Full Article Text
CULTURE
Affairs toremember
Farley Granger bedded Ava Gardner, Shelley Winters,
and Leonard Bernstein. In his autobiography, lnclude
Me Out, Hitchcock's muse reveals how he lived as an
openly bisexual actor in classic Hollywood and got
away with it By Michael Giltzarley Granger isn't coming out.
He's always been out. Frarrkly,
he never found much use for the
closet beyond being a good place
to hang his suits. And if being bi-
sexual doesn't bother him. whv should it
concern anyone else?
Since starring irr two key gay films by Al-
fred Hitchcock, Rope (1948) and Strangers
on a Train (1951), Granger has been a tan-
talizing figure Forthright and open about
sleeping with men as well as women
throughout his career, he has been happily
partnered with TV pro-
ducer Robert Calhoun (As
the World Turns, The
Guiding Light) for the
last 45 years. His new au-
tobiography, Include Me
Out: My Life From Gold.-
wyn to Broadway (St.
Martin's Press), written
with Calhoun, reads with
equal candor about the
industry and his es-
capades.
Its one juicy anecdote
after another: Granger
lived with writer Arthur
Laurents (and walked in
on him being too friendly
with a delivery boy); he
had romps with Ava
Gardner, Barbara Stan-
wyck, and Leonard Bern-
stein; stared down Ed-
ward Albee; and
maintained a tumultuous
lifelong friendship with
Shelley Winters (and
nearly married her)
The book should be a
window into an era when
gay actors worried about
being outed so much that
they'd many women and
avoid all roles with the
slightest hint of gay sub-
text. But what's notice-
ably absent from Include
Me Out is angst Granger
doesn't talk about his
worries, coming out to his
parents, or guilt of any
kind.
"I have loved men. I
have loved women. I will
talk with affection and
without guilt or remorse
about both," he writes
matter-of-factly.
40 | lVl arch 27, 2007 advocate com TH E ADVOCATE
Even the simplest question about
whether he considers himself gay or bisex-
ual doesn't engage him. "I'm too old to
worry about that," says the Sl-year-old.
"I've done too much."
His partner, Calhoun, 76, is less reti-
cent, readily discussing the moment he
knew he was gay, the couple's support of
the Servicemembers Legal Defense Net-
work, and Granger's unwillingness to place
importance on his sexuality.
"It's very frustrating for reporters be-
cause they often ask him what it was like
being gay in Hollywood at his age," says
Calhoun. "And his answers seem like he's
avoiding the question. I've grilled him on
my own a-{terwards, just to say, IMell, come
on, you must have had some feeling,' but
he never had any feeling of guilt. He said
he never worried about it or tried to hide
who he was."
I spent several hows talking to Granger
in his apartment on Manhattan's Upper
West Side, Calhoun and cats by his side.
And while he might not have much to say
on some topics, he will eagerly and enthu-
siastically discuss his work.
Grangefs career ran backward in many
ways. He went from big Holll'wood films to
off-Broadway productions, from a movie
star to an actor, and from a contract player
(Hollywood's term for indentured servant)
to an independent talent who nonetheless
had genuine commercial pull.
It all began in 1943 when the famed
producer Samuel Goldwyn sigrred an exu-
berant teenage Granger to a contract, and
then had no clue what to do with him.
Goldwyn also unwittingly set the tone for
Grangels stance on his sexuality when he
told the young actor to stay away from
composer Aaron Copland, "a known homo-
sexual," and Granger flatly refused.
Frustrated with Goldwyn and the films
he was being asked to do, the actor wanted
to break away liom his contract to pursue
the theater. Their battles were so leg-
endary they became a rulning joke in the
2002 one-man showMr. Goldwyn.
"I did get a few good things out ofGold-
wyn," says Granger. "None of them was
money, ofcourse. It was great when he fi-
nally said, 'I wiII let you go; I'Il free you.
But you have to give me all the money
you've got.'I said,'Sure, I'lI grve you all the
money I've got I'll give you all the money
other people have got."'
Granger's best work definitely hap-
pened outside ofGoldwyn's inlluence, espe-
cially when loaned out to Hitchcock.
"Hitchcock was a devil." savs DrewCasper, professor of American frlm and
holder of the Alma and Alfred Hitchcock
Chair in the School of Cinema-Television
at the University of Southern California.
