a moment to remember in The Thorn Birds…Stanwyck’s character tries to seduce Chamberlain’s…

He and John McCainshould get along just fine.

This is a thorny issueOne the one hand, we want everyone to be out and to provide society with examples of fearless people who are unafraid to hide their sexuality. On the other hand, these are ACTORS. Actors, particularly movie actors who work in the studio system, make their living by providing the heterosexual majority with fantasies that they can feed on. Saying that a movie star has to be straight, or has to appear straight, is no more controversial than saying that a leading man or woman has to be attractive. Yes, it’s unfair that only beautiful people get to be movie stars but there it is.
The majority of the audience have to be comfortable imagining that the man or woman they’re looking at is available to them. And they are mostly heterosexual. On stage, in character roles and in independent movies, gay actors live freer lives and different careers and can be out. But the studio system trades in stereotypes, fantasies and myths. It is no place for the truth. Not now.
I have tremendous respect for gay actors who can command reverence, like Ian McKellan, or straight actors who can perform gay roles with grace and sensitivity, like Colin Firth or Heath Ledger. Those types of actors may one day transform the audience into one that will accept any actor in any role.
But for the time being, the multiplex audience trades in shallow fantasies, racial stereotypes, superficial beauty and a tedious shorthand of character.

but it is also a fantasythat you can be ‘the right one’ to come along and set that gay man straight.  that’s a potent societal fantasy and it isn’t rare.  other entertainers like David Bowie have in fact bolstered their fan base using it.  so i’m not convinced that the situation is as cut and dry as you suggest.  after all, we’re talking about an industry that is build on the premise of the suspension of disbelief.  so the question in my mind is, is gay actor X good enough to create suspension of disbelief in the mind of viewers?  

Yes, he could.A gay actor can easily create a hetero character convincingly enough to give the audience a thoroughly credible entertainment experience.  It don’t think, or at least I hope, that isn’t really at issue.
What is more at issue is getting cast in the first place, and more importantly, building a successful career as a leading man.  There is much more to that than creating a convincing and entertaining character on the screen.  There is also their off stage persona and public image.  Much of the success of a leading actor comes from how they are treated in the popular media.  Celebrity magazines like National Enquirer and entertainment industry TV shows like Entertainment Tonight are a vital part of creating the public image of an actor to the point that public interest in them alone is enough to sell a movie.  For leading male actors, a tremendous amount of that success is in the fascination of their female fans.  The real question is if an out gay actor can titillate the fantasies of vast numbers of hetero women.  Could a Brad Pit, George Clooney, or Johnny Depp be successful in their careers if their legions of female fans saw them as gay?  I suspect not.  Is it fair?  Of course not.  Life isn’t fair.  It’s just an unappreciated part of the Hollywood fantasy machine.

All praise for Neal Patrick Harris, but….While it is absolutely true that he came out powerfully and courageously and that it has not impacted his popularity with regards the Barney character on How I Met Your Mother, it is utterly premature to announce that his coming out has not hurt his career.
The fact that he wasn’t immediately fired and the series rewritten is certainly a sign of progress compared to, say, the 1970′s, but we don’t know the impact it has on his career until this series ends and he’s out looking for work.
Yes, he has done other roles in the meantime, small ones, and essentially non-sexual ones.
I’m reminded of how everyone similarly used Dan Butler as an example of an out gay actor playing straight with no negative impact on his career when his coming out didn’t change the popularity of the Bulldog character on Frasier. And when he left the series, he hasn’t done a lot since – but then, a lot of smaller characters on successful shows don’t find another hit role, ever, even without the sexual orientation question.
Unless I haven’t been paying enough attention, we still haven’t seen an actor come out and subsequently have a breakout huge success, in either a gay role or a straight one. More and more, it doesn’t summarily end the show they are on, but isn’t the question the next role?
(Yes, Ellen, and in no way to minimize her huge success, but that isn’t in an acting role.)

Agreed.The “I could never shower in the same county as a gay man” crowd will NEVER find an out gay actor’s portrayal of a straight character convincing.
I wish that weren’t true, and I know it is less true every day. But when I look at my reaction to an actor whose politics or off-screen behavior I loathe, I have to admit I understand it, even if I disagree with it.
I find Mel Gibson loathesome – to the degree that I have trouble watching older movies like Lethal Weapon that I once enjoyed. Other actors have similarly soured themselves for me.
Regardless of the ability of the actor, people often complain about casting a white actor as a character of some other minority.
I can understand how someone would find watching an especially out gay person in a straight role similarly distracting, and why a bigot would find a gay person in a straight role distracting enough to avoid the movie.
For that matter, I am aware when I see an out gay or lesbian actor in any role, or an actor who has publicly espoused a liberal cause I identify with, and cheer them on. If I can’t let go of their identity, even though it’s positive, why should someone else?

This is precisely the argumentthat has been made in every industry to keep people in the closet.  Law, medicine, teaching, politics, the arts, and on and on.  Granted, coming out isn’t easy, especially for someone in a high-profile career like acting.  But it hasn’t been easy for any of us, no matter the profession.  I remember, back when my first novel was published (in the 80s), being told by my editor that including gay characters in it would abruptly end my career.  I stuck to my guns, and the book went on to be nominated for several awards; and my seventeenth novel was pubbed earlier this year.  I don’t mean to hold myself up as a particularly sterling example; brave men and women in every field of endeavor have taken the steps to come out.  The fact that Hollywood is several decades behind the rest of America only makes it more important for the gay people who work in it to become leaders.  
The bottom line, for me, is this:  Shame and timidity are not virtues. No matter how you try to spin them, they just simply aren’t.  

On December 23 …I did a posting about the Advocate article with Richard Chamberlain and also included a link to a previous posting I had done on the double standard of homophobia in Hollywood.
http://focusontherainbowopine….

Dan Butler is the only out actor you can think of?Butler’s relative obscurity these days is arguably because he’s not particularly interesting or versatile actor.
Try Ian McKellen.  If you’ve detected any evidence that his career has suffered for being not only out but a vigorous champion of gay equality, please share it with us.  
Try Cherry Jones, who has not only won multiple Tony awards for her work on Broadway, but has worked steadily in film and on TV, even to the point of playing the president of the United States on a hit series.
Try Jesse Tyler Ferguson, one of the best comic actors in the country, who has done multiple turns on- and off-Broadway and is an Emmy nominee for Modern Family.
And How I Met Your Mother is hardly the only thing Neil Patrick Harris has done.  He’s worked in film (the Harold and Kumar franchise), on Broadway and hosted several high-profile awards shows.   And he’s still going strong.
And there are any number of other examples.  But why go on?  Apologists for the closet never stop, and probably never will.

As i often say……and this just uunderlines it.
The religious right is not the enemy. the enemy is the closet, now and always.
The closet is not only about keeping us down, it is about keeping heteorsexuals comfortable, especially concerning the myth of heterosexual superiority, the reality of heterosexual privilege, and the utopianesque belief in wholly imaginary heterosexual hegemony.

