was like, “Here’s my phone number. Don’t give it to anybody. Please, please, call me back. Call me back if you want to. We could chat. Let’s giggle over this. Maybe there’s a silver lining in all this. But call me back.” And then he was like, “And once again, this is Shia LaBeouf, the guy you got hit for looking like. And yeah, man, I’m sorry. I’m just really sorry.” And he was like “Keep your head up, G.” And that was it.”

See, it sucks to be Shia some days (or even look like him) but he’s not a bad guy.

(T/Y Tad; via Gothamist)

The post #NotFunny: Man Sucker-Punched In NYC “Because You Look Exactly Like Shia LaBeouf” appeared first on The WOW Report.

If you happen to be in the Manhattan area tonight, you might want to check out the book signing for wowlebrity Edward Mapplethorpe‘s One: Sons & Daughters in the Rare Book Room at the Strand Book Store. The recently released tome – A 20 YEAR PROJECT! – features the super-expressive faces of one-year-old children, as well as essays by Susan Orlean and Samantha Boardman (who will both be on hand as special guests!).

Details below!

The post TONIGHT: Edward Mapplethorpe Book Signing at the Strand, NYC appeared first on The WOW Report.

On this episode of Oh Pit Crew – Bryce and Jason discuss names for their – ahem – wieners THEN Miles & Jason play in a big bowl of fruit. I guess their mama’s never told them not to play with their food…

The post Oh Pit Crew: Fruit Bowl appeared first on The WOW Report.

Last night marked the beginning of a momentous event. Beyoncé‘s FORMATION WORLD TOUR began in Miami and an incredibly lucky audience got to witness the greatness live and in person. She performed the songs from her new album masterpiece LEMONADE for the first time on stage. So if you’re anything like me, you spent your entire night searching through Twitter for any photos and videos you can find, whether at the gym or cooking dinner at home or in the car or at the grocery store… or was that just me?

Anyway, this tweet pretty much sums up my general idea about what the concert must have been like in person:

When you finally enter the gates of heaven and God is standing right there pic.twitter.com/jJZJnnQDOb

— FORMATION WORLD TOUR (@formationtour16) April 28, 2016

Here are some more clips YOU CAN’T MISS:

Crazy/Bootylicious clip pic.twitter.com/muiE4QA9DC

— FORMATION WORLD TOUR (@formationtour16) April 28, 2016

#FormationWorldTour pic.twitter.com/JPb1bMc9qK

— Formation World Tour (@FormationWT) April 28, 2016

Amazing vid of #FLAWLESS pic.twitter.com/JjpfU7cgLh

— FORMATION WORLD TOUR (@formationtour16) April 28, 2016

BEY dancing to DADDY LESSONS pic.twitter.com/YvliapwNAO

— FORMATION WORLD TOUR (@formationtour16) April 28, 2016

#formation pic.twitter.com/JcpI7nGDya

— FORMATION WORLD TOUR (@formationtour16) April 28, 2016

#FormationWorldTour #Miami pic.twitter.com/AIkR3dThjM

— Formation World Tour (@FormationWT) April 28, 2016

WE’RE NOT WORTHY.

The post The First Night of Beyoncé’s Formation World Tour Looks Basically Like the Inside of Heaven appeared first on The WOW Report.

Tracks on RuPaul’s Drag Race: The Rusical:

1. The Diva Awards
2. Cover Girl
3. Bitch Ball
4. Bitch, I Am From Chicago! f/ Morgan & Mystique [Explicit]
5. Always Wear A Jewel
6. Too Many Daddies
7. Sugar Daddy f/Shangela, Mimi & Mariah
8. Jealous Of My Boogie
9. Pray & Slay
10. Glamazonian Airways Pt. 1 [Explicit]
11. Glamazon
12. Glamazonian Airways Pt. 2
13. Hot In Tuckahoe
14. Not RuPaul’s Best Friends Race! f/ LaShawn & Jiggly [Explicit]
15. Good vs. Evil
16. No, You’re Bulls**t f/ Sharon & Phi Phi [Explicit]
17. Sleepwalker
18. Next Up, Team Ivy Winters f/RuPaul
19. Sugar Babies
20. Rucapella (Bitch Perfect) {Album Only}
21. Why Are You Talking? f/Tyra & Tatianna
22. Eggs f/Ginger & Trixie
23. Cha Cha Heels f/Katya & Kennedy
24. Poo f/Violet, Pearl & Miss Fame [Explicit]
25. Shade: The Rusical f/Cast of Season 6 {Album Only}

The post Attention Squirrelfriends: RuPaul’s Drag Race – The Rusical, Volume 1 The Soundtrack of Your Liiiiiiiiiife Is Available NOW!!! appeared first on The WOW Report.

