Roddy

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Hi Queers and Weirdos, this is your Uncle Gary and
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welcome back to Forgotten Queers. Today we're talking about Roddy McDowell,
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and I want to begin with how I remember him,
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because I suspect quite a few people from my generation
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first encountered him the same way. Planet of the Apes.
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That was my introduction. Roddy beneath all that makeup somehow
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managing to be one of the most recognizable people in
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a movie where you couldn't really see his face. And yes,
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I also appreciated Charlton Heston's bare ass and that loincloth
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he spent most of the movie wearing. Let's just say
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Roddy wasn't the only person who made an impression. Then
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I watched The Poseidon Adventure, and the steward's voice sounded familiar.
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Wait a minute, I know that voice. It was Roddy.
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It was Cornelius, but human. There he was, without the
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chimpanzee face in another movie that became part of the
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landscape of my growing up. and suddenly I was making
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that connection between a character I knew and the actor
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underneath him. Roddy was someone I always found fascinating. I
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wasn't attracted to him. He didn't occupy that particular corner
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of my imagination. But something about him held my attention.
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He was like a piece of art you keep coming
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back to, trying to decipher. You know there's something unique there,
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but you can't quite put your finger on what makes
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it so. That's how I felt about Roddy McDowell. And
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when you start looking at his life, that fascination has
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somewhere to go. Because the man I knew from The
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Apes and an Overturned Ocean Liner had already lived a
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whole career before those movies happened. He had been a
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child star. He had worked with Elizabeth Taylor when they
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were both children. He had rebuilt himself as an adult performer.
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And we would go on finding audiences who knew him
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from completely different things. So today, let's spend some time
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with that man, Roddy McDowall, Hollywood's friend. Roddy was born
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in London on September 17th, 1928. He was working in
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British films while he was still a child. In 1940,
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during the war, he came to the United States with
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his mother and sister. His father was serving in the
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Merchant Navy. That's quite a beginning for life we tend
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to remember through entertainment. A child leaving Britain during wartime,
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arriving in another country, and almost immediately becoming part of
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its movie history. In Hollywood, How Green Was My Valley
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made him a major child star. Released in 1941, the
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movie follows a Welsh mining family with Roddy playing young
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Hugh Morgan. His sensitivity was central to the picture. So
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much of what happens matters because we experience it through
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that boy. If My Memory Serves Me, How Green Was
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My Valley is an amazing piece of work, and there's
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something in it that makes me think of later films
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like To Start With Love, Stand and Deliver, and to
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some degree, Dead Poets Society. Hugh encounters class prejudice and
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cruelty at school, while the minister, Mr. Griffith, helps open
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his world to books. That contrast stays with me, the
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people who limit a young person's possibilities and the person
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who helps him see more. And Roddy gives us a
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child through whom we can feel all of that. Then
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came My Friend Flicka and Lassie Come Home, both in 1943.
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If you think of Roddy primarily as Cornelius, imagine discovering
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he was also a boy waiting for Lassie. Now, I
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watched those Lassie movies and My Friend Flicka as a
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snooty college kid. away from the judging glare of my
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artsy-fartsy college friends, thank you very much. And I enjoyed them.
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I understood that they had their limitations, but that didn't
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stop me from enjoying what they offered. Apparently, even my
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terribly sophisticated college self could make a little room for
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a boy and his dog, or his whores, just preferably
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without an audience of friends offering opinions. But those old
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classics also helped me get through a frightening time in
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my life. I was 20, 21-ish, age was running rampant,
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And fear kept hiding me in my closet all the time.
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In fact, these times were so scary, I stayed in
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the closet until my mid-30s. My heart now goes out
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to my trans brothers and sisters. Looking back, I want
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to give those movies credit for that. I could enjoy them,
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limitations all, and find some comfort in them while I
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was scared. They helped that young kid get through those
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college years. That was me. But enough about Uncle Gary.
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Let's talk about Roddy. But childhood stardom comes with a
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very peculiar problem. You grow up. something the majority of
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us are encouraged to do, except maybe podcast hosts. The
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audience loves you as you are. The studio has found
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a use for you as you are. Then your voice changes,
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your face changes, your body changes, and suddenly people have
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to decide whether they still know what to do with you.
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A grown adult can at least understand that an employer's
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uncertainty is an employer's uncertainty. A teenager may hear something
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much more personal. We like the younger version of you better.
