http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nf670orHKcA

that sounds like something that helped out people with aids by giving them the access to their life insurance policy when they were alive and needed it…i know some info on this type of business and merv was simply an investor in a company that bought out the life insurance policies of terminally ill people and allowed them to enjoy the money while they were alive, like i said before…it was not restricted to people with aids in no way, shape or form. i am sorry but your comment was a perfect example of someone twisting reality to prove a liberal agenda. and there was nothing wrong with buying out “terminally ill” patients insurance policies because they benefitted and so did the company that purchased them.

How can you be unaware that people put their (straight) wedding announcements in the paper, announce the births of children etc.? This is all very public, but being Gay, when hidden, means it is a dirty secret. You must understand this but your comments pretend that you don’t. Idiots.

The original story was not that Clark Gable “had to allow himself to be blown by George Cukor,” but that like a lot of 20-something meat fresh to Follywood, he peddled himself a bit, road the casting couch whatever…and that later, after he’d become a star, he was behind Cukor’s firing as the first director of “Gone With the Wind” because he didn’t want a daily reminder of those days.

Another story went that it was Gable’s doing but only because Cukor was famous as a “woman’s director” and he feared he’d be lost in Cukor’s effort to make Vivien Leigh shine. Allegedly Cukor continued to privately coach Leigh and Olivia de Havilland during filming.

Correspondence indicates Cukors leaving was really because of a fight for control between him and GWTW producer David Selznick or for other studio politics reasons.

As Michaelangelo says so poignantly above, Merv for only one example was extremely powerful voice and could have made a huge difference both as a media person AND as a person who had the president of the USA’s ear at the time.

SUPER Sad and it bears repeating – this selfish, greedy, hypocritical lifestyle should never be forgotten when discussing Merv Griffin.

BUT he was a Card Carrying Pig because not only did he not come out LONG after he was untouchable because of his wealth but also because I know of no evidence that he ever gave a dime of that billion to anything gay rights-related or AIDS related AND was one of the insufferable queens like Outsports Cyd Ziegler who thought Reagan, his close friend, was God.

Micheangelo Signorile described [and documented] him best:

“First off, Griffin’s closet kept him shockingly silent while he had access to the president of the United States as his own people were dying. This man was intimate with the Reagans (and Nancy Reagan in particular) during the height of the AIDS epidemic in 80s, with few treatments available and fear-mongering having gripped the media. Griffin’s gay brothers — his friends, his lovers, his people across America, around the world — suffered and met horrific deaths. And yet, because he was closeted it is highly unlikely he ever made the connection for the Reagans (between himself and those who were suffering and dying), pointed out the government negligence, or even talked openly as a gay person. They likely knew, but it was unspoken, and that allowed all involved to just rationalize things –to say to themselves that, well, Merv, is not like those other people, and to always believe that maybe it wasn’t true anyway, and that he was truly dating Eva Gabor. He also stayed silent about the epidemic in the media — ironic since he was a man very much at the center of the media industry and in shaping communications and television in this country — when his voice would have made a huge difference.

Secondly, Griffin’s closet had him engaging in workplace sexual harassment, something that, as I showed in my 1993 book Queer in America, is common among closeted powerful men, who often are simply seeking outlets for sex. That was not only focused on in the Denny Terrio lawsuit against Griffin but also was something that several Hollywood gay men told me about, offering first hand experience, while I was researching Queer in America back in the early 90s and some of this (though, for legal reasons not all) is reported on in the book.

Finally, Griffin’s closet had him firing gay men who’d actually made it up through the ranks of his own company, simply because they were openly gay. There is a story in Queer in America about a man identified as “The Mogul” who did just that. I can now reveal that The Mogul is Merv Griffin. Open homosexuality is a threat to the closeted, and powerful people in the closet like Merv Griffin will often do whatever it takes to squash those who are open and who might advocate that all among the powerful should come out.

Merv Griffin accomplished a lot and is, in his death, being held up as a example of a stellar Hollywood businessman. But he should also be held up as man who, like Malcolm Forbes before him, was hugely influential and powerful and yet still allowed the closet and homophobia to manipulate his life, and to cause him to do harm to his own people. That should not be forgotten.”

Matt, you never saw Repo Man and heard those John Wayne rumors? The movie’s a classic! The Duke’s real name was Marion, you know.

But I agree with your basic point completely– all of jibes with the facts as I know them. I’m not sure I believe the Ryan Seacrest as Merv’s boy whore rumor, though. Seacrest’s not dead, so I guess this book won’t cover it.

There are some interesting and untested legal theories for defamation of the dead. Personally, I like juicy gossip too much to want any of these theories upheld in court.

Own it yourselves, Queerty! :0)