The problems here is not just personal integrityThe problem is that, in Hollywood, a leading actor who comes out of the closet will never be cast in a starring role again. This is a fact. The scripts will simply stop arriving. And actors are not crazy for wanting to work more than wanting to act as role models for society. Hollywood is a fearsomely conservative place, a heterosexist propaganda factory designed to meet the needs of the widest possible audience. It is at least thirty years behind the rest of the country and cannot be thought of in the same way as any other place of work.

“The Double Standard Of Being Out In Hollywood”http://focusontherainbowopine….

Nathan. Lane.One of my most favorite actors EVER. First saw in “Guys and Dolls” and was HOOKED.
Stephen Fry. No one else could be Jeeves imo…
Jane Lynch. I haven’t seen Glee, but loved her in Boston Legal and a bazillion cameos.
The late great Python, Graham Chapman.
Hmm- I seem to be light on heavy dramatic actors and very fond of sharp and funny ones… go figure!

Chamberlainwas imo a one-hit wonder and decades past any relevance.
Thank goodness there is a flood of young actors who refuse to hide who they are and refuse to listen to such utter claptrap and nonsense as this.

Love ya.

I don’t blame him for thinking the way he does…… it’s not him, it’s just a generational thing.
As mentioned by the posters above, the “coming out will end your career!” meme is being steadily disproven, actor by actor, but it certainly hasn’t gone away yet.  But in Chamberlain’s heyday, being publicly known as gay would have Ended.  His.  Career.  No ifs, ands, or buts.  He would never have been hired again, at least not in Hollywood as a leading man.
By contrast, kids in high school today are able to be openly gay – not just to their parents and friends, but to everyone, and it blows my mind.  (Again, certainly not everywhere, but in more and more of the country.)
Me, I’m a Gen-Xer, somewhere between “Coming out will end your career!” and “The closet?  What’s that?”  When I think of how closeted I was during high school and into college, I envy the high school kids today who have Ellen and “Glee” as role models.  But I also never had to actively lie about my sexual orientation either.  I never had to have a marriage of convenience or even make up a fake girlfriend.  Chamberlain’s generation DID have to lie, actively, or face very real consequences: not just ending an acting career, but being arrested or committed.  The closet wasn’t a choice for that generation – it was a survival mechanism.
You could accuse me of being super-closeted myself, not least within my own mind, because I haven’t shouted my identity to the heavens the way today’s high-schoolers can, and to an extent you’d be right.  But I also never had to deal with what that previous generation had to deal with, so I hesitate to pass judgement.

yeah, gibson’s bigoted crap ruined “the road warrior” for me…so that’s a really interesting point.  However, I think that it’s a different case because I feel like being put off by an actor’s real-life obnoxiousness is a legitimate reaction.
I also think a white person portraying a character of color is even more legitimately distasteful, especially because of the ugly history of such portrayals (it keeps happening these days, too).  But a gay person in a straight role is not the same as, say, blackface — not by a mile.
So I get what you’re saying about not being able to let go of a person’s identity while watching them onscreen, but I think that your reasons for feeling that way are legitimate, whereas a bigot’s reasons for feeling distracted by a gay actor in a straight role can never be legitimate.

He was ….far from just a one hit wonder starting with the ’60′s TV series Dr. Kildare.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R…
Although one could argue he wasn’t a great singer but was good enough to do a stage musical.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v…

“Celebrities”One thing that seems to have been left out of this discussion is the way film and TV actors, especially, are scrutinized every minute of every day of their lives once they gain a little popularity (or even before).  Their private lives, unless they take strong measures, are open books.  They’re not just actors, they’re celebrities.
I strongly suspect that we’d find that a majority of Americans can’t or don’t really differentiate between the actor and the role, especially in a popular TV series which is in their homes on a regular basis.  The actors can’t just come home from work and take off their suits, because we won’t allow it.  
And I think the end result of this is Hollywood homophobia on the part of agents and producers.  It’s absolutely correct that they’re peddling fantasies, mostly heterosexual, but they’re doing it because the fantasies sell, and anything that’s going to jeopardize that is a no-no.
That said, I still think it sucks, but I think it’s unfair to blame the actors.  The great American Audience is at least as much to blame.

With apologiesto azerica, whose comment above I somehow missed first time through:
Yes, exactly.

David Bowieis a special case:  his audience was largely teen-age girls, who seem to be fascinated by androgynous boys and boy/boy interactions, as witness the popularity of boys’ love manga (a/k/a “yaoi”) — male/male romances, and the target audience is teen-age girls and young women.  He, like the creators of this genre, was using androgyny.
That’s not the reaction you’re going to find from matrons in central Illinois.  Probably.

Celebrities@Hunter: I completely agree with you.  As a person who lived in LA for many years and had acting friends, it’s a schizophrenic life to be an actor and even more so when one is a celebrity.  Your living and your ability to work is tied to how you are perceived by society at large and studio executives in particular.
It’s a delicate balance, and a choice that we should leave in the hands of the person who is making it.  I think if anyone should cut a gay actor some slack, it’s another gay person.  Goddess knows the majority of our society won’t.  

That’s how I feel, but.I agree that for me (and for any right-thinking person) being gay isn’t an issue, and shouldn’t be, so that I don’t have a problem with an actor I know is gay playing straight.
But I still pay attention to early Rock Hudson roles in ways I don’t to say, William Holden roles.
At the same time, there are actors that I know to be monogamous and happily married, and watching them in love scenes with someone else isn’t a problem, or someone smart playing a dumb character, and so on.
I fully expect that some day offscreen orientation will be like that. I don’t think Chamberlain is as wrong as I wish he was at the present time.

Actually, you’re making my point.I didn’t say that gay actors can’t be successful. Of course they can. Ian McKellan is an odd choice for your list though – the vast majority of his roles came before he came out.
But my point was that the gay actors who come out and have gone on to continued success have pretty universally had those subsequent successes either in gay roles or in essentially non-sexual roles, regardless of what roles they were in before.
Chamberlain isn’t quoted as saying that coming out means you won’t work in Hollywood – he’s saying you won’t be cast as a leading man in a straight, romantic or action role. (And there simply aren’t mainstream gay romantic or action leading roles, the odd Brokeback Mountain notwithstanding.)
You can love people like Jesse Tyler Ferguson, or Nathan Lane, or Stephen Fry, but you can’t pretend that they are getting leading man roles.
And it may take a generation of out gay actors in delicious character roles before people don’t care. But nobody on your list is doing romantic leads or action roles.

I’m there tooI refuse to watch any movie with Mel Gibson, but long before his drunken rant. It was when he started spewing his radical, uber-right Catholic bigotry.
I’ll also refuse to watch any movie where I know the star’s a victim of the Scientology cult. I don’t want any penny of my rental fee royalty going to that evil and immoral group.
But I have no problem with and actor playing gay for pay, because it’s a role. They’re another person on the screen, not themselves. So I didn’t mind seeing Heath Ledger in Brokeback Mountain playing a gay man.

