Amanda LePore – The WOW Report

Granger

July 1, 1925– Farley Granger:

“I never felt the need to belong to any exclusive, self-defining or special group. I find it difficult to answer questions about “‘gay life” in Hollywood when I was living and working there. There were, of course, gay cliques, but I had no close friends who belonged to any of them, and I had no desire to become involved with any of them . . . I was never ashamed, and I never felt the need to explain or apologize for my relationships to anyone.”

I recently was sacked out on my sofa as I watched back-to-back Hitchcock films on TCM. I thought I had seen all of Alfred Hitchcock’s Hollywood films, and most of his British silent films and early talkies, but I had somehow missed Marnie from 1964. I finally watched this movie in amazement and afterwards I felt I needed to put together a post on my impressions of this nutty psychological thriller about a frigid and fragile person, who is raped by Sean Connery, but then I thought: “Why, when I live it every day?” Immediately following Marnie, I caught Rope (1948). I am always up for a little Farley Granger.

Granger had a career on stage and on screen from the early 1940s into our new century. He is especially noted for starring in a pair of films Hitchcock with legendary homosexual subtext: Rope and Strangers On A Train (1951).

His first starring role in They Live By Night (1948), directed by bi-sexual Nicholas Ray, is probably my favorite of his film performances. Granger’s sensitive portrayal of a bank robber on the lam grabbed the attention of Hitchcock. While preparing to shoot Rope, a film inspired by the notorious Leopold and Loeb murder case, Hitchcock had the great idea to cast Granger. He chose as Granger’s co-star, John Dahl, whose gayness was also well known in Hollywood. They play a pair of affluent young men who set out to commit a “prefect murder” just for the thrill.

The two characters sexuality is never made explicit in the film, but the relationship between the young men has an extra strong dose of homoerotic subtext, skillfully sewn together by Hitchcock and his actors. The film is famous for its continuous, uninterrupted 10-minute takes, the amount of time a reel of Technicolor film lasted. It was a difficult feat and Hitchcock ran into numerous technical problems which frequently brought the action to a halt throughout the short 21 day shoot. I find Rope to be a brilliant film, and not just as a technical marvel. It is probably Hitchcock’s talkiest movie. It also seems underappreciated by film fans, never on any list of Hitchcock’s greatest, but the time is long overdue for it to be appreciated as a masterpiece of suspense and art.

Three years after starring in Rope, Granger again worked with Hitchcock in another classic thriller about a perfect murder, Strangers On A Train, based on the first novel by acclaimed lesbian writer Patricia Highsmith, author of The Talented Mr. Ripley and a series of other Ripley books, plus the groundbreaking romance novel The Price of Salt, adapted to film as Carol (2015). Hitchcock was dissatisfied with the end result of Strangers On A Train, but it proved to be an unlikely box-office hit and the first major success of Granger’s career. It remains one of my favorite of Hitchcock’s films.

Granger had affairs with both men and women. Unlike most other actors who were gay or bisexual, Granger refused to get married just to keep film fans off-guard. When producer Samuel Goldwyn took him to task for dating gay composer Aaron Copland, Granger declared:

“Copland is one of the most important composers in America and a gentleman. I met him at this studio when you hired him to write the score for The North Star. I’m not going to be told who I can or cannot see in my private life.”

Granger had flings with Leonard Bernstein, writer Arthur Laurents, and actor Robert Walker, and he remained close friends with all three of them until each of their deaths. I like that. I remain friends with most of my liaisons. It’s so civilized.

In 1995 Granger was one of the actors interviewed for Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman’s ground-breaking documentary The Celluloid Closet (1995), discussing the depiction of homosexuality in film, in particular, Rope and Strangers On A Train.

“I never hid. I never considered myself in the closet. When I had my relationship with Arthur Laurents during the filming of Rope, all of my friends knew about it. We went out to dinner together and went to parties together. It was the crowd we hung out with – it was a New York music and theatre crowd. None of those people cared a fig about whom you were having sex with.”

Granger was a profoundly good-looking guy and an actor of considerable range and style: Broadway, films, musicals, light comedies, dramas and film noir. He made more than 50 films and he worked in a dozen Broadway shows, plus daytime soap operas on television. Laurents:

“As striking as Farley’s looks were, he seemed unaware of them. Once you knew him, what you marveled at was his sweetness. He was generous with praise for his peers and with presents for friends, as though he himself wasn’t enough to give.”

Granger (L) with Calhoun and dogs in 1972. Photograph courtesy of Farley Granger

I find him to be the epitome of how to age with class and distinction. He was in a 49 year romantic partnership with producer Robert Calhoun who left this world in 2008. The couple lived in the same Greenwich Village apartment for all those decades. I said hello to them once on a spring day in 1977 when I was on my way to an acting class at HB Studios. The three of us chatted on the sidewalk for a moment about acting schools. He mentioned that he had also studied at the Actors Studio along with his BFF Shelly Winters. At the time he was in his early 50s, and I must say, Granger was just about the handsomest man I had ever laid eyes on.

You really should read Granger’s dishy memoir, deliciously titled Include Me Out (2007).

