The Good, The Bad, & The Ugly

Roger Rees is a Welsh actor. I first noticed him when he for played Robin Colcord on Cheers & Lord John Marbury on the The West Wing. He won a Tony Award & Olivier Award as the lead in The Life & Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby. He also starred in the original production of The Real Thing by Tom Stoppard in London in 1984.

Rees recently played Vladimir in an all gay revival of Waiting for Godot, alongside Ian McKellen & Simon Callow. He recently played Gomez on Broadway musical adaptation of The Addams Family, following the departure of Nathan Lane. Rees's longtime partner is writer/producer Rick Elice, who happens to be the co-author, with Marshall Brickman, of the book of the Addams Family musical. They live in London & NYC. He turns 63 today.

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Born on this day in the dark ages, Cardinal Francis Spellman was a celebrated & calculated archconservative member of the Catholic Clergy & one of the most vocal & high profile American priests of the 20th century. He remains one of the most notorious, powerful & sexually voracious homosexuals in the American Catholic Church’s history: the politically connected Spellman, known as “Franny” to assorted chorus boys,was NYC's cardinal from 1939 until his death in 1967.

The church, of course, has suppressed documentation of Spellman's not-so-secret gay life, pressuring The NY Times continued to censor information about him, covering up Spellman's sexual secrets many years after his death, clearly fearful of the church's revenge if the paper didn't fall in line. During Spellman's reign & long afterward, all of NYC newspapers cowered before the Catholic Church. On Spellman's orders NYC's department stores,owned largely by Catholics, pulled ads from the then-liberal New York Post in the 1950s after publisher Dorothy Schiff wrote commentary critical of his right-wing positions; Schiff was forced to back down.

Writer Michelangelo Signorile says: “Spellman was the epitome of the self-loathing, closeted, evil queen, working with his good friend, the closeted gay McCarthy henchman Roy Cohn, to undermine liberalism in America during the 1950s' communist & homosexual witch hunts.”

In the 1940s, Spellman had an affair with a Broadway dancer (who of us has not?) in the show One Touch of Venus; the prelate would have his limousine pick up the dancer several nights a week & bring him back to his place. When the dancer once asked Spellman how he could get away with this, Spellman answered: "Who would believe that?"  


Little Francis Spellman turns an amazing 123 years old today

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After completion of 'N Sync's final tour, Lance Bass moved to Star City, Russia, in a much publicized pursuit of a place on a Soyuz Space Rocket. Bass was certified by both NASA & the Russian Space Program after several months of cosmonaut training & planned to join the mission to the International Space Station. After his financial sponsors backed out, Bass was denied a seat in space. Bass turns 33 on this day.