EasierIt certainly would be easier if we all woke up one day to have varying shades of neon pink triangles all over our bodies depending where on the Kinsey Scale you are. This way there’s no doubt as to who’s gay and who isn’t…

All those people built their careers on stage or in the closet.None of them are leading actors; there are all character actors. The article is about starring roles; people who the audience want to imagine themselves in sexual situations with.
Remember Anne Heche? Leading lady, GONE.
Ellen: character actress and brilliant comedian: successful.

Some people who make break the mold.Tom Hardy: up and coming Brit, starred in ‘Inception’ and was magnificent as crazed convict in ‘Bronson’. Married to a woman, he recently punched entrenched homophobia in the face in an interview when he said (of gay sex):
“Of course I have. I’m an actor for f*ck’s sake. I’ve played with everything and everyone. I love the form and the physicality, but now that I’m in my thirties, it doesn’t do it for me. I’m done experimenting but there’s plenty of stuff in a relationship with another man, especially gay men, that I need in my life. A lot of gay men get my thing for shoes. I have definite feminine qualities and a lot of gay men are incredibly masculine. A lot of people say I seem masculine, but I don’t feel it. I feel intrinsically feminine. I’d love to be one of the boys but I always felt a bit on the outside. Maybe my masculine qualities come from overcompensating because I’m not one of the boys.”
I think that that is the kind of sexual identity that even the old trolls that run Hollywood might see potential in. Macho, fluid, unashamed, unquantifiable, surprising. Something for everybody. Look out for him in Nolan’s next Batman movie.
Daniel Craig. Almost certainly gay or bisexual, has reportedly been angling for a gay scenario for James Bond for his third outing (pun unintended). Has embraced gay roles many times before on stage and screen. His granitic persona seems impervious to innuendo about his sexuality.
I’m deliberately neglecting woman because I think other people may know better.  

Yep.I’ve often stated it very simply:  Our worst enemies are not straight.

McKellen was out when he played Gandalf,arguably the pivotal character in the most successful movie trilogy ever.  J.T. Ferguson’s role on Modern Family is clearly one of the series’ leads.  Cherry Jones’ role on 24 was married–how “sexual” do you want a role to be?  And her triumphant performance as Catherine Loper in The Heiress is quite clearly hetero and love-obsessed; yet no one batted an eye or did anything but praise her to the rafters for it.  Nathan Lane and Stephen Fry aren’t playing romantic leads because, well, look at them, nobody would buy them physically in that kind of role.  What evidence do you have that they’re not being cast in those roles because they’re out, rather than that they’re simply not suited for them?
Yes, a lot of these actors built their roles on stage.  But there was a time when apologists for the theatrical closet made the same arguments that you’re making for Hollywood now.  Talent triumphed in the theater: why do you think it couldn’t do so in film as well?

I agree that it COULDdo so in film.
I just don’t think that time has arrived yet (unlike the theater, wher I think that an openly gay actor could do quite well).

No, it isn’t.This “problem” is being solved with every generation of new actors, and it’s being solved more rapidly than ever before.  The youngest gay actors have been raised in an environment where they understand that only the most stupid and useless of people hold gay people in contempt. They’re not anxious to base their entire adult lives on a lie to please idiots for the remote chance to be rich and famous — especially when none of their friends are doing it.
We’re fast approaching the point where there just won’t be enough talented, bankable gay actors willing to ever lie about being gay to fill those you-must-lie-about-being-gay positions.  I know so many not-even-trying-to-lie gay actors now, it would require effort to count how many.  Not a single one of them isn’t working.  The end.
Also there’s the real problem of the fact that the closet doesn’t exist anymore.  The closet was what society constructed and forced gay people into in order to pretend that gays didn’t exist.  Now, everyone knows gays exist.  Even the greatest enemies of gays all agree now that gays exist.  So the closet’s been dead for quite some time.
Coming out of the closet, back when that could happen, was a brave, defiant act of will.  With the end of the closet last century and the addition of the communications technology of this one, nobody who’s identifiably gay can successfully pretend to be anything else.  With the end of the closet, they have nowhere to hide.  They just look ridiculous.
In one, but far from the only instance of post-closet actors, the acceptance of gay actors and the end of the closet converge in the career of Tom Cruise.  Largely presumed gay for his entire career, his handful of public heterosexual romances (almost all ending in marriage) have not stopped many (most?) of the public from taking for granted today that he is gay.  His career has waned with age and overexposure, but mostly because he’s considered a joke due to his apparent extreme denial of what seems obvious and not because of his presumed sexuality itself.
Then there’s the false argument that nobody counts unless they’re a billion-dollar box office romantic lead.  You can count the number of those people on one hand at any given moment in time.  It’s like saying that no gay person is successful unless they’re the President of the United States.  Meanwhile, all the CEOs and schoolteachers and military servicepeople and bloggers don’t count.  That’s ridiculous.  You can’t create a false standard that nobody has a decent chance of attaining and say the failure to attain it proves your point.
On the other hand, it took about 150 years post-slavery to put a black man in the White House.  We’ll likely have a billion-dollar box office romantic lead in at least that much time, post-closet.  So there goes that entire “argument”.
But who knows how much longer we’re even going to have this job description of billion-dollar romantic lead, anyway?  We’ve barely even had a century of actors in movies, at all.  We don’t know what entertainment will look like in ten years, but the idea that an entire industry is going to rise and fall on the fortunes of a handful of people isn’t sustainable.
However, it will take longer for lesser-enlightened international audiences to come around on gay actors than it took for us.  But, as with everything else with the dominant culture, they eventually just won’t have any choice.  Hooray for Hollywood.

I’m sorry, but this is beyond the pale.How self-defeating do you have to be to label Neil Patrick Harris as unsuccessful?  How many hundreds of thousands of actors would kill — even literally kill! — for a chance — not even a guarantee! — of being as much of a failure as Neil Patrick Harris?  He went from obscure has-been novelty act to entertainment industry fixture overnight BECAUSE he decided to be honest about being gay.
Come on, people, let’s get real.

False argument.Please see above.
And, seriously — Anne Heche, who is not and never has been gay, but is and always has been a total, unpredictable loon, a woman whose insane off-screen antics are legendary and most recently helped kill her very successful TV show of a couple years ago — which she starred in and carried, by the way — is now the gold standard for how you can’t be gay and be successful in Hollywood?
For crying out loud, at least choose a sane — if not gay! — actor to make this “point”.

Thank you.And exactly how many billion-dollar epic film franchises does Ian McKellen have to star in as an honestly-gay actor — because so far he’s got two! — before he can be deemed “successful”?

The closet doesn’t exist now.Now we just have out and out bigotry.  Then: there are no such thing as gays.  Now: We don’t want there to be any such thing as gays.  Both bad, but at least we can fight what we have now because of the fact that closet doesn’t exist.

