In case you weren’t aware, legendary Merv Griffin’s dead. Yeah, we know it’s hard to deal with, but it’s a fact of life. Unfortunately, some news agencies were hesitant to highlight a fact of Griffin’s now spent life: his homosexuality. As Michelangelo Signorile writes, Hollywood Reporter editor Elizabeth Guider yanked a story, which opened: “Merv Griffin was gay”.
The person responsible for pulling Ray Richmond’s column on Merv Griffin and the fact that he was gay was editor Elizabeth Guider, pictured here, who was apparently out of town and who completely freaked when the pressure came from various Hollywood titans, advertisers and lawyers for one of Griffin’s companies. It’s quite possible she was simply told she had to pull it by those way above her at parent company Nielson Business Media, which has many other business interests and connections with many Hollywood moguls and companies (though Editor and Publisher, which so far is the only publication to cover this, is owned by the same company).
Reuters news agency also pulled their international link to the HR story. After gays raised a stink, the stories magically reappeared, although with a few scandalous edits.
Now that the story’s back, we have one question: who’s pulling the strings behind the scenes? Surely Guider’s not the one calling the hosts. And, as Signorile points out, lawyerly threats from a dead man fall on deaf ears. So who pressured Guider to scrap the story? Which Hollywood bigwigs are big homophobes?
allen bardin
This is so ridiculous. Lots of us knew MG was gay FOREVER — all you had to do was watch his show!
Dawster
do we really have to throw a pride parade on people’s graves? honestly, if i was starting off in Hollywood during the time of the McCarthy Trials, i would be scared shitless to come out too.
i think he should have come out before dying, but that was his choice since he lived in a different time. the same cannot be true today. shouldn’t we be a LITTLE respectful of the recently departed?
But then again, there will always be moneymaking casket-chasers trying to bring scandal and make a buck… they are STILL doing it with Princess Diana.
Leland Frances
Oh, Mary, do NOT mention Di’s name in the same breath with Merv’s. She was far from perfect, and I agree with you about those who fed on her before and after her death, but she became as luved as she was in large part because of all her charity work, including in relation to AIDS while an actually gay BILLIONAIRE is not known to have “given a penny to AIDS” or use his unique influence.
Or, as Signorile documents:
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.”
WWH
A picture is worth a thousand words….
Dawster
I’m sure all of that is verifiable.
BUT… i still have to say that his life, his development was something born from the McCarthy debates, the Cold War, the impending thought of Nuclear War, “Duck and Cover”, the Cuban missile crisis, and other extremely sensitive times that shaped America in a way we today cannot comprehend. it was truly a fear-based day to day life.
the times, the people, and the expectations were very different, it cannot be compared to today. there were actual black-lists, people did shrivel up and die because of being outspoken, jewish, gay, or even if they exercised their first amendment rights. Senate committees would meet and a brilliant mind and artist would never be heard from again.
once a person wades through all that… and makes it to the other side in a comfortable life, you can’t expect them to spin the wheel again and come out… even though there was no actual risk, thanks to political america from the 50’s to the 70’s, fear controls all movements. that fear does not go away.
i DO NOT AGREE with that stance… but that was his to make. he’s gone now, there is a new generation here and THIS generation is where true progress can be made – from successful closeted homos, to successful out homos.
i didn’t mean to bring up Di. i bow to that mis-hap, my point was simply that there are always those ones who will come forward to make a buck off the dead. i find that shameful. they are worse than ambulance chasing lawyers.
Merv’s success or failure… political friends, and anti-gay or pro-gay antics do not effect me. they will never effect me. i am of a different generation and a different age. i stand on my own two feet. stronger people than him have come before me to create hope… but had no one come, i would have created my own hope.
for that, i say that we should not judge, but let the man rest and be more concerned in providing a better example to those that come after us.
Tallskin
Er, can I be the ignorant Yerpean peasant and say that I have never heard of the man?
However, having read all the above about him I will just add this :
– OutRage! in the UK started its threat to “OUT” closeted homosexuals because these closeted homosexuals were actively and deliberately harming their fellow homosexuals – like anti-gay bishops in parliament voting for anti-gay laws, or making anti-gay speeches. And the same for anti-gay MPs etc etc.
That seems to me a sufficient reason to ‘out’ the old buggers – if they are doing harm to other homosexuals.
Personally, I think a gay rights group should’ve outed this Merv character if he was frequently harming gays. These people actively fight against gay equality for their own narrow, short term personal interests.
Sometimes, to paraphrase Mr Spock, the needs of the many (and future generations of young gays) outweigh the needs of the few closted, self hating homosexuals.
And yes one can understand the hideous times of the youth of these people, an intensely anti gay environment that forged their homosexual identity, but this explains but does NOT excuse.
Dawster
i do think IF that did happen… firing someone for being a blatant homosexual… i think the fired person should have sued, or protested, or something. i can’t confirm if that actually happened, but if it did, i would attack the legal issue at hand.
