Amanda LePore – The WOW Report

Photograph from Savage Lovecast via YouTube

October 7, 1964– Daniel Keenan Savage:

“Republicans have brass knuckles on and Democrats don’t. Democrats need to pick up the brass knuckles and play the game that’s actually being played.”

I used to see him around town when we were both doing theatre in Seattle. He was one of the founders and stars of Greek Active, a subversive theatre troupe dedicated to the queering of the classics. I will never forget his Lady Macbeth. I, on the other hand, was chasing mainstream success in Theatre, Film, Television and Advertising, with my eye on fame. Notice who became famous.

Savage was also making waves in Seattle during that era for his drag persona Helvetica Bold and for his outrageous column in Seattle’s new weekly newspaper The Stranger. That column always started with the salutation: Hey, Faggot!.

Activist, writer, editor, archivist, pundit, journalist, sex columnist, joker, provocateur, bestselling award winning author, contrarian, Savage is just my cup of tea. He has a propensity for prepossessing point-blank presumptions, along with reedy, horsey good-looks and the most nimble sense of humor.

This could only have happened in the new century. In 2003, after Rick Santorum, at the time a Senator from Pennsylvania, made comments to a reporter comparing gay sex to bestiality and incest, Savage took on Santorum in his column. He sponsored a contest that led to the term “Santorum”, used to refer to: “The frothy mixture of lube and fecal matter that is sometimes a byproduct of anal sex”. There is nothing so gladdening as the intertwining of a goody-goody puritan and a dashingly droll dirty joke. Years later, go ahead, Google “Santorum”.

He is a hero to me for having created the hugely successful It Gets Better viral video campaign, created as an attempt at stopping gay teenagers from killing themselves, since it seemed like no one else was doing anything about it. The campaign and resulting book actually saved lives. Young gay people are alive right now because they had another point of view from the rhetoric of someone like Savage’s nemesis Santorum. I wonder sometimes, has our Santorum actually saved any lives?

Savage had to live with some of that Internet shaming in spring 2012, after he gave an anti-bullying speech in which he encouraged high school students to: “Learn to ignore the bullshit in the Bible about gay people”. Some students walked out of the auditorium. Savage apologized, but called the walkout “a pansy-assed move”. Savage:

“I wasn’t calling the handful of students who left pansies (2,800+ students, most of them Christian, stayed and listened), just the walkout itself.”

Savage stood by the main point of his speech.

Savage and his husband, Terry Miller, have one adopted son, D.J. Savage. Savage writes about his family in the hilarious The Kid: (What Happened After My Boyfriend And I Decided to Go Get Pregnant) An Adoption Story (2007), which reminds me, Savage is many things, but foremost he remains a biting satirist and comic writer. People who get all shook up about what he says need to have their sense of humor fine-tuned.

Savage grew-up in a Catholic family in Chicago. In a very Chicago kind of way, Savage is a real power player in the world of Seattle politics, speaking out in a way that makes the people in the city take notice.

His life as a kid in Chicago served as the inspiration for ABC’s rather traditional sitcom The Real O’Neals (2015-16) which lasted for two seasons; traditional, except for its realistic but funny depiction of a gay kid, played to perfection by young out actor, Noah Galvin. Savage served as executive producer of the series. Of course, the Christian Right saw the show as the end of civilization. The always charming, unfortunately named Tony Perkins, of the Family Research Council sent a petition to Disney, ABC’s parent company to pull the series. The Christian Mommy group One Million Moms claimed that the show’s “depravity ridicules people of faith, and Christians across America are offended by it”.”Breitbart raged:

“Disney/ABC glorify X-rated bully Dan Savage in prime-time sitcom.”

Last year, before the big Presidential debate, when it was suggested that the Big Orange Thing might bring up Hillary’s husband’s philandering, Savage thoughtfully wrote a rebuttal for the busy Democrat candidate:

“The fact that there have been challenges in my marriage, Donald, isn’t news to anyone. My husband has not always been faithful. That’s true. It’s also not relevant to the question before the American people, and that question is this: which one of us—you or me—should be the next president of the United States… It should go without saying that my husband’s actions have, at times, caused a great deal of pain for me, for our daughter, and for all involved. It should go without saying but here I am saying it, Donald, because you want to talk about affairs. So let’s talk about them. But first I want to say this: I love my husband. He is not perfect. My husband loves me. I am not perfect. We managed to work through the pain and save our marriage, like so many other couples who’ve faced similar challenges, and I’m glad we’re still together… Now let’s talk about affairs.”

