Walter Film has acquired a collection of vintage original studio photographs of Rudolph Valentino from Four Horsemen Of The Apocalypse (1921), Camille (1921) with Alla Nazimova, A Sainted Devil (1924) See Image Above, The Son Of The Sheik (1926) and a hand tinted lobby card from the film that made him an international star, The Sheik (1921).
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Now that gay actors like Nathan Lane, Jim Parsons, Victor Garber, Jonathan Groff, and Neil Patrick Harris are “out of the closet” and on the rise, it’s hard to imagine just how different things were in the relatively recent past. Not only was the notion of being openly gay and having a viable career unimaginable, but gayness itself was also a concept polite society couldn’t countenance. “Homosexuals” subsisted on society’s margins, mentioned only in whispered gossip, fearsome psychiatric studies, and Conservative diatribes decrying perversion.
Still, in spite of it all, gay men managed to make their way to very top of the acting profession in the gilded closets of Hollywood. In this covert context, bigtime careers and personal lives proceeded with a calculated risk that can fascinate us today. Here are five of the most noteworthy examples of gay actors in mid-Century Hollywood.
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