ProfessorVP
You know why I don’t care that the gloves are off regarding Merv Griffin? Because during the beginning of the AIDS pandemic, when, in fact, the disease was (in industrialized nations) initially limited to gay men, Merv was even then chummy with the Reagans, then in power. Reagan agreed publicly with the Bible, stating that homosexuality “is an abomination” and scolded the gay community for its promiscuity. (Like straight men aren’t promiscuous when possible.)
Research and treatment funding were nickel and dimed because the victims weren’t, shall we say,
popular. At that time, two people should have come forth to inform Ron and Nancy that they were gay. One was Merv Griffin; one was Ronnie (Prescott) Reagan, aka Ron Junior. It would have saved thousands of lives, and even today would have a lasting effect in lessening the pandemic.
Yes, it was up to them to come out IF THEY CHOSE. Nobody is saying otherwise; it is a personal choice. But what I and others are saying is, “We ALSO have a choice to out you when you turn your back on your own people, your own kind. You have a choice; we have a choice.”
And here’s the irony: Although Reagan himself was befuddled and clueless, an Alzheimer’s victim at the BEGINNING of his presidency– Nancy was no fool and even today, at 86, is not senile. There is no possible way she didn’t know that Merv was gay, or, for that matter, her best pal, flamboyant queen Jerry Zipkin was. It is also impossible that Merv’s middle-aged son didn’t know he had a Gay Dad. It is also impossible that every major and even minor player in the entertainment industry didn’t know Merv Griffin was gay. So the irony is that all this unnecessary protection of Merv’s “honor” and “reputation” can only be for the sake of the most uninformed rubes from what the Republicans call the flyover states, that vast hillbilly area between NY and LA. As if their tender brains and sensibilities would be traumatized. “We must never let them know the guy in the Santa Claus suit was really Daddy.” All this fuss… for whom, and for what?
Leland Frances
“Merv’s … political friends …will never effect me.”
Wow. I am knocked out by what a great connection you have to our Earth-based Internet from whatever planet you’re living on.
Could it be the Planet Retard? And is that how they spell “affect”?
Tallskin
Professor VP: There were homosexuals campaigning for equality way before Stonewall so you’re right, personal choice comes into this – I am thinking of the brave gays in Britain (like Dirk Bogarde a matinee idol here for the british film industry, who made one of the most groundbreaking calls for a change in the law in Britain – a brilliant film its called VICTIM – watch it !! It enhanced his career, gave him respectability this side of the pond,by the way, and he left behind his matinee idol days.). ((Bogarde in his dotage became homophobic and was jealous of younger ‘gays’ and was no help. But in his youth he acted to try and change things for gays for the better, so I forgive him.))
There was, as far as I am aware, no Hollywood equivalent. Sure there were brave Yanks like Harry Hay and colleagues (lol even he was born in England!!) but no major star of the importance of Bogarde to the UK.
An equivalent would be Rock Hudson.
ProfessorVP
Tallskin, I’ve seen Victim, as well as other fine Bogarde films, but I have no evidence that although his life was quite transparent, he never said the words, “I am gay.” One could argue that he never hid it either, which was indeed courageous for those times.
In the case of Merv Griffin, a billionaire with influential connections- one could say the same for Malcolm Forbes- there can be no other possible reasons but selfishness and vanity for their deceptions, for nothing could hurt them. Again- they had choices; no one is denying that. And we have choices to out gay people who are indifferent to the sufferings of other gay people, or do outright harm to gay people; no one should deny that either.
Dawster
Leland Frances… sorry for that. here on planet retard we don’t have grammar check.
“Merv’s life and his friend’s politics and causes have no effect on me. He has died. His time has past. Reagan has died. People of that era are dying. We are ushering a new generation of politics (as shown by the LOGO/HRC forum). Times are changing for the better and where we stand is bitching at a gravestone of a man we can never raise from the dead. Instead of being pre-occupied with the generation before us, we should be concerned about the generation coming after us in making sure we are not like Merv, and acting counter-productive to the gay community as a whole.”
was that better? i didn’t want to come across as preachy. the point is that his generation was a hard one, and i will never bitch at anyone from that era. they were scared shitless 90% of the time. we are so different today, as it is, everyone under 30 said “who?” when the news announce his death.
so the connection to him and his generation (and their influence) is simply not there anymore. Any retard could tell you that.
geep
Yeah, Merv Griffin and Ron Reagan are responsible for Ronald Reagan’s non-response to HIV/AIDS in the 1980s. Because, you know, you’d hate to actually have to hold Reagan himself responsible.
Merv was gay; who gives a fuck?
ProfessorVP
I do hold Reagan (Senior) responsible, Einstein. He knew his actions- actually inactions- would lead to death, and was perfectly fine with that. All I’ve pointed out was that unlike Nancy Reagan, Ronald Reagan seemed to think he didn’t know any gay people. In fact, he did- his son, and Merv Griffin. It might have made a difference; we’ll never know. Ronald Reagan was responsible; Ron Reagan and Merv Griffin just didn’t give a shit.
dennisconkin
It’s important to hold whomever beyonf GUider responsible but I persoanlly think she should resign. I think there should be a call for her resignation over the censorship issues. There won’t be. Mark my words, GLAAD will find some way to give her a blow-job….
