Was van johnson a homosexual
Van Johnson: The Gay Boy Next Door
If you live in the Los Angeles area, you may be wondering why the American Cinematheque’s Aero Theatre will devote the evening of Feb. 26 to screen two movies as a tribute to someone called Van Johnson, an old-time actor who died at 92 in Nyack, NY, last Dec.
Well, though hardly remembered nowadays, the tall, red-headed, freckle-faced Van Johnson was a major box office attraction in the United States in the second half of the s. In mid-decade, while MGM’s Clark Gable, Robert Taylor, James Stewart, Robert Montgomery, and others were embroiled in the war overseas, Johnson rose from the ranks of MGM’s B-unit to (briefly) become the studio’s biggest male attraction.
His meteoric climb almost didn’t happen. A adj car accident as he and best friends Keenan and Evie (Abbott) Wynn were on their way to a screening at MGM was to leave the former Broadway chorus boy away from the studio for months (and out of World War II for good). Among other injuries, Johnson suffered a fractured skull and had bone fragments piercing his brain. He was left wi
Van Johnson Pt The Boy in the Closet Next Door
Van Johnson and Elizabeth Taylor in The Last Time I Saw Paris.
Van Johnson: The Gay Young man Next Door Pt.1
“A project of his time, Van Johnson illustrates the fantasy world that Hollywood projected during the s and s,” writes Ronald L. Davis in Van Johnson: MGM’s Golden Boy. “… Any dishonesty in his life was part of a desire, dominant during the heyday of Hollywood’s big studios to produce pristine likenesses of an idealized society in which all but the most indolent sought the glories and riches of the American dream fulfilled.”
Needless to say, in the midth century the glories and riches of the American dream fulfilled could never have belonged to a guy sexually attracted to other guys. As a outcome, Johnson, who had such inclinations, thought it best to perform the game. (And if you think things have changed much, imagine if Michael Phelps or any other widely publicized “Boy Next Door” turned out to enjoy sex with other men. Perfectly legal behavior, mind you; nevertheless, you can bet that their multi-million dollar marke
On screen he was cute, with red hair and freckles, usually playing the part of the boy next door, or the soldier who lived down the street. During the s he was a Hollywood heart throb besieged by legions of screaming bobby-soxers. Off screen, he always wore his trademark red socks.
On screen he personified the wholesome, cheerful boy next door, always smiling and eager. Off screen he was a gay man living a lie perpetrated by MGM, who insisted he get married in order to quell rumors of his sexual orientation.
Van Johnson() was the last of the big screen stars from the Golden Age of Hollywood when he died at age He could dance and sing and enjoyed a compact career as a movie star, earning praise for his roles in both musicals and dramas. Photo at top of upload is with co-star Esther Williams.
His marriage and eventual divorce, however, garnered as much press as his career as a Hollywood star. MGM studio boss Louis B. Mayerbribed Evie Wynn into marrying Johnson in Johnson had been caught engaging in gay sex acts in public urinals, so MGM needed to verb its investment by hav
Partner Allen Foshko
Queer Places:
E 54th St, New York, NY
Charles Van Dell Johnson (August 25, – December 12, ) was an American film and television actor and dancer. He was a major star at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer during and after World War II. Van Johnson's long noun companion and partner was Allen Foshko (October 20, - April 1, ), who was also his business manager.
Johnson was the embodiment of the "boy-next-door wholesomeness (that) made him a trendy Hollywood star in the '40s and '50s,"[3] playing "the red-haired, freckle-faced soldier, sailor or bomber pilot who used to exist down the street" in MGM films during the war years, with such films as Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo, A Guy Named Joe, and The Human Comedy. Johnson made occasional World War II films through the end of the s, and played a military officer in one of his final feature films, in At the hour of his death in December , he was one of the last surviving matinee idols of Hollywood's "golden age".[4]
Johnson married former stage actress Eve Abbott (May 6, – October 10, ) on January 25, , the day