I would have said this was true in his day ,I doubt its true today .
I hope its not the case.

I don't like to think that gay people are being advised to 'keep it quiet', 'live a lie; or 'don't ask don't tell'.
I do like to think that if gay people choose to be open about their sexual orientation they would be able to do so without recriminations or criticism or worse.
Acceptance and tolerance of gay and lesbian people has come a long way, but there is still a long way to go.
I hate the idea of "outing" people against their will, but I admire those who voluntarily choose to come out.
Perhaps Richard Chamberlain is stating the obvious by saying one's career could be made more difficult.
But there are more openly gay actors and actresses than ever these days, whose success and talent is entirely based on their talents and skills and not upon their secual orientation.
The more openness the better I say.

I think it should be a personal choice whether to *come out* or not.... after all  a person's sexual orientation is no one else's business, and I think it is a great shame that, in this day and age, it can still affect a person's chosen career

Silly advice to give it is best to come out of the closet ..so to speak.. actors and boybands have done so and they have been loved even more for being open ..

True ..............I can see this with regard to Boy Bands but - acting is a different ball game I would think. I agree it really shouldn't matter but it's not down to Joe public - it's down to the casting directors. If an actor is openly gay he may well not be first in line for the macho/male roles.

Quite frankly I wouldn't give a toss .........I simply adored Jeremy Sheffield in Holby City and he played a bit of a ladys man - however - when big bucks are at stake in a Hollywood Blockbuster some if not all directors/producers may not be prepared to take the risk.

ellen de generes had her sitcom cancelled when she came out.....she didn't work for ages........her character also 'came out'........it caused wide spread controversy in the states when the episode was aired.......protests and all sorts...the episode was banned from being shown in some places...

We thought a lot of media peeps were pretending to be gay for advantageous business reasons. I'm sure we all suspect faux gay people particularly in the "improving fashion" arena. You can imagine certain personalities sharing dressing areas with young ladies. "yes! I know you are naked and dropped your contact lens. Don't worry about me, just pick it up!" I wish I'd thought of it first.

John Barrowman apparently auditioned earlier in his career for Will and Grace - and didn't get it because they said he seemed "too straight". So they gave the camp, queeny male lead to... a straight man!

Is the Californian Proposition 8 the equivalent of Section 28 in the UK ?

I think its shocking that its even an issue

This is from the IMDB website on their news stories on Brokeback Mountain.

In a decision that elicited considerable surprise but little praise, Oscar voters on Sunday selected Lionsgate's Crash as the best picture of 2005, passing over the favorite, Brokeback Mountain. David M. Halbfinger and David Carr commented in the New York Times that the movie academy "turned its back" on an "unflinching gay love story" and awarded the Oscar to "a moody kaleidoscope of racial confrontation in Los Angeles in which every character is at once sympathetic and repulsive." Tom Shales in the Washington Post wrote that the decision will no doubt produce arguments over "whether the Best Picture Oscar to Crash was really for the film's merit or just a cop-out by the Motion Picture Academy so it wouldn't have to give the prize to Brokeback Mountain." The Boston Globe film critic Ty Burr called the decision "one of the most stunning upsets in Oscar history." His colleague, Wesley Morris, wrote: "The memo from Hollywood seems clear enough. Better to reward the movie about people who clean our closets than the one about the men who live in them." And in a blistering commentary, Los Angeles Times critic Kenneth Turan excoriated the motion picture industry for its choice, claiming that despite the box office success and favorable publicity Brokeback had achieved (he did not mention the numerous awards from critics' organizations) "you could not take the pulse of the industry without realizing that this film made a number of people distinctly uncomfortable. ... In the privacy of the voting booth, as many political candidates who've led in polls only to lose elections have found out, people are free to act out the unspoken fears and unconscious prejudices that they would never breathe to another soul, or, likely, acknowledge to themselves. And at least this year, that acting out doomed Brokeback Mountain." Finally, Turan concluded that Hollywood "likes to pat itself on the back for the good it does in the world, but as Sunday night's ceremony proved, it is easier to congratulate yourself for a job well done in the past than to actually do that job in the present." The reaction was similar from overseas critics. On the Indian website Rediff.com, Aseem Chhabria wrote: "We will never know how many more Academy voters picked Crash over Brokeback. But this much is clear: While Crash is a fine and important film, in choosing Crash over Brokeback, the Academy members showed their conservative, safe and non-controversial side."

I would say it seems that the American's have the casting  problem more than the British..

I loved Brokeback Mountain

Thanks for the news items about Brokeback Mountain El Loro.
How strange that it is the topic of homosexuality which may cause personal difficulties for some of those with power and influence within the film industry. (Although apparently they have no qualms about blood and gore and inhumanity towards mankind.)
The film was a (particularly good) adaptation from the Annie Proulx short story.
It has no reflection on those who made the film. It was a portrayal for goodness sake.
I thought Brokeback was a splendid film and deserved much more recognition.
The only way that it may reflect on those with power and influence within the industry, is that it shows they can be shallow and lack integrity.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Proposition_8_%282008%29

I don't think anyone should be held back because of their sexual preference or gender, but when it comes to acting, I can kind of understand why a gay person wouldn't be cast in a film role that is a love story with a member of the opposite sex.