“I looked forward to the time when I could be myself. And, that’s how I have lived and still continue to live my life. Fortunately, it has been many years since I felt the need to be secretive.”

Granger took his final bow in the same week as Elizabeth Taylor in spring of 2011.

July 2, 1984– John Garvin Weir:

“Love myself I do. Not everything, but I love the good as well as the bad. I love my crazy lifestyle, and I love my hard discipline. I love my freedom of speech and the way my eyes get dark when I’m tired. I love that I have learned to trust people with my heart, even if it will get broken. I am proud of everything that I am and will become.”

In February 2014, I was in my fourth month of cancer treatment. I don’t know if you kids are savvy to the ways of chemotherapy. I hope you never have to experience this wonder of the medical world. I did lose 50 pounds on the Amazing Cancer Diet, but it left me without strength, appetite, libido or interest in the subjects I love the most: television, books, films, music, whiskey, and shirtless male film stars. I was on a morphine drip and I initially I thought the drugs were making me hallucinate because each day I would turn on the television to catch the Winter Olympic Games in Sochi, Russia because I have always had a grade A Olympic fever. There on the screen were Johnny Weir and Tara Lipinski all dressed up in the craziest outfits, giggling their way through some sort of skating commentary. I felt like I was off my rocker. It could not possibly be real.

The two-time Olympian Weir spent each day of those Winter Olympics in Russia hurling fairy dust and sequins in Vladimir Putin’s homophobic face while announcing the figure skating for NBC Sports. I really did think that I might be hallucinating as this transcendent couple babbled on about flutzes, death spirals and camel-toes while providing the very best possible fashion show.

It seems nutty to me, but Figure Skating’s gay angle is rarely publicly discussed in the sports world or its commentary. It has been complicated long before Weir came on the scene. Who would have guessed that there were homo skaters? Weir didn’t come out of the closet until he had left the sport. So when Weir, who, at the time, was married to a man of Russian descent, was on television behaving as flamboyantly gay as he pleased in Sochi, his implied political message was as brave as it was fun.

When Weir competed in the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver BC, he was made to endure many derogatory comments about his implied gayness and even the question of his gender. Some sports writers speculated that Weir did not receive a medal that year, even with excellent technical scores, because of his crazy costume and music choices, and his on the ice attitude. Weir responded:

“I’ve heard worse in bathrooms. I don’t want 50 years from now more young boys and girls to have to go through this sort of thing.”

But he wasn’t always so forthright. In 2006, Weir stated:

“I don’t feel the need to express my sexual being because it’s not part of my sport & it’s private. I can sleep with whomever I choose and it doesn’t affect what I’m doing on the ice.”

In January 2011, he changed his position:

“With people killing themselves and being scared into the closet, I hope that even just one person can gain strength from my story. In a sexual way, I’m gay.”

In his memoir Welcome To My World (2011) Weir writes:

“I’m not ashamed to be me. More than anyone else I know, I love my life & accept myself. What’s wrong with being unique? I am proud of everything that I am and will become.”

About the controversy over his decision to work at the Sochi Games rather than join a boycott:

“I risk jail time just going there, but the Olympics are not the place to make a political statement. I’m not a politician and I don’t really talk about politics. You don’t have to agree with the politics, but you have to respect the culture of a country you are visiting.”

“It’s pretty obvious that I’ve been gay my whole life. I don’t need to break any laws or wear a rainbow pin to show people that I support gay rights. I think I’ll do that just by being in Sochi and supporting our people there & letting them know they are not alone.”

“The gay community has not reacted well to me because some people think it’s my responsibility to be an activist. They’re expecting me to hate Russia because I haven’t been given equal rights in Russia. If it’s good enough for Elton John, it’s good enough for me. Every country’s going to have its issues.”

Weir has provided some of his own choreography for his routines and designed his own skating costumes, plus he has designed Ice Dancing costumes for Melissa Gregory and Denis Petukhov, along with costumes for skaters Oksana Baiul and Yuzuru Hanyu.

In 2010 Weir started his own fashion label, Be Unique. He has appeared in fashion spreads for Vanity Fair and Vogue, and he has walked the runway in shows for the fashion label Heatherette. He has been a terrific, smart and entertaining guest judge on World Of Wonder’s own RuPaul’s Drag Race.

Photograph from NBC Sports

Weir and Lipinski have continued on as NBC Sports correspondents, and perhaps most importantly, they continue with the over-the-top fashion that you just have to see to believe. The last time I saw the fun couple was at the 143rd Kentucky Derby in May. I was off the morphine, but it still felt like a drug trip. Last summer Weir and Lipinski covered fashion at the Olympics in Rio for NBC Sports. They now host Tara And Johnny, a podcast for NBC Sports, where the duo talks about sports and fashion, of course. Their other NBC duties have included providing commentary for the Super Bowl and the Purina Dog Show.

Weir served as one of Lipinski’s bridesmaids at her wedding to sports producer Todd Kapostasy in Charleston on June 24.

Weir is a World Competition medalist and three-time USA National Champion. I enjoyed getting to know him from his television series show Be Good Johnny Weir (2010-12). If you are still a bit icy about him, check out the documentary Pop Star On Ice (2008).