'TIe loved gossip, and he loved to know se-
crets about people in a very nice way. He
knew when casting Rope that indeed Far-
ley Gralger was gay; he knew Arthur Lau-
rents, who adapted it, was gay; he knew
John Dall was gay; and he knew-al-
though Granger hadn't moved in yet with
Arthur Laurents-they were lovers. He
knew, and they knew he knew. But none of
this was discussed. It was just secrets that
they had, and he loved that.'Rope certairiy up to that time was the
most sophisticated representation of homo-
sexuality on the screen," Casper continues.
"And probably even today-it's just accept-
ed. That s the point; if,s just accepted. And
the picture made money."
Strangers on a Train was especially sat-
isfring for Granger, giving him a lifelong
friendship with Hitchcock's daughter, Pa-
tricia, and one of the best roles of his ca-
reer. "I loved doing Strangers because
Hitch knew he had a hit," says Granger.
"He'd gone through some bad times over in
London, and the movies weren't that good."
While working on Luchino Visconti's ;>
THE ADVOCATE aovocale com March 27, 2oo7 | qt
Senso in 1954 (an underrated film and one
ofGranger's best), Visconti's lover Fran-
co Zeffirelli accidentally dyed Granger's
hair bright pink
"That was terrible, just shocking,"
says Granger, laughing. "I thought Vis-
conti was going to kill him The makeup
man had to work on me every morning.
I thought I was going to lose my hair "
Besides the two Hitchcock movies
and Senso, Granger's film credits in-
clude Nicholas Ray's classic They Liue
by Night (1948) and films by Lewis
Milestone and Anthony Mann.
To every role he played Granger
brought what Entertainment Tonight
critic Leonard Maltin begrudgingly calls
"vulnerability."
"I hate to use that old, overused
word," says the frlm historian. "He's not
weak when he plays those characters,
but he's vulnerable. And that's some-
thing we can all relate to very easily. It
makes him flawed and human, and he
expresses those qualities realiy well."
For all his filrn success. it was the
stage that would bring Granger his
greatest accomplishments as an actor
Arthur Miller praised the 1964 revival of
The Crucible, starring Granger, as exact-
ly what he'd intended for the p1ay.Granger gave Deathtrap a final goose at
the box office when he joined the cast in
1981, extending its record-breaking run
another 15 months. The crowning mo-
ment of h.is theater career was winning
an Obie award in 1986 for his perfor-
mance in the off-Broadway Talley & Son
Granger's most unexpected stage suc-
cess came in a 1960 New York City Cen-
ter revival of The King and I, a show
headed for Broadway until an actors'
strike derailed it. Richard Rodgers later
wrote in a letter that he and Oscar
Hammerstein considered Granger, as
the king, and Barbara Cook, who played
Anna, their favorites in those roles.
"We were kind of in the same boat as
far as casting goes," says Cook. "Nor-
mally, neither of us would have been
cast in those roles.
"This chemistry that people talk
about? Boy, did we have it!" says Cook
"Farley has a sensitivity that touches
you so very well. With Yul Brynner it
was hard to see how his spirit could be
broken so easily-I mean, he dies! But
with Farley it made more sense."
The two actors were attracted to each
other, but Cook was married, so they
didn't pursue it. Still friends after all
these years (Granger and Calhoun'sapartment has numerous Cook albums
scattered about), Cook pauses before ac-
knowledging the attraction was mutual.
"I did sense that," she says.
But certainly the woman who most
dominated Granger's life was the bom-
bastic Shelley Winters.
"I would have married her if she hadn't
been quite as crazy as she was," says
Granger. "She wanted to get married
to...make herselfrespectable. She could be
very, very diffrcult, and she could also be
very funny and very dear, really It was
the angel and the monster all together."
When Winters accidentally over-
dosed, it was her lover Burt Lancaster
and Granger who came to her rescue.
Years later Granger would get her an
apartment in his building by introduc-
ing her to the building manager.
"She came in the building and she said,
'Don't you think it would be wondedul if
there was a portrait of me on the wa11?"'