Savage has raised $100,000 for organizations opposing POTUS and his policies by selling a clothing and accessories line mocking the “Make America Great Again” slogan. Savage’s company sells sold hats, tee-shirts, buttons, stickers, coffee cups, and other stuff emblazoned with the acronym “ITMFA” for Impeach The Motherfucker Already.

He announced on Instagram that he had “the distinct pleasure” to give the money raised to Planned Parenthood, American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), and the International Refugee Assistance Project (IRAP).

In 2011, Savage was able to purchase, at auction, the writing desk of his early writing idol, advice columnist Ann Landers. The desk is now in Savage’s office in Seattle.

“While it’s highly ironic that the world’s smuttiest advice column will now be written at the same desk where the world’s most mainstream (and most popular) advice column was once written, I intended no disrespect.”

Savage’s HUMP! annual film festival in Seattle and Portland began in 2005. The festival showcases locally produced porn and erotica, and amateur sex movies. The films are rated by the audience, and awards are given. The films are then destroyed before the live audience at the final showing of the festival by Savage. The Seattle HUMP! begins the third week in October and Portland’s is in November.

Today, Savage’s weekly column Savage Love is syndicated in over 60 newspapers, mostly free publications, around the globe. He also produces and hosts the Savage Lovecast podcast.

The Savage-Millers were married in Vancouver, BC, in 2005, the same year and city that The Husband and I got hitched.

“I acknowledge the advantages of monogamy. When it comes to sexual safety, infections, emotional safety, paternity assurances. But people in monogamous relationships have to be willing to meet me a quarter of the way and acknowledge the drawbacks of monogamy around boredom, despair, lack of variety, sexual death and being taken for granted.”

The post #BornThisDay: Actor / Activist, Dan Savage appeared first on The WOW Report.

Photo by Sgt. Michael Connors (public domain), via Wikimedia Commons

October 8, 1949 –Sigourney Weaver:

“I’m no Ripley. I had doubts that I could play her as strongly as she had to be played, but I must say that it was fun exploring that side of myself. Women don’t get to do that very often.”

She was born with the name Susan, but at 14-years-old she decided to change her name to Sigourney, chosen from a minor character in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s landmark novel The Great Gatsby(1925). She felt the name change suited to her increasing height. She was already nearly 6 feet tall.

It must have been tough studying at Yale School Of Drama, being cast only as old women and walk-ons, having your professors tell you that you would have a trouble getting work because of your looks. Add the indignity of having Meryl Streep, in the class behind you, getting all the best roles. Weaver really suffered for her art.

She became buddies with Christopher Durang who was in the playwriting program at Yale. Weaver wanted to break boundaries and she got support from the writers, especially from Durang, for whom she became a muse. She starred in his first Yale show, Darryl And Carol And Kenny And Jenny, where she sang Better Dead Than Sorry while undergoing shock treatment. Weaver would become Durang’s darling, starring in his plays on and off Broadway: from Das Lusitania Songspiel in 1976 to the Tony Award winning Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike in 2013.

“My teachers at Yale said I had no talent and would never get anywhere. I tried! I wanted to work in a flower store or a bakery, but my friends, who were mostly playwrights and directors, kept casting me in plays in New York, so I worked all the time, even though I wasn’t being paid. My dream was to be part of a repertory company and play big parts in one play and little parts in another. I love being part of an ensemble.”

Weaver has a fine Upper East Side pedigree. She went to boarding school in Connecticut. Her famous father was Sylvester “Pat” Weaver, who began an empire at NBC. As president of the company, Weaver created both The Today Show and The Tonight Show. He kind of invented the whole host at the desk/guest on the couch format that is still used on talk shows today. Her mother was the beautiful English actor Elizabeth Inglis who had appeared in Alfred Hitchcock‘s The 39 Steps.

In 1979, Weaver became one of the very first female action stars, certainly the first with true box-office clout, when she played Lieutenant Ellen Ripley, the only woman and the single survivor of a doomed starship crew in the terrifying Alien, Ridley Scott‘s Science Fiction Horror classic. Weaver:

“It had nothing to do with feminism. Men decided to make Ripley a woman for commercial reasons.”

Ripley not only showed off Weaver’s acting skills and physicality, the role helped change how female characters were seen in modern film.

