LGBTQ Nation
When comedy came out of the closet: comedian Bruce Vilanch on the rise of queer representation in TV
by Greg Owen
Thursday, November 3, 2022

“I’m not a historian. I write what I observe,” out comedy legend Bruce Vilanch tells LGBTQ Nation.

Maybe it’s an effort at humility or avoiding a distraction from his brand because he thinks historians aren’t funny.

But the great ones, from Herodotus on down, share a deep interest in the customs and people they observe, and that describes Vilanch to a T-dance on a Sunday afternoon at The Abbey in West Hollywood. He’s a watcher.

That includes television, where – besides appearances on the big screen, Broadway, and in bathhouses (where he reported for the Chicago Tribune in 1975) – Vilanch has made his biggest impression. He’s earned Emmys for Oscar telecasts, starred as a Hollywood Square, and written for some of the most iconic variety shows in the business, from Donny and Marie to The Star Wars Holiday Special.

He’s also worked or rubbed shoulders with practically everyone in the business (and beyond), from Bette Midler to Diana Ross to Cher to Elton John to presidents and princesses. And he’s helped raise millions for AIDS and other LGBTQ charities.

Vilanch’s time in television coincided with a sea-change in LGBTQ representation on the small screen, and he spoke with LGBTQ Nation about all that he observed.

His t-shirt that afternoon read, “See You at My Intervention,” and the conversation began with a plug for his new musical, Here You Come Again, featuring the songs of Dolly Parton and hints of a new book in the works.

***

LGBTQ Nation: What’s the book about?

Bruce Vilanch: About 4000 pages.

LGBTQ Nation: You just wrapped the premiere engagement of Here You Come Again in Wilmington. How was the show received?

BV: It’s a big hit! Audiences like it. What is wrong with them?

LGBTQ Nation: That song was huge when I was growing up.

BV: It sounds like the title of a porno movie, but we went with it anyway. We thought there was enough recognition.

LGBTQ Nation: Has Dolly seen it yet?

BV: We downloaded it every night for her. She liked what she’s seen. She won’t see it live until Nashville, which will be in May in Patrick Cassidy’s theater. So then she’ll show up, I think, with her tits and all those things she puts in the window.

First on our list of subjects was Batman – William Dozier and Lorenzo Semple Jr’s candy-colored TV version of the comic book classic that aired on ABC from 1966-1968.

Homoeroticism pervades the story, featuring a swarthy, mysterious leading character and his handsome “ward,” Robin. But the producers brought the camp to the concoction, featuring an all-star line-up of outrageous villains and incredulous storylines.

LGBTQ Nation: When did you first see Batman?

BV: When I was in college. We would gather around to watch. We were stoned. And it was like, well, it was low-camp. It was intentionally bad, ridiculous, and over the top. And for me, and for like the gay guys who I knew, it was about looking at Tallulah Bankhead and Eartha Kitt, Julie Newmar, and Ethel Merman as Lola Lasagna.

LGBTQ Nation: What was the gay quotient?

BV: The gay quotient, that was pretty gay. All that stuff was perfectly gay but gay like Butch Romero? I don’t know if we knew about him at that point. Well, my age group had known about him. People who’d been in Hollywood for years, of course, knew about him.

Cesar “Butch” Romero, a bona fide Hollywood leading man, played the first on-screen version of Gotham City’s malevolent Joker.

LGBTQ Nation: What’s Romero’s backstory?

BV: Cesar Romero. He was a beard. He was everybody’s escort. He was a big queen, and it was well-known, and he was a confidante for many women who needed to have a movie star take them places. You know, who wouldn’t try anything with them? And I think a lot of guys, I think that they respected his secret because everybody has secrets of one sort or another. And so much was back then. Secrets were traded, and secrets were currency.

LGBTQ Nation: Another Batman villain was Liberace, who played identical twin brothers, one evil and one a famous concert pianist. The character wasn’t gay, but Liberace was.

BV: Liberace was Liberace no matter what he did. You know, of course, he was like beyond gay. Because one of the things about gayness, with Liberace, there was no sexual component in the gayness. He was a great, huge flamboyant stage character. A lot of these guys who were gay and fey and had these huge flamboyant stage personas that they were selling it was divorced from sexuality. It was about performance art. And it didn’t occur to me that Liberace had a huge dick and I would one day want to sleep with him. But that’s another story.