The manager's response? "'No!' IJer
ego was unbelievable "
Even as Granger and Calhoun share
stories of Winters accusing them of
stealing her best glasses or leaning mat-
tresses up against the windows to keep
out the cold, they're told with genuine
affection.1
42I lVarch 27, 20Ol aovocare com THE ADVOCATE
CULTURE
It's the same tone he uses in his autobiogra-
phy. For while Granger enjoys a good story,
he never dishes dirt o seems to be settling
scores. In Laurents's memoir, Original Story
by, he took digs at Granger, brft Include Me
Out doesn't return the favor. Granger calls
the writer a mentor and tips his hat to the
importance of their relationship. Even Gold-
wyn is given a fair shake, though Granger
suggests without rancor that breaking with
Goldwyn (and, in effect, the studio system)
is one reason he didn't get many good roles
in Holly'wood alter the 1950s.
It might be said that Granger applies the
same parity to his seiual exploits. While
stationed in Hawaii with the U.S. Navy
during World War II he lost his virginity to
a woman, then hours later to a man.
"One of the hardest things in the world is
to really frnd yourself," says Granger, who
frrst slept with Calhoun the night of Novem-
ber 22, 1963-the date John F. Kennedy
was shot. "And once you find yourself, it's
great. You should hang on to it. But some-
times it takes a lot of work, to really say,
'This is who I am.'It wasn't that diffrcult for
me because Hollywood
really did not impress
me. I felt, I'm not
going anywhere here. I
mean, I was, but I did-
n't like what I was
doing. I'd seen those
actors on the stage in
New York, and that's
what I wanted."
Good thing, because Hollywood during
the 1950s was looking for a slightly differ-
ent type of leading man. "It was the time of
Brando and Holden and Dean," says
Casper. "Farley was very difficult because
Hollywood was, in the postwar period, into
tortured men, anguished men. He didn't
convey that. He was young, he had a hand-
some demeanor, and he didn't look like he
was troubled."
"Troubled" is exactly what Granger has
never been. Maybe it's his rare ability not
to care what other people think. Maybe it's
his tendency to focus on the work, not the
fame. Maybe it's that particular breed of
self-confrdence that only good looks allow.
Or maybe it's selective memory.
I point out to Granger that Includ.e Me
Out l:'as stories of him rejecting the ad-
vances of admirers like NoeI Coward and
Laurents but none of him being dumped.
Any memories of heartache?
"Not that I can think of," he says with a
Iaugh. Who can blame him? I
TH E ADVOCATE advocate.com March 27, 2OO7 | 43
Affairs toremember
Farley Granger bedded Ava Gardner, Shelley Winters,
and Leonard Bernstein. In his autobiography, lnclude
Me Out, Hitchcock's muse reveals how he lived as an
openly bisexual actor in classic Hollywood and got
away with it By Michael Giltzarley Granger isn't coming out.
He's always been out. Frarrkly,
he never found much use for the
closet beyond being a good place
to hang his suits. And if being bi-
sexual doesn't bother him. whv should it
concern anyone else?
Since starring irr two key gay films by Al-
fred Hitchcock, Rope (1948) and Strangers
on a Train (1951), Granger has been a tan-
talizing figure Forthright and open about
sleeping with men as well as women
throughout his career, he has been happily
partnered with TV pro-
ducer Robert Calhoun (As
the World Turns, The
Guiding Light) for the
last 45 years. His new au-
tobiography, Include Me
Out: My Life From Gold.-
wyn to Broadway (St.
Martin's Press), written
with Calhoun, reads with
equal candor about the
industry and his es-
capades.
Its one juicy anecdote
after another: Granger
lived with writer Arthur
Laurents (and walked in
on him being too friendly
with a delivery boy); he
had romps with Ava
Gardner, Barbara Stan-
wyck, and Leonard Bern-
stein; stared down Ed-
ward Albee; and
maintained a tumultuous
lifelong friendship with
Shelley Winters (and
nearly married her)
The book should be a
window into an era when
gay actors worried about
being outed so much that
they'd many women and
avoid all roles with the
slightest hint of gay sub-
text. But what's notice-
ably absent from Include
Me Out is angst Granger
doesn't talk about his
worries, coming out to his
parents, or guilt of any
kind.
"I have loved men. I
have loved women. I will
talk with affection and
without guilt or remorse
about both," he writes
matter-of-factly.
40 | lVl arch 27, 2007 advocate com TH E ADVOCATE
Even the simplest question about
whether he considers himself gay or bisex-
ual doesn't engage him. "I'm too old to
worry about that," says the Sl-year-old.
"I've done too much."