False argument and not true when you go with the equivalent reality.Once we do away with the false argument that you’re not successful unless you occupy a very rare strata of the entertainment industry, we’re left with the reality that a lot of gay actors have very successful careers, which entail being cast in starring roles over and over again.  This is not 1954.  What you assert simply is not true.
And the people who run Hollywood die just like everyone else.  And the new people weren’t raised in a vacuum or grown in a test tube.  And the bottom line is money, not ideology.  The industry learned years ago that audiences don’t have a problem with gay actors.  A gay actor who can occupy the very rare strata you insist upon hasn’t come around yet, but will eventually, of course.  This issue simply doesn’t exist.

But remember that Mckellenas Chamberlain is British.
I don’t think that an American film actor (even an older one) could achieve that type of success right now.

You’re 100% correct.It is generational, so, frankly, Chamberlain gets a pass for being old and out of touch.
And it is a meme, which means that it’s something that’s accepted in some corners, whether it’s true or not.
Yes, it was true fifty years ago, when Richard Chamberlain was in his prime.  I’m sorry he had to go through what he had to go through.  But fifty years is ancient history to a twenty year-old just starting out in the industry.

This isn’t the way it works now.With TMZ, Perez Hilton, at least a half-dozen syndicated television “entertainment” “news” shows a night, and the Internet and tabloids in general, celebrity news means Octomom.  It means Jersey Shore.  It doesn’t mean I know or care about every detail of George Clooney’s life.  George Clooney’s life is a snooze-fest compared to the antics of today’s actual celebrities.
You are correct that the remnants of the anti-gay mindset are among the remaining executives and agents of Old Hollywood.  And they’re dying off.  And the new executives and agents who grew up with gay people their entire lives don’t think this way.
Cheer up, people!  We already won this fight.  Go to hulu.com right now and watch “Glee”.  You’re welcome.

Anne HecheAnne is married to a man last I checked. She’s bi, if not merely insane. I’d be shocked if her failure didn’t have more to do with her instability than her orientation.

I love Tom Hardy…… but he’s just playing a game that’s as old as the business.  And he’s not breaking new ground, he’s capitalizing on the old ground broken by actually gay actors.  He’s not an indication that things are changing, he’s proof that things have changed.

But McKellen is an honestly-gay success and Chamberlain is not.Regardless of their nationality, it would seem to prove that being honest about being gay does not doom you to failure.  In fact, McKellen is an infinitely more successful actor than Chamberlain by every standard.
And name one American film actor that can hold a candle in any way whatsoever to Ian McKellen, in terms of box office, international goodwill or talent.  It’s a matter of opinion, but my opinion is you can’t.  So, again, nationality isn’t important — it’s the fact that Sir Ian is an actor of rare talent, success and longevity.  And he happens to be gay.  If he were American, all this would still be true.  Some lights you just can’t extinguish.

The very first film role Ian McKellen took upon being an honestly-gay actor was as a leading man in a highly sexual role in a feature film.He did it specifically to show people who thought this way almost twenty-three years ago (!) that they were wrong.  It was a spectacular success.  He played no less than John Profumo in “Scandal”, the story of one of Britain’s most notoriously heterosexual men of the 20th Century.  He also did it while being deep into middle age and not classically handsome.  Take that, haters!
Also, imdb.com lists 84 roles for Sir Ian since 1964 and the majority of them have been since his coming out in 1988 (which was during the last days of the closet, which were last days he was partially responsible for bringing about).
I’ve long been convinced that people who think there are no successful gay film actors have never heard of Google.

Those off-screen antics that killed her TV show?They included leaving her husband for her TV leading man with whom she was having an affair.
So not only is Anne Heche a failure as an actress, she’s a RESOUNDING failure as a lesbian!

Thanks for nothing RC.

“Scandal” was also a British filmabout a British political situation.
And…yes….McKellen came out at an age where he didn’t have to be all that concerned about what people thought.
He wasn’t going to get any Rock Hudson type roles (and Chamberlain was getting roles like that.
I agree with you that Sir Ian has far more of a dramatic range than Chamberlain does; perhaps what enabled Sir Ian to come out is that as far as I know, he’s never really been the type of actor that has accepted typecasting.
And that too is a little unlike Richard Chamberlain.

Yeah, but stillfrom what I’ve been able to gather, most of Chamberlain’s career has been in the movies.
Sir Ian has long, long been known for being a stage actor.
I do think that I agree with diablorobotico though, that part of the problem may be that the “young” openly gay actor that’s actually a damn good actor may not have come along yet.

Ian McKellan is not an example of a ‘leading man’Ian McKellan is a British actor who has been marketed to Americans as a theatrical Knight, like Olivier (another bisexual who remained in the closet whilst playing swoony ladies’ men. He is also an older man whose career was assured years ago, who is mainly cast in very prestigious character parts. Gandalf is the paradigm example of a prestige role that is neither rooted in the actor being ‘hot’ or with the audience (of overwhelmingly white, middle-American heterosexual Christians) identifying with him on any sexual level.
Hollywood movies, as opposed to the stage, or independent film, or foreign film, are marketed to people who range from our outspoken enemies to people who would simply rather not have to try to find a gay or bisexual man attractive because of some deeply-rooted idea that gay men are ‘off-limits’ to heterosexual fantasy, that they are not masculine, that there is something wrong with them. In reality, many woman not only find  gay or bisexual men attractive, they would probably enjoy a lot of gay pornography.
MEN are a different matter.
Most ordinary American men have been conditioned to be so intensely (though quietly) homophobic that the very idea that they are watching a gay man doing anything is enough to make them buy a ticket for a different movie. You may be able to cast a gay man in a romantic comedy for the girls but the nature of male homophobia is such that a gay star will kill an action movie’s box-office dead, though a gay villain is perfectly acceptable (see Michael Sheen’s OTT gay performance in TRON Legacy this Xmas for a perfect example of what I mean).
The point is that male heterosexual audience members have to find their heroes onscreen attractive BUT they have been trained to find the idea of that subconscious attraction being SEXUAL utterly abhorrent. It has to cloaked in admiration for strength, or coolness, or a way with women. If anything hints at the fact that the relationship between the NASCAR fan and his idol might be remotely sexual, he goes nuts and flees.
Male-orientated Hollywood is no different to the NFL, to WF or to NASCAR. Violence is great: it de-sexualises, or appears to de-sexualise the admiration and the arousal that men find while watching it.
In white-bread-male-oriented Hollywood cinema, we are off limits. Daniel Craig’s 007 will fail utterly at the box-office in the USA is Bond has a gay fling or if Craig come out as gay.
Another problem is that Hollywood stars are performing as heterosexuals not only onscreen but off, ALL THE TIME. 95% of all the Hollywood romances and marriages that we see and hear about in the media are false or exaggerated corporate fantasies designed to involve the heterosexual audience in a voyeuristic relationship with the admired male and female.
These people have to ‘play straight’, or even straighter than they really are, snogging and hugging and playing this hyper-real whirlwind romantic tripe 24/7 in an attempt to boost their profiles as beautiful, sexually vibrant and HETEROsexual beings. They are following orders. And what gay man would submit to do that with a woman? And who would fall for the fiction? I don’t think even the ladies at the registers at WalMart would go for it.
Hollywood (not the theatre, not foreign cinema, not independent cinema, not Sundance, just HOLLYWOOD) is a hetero-sexist brothel, pimping out a succession of starlets and studs to middle America and a very conservative DVD audience in China and India and elsewhere overseas. Anything that interferes with that massive business will be ruthlessly excised. They sell beautiful, they sell thin, they sell, sexy and they sell STRAIGHT.
It’s miserable and it’s nasty but simply finding it repulsive doesn’t mean that you have to ignore the facts. I don’t agree with it but it’s there and it’ll take many years to deconstruct. There is a deeply fraught, highly-personalized, voyeuristic and sexual relationship that the Hollywood audience has with its leading men and woman and the majority of Americans, though they may support us offscreen don’t want to to have that relationship with a homosexual.
We don’t test well with them. So we’re replaced.