In 1968, NBC brought Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In to television. Producer George Schlatter’s irreverent take on the counterculture featured an ensemble cast including breakouts Goldie Hawn and Lily Tomlin, and one token, though unacknowledged, gay cast member.

LGBTQ Nation: Let’s talk about Alan Sues on Laugh-In. Among his recurring characters was Uncle Al the Kiddies’ Pal, a perpetually hungover children’s show host; Big Al, an effeminate sportscaster, obsessed with ringing a bell; and a manic drag version of cast member Jo Anne Worley.

BV: Well, that was pretty gay. He was in that group of eccentric comedians like Rip Taylor, Paul Lynde, Billy De Wolfe, Edward Everett Horton, and Richard Simmons, who were all gay in life but had big personalities that the audience would kind of nod at, because maybe they had an uncle who was like that. Or maybe they had a pastor who was like that. Those who got it got it. And those who didn’t just think they were fun characters.

LGBTQ Nation: You mentioned Paul Lynde, who played Uncle Arthur on Bewitched at the same time Alan Sues was on Laugh-In. They weren’t out, but they were both a visible gay presence. Is that fair to say?

BV: Yeah, I mean, in the sense that anybody was before Stonewall. Stonewall is a handy demarcation, but it didn’t change things overnight. But in the 70s, things began to get loose in that people began to identify themselves as gay and not just eccentric or flamboyant. And the last gasp of all of that was all those guys I’ve mentioned. They are fabulous characters, but their sexuality never came into it.

After Stonewall and through the 1970s, television comedy’s closet door creaked open. In 1971, Nielson’s Number 1 rated show, All in the Family, featured a gay storyline. In 1972, the short-lived sitcom The Corner Bar was home to TV’s first recurring gay character. And in 1976, cult favorite Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman featured not a dissembling pair of brothers sharing the house next door but longtime companions Ed and Howard.

BV: We were shooting Donnie and Marie in the same building. I must have seen them at the taco truck.

LGBTQ Nation: Another gay baby step in the ’70s was Three’s Company with John Ritter, who you worked with.

BV: Yes. That was John pretending to be gay so that he could live with two girls. It’s like a variation on Some Like It Hot, but it wasn’t as severe. He didn’t have to dress up. I wrote something on Love Boat where he did have to dress up as a woman to pursue his runaway bride.

On Three’s Company, he occasionally had to put on kind of f**gy mannerisms to convince Mr. Roper that it was real. I was never offended by that because it was a plot device. But back then, we had not gotten rid of some of our own self-loathing. Or I had, I think, I had self-loathing. I just thought that stuff was funny, like a straight guy having to pretend to be a fairy. I mean, I thought John was funny. But I’m sure at the same time, there was a segment of the audience that was on Roper’s side.

Later that same year, in the fall of 1977, ABC premiered Soap from Golden Girls producer Susan Harris. The world was introduced to Billy Crystal as Jodie, the first gay ensemble character in American TV history.

LGBTQ Nation: Let’s talk about Soap.

BV: It’s historical now. It’s the first gay character on television. But the thing about Soap was it was a parody of soap operas. So everything was larger than life. So he was gay, but because he was gay, he had to transition into a woman. It was all this stuff that didn’t make a whole lot of sense in the real world.

I don’t know that Susan Harris was looking to score historical points with it, although I’m sure, somewhere in the back of her mind, she thought, well, ‘This will be something they’ll talk about.’

But when Billy was playing it, it represented, at the time, a real career risk for him because it would type him as the gay guy for people who didn’t know him. He was looking for a big acting career in movies, so it was a brave move for him to play because nobody had done it before. If it was a plan to get the public to go with the idea that somebody was gay, it was a genius plan because it worked.

LGBTQ representation in TV comedy foundered in the 1980s, while AIDS devastated the gay community and Nancy Reagan stalked the sitcom stages with her “Just Say No” campaign. By the end of the decade, though, two unlikely sources ushered in a mini Golden Age of gays on the airwaves: the new FOX TV network, and Canada, home to the sketch comedy show Kids in the Hall.l

LGBTQ Nation: Were you a fan of Scott Thompson’s Buddy Cole on Kids in the Hall?