Films are made and roles are cast to be believable, to draw the viewer in and become immersed in the storyline. If a gay person was cast in a love story with a member of the opposite sex, then I do think it would have an affect on the storyline. I'm not saying it's right, but I just think that's the way it would be. So I can understand why Chamberlain would say that.

Any other professions should have no influence whatsoever on a persons identity.

PeterCat, your link doesn't work on my computer. It just goes to an error page on the Wiki website. But when you get to that error page, if you look at the website address shown in your browser bar, it ends with [2008). If you amend that [ to a ( and press return, then you get to the correct page.

I have found this with some of the Google pages that this forum has problems where the address contains brackets.

Richard Chamberlain is the one in a position to know if it affects a career or not...no-one can therefore say he is wrong in what he says. Its obviously been right for him or he wouldn't have said it.

Well hellair Glad you're back! I'm just off to sort summat, shall be back anon x

I didnt know Richard Chamberlain was gay till i read this, and i am sure he knows what he is talking about. I adored him in The Thorn Birds, and if i had known he was gay then, i dont think the story would have worked as well as it did. I can understand why some gay actors dont come out, but it depends i suppose on what type of roles they wish to follow.      As Karma said  (cant quote)

I quite understand Karma's point (^^^)
but I'm not at all sure that one can have a single hard and fast rule to cover all possibilities.
For instance there is "campness".  If an actor is camp, and if he finds it difficult to subdue it, then he would be unsuitable for a butch role. But they are actors and many actors can turn camp on and off.  Also many straight men are camp.
But the important thing is that they are actors.
They are pretending all the time; that is their job.
They don't have to have killed to play a murderer.
They don't need to have played football to play a footballer.
So the question is 'how good is their pretending?'
For as long as there has been acting I would suggest that many gay actors have played straight men convincingly.  If one can suspend disbelief when  watching someone play a war hero, why can't that same disbelief be suspended when a gay man is playing straight (or vice versa), - provided it is a good performance of course.


Raymond Burr, Richard Chamberlain,  Rupert Everett, Rock Hudson, Tab Hunter, Roddy McDowall, Ramon Novarro, Cesar Romero, Dirk Bogarde, George Maharis, Sal Mineo, George Nader, Derek Jacobi, John Fraser, to name but a few, have, in my opinion, all given convincing performances as heterosexual men. I am sure it is safe to say there are many gay men who remain ostensibly straight. That's real life!
As long as they can pretend convincingly (which after all is what acting is about)  can't see a problem about believeability.


For example the wonderful Russell Tovey utterly convinces me as a straight man even though he is openly gay.
If campness can be suppressed gay should play straight without issues.


Apologies for the length of the post.

I can understand why Richard Chamberlain thinks it is better for male leading actors to stay in the closet, but I do think he is wrong. Things will never change for the better, as long as the majority of gay actors remain in the closet.
Straight actors such as the gorgeous Eric McCormack have played the gay, male lead in Will and Grace, as has Greg Kinnear in As Good As It Gets and Tom Hanks in Philadelphia, so why on earth should gay actors not play straight, male leading roles?!
Surely, in this day and age, an actor should be judged on his acting ability and not on the gender of his sexual partner.

I agree with brisket's post.
Richard Chamberlian strikes me as just bitter, because his career dried up after The Thornbirds. Nothing to do with him being gay, he just wasn't that good..

Demantoid...you have made a good point there, maybe coming out didnt do him any favours, and is perhaps blaming that on him not really getting good roles after that. Plus he is now 76 and its changed days, of course it may be different in the US to which i think he was refererring. We have many gay actors here and i dont think it has affected their careers, John Barroman (sp) springs to mind, he has never hidden the fact he is gay and is successful

The thing that tickles me is that we always knew that Richard Chamberlain was gay anyway, it was fairly obvious,

That was our view Squiggle and being chosen to act as Pyotr Tchaikovsky was a bit of a give away.

I didnt squiggle!  My gaydar didnt pick that up, or maybe i didnt want to listen !

Oh, that is just weird. Thanks for pointing it out, El Loro.

Sorry, Karms, but I think that's rubbish. An actor is, by definition, playing the role of someone they're not. Thus it shouldn't matter who they are irl. After all, we've had enough straight actors playing gay roles, ffs. Whether I "believe" it or not is down to their acting, not who they are.

I quite agree Peter C
You put me to shame, though, because I waste words waffling, while you are succinct.

For what it's worth, I don't think it matters if a gay person plays a straight role or vice verse, as long as they do they're job and act.