Looking back on Rock Hudson's movies with Doris Day, they seem infused with a camp sensibility, derived not least from the fact that Hollywood's main romantic icon of the 1950s was, in real life, a gay man. But in 1984, when the world first learned that Hudson was dying from an AIDS-related illness, the truth about his sexual orientation came as a shocking bolt from the blue.
Although the fact was well known in Hollywood society, the publicity machine that stood between him and the movie-going public had created an impenetrable smoke screen, preserving his ideally heterosexual image for almost 40 years.
That same smoke screen protected other romantic leads such as Cary Grant, who lived with his lover Randolph Scott for a decade; James Dean, who was a regular in LA's gay bars; Montgomery Clift, who often used the services of male prostitutes; Marlon Brando and Spencer Tracy, who both had several bisexual affairs; and Laurence Olivier, who had a relationship with Danny Kaye.
If so many of the embodiments of Hollywood manhood over the years were gay or bisexual, but kept safely in the closet by studio PR merchants, can we be absolutely sure that all of today's leading men are bona fide heterosexuals? Mega-publicists like Pat Kingsley would have us believe it. She represents, among other A-listers, Tom Cruise, who on Monday filed a $100 million defamation lawsuit against a Los Angeles man who allegedly offered to sell nonexistent videotapes of the actor having sex with another man to news organisations. Cruise said in the suit that the claims were "unequivocally false" and that no such tape exists. It was the second time in just over a month that Cruise had to move to quash rumours about his sexuality. On May 2nd, he filed a law suit against male porn star Kyle Bradford, again for $100 million, for allegedly giving an interview to a French gossip magazine saying he'd had a sexual liaison with the actor.
Cruise's lawyers denied that Cruise is homosexual and called such a characterisation "vicious".
The suit claimed that rumours of Those same gay rumours have been dogging Tom Cruise since the early days of his career, despite his two much-publicised marriages. As American columnist Jeannette Walls described in her book, Dish, one of Pat Kingsley's tasks for years has been to make sure that journalists do not ask the actor about the gay rumours surrounding him - often, it's alleged, by threatening magazine editors' access to other stars. For the industry's titans, public discussion of the Cruise gay rumours, even if they are not true, would raise the issue of why Hollywood is so afraid of having openly gay leading men, and that's a discussion they do not want to have.
Ironically, as the publicists who package and sell Hollywood stars' images get stronger and stronger, the off-screen lives of their star clients become ever more restricted. The public fascination with celebrity has fuelled the growth of a now-enormous media machine devoted to scrutinising actors' private personae, and as a result, Hollywood actors' closets have become virtual prisons. For many actors, the advent of "outing" in the 1980s sealed the closet door shut by prompting a denial that the closet even existed.
In 1994, Richard Gere and Cindy Crawford paid more than $100,000 for a full-page ad in the London Times, stating that they were both heterosexual. Other A-list actors who have categorically and repeatedly denied that they are homosexual include Keanu Reeves, whose alleged "marriage" to gay movie mogul David Geffen re-surfaces in the gossip rags every so often; John Travolta, who tried to shake off recurring gay rumours by entering the world of Scientology; and Kevin Spacey, who once replied to questions about his sexuality, but now refuses to even broach the subject.
All this takes place in a Hollywood we are expected to believe has lightened up on homosexuality. We see more films with gay characters and plots, and several actors have come out over the past few years and still enjoyed a modicum of success in their careers. But the likes of Rupert Everett, Harvey Fierstein and Ellen DeGeneres have all hit a glass ceiling. Even in an age of increasing lesbian and gay visibility, coming out adversely affects an actor's career. All three actors are likely to play character parts for the rest of their careers.
In 1995, a poll commissioned by the magazine, Entertainment Weekly found that 29 per cent of Americans would be "less interested" in seeing their favourite actor perform in a movie or TV show if they learned that he or she was gay. Not coincidentally, the article that accompanied the poll reported that for every lesbian or gay Hollywood celebrity who agreed to speak on the record, dozens asked that their name not be mentioned.
The A-list is reserved for actors who appeal to the lowest common denominator, and in Hollywood terms that means sexual identification. Tom and Keanu, John and Richard appear on screen and in a fashion become subconsciously sexually available for female viewers, while becoming transient gender role models for male fans.
It is difficult for a man who is perceived as homosexual to be accepted as either. At the centre of this circle of denial stands the dollar sign. The mega-stars who light up our screens are nothing more than Hollywood's glittering cash cows. To make sure the big bucks keep rolling in, the coteries of lawyers and publicists sitting at the centre of Hollywood's power-base will not stray from a tried and tested formula.
After all, if idealised, heterosexually-identified stars have pulled in the punters since the founding of the industry, why change the parameters or challenge public perceptions? You better believe it: not one of today's Hollywood A-list is, was or ever has been, a homosexual. And if, by chance, some of them are, you'll never know it for sure.