BV: Very extreme character. I mean, he did the most extreme stuff, you know, Queen Elizabeth farting for three minutes. And the half-man half-chicken are some of my favorite things from that show.

And Buddy Cole, it’s a fabulous comment on all lounge singers and a certain kind of older queen who’s seen it all. He’s probably not as sophisticated as he’s putting on that he is, but that’s his character. And it’s kind of like Auntie Mame on Ativan. A slower version of Auntie Mame.

On FOX, Rupert Murdoch put two gay executives, Jamie Kellner and Garth Ancier, in charge of the upstart network, programming The Tracey Ullman Show with Francesca’s two gay dads; The Simpsons featuring iconic cameos from Harvey Fierstein and John Waters; and almost all-Black sketch show, In Living Color, with Damon Wayans and David Alan Grier as two Men on Film.

LGBTQ Nation: They played Blaine Edwards and Antoine Merriweather.

BV: It was hysterical. For the first time, it was two Black queens carrying on, which I thought was bold. Black guys have a much harder time of it because the Black community is so built around a church. That permeates everything. When AIDS hit, it was hard to raise money in that community because they viewed it as the devil’s work. And the big leaders came from the Church, Jesse Jackson, and Al Sharpton, back in the day.

So these two guys, saw the world through the movies. And it was their reaction to this world that often didn’t include them. But they certainly were caricatures. We were laughing at ourselves, at a stereotype, which we all know to be accurate. And didn’t see anything wrong with that. Now, of course, it’s a whole other world where you’re not allowed to find any of that stuff amusing, or you’ll be canceled at sunrise.

LGBTQ Nation: In 1997, three years into her sitcom Ellen, and after much speculation, Ellen DeGeneres came out simultaneously as the first gay lead of a show in the history of television, and as gay herself.

BV: You can never take it away from her. No matter what is said about her later, she was politically very, very important. But when Ellen came out, the show changed direction. Because the show was about a girl looking for a partner. And when she revealed herself to be gay, suddenly she was looking for a woman. And while they overlooked the fact that she was out, they didn’t want to follow her romantic exploits with women.

And that was what killed the show, and she predicted that, but they brought her back for a lot of money, and then wound up ditching her six months later.

LGBTQ Nation: The same year Ellen got dumped, NBC premiered Will & Grace.

BV: She paved the way for Will & Grace, and it became a genuine, genuine hit. With that show, people began, I think, to look at the whole gay thing differently, because we made fun of ourselves.

And at the same time, we were in the culture. We moved into the mainstream. We were not depicted as criminals, or people who were going to commit suicide, or any of the things that had been just objects of fun.

They were real people, and they had real relationships. And had big guest stars! So there’s more room for people who are just generally crazy and their gayness is part of that. They don’t exist because they’re gay, but because the character is gay.

LGBTQ Nation: Will & Grace has been off the air since 2010, and there hasn’t been a gay TV comedy blockbuster since. Do you think gay comedy has gotten less funny now because of gay mainstreaming?

BV: I don’t think it’s less funny, I think it’s just different. But the last few years, it’s upended everything. Comedy is a landmine. And I think the jury is still out. You discover what you can get away with by not getting away with it. By somebody saying, ‘That’s not, you can’t do that!’ I mean, the world is full of scolds, and it’s all become high school and everybody’s taking you to Student Council. So I think we’re in a transitional period. The next generation will probably speak louder, younger people who are a whole lot less flustered than we are. But then along comes George Floyd and #metoo, and suddenly, they’re all flustered on totally different issues.

LGBTQ Nation: Do you need a victim to make something funny? Does somebody have to be the object of comedy?

BV: That’s comedy generally, obviously. There’s nothing funnier than watching pomposity be deflated. And there has to be somebody pompous. It’s the old banana peel thing. You know, you get a snooty high society lady on Park Avenue slipping on a banana peel, it’s hilarious. Because she’s undone. And so that’s ancient. That goes back to the Greeks.

It’s hard to remove that from the culture because it’s a human thing. So it’s a tough one to answer. Because it’s one of the pillars of comedy and obviously there has to be a funny way of looking at things that other people don’t have. That’s comedy.

This interview has been lightly edited and condensed for clarity.

The post Unpacking The Comedy Closet With Bruce Vilanch first appeared on We Got Bruce!.