His partner, Calhoun, 76, is less reti-
cent, readily discussing the moment he
knew he was gay, the couple's support of
the Servicemembers Legal Defense Net-
work, and Granger's unwillingness to place
importance on his sexuality.
"It's very frustrating for reporters be-
cause they often ask him what it was like
being gay in Hollywood at his age," says
Calhoun. "And his answers seem like he's
avoiding the question. I've grilled him on
my own a-{terwards, just to say, IMell, come
on, you must have had some feeling,' but
he never had any feeling of guilt. He said
he never worried about it or tried to hide
who he was."
I spent several hows talking to Granger
in his apartment on Manhattan's Upper
West Side, Calhoun and cats by his side.
And while he might not have much to say
on some topics, he will eagerly and enthu-
siastically discuss his work.
Grangefs career ran backward in many
ways. He went from big Holll'wood films to
off-Broadway productions, from a movie
star to an actor, and from a contract player
(Hollywood's term for indentured servant)
to an independent talent who nonetheless
had genuine commercial pull.
It all began in 1943 when the famed
producer Samuel Goldwyn sigrred an exu-
berant teenage Granger to a contract, and
then had no clue what to do with him.
Goldwyn also unwittingly set the tone for
Grangels stance on his sexuality when he
told the young actor to stay away from
composer Aaron Copland, "a known homo-
sexual," and Granger flatly refused.
Frustrated with Goldwyn and the films
he was being asked to do, the actor wanted
to break away liom his contract to pursue
the theater. Their battles were so leg-
endary they became a rulning joke in the
2002 one-man showMr. Goldwyn.
"I did get a few good things out ofGold-
wyn," says Granger. "None of them was
money, ofcourse. It was great when he fi-
nally said, 'I wiII let you go; I'Il free you.
But you have to give me all the money
you've got.'I said,'Sure, I'lI grve you all the
money I've got I'll give you all the money
other people have got."'
Granger's best work definitely hap-
pened outside ofGoldwyn's inlluence, espe-
cially when loaned out to Hitchcock.
"Hitchcock was a devil." savs DrewCasper, professor of American frlm and
holder of the Alma and Alfred Hitchcock
Chair in the School of Cinema-Television
at the University of Southern California.
'TIe loved gossip, and he loved to know se-
crets about people in a very nice way. He
knew when casting Rope that indeed Far-
ley Gralger was gay; he knew Arthur Lau-
rents, who adapted it, was gay; he knew
John Dall was gay; and he knew-al-
though Granger hadn't moved in yet with
Arthur Laurents-they were lovers. He
knew, and they knew he knew. But none of
this was discussed. It was just secrets that
they had, and he loved that.'Rope certairiy up to that time was the
most sophisticated representation of homo-
sexuality on the screen," Casper continues.
"And probably even today-it's just accept-
ed. That s the point; if,s just accepted. And
the picture made money."
Strangers on a Train was especially sat-
isfring for Granger, giving him a lifelong
friendship with Hitchcock's daughter, Pa-
tricia, and one of the best roles of his ca-
reer. "I loved doing Strangers because
Hitch knew he had a hit," says Granger.
"He'd gone through some bad times over in
London, and the movies weren't that good."
While working on Luchino Visconti's ;>
THE ADVOCATE aovocale com March 27, 2oo7 | qt
Senso in 1954 (an underrated film and one
ofGranger's best), Visconti's lover Fran-
co Zeffirelli accidentally dyed Granger's
hair bright pink
"That was terrible, just shocking,"
says Granger, laughing. "I thought Vis-
conti was going to kill him The makeup
man had to work on me every morning.
I thought I was going to lose my hair "
Besides the two Hitchcock movies
and Senso, Granger's film credits in-
clude Nicholas Ray's classic They Liue
by Night (1948) and films by Lewis
Milestone and Anthony Mann.
To every role he played Granger
brought what Entertainment Tonight
critic Leonard Maltin begrudgingly calls
"vulnerability."
"I hate to use that old, overused
word," says the frlm historian. "He's not
weak when he plays those characters,
but he's vulnerable. And that's some-
thing we can all relate to very easily. It
makes him flawed and human, and he
expresses those qualities realiy well."