Whereas, a typical American audience WILL respondand support an Angelina Jolie at the box office.

This is a little beside the point but I’d like feedbackDid anyone see the big gay mainstream liberal success movie this year? ‘The Kids are All Right’
Oh they thought was great, maybe not the great unwashed but our liberal friends thought it was so witty and funny and TRUE.
Except that the lesbians seem to be in a male-female stereotyped relationship, with Annette Bening as the hard-ass breadwinner with the masculine medical career and Julianne Moore as the financial and emotional weaker woman in the relationship (the arty failure, the one who makes pottery).
Julianne Moore demonstrates that she’s the girl by leaping into bed with Mark Ruffalo for a bit of cock the first chance she gets.
When the two woman posit the idea that their son (remember that this is supposed to be a boy raised by gay woman) is gay himself he reacts violently “You thought I was GAY!!!” with this grimace of disgust and outrage on his face.
The two lesbians watch (very corny out-dated Village People 1970′s) gay porn together. And their sex is invisible under a thick duvet, dozy and…well, very very unsexy.
The use of a vibrator is played for comedy disgust.
The sex between Moore and Ruffalo, by contrast is very energetic and VERY explicit, with acres of flesh and pumping limbs.
THIS is Hollywood’s idea of a ground-breaking movie? This what our LIBERAL friends think is accurate and admirable? Well, imagine what the dudes and dudettes who DON’T like Sundance and creepy upper-middle-class comedies about wine and landscape-gardeners and men who run organic restaurants in LA think about us?
Just a thought. I hated it.

As I point out in my coment below,this exact same argument has been made to try and keep gay people closeted in every industry.  Not so very long ago, teachers were being told that if they came out they’d never be acceptable as principals.  Doctors were told that if they were openly gay or lesbian they’d lose all their patients.  Bank employees were told they’d never move up into management if they came out.  And on and on.  All of that has gone y the wayside, and rightly so.  If people in those fields had decided to live with “the facts,” as you put it, and never come out, nothing would have changed.
Each field of endeavor has its own problems and challenges, but they have been, are being and will be met.  To argue that somehow that won’t happen in the entertainment biz is to ignore that fact that it IS happening.  One way or the other, the status quo isn’t good for gay people.  To try and claim that because it’s that way now, therefore it will always be that way, that progress is impossible, is so self-defeating I can’t believe I’m reading it on this site.  Should we also assume that because we can’t get married and have no right to employment protections in most of the country, that therefore we should just live with those facts rather than promoting change every way we can?
I’ll say it again: Shame and timidity are not virtues. Trying to excuse them as “facing the facts” accomplishes what, exactly?

Very odd because the lesbian directoris Lisa Cholodenko, who made “High Art.” Unless some producer told her to straighten up her script, I find it strange that she would make such a homosexist movie.

Again you are doing that thing…..of mistaking my explanation of WHY something IS the way it is for an argument IN FAVOR of why something SHOULD be the way it is.
I really can’t have a conversation with someone who can’t make that basic distinction.
Are you under the impression that I believe that ‘..shame and timidity are…virtues’.
Who would say that? Who in all the world could believe that?
This is not ABOUT individual integrity and it is certainly not about an industry that can be compared to the medical industry, or teaching, or the law. Selling your apparent sexual identity to an audience of millions is NOT the same as performing open-heart surgery or even serving your country in the army.
I am simply trying to explain why it will take longer in the heterosexual fortress of the Hollywood blockbuster, just as it will take longer in the NFL.
If you want to draw a professional comparison between these leading men and woman, a better one would be to compare them to prostitutes or strippers: the audience want to participate in the fantasy that the prostitute is enjoying herself, that the stripper is having a good time. Anything that interferes in that (ridiculous) fantasy is regarded as a threat.

You’re right about the new generation of actors.And, quite honestly, the same goes for a good preponderance of the older generation, too.  Chamberlain’s comments, and those of all the people here who are defending them, seem to be predicated on the assumption that being a successful actor is defined by being paid $20 million a pop to star in hetero-fantasy action flicks.  Very few actors aspire to that, if only because they’re smart enough to know that very few make it to that category.  For most actors I know, success means working as an actor, in diverse roles, the more challenging the better.  Tom Cruise is a more successful commodity than, say, Cheyenne Jackson (who, incidentally, has been cast in one lead role after another, and whose coming out hasn’t hurt his career one whit).  But I don’t know any actors who want to be a commodity; they want to act, something Tom Cruise or Richard Chamberlain couldn’t do to save their lives.

“Who would say that? Who in all the world could believe that? “Apparently, Richard Chamberlain.

Now, if a Johnny Depp-type “character actor” were to come outI think that his career would be fine and the American public would accept it.
…that is, some who is already typecast into playing the role of the eccentric/weirdo/outsider and is very very successful in doing it…

By using the phrase ‘leading men’Chamberlain is DISTINCTLY SAYING that ‘a successful actor (who)is defined by being paid $20 million a pop to star in hetero-fantasy action flicks’ is the ONLY person he is talking about.
He is not talking about the cast of ‘Glee’.
He is not talking about anything but BIG HEADLINING STARS in big genre movies: Julia Roberts, Tom Cruise, Russell Crowe, Jessica Alba, Brat Pitt, George Clooney, Matt Damon, Angelina Jolie.
Not ‘actors’. LEADING actors.

although i don’t like words like “loon” or “insane” because they are slurs,I’ve got to agree that Anne Heche is weird enough to be not such a good example.

But note my point downthreadabout Johnny Depp (not saying that Depp IS gay, but I am saying that given the type of leading roles that Depp gets cast in, a character actor like that could probably do it)

Side-step ever?The point this old man is making is that, if you want to be a multi-million dollar, head-lining, blockbuster, Hollywood star (not an actor), if you want to be Russell Crowe, or Julia Roberts, or Matt Damon, you probably won’t get there by coming out.
Not yet. You’ll be a great, decent, inspirational, person and you may have a fine career, but someone else will be elected to the hetero-sexist pantheon instead.
Becoming the kind of person that he is talking about has NOTHING to do with integrity. NOTHING. On the contrary, it has to do with precisely the opposite: with lying and pretending and scrambling over every obstacle and betraying people and dumping friends and selling yourself. It’s about doing whatever it takes, as it does in sports, and taking every advantage you have and rejecting every disadvantage.