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In my mind, I picture Roddy, someone who always seemed
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so composed to me, allowing himself a moment of self-pity.
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Who wouldn't? Then taking a breath and saying, okay, Roddy,
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time to rethink, rebuild, and ultimately reboot. As Roddy grew up,
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Fox let him go. And from the way he later
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described it, Hollywood was having trouble letting the little boy
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grow up. He was ready to move on. They were
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still seeing the kid from the old movies. That's a problem.
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You can't exactly stop having birthdays to keep the studio happy.
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He kept working on smaller films, but in the early 50s,
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he headed east to study and work in theater and television.
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He already had years of experience in front of a camera,
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and here he was going back to learn more. I
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like that about him. It's easy for me to look
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back at all that work he eventually did and forget
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that there was a point where he didn't know how
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this was going to turn out. And then you look
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at what happened. He appeared on stage in Compulsion with
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Dean Stockwell. another former child actor. He won a Tony
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for The Fighting Cock in 1960, followed by an Emmy
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for Equitable's American Heritage in 1961. Now, I didn't know
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about either of these awards, a Tony and an Emmy,
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both before The Apes. This is what I'm enjoying about
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getting to know more about him. I started with what
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familiar voice in those movies I grew up with, and
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now I'm discovering a whole part of his career I
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knew nothing about. It adds another layer to a man
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I always found so fascinating. Those are substantial achievements. Before
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the apes, before the disaster movie, there was already an
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adult performer earning recognition for his work. By the early 60s,
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Hollywood was seeing him again. This time he could return
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with more than the memory of having been a charming
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little boy. He had put work into becoming somebody the
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industry hadn't quite known how to imagine. That took persistence, moving, learning,
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accepting smaller opportunities, and keeping himself available for a future
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that wasn't obvious yet. And one person who connects the
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different chapters of Roddy's life is queer ally and icon
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Elizabeth Taylor. Roddy and Elizabeth met as kids, making Lassie
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come home. They worked together again in The White Cliffs
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of Dover and later in Cleopatra. But what I find
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so sweet is how much life happened around that friendship.
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And still, there they were. Other friendships, relationships, family, and
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lots of people they loved. Through all of that, theirs survived.
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And from what I've been reading, it seemed to thrive.
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They each had a whole life beyond each other, but
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they've kept a place for each other in it. And
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then for more than 40 years after Lassie come home,
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they appeared together in an episode of Hotel. I really
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love that. These two kids, all grown up, sharing the
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screen again after everything that had happened in between. It
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wasn't the end of either of their careers, but to me,
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it's such a sweet bookend. And it adds something to
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the way I'm getting to know Roddy. Seeing a friendship
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he carried with him through so many different chapters of
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his life. We'll come back to that hotel reunion. First, though,
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here's another chapter in their story. And this one was
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quite a production. Cleopatra. In Cleopatra, Roddy played Octavian, opposite
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cast that included Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, Rex Harrison. The
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film reached audiences in 1963. This was a huge production
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and its delays were legendary. Roddy found himself in Italy
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with a great deal of time on his hands and
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very little acting to do. According to Turner Classic Movies,
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he asked Daryl F. Zanuck to give him a part
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in The Longest Day because he wanted the opportunity to work.
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And that's how he ended up in another enormous production
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while waiting on Cleopatra. I love that detail. Waiting around
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in Italy sounds lovely to me. A nice lunch, a fountain,
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another coffee. I could fill an afternoon. But according to
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that account, Roddy was fed up with waiting and wanting
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something to do, so he landed a small part in
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The Longest Day, the D-Day epic released in 1962 while
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Cleopatra kept him hanging around. Let's remember, Queers and Weirdos,
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it's show business. Emphasis on the business. You need to
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support yourself or find another line of work. That's realism.
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It also suggests that he could make a request to
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be taken seriously. I wouldn't use that one incident to
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explain his entire relationship with the studio, but it belongs
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in the picture. Get it? Picture? Okay, whatever. And Roddy's
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work got noticed. Even Judith Christ, who decidedly was unimpressed
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with Cleopatra, singled him out for praise. He earned a
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Golden Globe nomination, too, so after all that waiting, there
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was a performance getting some real recognition. And at the time,
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an Oscar could be a ticket to a whole new
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level of stardom, which makes what happened next particularly frustrating.