We don’t want to believe it but The National Enquirer is now saying that “Prince Died of AIDS” and had been preparing for his death “for a while.”

A devout Jehovah’s Witness, prince was diagnosed with the condition six months before his sudden death and his weight is said to have been just 80lbs. He is also alleged to have refused medical treatment, according to the National Enquirer‘s front page story, saying,

“God can cure me.“

According to the shocking story that is now making its way around the world,

“Doctors told Prince his blood count was unusually low and that his body temperature had dropped dangerously below the normal 98.6 degrees to 94 degrees. He was totally iron-deficient, very weak and often disoriented. He rarely ate and when he did, it all came right back up.

His face was yellowish, the skin on his neck was hanging off and the tips of fingers were a brownish-yellow.”

Prince was seen to be making runs to a local pharmacy shortly before his death to pick up treatment for what is believed to have been a painful and severe case of influenza. A source told the National Enquirer,

“We were all just shocked that he came in last night looking so beat. We said, ‘We are praying for you.”

He said, almost under his breath,

“‘Maybe if you prayed for me a year ago it’d be different right now.“

Then he waved and said thanks anyway.

It comes as sources close to the investigation into the circumstances of Prince’s death said he was in possession of prescription painkillers when he passed away. According to CNN and TMZ, the painkillers were found on Prince shortly after his death aged 57 at his home in Minneapolis.

The Enquirer has also claimed that Prince suffered from an addiction to Percoet, which he was using to try and dull his pain during the final stages of his life. L. Londell McMillan, who knew Prince for 25 years and at once point worked as his manager denies this and insists the singer did not have addiction issues.

The National Enquirer claims Prince was diagnosed with HIV back in the 1990s, but it developed into AIDS at the end of last year. A statement from Prince’s family and friend’s issued shortly after his death said it was caused by influenza, an illness which could prove fatal to an AIDS sufferer due to their weakened immune defences.

The Enquirer has surely published plenty of falsehoods and half-truths in the past, but American Media (who owns them) has been sued many times before and their lawyers PROBABLY had a good look at the evidence before they went with this story. Prince’s estate WILL take legal action if this proves to be false… otherwise, you won’t hear a word from them.

Representatives for Prince haven’t yet responded to the allegations and an autopsy is pending. (via Telegraph)

The post Did AIDS Really Kill Prince? appeared first on The WOW Report.

Candis Cayne – trans icon/actress/activist/sidekick to the frequently exasperating Caitlyn Jenner – has booked a guest starring gig on the new NBC drama Heartbeat.

In the episode, titled “Permanent Glitter,” she plays Ava, a trans woman diagnosed with breast cancer. When Dr. Alex Panttiere (Melissa George) recommends an aggressive treatment to save her life, Ava learns that the body she spent a lifetime transitioning into will never be the same.

“The storyline explores the hardships that all cancer patients must face – fear of death and the unknown, and the sometimes crippling uncertainty of what the future holds,” NBC says in a press statement.

“And through the character of Ava, we learn that it’s not a breast, or a scar, or our appearance that defines us, but our inner strength and courage.”

Candis’ episode of Heartbeat airs May 4 at 8/7c on NBC. (via OMGblog)

The post Candis Cayne Lands Role of Trans Woman with Breast Cancer on NBC Medical Drama Heartbeat appeared first on The WOW Report.

In lady reporter Damiana Garcia’s 9-part thriller web series, things really come to a HEAD (as in, a head gets chopped off) in episodes 6 and 7! After spying on Shelby’s disturbing acting class, Steph, Mark and Charlie confront the sinister members of the Shelby Roberts Acting Studio, and the situation quickly escalates to a bloody free-for-all. Be sure to subscribe to the “Pretty Things” channel to not miss the final two episodes, coming soon!

The post Watch Now: “Cult! A Hollywood Story” Episodes 6 & 7 appeared first on The WOW Report.

April 29, 1917– Celeste Holm

I met her once. It was really rather a thrill because I am truly a fan and at the time I was a young, rather berserk, musical theatre fanatic. I was over the moon to meet the original Ado Annie from Oklahoma! (1943). As a film-savvy youthful gay man, my head was simply spinning to be meeting the real Karen, Margo Channing’s best friend in All About Eve (1950), one of my very favorite films.

The occasion of this meeting was upon my being received backstage by actor Betty Garrett after her one-woman show Betty Garrett & Other Songs at the Westwood Playhouse in LA in spring 1976. Garrett had been in my acquaintance for a couple of years, and we had recently been at a very informal outdoor dinner thrown by mutual friends. Garrett offered me her house seats the very next evening. I took her up on the offer. The show was splendid, sparkling and sentimental. Right before her big finish, but before the curtain call, Garrett looked into the house with her hands shielding her eyes from the spotlight and announced, while pointing out to the audience: “My dear friends Celeste & Stephen… I want to see you both in my dressing room in just a few minutes.” I turned to the person next to me, nudged them and whispered: “That’s me she is talking about!  I’m Stephen. I mean, I’m not Celeste.”