And now, you’re extrapolating a ludicrous emotive statement…from what the man said and placing it in his mouth. Which is unfair. He didn’t say that ‘shame and timidity are virtues’ he said that lying about who you are might be professionally necessary, which is very different thing.
Trying to pack the one into the other is morally indefensible and intellectually wrong.

Maybe.But Depp is, perhaps, a false example. Since he is, indeed, a character actor who utterly rejects heterosexual play-acting in public, has been quietly married for the last 20 years, is totally established, and is routinely trotted out as people’s favorite actor (his popularity with man as well as woman is phenomenal).
He is is in a very strong position.  

That’s how I read itI’m surprised that people don’t seem to be reading it that way.  Yeah, you can have a successful career as an actor as an out gay man, but a successful career as an actor just means you work consistently enough to keep a roof over your head.  However, as Chamberlain hinted at, most people who pursue careers as actors are unemployed and don’t make enough money acting to live off of it.  It’s a hard way to make a living.  Jobs are few and far between.  Thanks to Thomas Edison’s invention of motion pictures, there’s a lot of money in acting for a very small number of people.  Chamberlain’s point is what you have to do to be one of that very small minority within that very small number of people who actually star in pictures.  Name on the marquee.  Credit above the title.  A name and image that sells a picture just by being in it.  If there isn’t a sizable number of people who will watch a movie just because you’re in it, you’re not a leading man.  That is such a small number of people that realistically, they will probably be among the last people to see equality.  The battle must first be waged on other fronts.

Re La Cruise –http://www.ehrensteinland.com/…

IndeedNext for NPH — he’ll be starring in a major revival of Sondheim’s Company.
And BTW, get ahold of Sondheim’s new book Finishing the Hat. He’s 80 years old and has TONS to say about being gay and working in show business. He didn’t have a particularly easy time of it. He notes that when he wrote Company he had not yet so much as lived with someone for any length of time. But he has much to say about the difference between three important gay lyricists: Lorenz Hart, Cole Porter and Noel Coward. He says Hart’s greatest sin was laziness — not writing as well as he could at all times. Sondheim has almost nothing but priase for Cole Porter. He says Porter really meant every word — even when he was being extravagant (eg. “a trip the the moon on gossamer wings”) Coward he reads like the telephone directory, ie. a tiresome phony.
The book isn’t all that dishy or autobiographical. It’s Sondheim reviewing his lyric writing, talking about how he came to write the songs, and who his influences were. On the way he notes that Richard Rogers and his wife were homophobes — inspite of Rodgers partnership with Hart. So Do I Hear a Waltz? was no fun for Steve.
There’s a second volume to come as this one ends with “And then I met James Lapine.”
In it’s own peculiar, modest way it’s a very important book about gay history.

SING OUT LOUISE!NPH is Da Bomb!

Right on the money, Ben!Straights who demnd their omnipotence insist on the closet.
Look at how it’s been with DADT. The whole point is for straigths to be able to pretend that none of the other soldiers fighting alongside them are gay.
Why should any goverment cater to this mass delusion? Thankfully it’s coming to an end.
Now on to the rest of society.  

But where ARE these “starring roles” that everyone talks about?Smart young actors like Ryan Gosling and James Franco are carviung out serious careers for themselevs in indies cause Big Time movies are all about CGI effects. And even THEY are failing. Both The Tourist, starring Johnny Depp and Angelina Jolie and Gulliver’s Travels with Jack Black in 3-D
TANKED!

“Publically ended his career”?Just as with Rock Hudson at the height of Richard Chamberlain’s career EVERYBODY had heard that he was gay.
What was Verboten was decaring this simple fact honestly and openly.  

My Two CentsLatest FaBlog: Reading Dr. Kildare  

“Do quite well?” Hell!Nathan Lane is the biggest thing to hit Broadway since Ethel Merman.
The Addams Family opened to terrible review but was an instant hit because he was starring in it.  

I’ve enjoyed all the comments, whether I agree with them or not.Chamberlain’s career advice seems to have produced something akin to a Rorschach test.
I know in my bones that 30 or 40 years ago I would have had a fiery and scornful reaction to what he said. Not so much anymore.
A large part of what the argument here has devolved to is berating American movie-watchers for their psyco-sexual responses. What a pointless exercise. That is similar to “blaming” a potential love object because they don’t love us back. I would have been horrified in my younger years had someone pointed out that I was attracted to certain types. It didn’t fit my feminist analysis at the time. Well, duh, everyone has “types” to greater or lesser degrees.
If men especially have difficulty relating to (or more likely, accepting any attraction towards) male actors they know to be gay, well, they’re a huge part of the Hollywood target audience. And, yes, as always, we’re focusing almost entirely on men – in the audience and on the screen.

Yes.I would listen to him recite the phonebook!

Well, gee.You saw quotes around those words?  You saw something in what I wrote that claimed those were his specific words?  And where did you see that, in your crustal ball, the tarot or your Ouija board?
Talk about putting words in someone’s mouth.  Jesus.

Soory but anybody who thinks that there’s any comparisonto be drawn between Hollywood and the Broadway musical is mad.
Theatre is gay. Musicals are double-gay. Liking Sondheim (I love him) is so gay that everyone within a three mile radius of a production will turn temporarily gay. Just joining the drama society in schools gets you called names and to admit to liking musicals…
So fine. Let’s let Glee take care of that. But let’s not get the liberal ideal fairyland of Glee affect the way we think about the actual experiences of kids are real schools in the less than ideal real world.
Hollywood, the Hollywood of action movies and so forth, is not perceived in anything like the same way as the musical. Men do not watch musicals. No heterosexual man has ever admitted to enjoying ‘Chicago’ and there was virtually a riot at my local cinema when the guys found out that ‘Sweeney Todd’ was a musical (it was ruthlessly and mendaciously marketed with that fact hidden from view.
The men whose dollars Hollywood wants most of all are my brother in law. He’s not an overt homophobes but he doesn’t watch musicals; he likes Transformers and movies with Angelina Jolie holding a BIG gun. He’s a rich, seriously overweight 35 year old tech-nerd who like boobies and violence and dislikes drama, dialogue and layered meanings of any kind.
When he watches actors he likes, he doesn’t think of them as ‘actors’. He thinks ‘actors’ are sissies. He sees the character. He thinks of Russel Crowe as an actual warrior, of Matt Damon as a secret agent, of George Clooney as an impossibly cool businessman/ assassin/ professional gambler.
He doesn’t like those illusions to be disturbed. He doesn’t like the legitimate theatre, independent movies or musicals.
And he has four kids. So he spends a LOT of money, on movies and on merchandise. He is Middle America personified. He is the audience. He gets what he wants. And until he is not bothered by an out gay actor in a blockbuster leading role, the end of the struggle is not yet come.
He doesn’t hate gays. He barely thinks about gays. And he doesn’t want to think about gays when he’s watching his movies.