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Fox screwed the pooch. They submitted his Cleopatra performance for
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consideration as Best Actor instead of Best Supporting Actor. The
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error was discovered too late to correct the ballots. The
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studio subsequently published an open apology in all the trade papers,
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accepting responsibility for the mistake. How often do you see
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a movie studio publicly say, we screwed up. This one's
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on us. We need to be accurate here. He hadn't
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received an Oscar nomination and then lost it. We cannot
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know how the voting would have gone. What he lost
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was opportunity to be considered in the supporting category. That's
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a frustrating enough without making it something we can't prove.
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So you put the work in a film that's had
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a lot, and I mean a lot of starts and stops.
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marriage is falling apart an affair making headlines a near-death
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experience pre-production production and finally post-production at last it's done
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the critics aren't kind to it but one of the
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few bright spots they keep pointing to is your performance
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and then the studio screws up The apology couldn't give
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him that opportunity back, but it did publicly acknowledge both
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the studio's responsibility and the value it placed on his performance.
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That's part of what caught my attention researching Roddy. He
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seemed to have held a respected place in Hollywood. There
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are examples of people wanting his work, relying on him,
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and acknowledging him. Which brings us to something we need
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to discuss clearly on Forgotten Queers. Roddy McDowell was gay.
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He didn't publicly come out, but the people around him knew.
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His biographer, Samuel Garza Bernstein, describes him as openly gay
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among his peers. From letters and interviews Bernstein used, Rodney's
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partners were known and accepted among his friends and colleagues.
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He wasn't just telling the whole world. He chose who knew.
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Nothing more needs to be said. And I don't think
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we can look at everyone who didn't publicly come out
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and assume their lives were just like mine or just
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like anybody else's. One thing I wanted to know was
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whether a studio or gossip magazine ever threatened to out him.
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So far, I haven't found a reliable account of that happening.
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That doesn't mean it never happened. It means I don't know.
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He seems to have been respected and well-liked. I wouldn't
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take that to mean being gay never caused him problems.
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I don't know what went on behind every closed door.
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According to Bernstein, Roddy's psychiatrist published private details about him
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later that end up in Cosmopolitan. His name wasn't used,
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but apparently people could work out who it was. I
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haven't checked those articles myself. If this is true, and again,
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let me reiterate, that is a big if, this is
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very unprofessional and personally, I think, fucked up. You go
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to someone for help and your private life ends up
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in a magazine. I can't imagine how hurt and betrayed
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Roddy must have felt. Especially knowing what I know after
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researching Roddy. What his friends told him stayed private. Roddy
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was someone they could trust. I like to think that
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about him. Just because somebody trusts you with a story
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doesn't make it yours to tell. I hope I'm that
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person in my own life, someone people can tell things
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and trust that I won't turn around and put them
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in the proverbial magazine. Mainly because I'll forget almost immediately
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after they tell me, but that's beside the point. Okay,
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now back to the cool person, back to Cornelius, Roddy,
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the one I knew first. Planet of the Apes, Cornelius,
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all that makeup and somehow he still made an impression
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on me. He played Cornelius in Planet of the Apes
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in 1968, then returned to the role in Escape from
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Planet of the Apes. After that came Caesar in Conquest
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and Battle and Galen in the 1974 television series. And
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that's quite a range within one world. Cornelius, a scientist
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asking questions, Caesar, the leader, then Galen, the new set
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of adventures on television. All rowdy, but each different character. Now,
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as a kid, I honestly didn't pick up on those differences.
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I heard the voice and thought, Cornelius! That's who he
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was to me. It was later that I began to
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understand he was doing something different with each one of them.
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He was putting the work into making them their own characters,
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even if little Gary wasn't quite catching on yet. What
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gets me is that I knew him through a face
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that wasn't his. I couldn't see the Roddy we've been
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talking about in Last Year of Cleopatra, but I could
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hear him, and there was somebody there I wanted to
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pay attention to. And here's a fun little detour. He
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even turned up on the Carol Burnett show in his
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Planet of the Apes makeup and sang a duet with Carol.
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Three and a half hours in the makeup chair for
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just a few minutes on stage. That's a commitment to
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a comedy bit. And you know I love my science fiction.
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These movies give you plenty to think about along the adventure.
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Who gets believed? Who gets treated as less than everyone else?
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What happens when asking a question gets you into trouble?