Leland Frances
Dawster, I don’t know who “we” are but YOU will not usher in anything beyond movie theatre patrons if you don’t get the connection of the past with today AND tomorrow.
Since I’m guessing I’m a tad bit older than you, permit me to share with you, guarantee you that there are gay men dying in the US even as I write this that got infected when Merv’s pal Ronald Reagan was President because RR failed to make AIDS prevention and education a priority of his administration. He never even publicly uttered the word AIDS until at least four years after the first cases were identified, after the bodies were piling up and thousands already infected. A year after those first cases were identified, when medical experts were beginning to recognize what an epidemic/pandemic was exploding around them and looking for help from the federal government [the only source with the means to do what needed to be done], Reagan’s spokesman mocked a reporter at a White House press conference for even asking what his boss was doing. He didn’t even bother to answer, “Nothing.”
As for Griffin being likely “scared shitless 90% of the time,” you write as if he died in 1907 not 2007. If he had, I wouldn’t criticize him either. Regardless of what era he matured in, NEARLY HALF OF HIS LIFE was lived AFTER Stonewall. What was he afraid of? His mother and father rejecting him? LONG since dead we assume. Getting fired from his job? He was, to put it mildly, self-employed. And his BILLION + dollars insulated him from any of the practical vulnerabilities that the vast majority of the rest of us face, regardless of our ages.
The message for today and tomorrow’s activists, for anyone, was uttered by Winston Churchill during WWII [you can Google him in case you’ve never heard of him either but I bet Merv admired him]: “With greatness comes responsibility.” Griffin had great talent, great personality, great friends, great connections, great wealth, and great opportunities to make the world better for millions of gays but was totally irresponsible instead. And he could have done it all from the closet.
jerrypritikin
One of Merv’s San Francisco’s St. Francis Hotel tricks wound up on “Wheel” and won $5,000… that way he was able to write it off and get off, too!
Dawster
Poor Leland Frances… it must be really sad being you.
the past is there to learn from. the future is there to change. we take from the past knowledge and we use it on the future.
you can bitch about the past all you want. it’s not going to change a damn thing. Sit and spin on Ronald Reagan all you want.
i have friends who are around Merv’s age who, to this day, have stayed in the closet even though they are successful businessmen. why don’t they come out? i’ve told you. i can understand, but i don’t agree. what did it take for those of the same age bracket to come out? i’ve told you. my heart breaks to know what mountains had to be overcome just to say three words, “i am gay”. i get both sides of that generation – and i’m very glad that i didn’t live in that time.
you either get the fear of the times, or you don’t. either way – i look forward, you look behind. guess which way time goes?
ProfessorVP
Dawster, you claim you know successful old gay businessmen in the closet. Really? Were they or are they in the inner circle of a president of the United States and the First Lady? Do they have anywhere near a billion dollars?
One either takes a narrow view of the world or one takes in the bigger picture. It could be said, as a generalization (and generalizations are sometimes true) that a Conservative looks at the small picture- what feels good right now, the acquisition of wealth, and me, me, ME, that is all that counts. That is in keeping with Merv Griffin’s not coming out. If you see nothing lacking in that philosophy- and many people don’t- then you will never agree with what others are saying here.
I see an enormous need to look at the past and learn from it, and yes, to dwell on it. I hope that years from now, people will still look at Bush’s Iraqi Adventure and decide that this kind of bullshit will never happen again. I get the impression, Dawster, that you are very young. For one thing, from my experience, only the very young don’t capitalize the word “I.” I suggest this: keep an open mind, get as much information as you can, never stop learning and growing.
Dawster
no, no one was near that successful. (1) business owner and (2) retired chairman. of neither i will i give details. both were married, one still is (but separated).
i also know an older woman (and fabulous drinking buddy) who sometimes describes the times whenever she had a few too many).
“the acquisition of wealth and the me, me, ME, that’s all that counts” attitude dominated the 80’s. you know what? there is a whole generation that learned to survive, overcome, and succeed DESPITE it. i am part of that generation.
i am used to the creeps. it doesn’t bother me. successful creeps are fine as well… but Merv is dead now. show some respect for the dead. there is nothing, NOTHING that come come from barking at his gravestone.
but please feel free to bark all you want. let me know if Merv comes back from the dead to make it all right with you… give you closure, donate money to the charity of your choice.
I’m going to drop the conversation, pick up a hammer, and help build a better future than the one Merv built for us.
Leland Frances
Ah, I knew if we let Dawster talk long enough he would betray the source of his convoluted omniscience. He’s an alcoholic.
Dawster
well, she’s 75 and bounces between NY and Florida… and i’m in Texas… and i see her only twice a year.
but if you want to take raging “alcoholic” from that… i’ll give it to you… LOL.
Rich O'Neil
Leave Merv Griffin alone-he was fabulous!