In celebration of Pride Month, I thought it would be fun to celebrate a handful of memorable LGBTQ+ TV characters like public administrative aide (PAA) John Irvin from the Emmy award-winning series "NYPD Blue” which out gay actor Bill Brochtrup played on ABC for six seasons. Thanks to him more LGBTQ+ characters started showing up on all types of dramatic television shows after 2005 like "The Good Wife", "Person of Interest", "Game of Thrones", and "Downton Abbey" to name a few.
For TV viewers who grew up in the 70s and 80s, like myself, you know that the multitude of LGBTQ+ characters, storylines, and shows we enjoy watching today just didn’t exist back in the day. The only sudo-LGBTQ-sh TV characters that we had on the boob tube back then were performers like the hilarious Paul Lynde who not only played snarky Uncle Arthur on “Bewitched” (1964 -1972), but also brought his unique brand of humor to the center square of “The Hollywood Squares” (1965-1976), there was also the bumbling TV sitcom star of “The Ghost and Mrs. Muir” (1968-1970) and game show fixture / regular panelist on “Match Game” (1973-1982) Charles Nelson Reilly, as well as the villainous Dr. Smith on “Lost in Space” (1965-1968) played by the wonderful Jonathan Harris and then there was the "closeted" Nancy Kulp who played the love-starved, bird-watching, perennial spinster Jane Hathaway on “The Beverly Hillbillies” (1962-1971). But none of them are officially LGBTQ+ characters because it was just something that wasn't done on network TV then.
So when did things start to change? In the mid-70s, the ABC prime-time comedy sitcom “Soap” (1977-1981) made history as the first series to feature a gay character in a leading role when it introduced Billy Crystal as Jodie Dallas to a nationwide audience. But the moment the show aired the character was a source of controversy for the series. Religious organizations disapproved of Jodie’s sexual orientation, while gay rights groups worried that his portrayal would be stereotypical. 27 years later, Ellen DeGeneres came out on her sitcom "Ellen" in 1997! Every gay person from my generation remembers where they were when her TV character Ellen Morgan came out as a lesbian, coinciding with the comedian’s own real-life coming out. BTW - Ellen Morgan was the first gay lead character in a prime-time series.
Growing up, I remember another memorable gay character when I watched drag performer Lori Shannon play Edith Bunker’s transvestite friend “Beverly LaSalle” in a couple of episodes of the popular sitcom “All In The Family” (1971-1979). I specifically remember the episode in which Beverly’s murder leads Edith to question her faith in God. The noteworthy thing about Beverly was that her character was treated respectfully and sympathetic on the show which was unusual for the mid-1970s.
It wasn’t until "Dynasty" (1981-1989) helped introduce audiences to the glitzy nighttime soap era of the 1980s that I remember seeing the next most memorable gay TV character - Blake and Alexis’s gay son Steven Carrington. Unlike the other ruthless characters in the series, his character was poised as "the moral conscience of the family" and started out as a proud gay man. But as time went on Steven married Krystal's niece Sammy Jo (Heather Locklear) and had a child with her, due to the network's fears of offending the audience and giving the shows creators Richard & Esther Shapiro significant pushback.
Originally played by the ruggedly handsome straight actor Al Corley who left "Dynasty" at the end of the second season in 1982, after complaining publicly in Interview magazine that "Steven doesn't have any fun... He doesn't laugh; he has no humor". Corley also lamented Steven's "ever-shifting sexual preferences", and stated that he wanted "to do other things". The character was recast in 1983 with Jack Coleman who remained on the show until 1988.
Throughout the 8-year run of Dynasty, Steven became more comfortable with his sexuality and he had several loving relationships with men. But every time it looked like he would have a "happily ever after" moment with his relationship of the moment it would end tragically (for example Steven's lover Luke Fuller was one of the few characters killed off in the Moldavian massacre cliffhanger) or it would just plain fizzle out. Even so, he was one of the only characters on the air - at that time - who introduced audience to a serialized gay storyline thus paving the road for more substantial LGBT storylines to be explored on TV shows in the 1990s.
Case in point, during the 1990s we were introduced to queer characters like Rickie Vasquez on the series “My So-Called Life” (1994-1995) which marked the first time an openly gay actor, Wilson Cruz, played a gay character on TV! Another memorable (less dramatic) gay character at the time was Stanford Blatch (played by the late Willie Garson) who was Carrie Bradshaw’s token "gay best friend" for the entire run of the popular HBO comedy “Sex and the City” (1998-2004). And of course, there was the entire cast of “Will & Grace” (1998-2006) who helped opened the floodgates of LGBTQ+ characters to grace themselves on our TV screens week after week - like "Queer As Folk" and "The L Word" - after Will, Grace, Jack and Karen dominated the TV airwaves from the late 90s until the early 2000s.
Since then we have had a multitude of memorable LGBTQ+ characters like.....
- Mitchell and Cameron the lovable, loyal and committed gay couple on the ABC sitcom "Modern Life"(2009-2020) played by actors Jesse Tyler Ferguson and Eric Stonestreet.
- The diverse cast of characters on the Netflix dramedy "Orange Is The New Black" (2013-2019) like the transgender Sophia Burset played brilliantly by Laverne Cox (the first transgender person to be nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award in an acting category) and lesbian Poussey Washington played by Emmy Award winner Samira Wiley.
- The groundbreaking Amazon show "Transparent" (2014-2019) which featured actor Jeffrey Tambor as the patriarch of an affluent LA family who is transitioning late in life to the woman he's always aspired to be - Maura Pfefferman.
- Next, there was the unforgettable FX drama series "Pose" (2018-2021) about NYC's drag ball Afirican-American/Latino LGBTQ subculture throughout the 1980s and 1990's which featuring a bevy of memorable characters like Pray Tell (played by Emmy Award winner Bily Porter) the flamboyant gay emcee of the balls and Blanca Rodriguez-Evangelista (played by Emmy nominated Michaela Jaé Rodriguez), a trans woman with HIV/AIDS who is the "mother" of the House of Evangelista - that compete in the fierce vogue NYC balls on the show.
- Modern audiences loved the memorable family drama "The Fosters" (2014-2018) which followed the lives of the Adams- Foster family led by a lesbian couple, Stef Foster (played by Teri Polo), a police officer, and Lena Adams (played by Sherri Saum), a school vice principal, who raise one biological son and four adopted teenagers in San Diego, California.
- Then there was the critically acclaimed HBO series "Looking" (2014-2016) that followed the experiences of three gay friends Patrick (played by Jonathan Groff), Agustin (played by Frankie J Alvarez), and Dom (played by Emmy Award winner Murray Bartlett) who live, work and hook up with lots of hot men in modern-day San Franciso.
- And finally, there is the memorable relationship between the trans-female character Jules Vaughn played by Hunter Schafer, and the non-binary lesbian character Rue Bennett played by Zendaya on the HBO series "Euphoria" which is praised by LGBT fans on social media.
So for this Pride month - and the next one - celebrate how far we've come being correctly represented on TV by watching these memorable LGBTQ+ character (and the hundreds of others I forgot to mention) on the unforgetable shows they appeared on.
And dont forget to listen to my riveting conversation with out gay actor Bill Brochtrup (Episodes 71 & 72), who played the memorable gay public administrative aide ‘John Irvin’ on the Emmy Award winning ABC series "NYPD Blue" for seven seasons, on my podcast! Just click on the links below to listen. Enjoy!
Episode 71 - HERE
Episode 72 - HERE