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You don't have to look very far to find something
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familiar in that. I can see a queer connection there,
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without pretending I know what Roddy was thinking when he
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played the part. Being told there's something wrong with you
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or that you don't deserve the same place in the
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world as someone else, that's something we can recognize. But first,
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for me, there was simply Cornelius, the character, that voice,
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and then I heard it again in a very different movie,
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The Poseidon Adventure. Wait a minute. I know you. The
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Poseidon Adventure was released in 1972. Roddy played Acres, a
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steward aboard the ocean liner whose New Year's Eve celebration
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becomes a catastrophe when the ship overturns. I think of
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it as the granddaddy of those big seven disaster pictures.
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There were disaster movies before it, and Airport had already
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held launch of the decade cycle, but Poseidon was such
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a permanent place in a way I remember the genre.
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An enormous cast, an impossible situation, a group of people
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trying to find a way out while the world around
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them becomes more dangerous. And there was Roddy, with that
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voice I knew. Acres bring knowledge of the ship to
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a situation in which almost everything familiar has become disorienting.
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His role is smaller than some of the others, but
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he belongs to that group of faces you remember when
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you remember the movie. It also lets us see him
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working without the ape's makeup in a completely different kind
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of ensemble. That versatility is part of what fascinates me.
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Some actors become an event whenever they enter a scene.
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With Roddy, I often find myself leaning in. There's something
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I want to catch in the voice, in the response,
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and how he fits into the people around him. That
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doesn't make the performance small. It makes the act of
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watching him feel personal. And by this point in his career,
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different generations could recognize different Roddies. The child from Lassie,
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the actor from Cleopatra, Cornelius, Acres. He kept accumulating new
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points of connection with an audience. Now let's come back
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to that final Hotel episode because I really do think
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that is sweet. I remember Hotel. I tried watching the
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series because James Brolin is a very sexy, charismatic man.
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Let's just say the show wasn't for me. But I
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did watch the episode with Roddy and Elizabeth while putting
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this podcast together. And while their stars certainly shone through,
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I don't think the material lived up to their abilities.
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But I can tell how much they loved each other.
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In 1984, there they were, Roddy and Elizabeth, together again.
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The episode was called Intimate Strangers. She played an actress
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trying to get back on stage, and he played her
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longtime assistant, Tony. She fires him, then realizes just how
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much she needs him. It definitely has shades of the
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dresser for me, the play, and the movie. The performer
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who depends on the person behind the scenes far more
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than they're willing to admit. Their characters may be struggling,
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but the proof is right there. 40 plus years later,
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they survived. Their friendship still prevailed. From Lassie come home
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to hotel. Friends. Wouldn't you love to know the secrets
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they shared? And as I'm discovering more about Roddy, I
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like having to put this alongside Cornelius or Octavian. Here's
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a man with a friendship that lasts most of his life.
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Someone who knew him before all those different versions of
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Roddy the Rest of Us got to meet. I just
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find that really, again, sweet. Now, Fright Night, 1985. I
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saw this at the drive-in with my brother when it
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originally came out. Honestly, one of the best places to
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see it. And this movie brings back some wonderful memories.
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It took me back to the two of us watching
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Creature Feature as kids on a Saturday afternoon in our
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parents' mobile home. We'd seen Planet of the Apes together,
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and now here we were watching Fright Night together. It
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seemed fitting. I'll always be thankful for the connection my
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brother and I have through movies. I loved how Fright
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Night paid tribute to those old horror movies. It was
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having fun with them, but you could tell it loved
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them too. And Roddy fit right into that as Peter Vincent,
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an actor who made his living playing vampire hunters and
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was now hosting horror movies on television. Then somebody needed
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him to deal with an actual vampire. Okay, maybe not realistic.
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But come on, who cares? It's spectacular. From the interviews
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I've watched and read, it sounds like Roddy thoroughly enjoyed
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this role. He described Peter as a poor actor, but
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a sweet man who could rise to the occasion. I
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like that. He knew there was more to this guy
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than the joke. And when Peter is confronted with real vampires,
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he's scared. Of course he is. But he's finally convinced
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to help after all these years of pretending Peter gets
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to be the hero for real. And there's Roddy getting
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to play that moment. Leonard Maltin liked the movie too.
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Three stars in his guide with special praise for Roddy
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and Chris Sarandon. Roger Ebert also gave it a good review.