Player FM
Audio: Gilbert Gottfried’s Amazing Colossal Podcast – #220 Bruce Vilanch
By Earwolf and Gilbert Gottfried.
August 13, 2018

Gilbert and Frank welcome an old friend, legendary comedy writer Bruce Vilanch, who looks back at the “golden age” of TV variety shows and specials, including “Donny & Marie,” “The Brady Bunch Hour,” “The Star Wars Holiday Special” and “The Paul Lynde Halloween Special.” (all co-written by Bruce himself). Also, Margaret Hamilton makes her move, Robert Reed channels Carmen Miranda, Jack Benny does “The Match Bit” and Gilbert takes over “Hollywood Squares.” PLUS: Jack Palance! Bob Hope’s filing cabinet! “Wayne Newton at SeaWorld”! Bruce hangs with Tallulah Bankhead! And the Oscar joke that never made the air!

The post Podcast: Gilbert Gottfried’s Amazing Colossal Podcast – #220 Bruce Vilanch first appeared on We Got Bruce!.

Long before Ellen, Boy George, “Will & Grace,” and RuPaul, there was Bruce Vilanch.  You may know him from writing the most memorable moments on the Academy Awards, or from touring as Edna in “Hairspray,” or from being front and center on “Hollywood Squares,” or from writing for Bette Midler. 

No matter how you know him, and even if you don’t know him by name, one thing is certain — Bruce Vilanch always leaves you smiling.

To this gay boy growing up in a Boston suburb, that weirdly wonderful creature who regularly popped up on television brought endless joy – and promise. It proved that somehow, somewhere, there were more people like me; that I could fit in, thrive, work, and more than anything else, have a fabulous time. 

It seemed like it was a party wherever Bruce showed up. “Donny & Marie,” “The Brady Bunch Variety Hour,” “The Paul Lynde Halloween Special” and “The Star Wars Holiday Special.” 

Was it as much fun as it seemed? Vilanch sighs. “Even sex sometimes isn’t as fabulous on the inside as it seems from the outside!”

He regularly uses his gifts to benefit causes close to his heart. He’s been a tireless advocate for gay rights, raised countless dollars for the fight against AIDS and regularly participates in Pride events – you name it and Bruce has done it. When I ask what drives him, he says, “Renting my body was not an option.”

I remember being part of the invited audience for the dress rehearsal before he hit the road in “Hairspray,” slipping into Edna’s slippers. The first person in his dressing room afterwards was his beloved mother, Henne – who was immortalized in the 1999 documentary about Vilanch, “Get Bruce!” Bruce was still in full makeup (see photo).  Henne gushed, “You were WONDERFUL.”  She turned to me and said, “Isn’t my son wonderful?”  He certainly is!

How long have you been out and who was the hardest person to tell?   

I’ve never been in. Before Stonewall, the concept of being publicly out didn’t exist. And I’ve been around since before Stonewall. Shocking, I know. In addition, I was always fooling around with girls, until I realized that any woman I wanted to make a life with deserved more than a guy who would be trolling around looking for other guys. I chose to live an authentic life. When they say homosexuality is a choice, that’s the choice they’re talking about.

Who’s your LGBT hero? 

If I have to pick just one out of the herd, I guess it would be Noël Coward. He lived the life he wanted to live and nobody seemed to make a bother about it. Plus he was funny as shit.

What’s Los Angeles’ best nightspot, past or present? 

I am of the Studio One/Rose Tattoo era. I was too late for the Coconut Grove in its prime and now I don’t last as late, so I can’t enjoy Reflex in its prime, which is about 5 a.m.

Describe your dream wedding. 

It’s a thrupple. I’m not sure who the other two guys are, but one of them dresses left and the other dresses right and I’m the centrist.

What non-LGBT issue are you most passionate about? 

I’m a tribal Jew, so I’m concerned about my tribe. Working on AIDS-related causes for so many decades has made me more interested in other minority health issues, and being on the board of the LA LGBT Center has certainly gotten me involved in that. Of course, I am dogged about the arts and censorship and preservation and restoration.  And I worry — Tiffany Haddish — she really ready?

What historical outcome would you change? 

I try not to indulge in magical thinking. Magical drinking is enough.

What’s been the most memorable pop culture moment of your lifetime? 

