Birthday Roll Call- October 19th... Gay, Gay, Gay!

George Nader was a handsome, beefy, hairy chested leading man of B-movies & TV in the 1950s & 1960s. He was a life long friend of Rock Hudson’s & Hudson left the bulk of his estate to Nader on his death in 1985. Nader met his partner of 55 years- Mark Miller, when the 2 appeared together in a musical at the Pasadena Playhouse in 1947. In the 1972 he suffered a detached retina in an automobile accident, & he was no longer able to work under the lights. Miller planned to get a job in real estate to support the couple, but Rock Hudson hired him as his secretary.

In 1978 Nader wrote his first novel- Chrome, which is now in its 6th printing. The story was of forbidden love between a human male & a beautiful male robot, who are eventually exiled to different parts of the universe. Nader won a Golden Globe for Best Newcomer in 1954, the year of my birth.

Harris Glenn Milstead was an American singer & actor best known as Divine. He starred in many John Waters' films, including Mondo Trasho, Multiple Maniacs, Pink Flamingos, Female Trouble, Polyester, & his apex as an actor- Hairspray. The NY Times: "Those who could get past the unremitting weirdness of Divine's performance discovered that the actor/actress had genuine talent, including a natural sense of comic timing & an uncanny gift for slapstick.” Ironically, he grew up 6 houses away from John Waters in Baltimore. Check out his work in Alaln Rudolph’s Time Out Of Mind, which I am not in, but wa filmed in my neighborood of Seattle in 1985. I adore him/her.



Mike Brady was a fag!

He first gained fame in the early 1960s starring in the television drama series The Defenders from 1961 to 1965 & later on the sitcom The Brady Bunch from 1969 to 1974. After winning the role of Mike Brady, he later became unhappy with his part, feeling that acting in a sitcom was beneath his serious Shakespearean training. By most accounts Robert Reed genuinely liked & was beloved as a father figure by his fellow cast members on The Brady Bunch. Reed constantly argued with the show's creator, Sherwood Schwartz. One such argument even resulted in his being completely written out of the show's final episode. Reed was happy when the show ended, but he did return for the Brady Bunch Variety Hour & the made-for-TV movies & specials that reunited the Brady cast in the years to come. Reed felt that his career required him to be secretive about his homosexuality. Several of his male partners have since stated that he threatened them after sex, because he wanted his homosexuality to remain hidden. He never had a lasting relationship & by all accounts, Reed prefered anonymous encounters at Hollywood bars & bathhouses. He died of HIV complications in1992