Wesley Eure Comes Out

This week, AfterElton had an exclusive coming out interview with 70's TV heartthrob Wesley Eure, who was on Days of Our Lives from 1974-1981 playing Mike Horton. He was also on the classic 70's Saturday morning show Land of the Lost.

Eure's run on Days was before my time (the first Mike Horton I remember was played by Michael T. Weiss in the late 80's) but I've heard much about him from fans of the show who are a bit older than me and still remember loving him in the role.

Wesley has a lot of interesting things to say in the Q&A, but this part especially interested me:

AE: Do you think being gay hurt your career?
WE: Absolutely. It was a horrible time in Hollywood, being gay. It was horrible. I was on the cover of Tiger Beat and all those a lot, and they'd do those "Win A Date With Wesley" and "Who's Wesley Dating?" It was so disingenuous. I had a full life. I've had a lot of friends and some pretty high profile partners, and it was an odd thing. I got fired from Days of Our Lives for being gay.

AE: Is that right?
WE: That's what I was told. I mean, they told me a lot of different reasons. After nine years, my contract was up, but I was hosting the number one show for Nickelodeon, Finders Keepers. It was on cable, but this was before everybody had Nickelodeon. Mark Summers was doing Double Dare. I was getting bigger ratings than Mark. I became the number one host for kids for two seasons, and then we heard the show was being sold to Fox. Everybody else was celebrating and I went, "Oh, no. I'm out of a job." Sure enough. I waited, I kept calling, "Am I hosting the show?" They wouldn't answer the question, and then I got the call they went with somebody younger.

I knew Fox and NBC were run by gay men at the time, but what was odd about the industry at the time, it was amazing how the gay men were perpetuating the damage. I remember Earl Greenburg — who was a big philanthropist here in Palm Springs, and had the Desert AIDS Project, he did some wonderful work, he's passed away now this last year — but the first time I saw him in Palm Springs, he said, "Didn't I fire you?" He was head of NBC Daytime at the time.

AE: And what did you say when he said that?
WE: [laughs] I said, "You're an ass."

I've written before about how mandatory the closet that LGBT soap stars find themselves living in is, even now, so I have no trouble believing that Days of Our Lives fired Eure 28 years ago for being too open about his sexuality.

The saddest part, though, is that Eure wasn't very out at all. Reading the interview, it's obvious that he while was very out in his personal life, including with the cast and crew of Days, he was very closeted publicly (a situation that most LGBT soap stars today would find very familiar).

Nearly thirty years after Eure was let go from the show, there is an all time high of out LGBT actors & actresses working in daytime: a grand total of three. Sad as that number is, just a few months ago, there was only one. Clementine Ford & Thom Bierdz on The Young and the Restless and Scott Evans on One Life to Live are the only three out daytime stars, though they're far from being the only LGBT onscreen talent working in the medium.

Ford & Bierdz will be involved in major storylines this summer on Y&R and Evans seems to be showing up more and more often in his recurring role as Oliver Fish on OLTL. Hopefully, the ability of these three actors to be out and still maintain a career in daytime will encourage others to follow their example and help push the door to the daytime closet open a bit further.

It would be wonderful if a young actor (or actress) like Eure was could come out at the height of his career (or be out from the very start, for that matter) without having to worry about losing everything. There has been a lot of progress in thirty years, but clearly there is still a long way to go.

Actor Quits Y&R to Avoid Gay Storyline?

According to an article at Soap Central, actor Chris Engen, who played Victor Newman's son Adam on The Young and the Restless, has quit his role abruptly after learning from upcoming scripts that his character was going to become involved with gay attorney Rafe Torres, the first LGBT character in Y&R history.

It was hinted from the start that Rafe would become involved with a major character who would be revealed as bisexual, and many fans thought it would be Adam, given the friendship that already existed between the two.

The show is said to be considering legal action against Engen, who is breaking his contract by quitting. At the same time, TV Guide has reported that the show has already hired actor Michael Muhney to take over the role.

Did Chris Engen really walk away from a role on the number one rated soap in daytime (and straight into a potential lawsuit) just to avoid having to kiss another man? If so, that's beyond pathetic, not to mention completely unprofessional. Does Engen plan on having a career after this?

Given that Y&R is a show that now employs two of daytime's three out LGBT actors (Celementine Ford and the newly returned Thom Bierdz, who is back on the show after a twenty year absence), the rest of the cast may be glad to see the last of Engen and his kind of attitude. It would be especially interesting to hear from Bierdz, who just gave a great interview to The Advocate, and Ford, who recently voiced her opinion on the Miss California controversy, on this subject. I doubt they'd pull any punches.

If nothing else, at least we know that Rafe has a storyline coming up that involves kissing another man.

Out In Daytime: 2 and Counting

I noted not that long ago that the only out actor currently working in daytime is One Life to Live's Scott Evans. Evans plays Oliver Fish, a recurring character who we've been seeing more often in the last couple of months. Scott first gained attention as an out gay man when his brother, film star Chris Evans, talked about his sexuality in a recent interview.

The Young and the Restless has gone a step further than OLTL and hired an out actress to play a leading role, something that I believe is a first for Daytime. I'm talking about Clementine Ford (the real life daughter of actress Cybill Shepherd, by the way), who has joined the show as Mac Browning, a leading character with a lot of history and family connections on the show.

I think it's fairly obvious that there are many LGBT actors working in daytime, and many more who've worked in the medium over the years (a few of whom have come out after the fact, like former Y&R heartthrob Thom Bierdz), but for the most part being in the closet is very much a part of life for LGBT soap stars, whether they like it or not.

Back in 1994 Keith Pruitt, an actor who had been on Guiding Light and As the World Turns and was on the soap Loving at the time, was a victim of a hate crime, being beaten along with his partner for holding hands on the street. Instead of keeping quiet about an attack which highlighted his sexuality, as many in the business would have preferred, Pruitt openly discussed the case and testified against his attackers, sending them to prison.

His openness more or less cost him a career in the Soap business, though he went on to become a successful composer before dying tragically late last year after suffering injuries in a house fire.

With the all too recent history of Pruitt in mind, having both Scott and Clementine working as Out actors in daytime is a pretty big deal. We may finally be seeing the beginning of change in the industry.

I'll be back a bit later to write about today's Nuke scenes on As the World Turns.