Probably Woodstock, but that’s just because I am a boomer. I wasn’t really a hippie, I wasn’t really a rocker, I wasn’t really a stoner, but the idea of half a million people hiking into the woods to hear music and to tell the previous generation that there was a new world hatching is still pretty memorable. 

On what do you insist? 

Pleasure. And free WiFi.

What was your last Facebook post or Tweet? 

Probably a postcard eulogy of a friend.  They’re thick on the ground now…again.  But this is not because of a plague. This is Mother Nature and Father Time, who are both non-binary.

If your life were a book, what would the title be? 

There was a documentary about me called “Get Bruce!” Maybe the book will be “Had Bruce!”  With a much larger cast.

If science discovered a way to change sexual orientation, what would you do? 

By that time, I will be married to a Martian.

What do you believe in beyond the physical world? 

An ethical dimension. 

What’s your advice for LGBT movement leaders? 

Xanax. Just when we thought we had climbed the mountain, they moved the mountain. I don’t blame them for being depressed and a bit shell-shocked. Still, our enemies eat a lot of sugar and have boundless energy, and we have to shut down divisive politics amongst ourselves and confront the common orange evil. 

What would you walk across hot coals for? 

A swimming pool, and in a big hurry.

What LGBT stereotype annoys you most? 

Anyone who tells you if you disagree with them, you are worse than Hitler. And that’s an awful lot of gay people. We’re woefully intolerant of each other and rather than finding common ground, we carpet bomb. This isn’t new, but it is especially annoying in the era that began on November 9, 2016.

What’s your favorite LGBT movie? 

“Get Bruce!” of course, OK, that wasn’t even nominated for a GLAAD Award, even though part of the movie was my acceptance speech when I personally won a GLAAD Award. Aside from that, I am very partial to an indie drama called “Parting Glances,” which was the first AIDS movie that I can recall. If you don’t think you can handle it, know that the young Steve Buscemi is one of the leads and that alone should get you to Netflix and chill.

What’s the most overrated social custom? 

“How are you,”  “Thoughts and prayers,”  “Sorry for your loss,” referring to rich kids as “children of privilege.”

What trophy or prize do you most covet? 

The World’s Largest Penis, which is not the same as the World’s Largest Dick, which I have already been called.

What do you wish you’d known at 18? 

That pizza wouldn’t make me happy for more than a minute.

Why Los Angeles? 

I’m deeply shallow.

The post Long before Ellen, Boy George, “Will & Grace,” and RuPaul, there was Bruce Vilanch first appeared on We Got Bruce!.

SHOWINGS

EVENT DETAILS

The post COMEDIAN BRUCE VILANCH PRESENTED BY BLACK BOX PRODUCTIONS, OCT 5, 2018, Aventura Arts & Cultural Center Aventura, FL, On Sale ON SALE 07.17.18 12:00 PM first appeared on We Got Bruce!.

LOS ANGELES — Put comedy writer Bruce Vilanch on the spot by asking if he has a political gag suitable for the Oscars, and he makes a game try.

“There’s probably a joke in Trump buying three billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri,” Vilanch said, “because that’s all he does is publicize himself. So it seems to me you have a nice, clean shot on the ninth hole.”

He doesn’t have to sweat polishing the riff on best-picture nominee “Three Billboards.” While he’s crafted one-liners for hosts and presenters for 23 Oscar shows, he’ll be watching comfortably at home and with Koosh balls at the ready.

“So you can throw them at the screen when people you don’t like win,” Vilanch said. The ceremony airs at 8 p.m. EST Sunday, March 4, on ABC.

He isn’t playing at being a critic: In his salad days, he wrote film reviews and celebrity profiles for the Chicago Tribune. He and rising star Bette Midler clicked during an interview, and he helped shape her comic stage persona on his way to becoming an in-demand writer for TV shows and big-ticket events including the Tony and Grammy awards and Comic Relief, and for stars ranging from Billy Crystal and Robin Williams to Donny and Marie Osmond.

Admirers sang his praises in the 1999 documentary “Get Bruce!” about his life and work.

“Part of the way that people view me is because of how Bruce has written for me,” Whoopi Goldberg says in the film. “And I’m very grateful for that, because it makes me actually look much smarter than I am.”

