Actress and comedian Molly Shannon is opening up about learning her father was a closeted gay man.
The Saturday Night Live alumna only discovered the truth about her father, James Shannon, shortly before his death.
She writes about the experience in her new memoir, “Hello, Molly!”, and spoke about it this week on The Howard Stern Show.
“I felt so much compassion,” she said. “Kind of the pieces of the story all coming together. It’s tragic.”
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The truth began to emerge in 2001, when James Shannon visited New York City as Molly was wrapping up her six-year run on SNL. She said he was out drinking and met a “straight college boy,” then showed up with the man at her West Village apartment.
She was upset since her father had been sober for a few years, and made him stay in a hotel. Afterwards, she called her manager, Steven Levy, who is gay and had become close with James over the years.
“Steven, in that conversation when I complained about my dad, said, ‘You’re being too hard on him Molly, you’re being too hard on him. You don’t understand, he’s given up so much for you girls, so much for you and Mary,'” she told Stern. “And he kept repeating, and I go, ‘What are you saying? Are you saying he’s gay?’
“And he was like, ‘I don’t want to tell you! He’s going to tell you.’ And I was like, ‘Oh, my God.’ I couldn’t believe it.”
“I think he had tried to tell my mom before that,” she added. “He said, ‘I saw this psychiatrist, and the psychiatrist told me I’m a latent homosexual,’ and she said, ‘Oh, that psychiatrist never should’ve told you that.'”
Later in 2001, she asked her then 72-year-old father directly.
“I just one day asked him by the pool, ‘Have you ever thought you might be gay?'” she said. “And he just said, ‘Most definitely.'” He died about six months later.
Michael Shannon had long struggled with alcohol abuse — he was drunk when he got into a car crash when Shannon was 4 that killed her mother, younger sister and cousin.
Molly began to think differently about the drinking after learning his secret.
“So of course you’re going to drink,” Shannon said. “Imagine if you couldn’t be who you were sexually. It’s horrible.”
In a separate interview with NPR, Shannon said she asked her father when he first knew he was gay.
“And he’s like, oh, Molly, I knew in grade school. I’d go on double dates, and I would look at the boy. And I liked this one boy who was from Poland, and I liked the way his hand held a cigarette. He looked so manly,” she said. “And I would look at the J.C. Penney catalogs and see the macho men in their undershirts.”
He also told her he met men for sex while on sales trips and at truck stops.
“And I was happy for him,” Shannon said. “And it was such an honor that he came out to me. And I think it was a relief for him to be able to tell me.”
toolman1
I can relate… it’s tough living a lie!
bachy
I love Molly Shannon and it’s heartbreaking to hear this. But her Dad’s sad story confirms the fact that traditional marriage, with all of its standards, demands and duties, can really constrain the expression of desire on SO many levels – not just WRT homosexual impulses.
But ALL live-in relationships – including gay relationships – do that. It’s why I currently live alone and have no desire to become coupled. I love my freedom!
JJinAus
All? That’s a bit extreme. Hey, life is not perfect in a couple, but it is mostly fantastic, unless you’re with the wrong person. I’m typing this while a hot cocoa is being made for me before bed. One of the many bonuses after 22 years. That and the serious stuff, like when one of us is sick, we have somebody there to take care of them.
rikard_pearson
i was closeted for a long time. we all have our own strategies for survival.
Seth
My sympathies lie with the dead wife and sister, along with Molly. Choosing a lie is always choosing a lie, so the notion that he “gave up so much” seeks to absolve him from the responsibility of that decision. Definitely, a tragic story, which is always the best fodder for comedy, so I’m glad to see Molly was able to come through it with so much humor intact.
Kevan1
Sadly, what your saying is more complicated that you make it seem. Times and the world were different. Yes it was a bad decision to drink and drive. Laws about drinking and driving even in the 70’s was seen much differently than now, like seat belts. He was killing his pain the only way he knew how. He did mention to his wife a psychiatrist said it was must likely gay. She would not hear of it like 98% of society at the time. He would have seen as a deviant, most likely he would have been caught, arrested and never have any career or life again. So tell me how would you have dealt with it. That is a lot to ask of a human being and expect much of a different outcome.
inbama
It always amazes me to read about people making a success of themselves in spite of a childhood with extraordinary pain.
Ronbo
Don’t you think that it’s the hardships that build character? Just being gay in a straight world helps to make us more creative and understand that there are gray areas in almost all “absolutes”.
Brian
This is the consequence of Catholicism.