“It was a time when a lot of women in America were taking on these traditionally male jobs such as being in the US Army and Navy, so I think it was a very timely character. I was lucky that the script was all about character and action, as opposed to looking fantastic in an unbelievable outfit. It was such an original and innovative movie, showing space as it might be. Ripley was a woman from that world.”

James Cameron‘s sequel, Aliens (1986), brought back Ripley, but made her more soulful and more explicitly feminist. Remember the famous ad campaign that featured a battle weary Weaver cradling a huge weapon in one arm and a frightened little girl in the other? Her Ripley fought back against a male dominated corrupt corporation that was choking the entire universe, but she had to wear a special outfit called the “power-loader” to do it. 1980s working women could really relate. Speaking of 1980s working women, my own favorite Weaver role is her horrible boss in Mike Nichols‘ Working Girl (1988).

sigourney-weaver-ellen-ripley-to-get-an-ending-in-aliens-covenant

20th Century Fox, via YouTube

Once she got started, Weaver has been able to have a long, varied career on stage, screen and television that has lasted four decades, performing in nearly every genre from Comedies to Sci-Fi to Westerns to Dramas. She has had seven Golden Globe Award nominations, winning as both Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress for playing real life Diane Fossey in Gorillas In The Mist (1988) and for Working Girl, becoming the first person to win two acting Golden Globes in the same year. She has a BAFTA for The Ice Storm (1997), a Tony Award, plus three Academy Award nominations and three Emmy Award nominations.

MGM/UA Archives

I love her in the terrific The Year Of Living Dangerously (1982) opposite a pre-crazy, very hot Mel Gibson. In most of her films, Weaver plays tough, troubled characters.

“I’ve played a lot of women who were quite isolated. I always end up playing these loony women who are very much on their own.”

Weaver also has shown a great sense of the absurd and terrific comic chops in films like the three Ghostbusters flicks (1984, 1989, 2016), Dave (1993) and especially Galaxy Quest (1999).

“I would run a mile to do a comedy. I started out in comedy on stage and it’s my favorite thing to do. I would maybe have liked to have done comedy earlier in my career, but I think Ripley made such an impression it took a long time for someone to trust me with it.”

I certainly think that Weaver qualifies as a Gay Icon and of special interest to her gay fans, aside from her obvious fabulousness, would be her roles in Prayers For Bobby (2009), the true story of gay rights activist Mary Griffith, Jeffrey (1995) Paul Rudnick’s very funny, sweet gay romantic comedy, and as Babe Paley in that other Truman Capote biopic, Infamous (2006), plus there is Avatar (2009), Cameron’s big-budget 3D blockbuster, which I have never seen, but I think she plays some sort of green-skinned lesbian. I also especially admired her work in the limited television series Political Animals (2012) as a divorced former First Lady and current Secretary of State with a bad boy gay son.

“When I look at my career, I’ve followed the same model. I don’t care how big the part is; if it’s a good story and hangs together it’s something I want to be part of, and that’s thrown me into all kinds of projects. For me, it’s all about the story. I’m not saving lives, but I feel there’s something very important about being a storyteller and to give someone a sense of what it is to be someone else.”

1979, 20th Century Fox, via YouTube

She has been married to director Jim Simpson for 33 years. They live together in NYC.

Weaver has created a unique career on stage and in films, especially impressive when decades ago, she was told she’d never get anywhere as an actor. She is a dedicated environmentalist and also serves as spokesman for the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund and on the board of Lawyers Committee For Human Rights.

Up next, The Meyerowitz Stories (New And Selected) directed and written by Noah Baumbach. I love his bittersweet films. In this one, she stars with Adam Sandler, Ben Stiller, Dustin Hoffman, Elizabeth Marvel, Candice Bergen, Adam Driver and Emma Thompson. It was a big hit at this year’s Cannes Film Festival and begins streaming this Friday, October 13, on Netflix. She is currently filming the next two unnecessary sequels to Avatar.

Weaver’s work as an actor and activist is enough to make even Streep jealous.

“Our country is so polarized in so many ways. Parts of this country are really digging in. This is the big battle, and I’m afraid it has not changed. That’s why the Pope saying ‘Let’s love each other’ was so profound. The fact that it’s all still wrapped up in religion and shame, I’m very impatient with our species. I don’t think gorillas in the wild do this. They are superior to us in every way.”