Viewers got acquainted with the distinctively mop-topped, bespectacled man himself in a late 1980s revival of “Hollywood Squares,” in which he and Goldberg traded quips from adjacent squares.

After writing for a quarter of all Oscar ceremonies — this year is the 90th — and winning two Emmys along the way, Vilanch is uniquely positioned to size up the grande dame of Hollywood awards shows, and how it and repeat host Jimmy Kimmel can serve TV viewers and the anxious stars who fill the theater.

One hint: The jaw-dropping best-picture envelope mix-up of last year is pretty much a gift to Kimmel.

___

TIMES CHANGE. THE OSCARS DON’T.

Vilanch says the movie academy has kept the ceremony template intact from the very beginning, “which is to give every award on the air. So you have to figure out a way to entertain the audience while the sound effects editor is thanking his Hebrew school teacher.”

Social media is routinely incorporated now in awards show — think of Ellen DeGeneres’ star-filled selfie at the 2014 Oscars that went viral on Twitter — but Vilanch says the Academy Awards are in a league of their own.

“The thing about the Oscars is it’s the biggest one. … I would love to see them do more to own the past and the history of the movies,” he said, but acknowledges that the passing years stand in the way.

“As you get farther and farther from the Golden Age, fewer and fewer people of the audience, outside of the theater, are getting who you’re referring to. … There will be a component of the audience saying, ‘Audrey Hepburn? Was she the one in the boat with the guy? Oh, she was Tiffany,'” he said, adding, unhappily, “It’s real.”

___

NO EGOS WERE DAMAGED IN THE MAKING OF THIS SHOW

A host who plays it “too inside or too snarky” is courting trouble, according to Vilanch. That includes even being mildly insulting to actors and filmmakers who are on hand to be celebrated, as 1995 host David Letterman found when he turned Uma Thurman and Oprah Winfrey’s given names into silly sing-song.

“Neither of those women were there that night to have their names made fun of. They’ve come a little farther than that,” Vilanch said. “They’re sitting there and it’s like, ‘Really, TV boy? This is what you’re going to do, you’re going to make fun of my name?'”

Audiences in general have become very sensitive to humor they deem cruel or unseemly, Vilanch said. A joke about a heavy-set actor, for instance, likely won’t fly even if it’s delivered by a similarly rotund comedian, he said.

How to avoid putting a foot wrong in writing for a ceremony seen by millions, even in an era of declining ratings?

“You have to trust your judgment, and sit down at your computer wearing a parachute kit. Just in case,” he said. A line might go too far, but if it’s “a beauty, it might be worth it.”

___

SEXUAL MISCONDUCT, THE THIRD RAIL?

For an industry in the midst of confronting alleged misconduct by major figures, how can Kimmel pay heed to the crisis yet keep it from overshadowing Hollywood’s biggest night?

Golden Globes host Seth Meyers handled the issue deftly with quips about Harvey Weinstein and others facing accusations, Vilanch said. But a broad-brush approach may be smarter at the Oscars.

Calling out individuals who are under a cloud and are past Oscar winners is an intersection that could prove embarrassing to the movie academy, Vilanch said.

“The more general, the better. Now that I’ve said that, who knows what Jimmy Kimmel will do,” he said. He lauded the ABC late-night host for “brilliantly” handling last year’s best-picture disaster and suggests Kimmel “can spend time on that, which kind of deflects everything else. … It’s almost like a gift.”

___

PERSONAL BEST

Asked to pick a favorite among the nearly two-dozen Oscar shows he’s worked on, Vilanch settles on one that included the stuff of highlight reels.

It was 1992, the year that Billy Crystal hosted and Jack Palance, announced as best supporting actor for “City Slickers,” did one-armed push-ups on stage to prove he still had it at age 73. Vilanch, his fellow writers and Crystal churned out a series of jokes about the moment to be delivered by Crystal at regular intervals.

“It was so insistent that Billy’s manager came backstage about an hour in and said, ‘How many more of these are you going to do? I’m running a pool in the audience,'” Vilanch recalled. “We won an Emmy for writing that show.”

It also became an Oscar template.

“From then on, every other host was watching the show in the wings, and as things were happening we were writing new jokes,” he said.

The post Oscar funnyman to show: play up envelope mess, not harassers first appeared on We Got Bruce!.