For all his filrn success. it was the
stage that would bring Granger his
greatest accomplishments as an actor
Arthur Miller praised the 1964 revival of
The Crucible, starring Granger, as exact-
ly what he'd intended for the p1ay.Granger gave Deathtrap a final goose at
the box office when he joined the cast in
1981, extending its record-breaking run
another 15 months. The crowning mo-
ment of h.is theater career was winning
an Obie award in 1986 for his perfor-
mance in the off-Broadway Talley & Son
Granger's most unexpected stage suc-
cess came in a 1960 New York City Cen-
ter revival of The King and I, a show
headed for Broadway until an actors'
strike derailed it. Richard Rodgers later
wrote in a letter that he and Oscar
Hammerstein considered Granger, as
the king, and Barbara Cook, who played
Anna, their favorites in those roles.
"We were kind of in the same boat as
far as casting goes," says Cook. "Nor-
mally, neither of us would have been
cast in those roles.
"This chemistry that people talk
about? Boy, did we have it!" says Cook
"Farley has a sensitivity that touches
you so very well. With Yul Brynner it
was hard to see how his spirit could be
broken so easily-I mean, he dies! But
with Farley it made more sense."
The two actors were attracted to each
other, but Cook was married, so they
didn't pursue it. Still friends after all
these years (Granger and Calhoun'sapartment has numerous Cook albums
scattered about), Cook pauses before ac-
knowledging the attraction was mutual.
"I did sense that," she says.
But certainly the woman who most
dominated Granger's life was the bom-
bastic Shelley Winters.
"I would have married her if she hadn't
been quite as crazy as she was," says
Granger. "She wanted to get married
to...make herselfrespectable. She could be
very, very diffrcult, and she could also be
very funny and very dear, really It was
the angel and the monster all together."
When Winters accidentally over-
dosed, it was her lover Burt Lancaster
and Granger who came to her rescue.
Years later Granger would get her an
apartment in his building by introduc-
ing her to the building manager.
"She came in the building and she said,
'Don't you think it would be wondedul if
there was a portrait of me on the wa11?"'
The manager's response? "'No!' IJer
ego was unbelievable "
Even as Granger and Calhoun share
stories of Winters accusing them of
stealing her best glasses or leaning mat-
tresses up against the windows to keep
out the cold, they're told with genuine
affection.1
42I lVarch 27, 20Ol aovocare com THE ADVOCATE
CULTURE
It's the same tone he uses in his autobiogra-
phy. For while Granger enjoys a good story,
he never dishes dirt o seems to be settling
scores. In Laurents's memoir, Original Story
by, he took digs at Granger, brft Include Me
Out doesn't return the favor. Granger calls
the writer a mentor and tips his hat to the
importance of their relationship. Even Gold-
wyn is given a fair shake, though Granger
suggests without rancor that breaking with
Goldwyn (and, in effect, the studio system)
is one reason he didn't get many good roles
in Holly'wood alter the 1950s.
It might be said that Granger applies the
same parity to his seiual exploits. While
stationed in Hawaii with the U.S. Navy
during World War II he lost his virginity to
a woman, then hours later to a man.
"One of the hardest things in the world is
to really frnd yourself," says Granger, who
frrst slept with Calhoun the night of Novem-
ber 22, 1963-the date John F. Kennedy
was shot. "And once you find yourself, it's
great. You should hang on to it. But some-
times it takes a lot of work, to really say,
'This is who I am.'It wasn't that diffrcult for
me because Hollywood
really did not impress
me. I felt, I'm not
going anywhere here. I
mean, I was, but I did-
n't like what I was
doing. I'd seen those
actors on the stage in
New York, and that's
what I wanted."
Good thing, because Hollywood during
the 1950s was looking for a slightly differ-
ent type of leading man. "It was the time of
Brando and Holden and Dean," says
Casper. "Farley was very difficult because
Hollywood was, in the postwar period, into
tortured men, anguished men. He didn't
convey that. He was young, he had a hand-
some demeanor, and he didn't look like he
was troubled."
"Troubled" is exactly what Granger has
never been. Maybe it's his rare ability not
to care what other people think. Maybe it's
his tendency to focus on the work, not the
fame. Maybe it's that particular breed of
self-confrdence that only good looks allow.
Or maybe it's selective memory.
I point out to Granger that Includ.e Me
Out l:'as stories of him rejecting the ad-
vances of admirers like NoeI Coward and
Laurents but none of him being dumped.
Any memories of heartache?
"Not that I can think of," he says with a
Iaugh. Who can blame him? I
TH E ADVOCATE advocate.com March 27, 2OO7 | 43