So, Academy Award winner and consummate character actor Celeste Home and little curly haired Stephen Rutledge hung out in the small dressing room while Garrett got out of costume and make up. Holm and I made small talk and loudly praised Garrett’s show. I heaped some praise on Holm’s stage performance in the musical Mame which I had seen her perform the title role in 1968.

Unbelievable to me now, I declined an offer from this pair of amazing stars from Hollywood’s Golden Era to move on to another party as a trio. Instead, I would opt to go to Studio One in West Hollywood. I was hoping that some hot guy would shove that little brown bottle under my nose, that would make me feel all sexy and really connected with the thumping music and that he might then take me home with him. I did meet a beefy redhead that evening. He took me back to his place in Venice Beach, used me for my considerable talents and then made me breakfast. I came to a fork in the road and I made the wrong decision. I could have partied away all evening with the woman who introduced the world to the showstopper I Can’t Say No, but instead I took the fork that might have got me forked.

Holm told me this story: She was nominated for an Oscar for a film she made with Miss Loretta Young, Come To The Stable, in which they both played nuns! Young had become quite pious after having given birth to Clark Gable‘s love child (talk about virgin birth, she adopts her own daughter) and she had announced to the cast and crew that there would no swearing or strong language on the set of the nun flick. Young had set up a penalty box for anyone who dared break her rules. If anyone slipped and used a “fuck” or a “shit”, they were required to place a dime in the box, with the money going to a Vatican charity after the film wrapped. Holm’s good friend Ethel Merman stopped by the set for a visit. Merman took a 10 dollar bill out of her purse and slipped it into the swearword box and for the whole cast and crew on the set to hear, stated:

“There you go Loretta. Now you can go fuck yourself”.

I related this story to a group of young people who I used to supervise here in Portland. Not a single one of them knew of Celeste Holm, Loretta Young, Ethel Merman, or All About Eve… even the gay ones. I hate getting old.

Holm also related:

“I walked onto the set of All About Eve on the first day and said: ‘Good Morning’ to Miss Bette Davis, and do you know her reply? She said: ‘Oh shit, good manners’. I never spoke to her again … ever.”

Holm earned her Academy Award as the knowing voice of tolerance in Gentleman’s Agreement (1947) and went on to a six-decade screen and stage career, frequently cast as the wistful or brittle sophisticate. Her film career flourished. She played a fellow psychiatric patient of Olivia de Havilland’s character in The Snake Pit (1948).

Holm’s most noted roles shared one quality: her characters rarely got the guy. As a smart magazine photographer in the musical High Society (1956), Holm was ignored by her reporter colleague, played by Frank Sinatra who was more interested in the society bride played by Grace Kelly. In The Tender Trap (1955) she marries at the end of the film, only because her 33 year old character felt she was too old and that she better settle or be alone forever. In A Letter To Three Wives (1949), the man she ran away with went back to his wife.

Brooklyn born Holm resided in her native NYC for most of her life. She married five times. She wed her fifth husband, opera singer Frank Basile, on April 29, 2004, her 87th birthday. He was 45 years younger. Sweet!

Holm made more than 100 films beginning in 1946, excellent in dramas, comedies and musicals. She outlived the entire cast of All About Eve, my favorite of her films. She continued to work in theatre and cabaret until her late 80s. Holm took her final curtain call in 2012, shortly after her 95th birthday, a life well lived.

The post #BornThisDay: Actor, Celeste Holm appeared first on The WOW Report.

A small town in Alabama is working on a law that would send you to jail for six months or fine you $500 for peeing in the “wrong” bathroom.

The ordinance says,

Citizens have a right to quite solicitude and to be secure from embarrassment and unwanted intrusion into their privacy… single sex public facilities are places of increased venerability and present the potential for crimes against individuals utilizing those facilities which may include, but not limited to, voyeurism, exhibitionism, molestation, and assault and battery.

Makes no sense. Why aren’t they worried about pervs using the SAME gender’s bathroom? And for the 10,000th time, trans women are women, so it’s NOT men in the women’s room.

All of this seems like nonsense, but laws like this DO pose a threat to LGBT people, not just trans people.

Nevertheless, the bill passed the city council unanimously, so if you’re trans and living in Alabama and want to raise a fuss, why not show up to the next city council meeting, follow someone into the bathroom, and demanding to see some ID? (via Queerty)

The post #LGBTQ: Alabama Town Will Fine You $500 or Give You 6 Months in Jail For Using the “Wrong” Restroom appeared first on The WOW Report.