![]() ![]() But in the spring of 1971, a rumor started to circulate about him and his friend, film star Rock Hudson. Actors who were discovered to be gay tended never to work again.įor the time being, the public remained blissfully unaware that one of the biggest stars on television was gay, even as Jim was given a spinoff series for his Gomer Pyle character and then later some work on a variety show. Now that he was in LA, Jim didn’t do much to hide his homosexuality, but the added attention of stardom made his openness potentially dangerous. Ron Howard, who as a child played the role of Opie, wrote many years later about witnessing homophobic name-calling on the set. While audiences loved Gomer, crew members on the show weren’t always so kind. They incorporated that into the show and gave him an expanded role. When he wasn’t clowning around with an exaggerated southern drawl, Jim had a powerful operatic singing voice. Jim was an instant hit, and quickly became a recurring character - and that’s when the show’s producers discovered his secret talent. Andy felt that Jim would be perfect for the role of Gomer Pyle, a goofy gas station attendant, and they brought him on for a one-episode appearance. The Andy Griffith Show chronicled life in a small southern town from the perspective of a local sheriff - a life almost identical to the one in which Jim had grown up. How Bewitched Went Gay Without Ever Saying "Gay". ![]() How M*A*S*H Predicted the Rise and Fall of Don't Ask, Don't Tell.Rita Moreno vs Hollywood: The Other West Side Story Rumble.How Barney Miller’s Gays Defeated ABC’s Network Censors.The Story Behind the Gayest Week in TV History.Like this about gay TV history post? Read more: It was in a nightclub in Santa Monica that he was spotted by Andy Griffith, star of one of the most popular shows on television at the time. That reinvigorated his interest in performing, and he started working a nightclub circuit around the LA suburbs. He landed in LA in the late 1950s and found that for the first time in his life, he could breathe. Today, the air in Los Angeles is among the most poisonous in the world, but back then it was exactly what Jim needed. His asthma flared up again, though, and in desperation he headed out west where the air, he’d heard, was clearer. Unable to make ends meet, Jim moved back to the south, where he took an editing job at a little TV station in Tennessee for $65 a week. (On one occasion he was escorted out before even being allowed to audition.) Dejected, he took a job as a secretary at the United Nations, but even there he stood out his thick southern accent made many people think he was speaking what was, to them, an unidentifiable foreign language. He moved to New York after graduating and did his best to break into showbiz - but Broadway had no idea what to do with someone so southern, and his auditions were routinely disastrous. Jim always stood out - his severe asthma prevented him from playing with the other kids, but he was so energetic and outgoing that he found other ways to be the center of attention: He learned to sing and dance, he played the clarinet, he performed in little local shows through his teenage years. The family raised chickens for food and lived in a tiny house. His mother worked at a truck stop, his father bounced around from job to job until he finally wound up being appointed the town’s sole police officer. Jim was born at the start of the Great Depression in a tiny Alabama town called Sylacauga. Over his 55-year career, Jim made a name for himself as a wholesome, folksy southerner but behind the scenes, he harbored a secret love that would have scandalized the country if it was found out. One reason they protected their privacy: A TV star of the 1960s and 1970s, Jim’s career was nearly destroyed by a same-sex wedding rumor just before he and Stan met, a rumor that also ended Jim’s relationship with closeted actor Rock Hudson. One was a TV star, the other a firefighter, and they’d managed to keep their relationship out of the public eye for 38 years. Oh sure, Seattle’s had its share of cute weddings, but the cutest - one four decades in the making - is the 2013 union of Jim Nabors and Stan Cadwallader at the Fairmont Olympic Hotel downtown.
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