Blind Item #6 - Old Hollywood Blind
Throughout most of his career, this A-list leading man and pretty boy kept his sexuality a secret from the public. Throughout Hollywood, it was widely known that he was gay. His longtime partner since they were high schoolers was an heir to two of the richest families in the country. The actor got his longtime boyfriend a job as a film editor at the studio which the actor did most of his work for. When the boyfriend died a few years ago, he put his collection of explicit love letters in a bank vault, with orders never to be opened.
56 comments:
Rock Hudson
James Dean
Sal Mineo
People still write letters?
Is the actor still alive? Who put the letters in this vault?
@Kristin, we'll never know because IT CAN NEVER BE OPENED!
George Clooney
Errol Flynn
did you have a brain tumor for breakfast NYC?! They didn't have email till the 90s....SMH
Montgomery Clift?
Also, if the instructions were for them to never be read how do we know they were explicit?
Still haven't finished my coffee yet
@7 - tell Geraldo that.
I think Montgomery Clift was the name I was trying to remember
Not Rock, I actually know one of his past lovers…it's a secret…
Why not just burn them ?
Burn them?! Not very romantic. I frame all the love letters I get from James Franco...
Geraldo can open it, it's just that there will be absolutely nothing inside.
They're in a bank vault at a bank? Like in a safety deposit box? Is his estate paying the yearly fees for that? What if the bank branch closes in the future? Someone would have to retrieve them then what happens to them?
I'm a banker, that's why those burning questions popped in my head....lol
Well played, Sugar. *golf clap*
Good points, @dezzie. If something is "never to be opened" why wouldn't the guy just burn them? As long as they exist, someone could foreseeably get them. A few years ago, my parents' local Bank of America branch accidentally gave their safety deposit box to another customer instead of his own--luckily, he was a former Fed and thought someone was trying to set him up so he called the police and my parents got their stuff back. Mistakes DO happen so the guy must want someone to find them one day. OR this is bullshit.
Living-in-the-closet stories makes me sad.
OLD Hollywood, @NYCBRATGIRL & @FSP :)
Grant & Randolph Scott lived together for a bit but were both actors and met later in life.
I though Clift was a loner, especially after that accident. I'm stumped.
I know @ Karen. Humans make mistakes, with the future of banking everything is becoming electronic, and if the costs of running a branch is more than the revenue they are bringing in, it is eventually not going to be a place to store your valuables. If this is true, which I'm doubting, there would have to be at least ONE person who has to know what these letters are and some sort of backup plan....which just makes this too complicated to actually be true.
Kristen - I wondered the same same thing - is the actor still alive.
If the actor is alive, and he's a co-signer on the safety deposit box, it's not really an issue.
Wow Karen - your parents really got lucky on that one. Good to know there are honest people around.
Sounds as if the actor hasn't died yet. But Ive only whittled a list down to 20-30 old men who acted and never came out starting with Kirk Douglas. (Yeah he has kids sfw?)
I'll go with James Watson Webb (1916-2000) as the film editor. He was an heir to both the Havemeyer (sugar) and Vanderbilt (railroad) fortunes. Since he was an editor at 20th Century Fox I'll go with Tyrone Power as the pretty boy star.
This is the film editor. He worked for Fox and it looks like pretty boy Tyrone Power for the win
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._Watson_Webb,_Jr.
*damn D Brown got it will I was slowly typing*
How did you figure that out D Brown. I personally have never heard of Tyrone Power, but it all seems to fit.
I heard about the gay rumors for Tyrone Power, and the blind item definitely deals with a star from the 40s or 50s because the long term contract system collapsed by the end of the 50s.
impressive guessing
Tyron POwer loooks like George Clooney
Tyrone Power grew up in Cincinnati and Webb grew up in Syosset NY. I don't think they could have gotten together as high schoolers.
Love old hwood blinds.
I'm glad everyone is guessing true 'old hollywood' people and not just today's grown up actors.
Never heard of Tyrone Power? That gives me the sads. How about Errol Flynn?
Robert Wagner? I know he's married, has kids, but I think he did whatever it took back in old Hollywood. I think he has a new book out about old Hollywood homes.
James only had 1 movie released at the time of his death, he wouldn't have had the pull to get a boyfriend an editing job. Not saying it couldn't have happened, because he was bi, just that he wouldn't have had the clout. (huge James Dean fan here)
I like the Tyrone Power guess.
Carter Vanderbilt Cooper? Apparently he was an editor, committed suicide after splitting with a girlfriend.
My grandfather went to HS with Tyrone Power. <3
Letter from Tyrone Power to Watson Webb
http://www.tyrone-power.com/letter_to_watty_16sept45_page1.html
Tom Selleck
First Paragraph; Last Sentence
http://gayinfluence.blogspot.com/2011/09/tyrone-power-hollywood-bisexual.html
Roddy McDowell
Van Johnson
Anthony Perkins and I don't know who.
Cary Grant and Randolph Scott.
James Watson Webb attended Groton for high school. It's a private boarding school in MA so the other guy could be from anyplace. I can't find an actor alum in the right age range other than Fred Gwynne. Not a pretty boy.
It's Power and Webb, but to classify Power as "gay" is totally wrong, Enty.
For a "gay" guy, he certainly had a lot of sex with women and got more than one woman pregnant. Lana Turner? Three miscarriages with Linda Christian? Not too gay to me.
I think "bi" is the description you're looking for. But that was always said about him.
He just looks so much a lot like Clooney :)
I always thought Tyrone was openly bi?
A few comments:
1. If we are talking about Tyrone Power, then yes, he was bisexual. He reportedly had an ongoing affair with Errol Flynn, and fathered a child -- Taryn Power (possibly more, but she is the only one who comes to mind at the moment).
2. Why lock your love letters up in a bank vault with instructions that they never be opened? Why not just destroy them?
3. Finally, it makes me sad to think that a large part of someone's life can be erased upon their death. Yes, I realize the closet had enormous power over people long after we may think that power should have ceased to exist (or at least diminished), but still, to see their relationship completely obliterated makes me sad.
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