So you think only $20 million dollar-a-picture movie stars are “leading men”?Male stars of low-budget indie films are leading men too.  Jesse Tyler Ferguson on Modern Family is a leading man.  How many examples of successful openly gay actors would it take to convince you?
Your comments are getting sillier and more desperate.  But then that’s inevitable when you try to defend the closeted status quo.

Yeah, sure Depp is a “false example.”Every actor whose career disproves your point is a “false example.”  Got it.

Uh…Who in all the world could believe that? ”
Apparently, Richard Chamberlain.
You said that Richard Chamberlain..believes…what you said.
And you’ll need more than just the word ‘apparently’, to prove otherwise.

That was clearly the tenor of Chamberlain’s comments.Saying that someone “apparently” believes something is not equivalent to ascribing a quote, which is quite different thing altogether.  Exactly how silly are you going to make this?

And he did not use the phrase “leading men,”That’s in the headline.  Do you think he wrote the headline?
His exact words were

it’s just silly for a working actor to say, “Oh, I don’t care if anybody knows I’m gay”

Got that?  He didn’t say “leading man,” he said “working actor.  Or can’t you understand the difference?

Which he followed with the words

- especially if you’re a leading man. Personally, I wouldn’t advise a gay leading man-type actor to come out.”

So, he did in fact say, “leading man” in the same sentence.  It’s not the Bible.  You can’t pick and choose verses to fit your point.
Now, if an actor wants to come out, I say great!  More power to him.  In fact, I appreciate his doing so.  However, if he doesn’t sell tickets, he’s not going to get the lead roles.  That’s the reality of the business.  Does the mass movie going public continue to buy tickets for movies starred by gay male lead actors?  You can cite all the successful out gay character and supporting actors you want, but they won’t answer that question.  If an out gay actor can’t, then it’s a statement about society.  Society has to change.

Regarding selectivity in quoting text:Actually, ALL of his “exact words” in that sentence were:

For an actor to be working is a kind of miracle, because most actors aren’t, so it’s just silly for a working actor to say, “Oh, I don’t care if anybody knows I’m gay” – especially if you’re a leading man. Personally, I wouldn’t advise a gay leading man-type actor to come out.

[emphasis added]

You keep on getting angry at me.I am as idealistic as anybody when it come to the future of gay and lesbian culture. I don’t however, think that the world begins or ends with acceptance in Hollywood, nor do I think that the US is in any sense leading the way on this issue. Most of the best, most ground-breaking gay films and TV are NOT American these days and the best careers for gay and lesbian actors are NOT American careers. So, sorry if I don’t think Doogie Howser, Ellen, ‘The Kids Are All Right’ and Glee are the be-all and end all of the future of gay media, but I don’t. Gay roles in Hollywood are miserable stereotypes, gay characters on US TV are likewise pathetic. Gay rights will progress OUTSIDE the USA before they come TO the USA. Gay marriage, for example, will be legal everywhere BUT the USA before it is legal in the 50 states. And I don’t budge from my original thesis: Hollywood is a hostile place for out gay actors and that will not change anytime soon. Want to work in Hollywood? Stay in the closet, or stay out of work.

This discussion, like most has devolved into ‘US versus ‘THEM.The very first casualty of any discussion of this sort is nuance. Richard Chamberlain said something that doesn’t seem to gel with your view of how the world ought to work (full gay rights, magically, instantly, and total conversion of all our enemies to our POV overnight,) and he is compared to John McCain, called a silly old man and so on and on.
I try to describe how marketers and studio executives think about openly gay actors in their massively expensive projects (as a risky bet and therefore a dangerous financial liability) and I get categorized likewise as some sort of enemy, tarred with the  same brush as the extremely cynical and very un-gay-friendly moguls and advertisers that I am trying to describe.
Instead of dealing with the systemic faults that cause this problem (the studio apparatchiks, the audience demographic, the basic heterosexism of Hollywood culture (which is far more boring and monolothic than the right-wing believe, with their talk of ‘Hollyweird’ – Hollywood is NOT weird, Hollywood is boring, boring, boring), I get treated to a list of ‘exceptions’ that appear to prove the rule; they are exceptions that don’t in themselves solve the fundamental problem.
In your world, there is no room for fence-sitters. You either come out of the closet, to be accepted  for who you are or torn to pieces (it doesn’t matter which) or you are a traitor and am enemy. Would someone like to take it upon themselves to try to get the (many, many) gay athletes in American football and baseball to come out? Because a few quarterbacks and batters would be a hell of a lot more useful to us politically than another Adam Lambert.
I think the world is changing, OUTSIDE Hollywood. And I think that Hollywood will NEVER EVER be an agent of change. People who think that pop-culture changes the world are mistaken: the world changes pop-culture. Hollywood is just a reactive mirror of the world outside and they will NEVER change until they see that the world has changed and that they can make money off the changed world.
The reason that there are gay characters on TV is because there are visible gay PEOPLE in the world, not the other way around. So don’t become an actor if you want to change the world: change the world and then you can come out as an actor.

PS: would anyone like to go into the amazing swamp that is Hollywood’s attitude to WOMEN?I mean, I’m sure that you can furnish me with examples (Meryl Streep, Julianne Moore, Queen Latifah, etc etc etc) that prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that there are NO problems with being fat, being too tall, being black, being over 40, being too ‘ethnic’, being too outspoken, being too ‘mannish, being whatever, in Hollywood.
Or maybe Hollywood is a sheer hell of a place that casts out anybody who doesn’t have the strength of will and the sheer talent to survive their awful mill of stereotypes. Get the actors to come out as gay. Fine. Then we can get around to eradicated gender inequality, anti-ageism and the entire cult of youth and beauty.
Good luck.

Angry at you? You’re kidding, right?If not, you have a really interesting ego.  For the record, you leave me numb with apathy. In order to get angry at you, I’d have to give a rat’s ass one way or the other.  Believe me, I don’t.

“especially if you’re a leading man”What escapes you about the word “especially”?  Chamberlain was clearly talking about ALL “working actors.” not just leading men.

Clearly you haven’t noticed that the massive success fo “Glee”IS MAKING EVERYONE GAY!!!

Um .. unless Beverly Hills …moved to the British Isles, Chamberlain is not British.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R…

I guess it helps …that a boomer such as myself who grew up watching Chamberlain is much more familiar with his overall career on stage, TV, screen and yes, even recording songs.
Most notable of course he was the “King of the Miniseries”.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R…
As a side note when I was in Junior High and a budding bisexual I had in my wallet a photo of Dr. Kildare and one of Rachel Welch in the movie “One Million Years BC”.
Yes Virginia there is such a thing as adolecent bisexuality which blooms in adulthood.

so I can’t type ..Raquel Welch … even the thought of makes my fingers go all the twitter .. lol

Thank you …an enlighten soul if I ever heard one.
http://focusontherainbowopine….