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Some critics weren't impressed, but it certainly had supporters. And
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queers and weirdos. Look at this cast. Amanda Beers played Amy. Yes,
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Marcy from Married with Children. She publicly came out as
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a lesbian in 1993. Stephen Jeffries, our evil Ed, is
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openly gay too. Roddy, Amanda, and Stephen. That's quite a
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bit of queer talent in one vampire movie. argue with
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me anyone every vampire movie has queer undertones evil ed
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wanting to belong with this vampire offering to accept him
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come on it's right there and honestly who wouldn't want
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to be accepted by chris saradon i mean i'd offer
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my dick yeah i mean my neck to him anytime
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but back to roddy from cornelius to peter vincent he
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kept giving me another reason to enjoy watching him so
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my personal recommendation check this movie out if you've never
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seen it i think you'll be pleasantly surprised And through
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all of this, Roddy was still a working actor, still
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looking for the next job, still auditioning. Here's one I
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came across. He auditioned for Niles the butler on The Nanny.
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Daniel Davis, who got the part, remembered being up against
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Roddy and thinking he didn't stand a chance. But according
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to Davis, Fran Drescher told him casting Roddy would make
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it the Roddy McDowell show. And this was her show.
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Imagine being too recognizable to get the job. This shows
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that even at this stage in his career, with all
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this recognition, he still had to audition. He still lost out,
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and yet he still moved forward. This is what makes
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a true artist. You get knocked down, you get back up,
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and you try again. Rodney was a photographer, too, and
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he published four books in his Double Exposure series, starting
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in 1966 and finishing in 1993. He took the portraits
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and other artists wrote about the people in them. Listen
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to some of the people he brought together. In his
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first book, James Baldwin wrote about Marlon Brando. In take two,
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Leonard Bernstein, the composer, wrote about Ava Gardner. Then in
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take three, Lauren Bacall wrote about Alistair Cooke. And in
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take four, Vincent Price wrote about Tim Burton. Roddy's photographs
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and those people adding their words. If you need more
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proof he was a respected friend in the Hollywood circle,
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this is it. Just look at the people willing to
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take part in the projects he was putting together. This
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right here shows people loved him, respected him. And can
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I say honored him? I think we can. And he
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wanted Hollywood history to be remembered too. He worked on
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the film preservation, became president of the Academy Foundation in 1998.
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And that same year, the Academy named its photograph archive
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after him. Now that's an honor. A man who spent
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much of his life in pictures, helping make sure those
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pictures and the people in them would still be there
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for us to find. Sadly, Roddy died of cancer on
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October 3rd, 1998 at 70. No matter how he died,
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by most accounts, it was lung cancer. He was loved.
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He still had more to give professionally, and at 70,
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he was way too young to die. Friends surrounded him
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during his final illness. Elizabeth Taylor's official website describes her
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returning to Los Angeles after learning his prognosis and visiting
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him through his last days. That brings us back to
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the friendship that began when they were children. Beyond the films,
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beyond the photographs, there were two people who kept showing
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up for each other. So when I call Roddy Hollywood's friend,
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I'm thinking of the relationships he maintained across all those years.
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The friend who knew Elizabeth as a child and was
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still beside her decades later. The colleague people trusted with
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their private lives. The photographer who paid attention to other people.
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And the actor who helped preserve the work of an
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industry he grew up in. His career took persistence and reinvention,
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but the friendships belong at the heart of his story too.
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He never publicly came out. His gay identity was known
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within his circle. Both things belong in the story. We
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can respect the facts of how he lived without making
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his privacy an empty space for us to fill with assumptions.
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When we remember queer people, we need room for different experiences,
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different ambitions, different relationships with visibility, different ways of moving
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through a world that didn't offer everyone the same choices.
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Rodney deserves that room, and he deserves a little curiosity.
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I began by saying he reminded me of a piece
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of art I wanted to decipher. Looking at it as
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life hasn't made that feeling disappear. It's given me more
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to look at. Maybe I don't need one final explanation
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for what made him unique. I can appreciate the voice
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I recognized, the characters he brought to life, the friendships
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he maintained, and the work he left behind. There's enough
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there to keep returning to. If Roddy first entered your
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life as Cornelius or as Akers or as Peter Vincent,
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I'd love to hear about it. And if you knew
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him first from one of his childhood films, tell me
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that too. You can email me at forgottenqueers at gmail.com.
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Thank you for listening to Forgotten Queers. If you enjoyed
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this episode, please leave a rating and review and tell
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a friend. It helps somebody else find these stories. I
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love you, and don't forget your fiber.