How utterly bizarre.Say that a woman has extra challenges being a success (or even that it is next to impossible) in business, and you will get widespread agreement, and any accusation that you are defending the system of male privilege by pointing out the discrimination against women would be laughed down.
Say that a transgendered person has extra challenges, well, everywhere, but pick any specific situation, and again, agreement, and nobody would make accusations that pointing it out is defending the discrimination.
But say that an out gay actor isn’t going to get leading romantic roles is somehow defending the system? When there are next to no examples to the contrary?
Gandalf is a major role, and Sir Ian played him brilliantly, but he didn’t get the girl in the end and ride off into the sunset. Nathan Lane has an amazing career, but he isn’t playing straight romantic leads. He might do it brilliantly, but we just are highly unlikely to ever have the chance to find out.
Why is it heresy to point out that an out gay actor may be very successful, but is limited in the roles that they are going to be cast in?

I know…My bad on thatI looked that up last night.
My point still remains, though…I think that Chamberlain does reflect an attitude more centered in both the American experience and in hollywood (as opposed to McKellen, who is British and really is cheifly known as a theatre actor).

Heterosexual “Romantic Leads” are the most limited form of acting there isPERIOD!

More insults…

It’s not heresy, it’s a self-defeating lie.Please see above.  McKellen’s very first role upon being honestly-gay was of Britain’s most notorious womanizer of the 20th Century.  In that role, he got the girl. THAT WAS ALMOST TWENTY-THREE YEARS AGO.  What you say will never happened, is, in fact, history.
And why on Earth is “Heterosexual Romantic Lead” the fake litmus test for whether or not you can have a career as an honestly-gay actor, anyway?  I’ll tell you why: because that’s the only way to largely ignore the existence of successful honestly-gay actors.  And that’s not only self-defeating and false, it’s weird.
I don’t know what your blindspot to the facts is all about, but the reality is so much better than you want to believe it is and I sincerely invite you to accept it.

We are all as sick as our secrets.Can’t believe the amount of discussion making this about Hollywood, the definition of “leading man”, etc.  It’s not Hollywood.  It’s the predominant heterosexist normative out there.  
Have you seen the quality of “hollywood” movies out there these days?  Jeeze, if I were an actor I’d be looking for some other venue than the crap that comes out of there.  
To the point though, at a panel discussion at last summer’s Outfest called “Out in Film”, the consensus of the panelist was it was gay casting directors who are the most homophobic not producers etc.  Yep, we’re as sick as our secrets.  

Actually, the first casualty of this discussion was reality.The reality is that Chamberlain is an old man with an old set of values and experiences who made life choices that he can’t take back and must self-justify.
The reality is that there are countless successful LGBT actors and other performers at all levels of the industry, from bit players to supestars who carry billion-dollar franchises.
The reality is that you describe a system, an audience, and a Hollywood culture that doesn’t exist now.
The reality is that you can’t clone Hollywood.  The reality is that old Hollywood dies and new Hollywood rises.  The reality is that the dinosaurs no longer rule the Earth.
The reality is that this isn’t about “making” people “come out” of a closet that doesn’t exist, it’s about the fact that, with every passing year, talent regards this as a non-issue.  Their life experience tells them it’s absurd to lie about who you are, and then they don’t lie, and then the life experience is now even more different for the next one.
The reality is that your idea that you must not even consider being an honestly-gay actor is a lie that is easily disproved by turning on your TV or going out to the movies.
The reality is we already are where you insist we’ll never be.

I’m not sure who qualifies as a Johnny Depp type for character actors…… and I think the point of Depp’s success is that he’s unique in his talent and the roles he plays, as well as his luck and business smarts to get him where he is.  There are no other actors who are up for his roles — he’s got the monopoly.  But as for living, successful honestly-gay character actors, what about:
Bryan Batt
Patrick Bristow
Bill Brochtrup
Dan Bucatinsky
Jim J. Bullock
Dan Butler
Simon Callow
Mario Cantone
Craig Chester
Chris Colfer
Alan Cumming
Guillermo Diaz
Jesse Tyler Ferguson
… oh, you get the idea.  I could list dozens more — including John Glover, Sean Hayes, Nathan Lane — and those are just the ones people have heard of, not the up and comers.  And it doesn’t include all the accepted-as-gay character actors throughout the history of Hollywood, who played the sissies and pansies and dandies — all the precursors to essentially all of Depp’s roles — for most of Hollywood’s first century.
The American people accept gay character actors?  Been there, done that.

All fine actors I’m sure but one of them are even near what Johnny Depp is now or even what Richard Chamberlain in his prime.
I agree with you, though, that essentially Johnny Depp “plays gay” more or less.
What will be interesting, though, would be to see if one of these openly gay actors can build a career in Hollywood on that level.
And understand…we’re talking about box office.

If all that’s true…then why doesn’t anyone of the caliber of Kevin Spacey or George Clooney come out of the closet.
Surely they have nothing to fear, right?

George isn’t gaySpacey is a living horror.  

About NPH’s Career:
NPH started out as a child actor. That he made it to adulthood without becoming a drug addict and/or killing himself is a Major Achievement in Hollywood. That he got himself a career as an adult afterwards is an Even Bigger Deal. With those two hurdles leaped coming out was a relative walk-in-the-park. It’s pretty clear from everything he’s done he’s been aware of the fact that those “Leading Man Roles” that so many clueless posters in here imagine to be the be-all-and-end-all of success were not to be his – and so what. NPH has carved out an extremely successful career for himself on TV and Broadway – which of course won’t stop the Usual Suspects from sneering at him, as if he were a Macdonald’s counterperson.
Let’s consider the career of a heterosexual actor – Alec Baldwin.
Back at the start Alec had a quick rise from sexy supporting player (Working Girl, Married to the Mob) to BIG ROMANTIC LEAD in The Hunt For Red October. It did quite well. Everyone in the indistry thought “Here’s Our New Romantic Leading Man.” So they sank a ton of money into The Shadow and it died the death. Nothing wrong with Alec. It’s simply that “Big Romantic Leading Man” vehicles are neither simple to make nor all that beloved by the public. So he did theater, and finally came back big time on the tube. He’s older, he’s heavier, and off-screen he’s just as problematic as ever (messy divorce, rude phone call to the daughter) but scarcely Charlie Sheen. The bottom line is he’s a whiz at sophisticated comedy, and despie the fact that “Romantic Leading Man Roles” are no longer his for the asking he’s an enormous success.
See how it works? There’s more than one way to skin a cat, people. And this constant harping on the “Out Gay Actors Can’t Succeed Because They’ll Never Be Cast As Romantic Leading Men” meme is simply (drumroll please)
INTERNALIZED HOMOPHOBIC BULLSHIT!!!!

What David said.