You Are Not Alone Sam Smith

Congratulations to openly gay Brit singer-songwriter Sam Smith who, along with his writing partner Jimmy Napes, won an Oscar for Best Original Song for  Writing's on the Wall  for the Spectre movie.  In a year when the focus of the Academy Awards was all about diversity, Smith very passionately dedicated his win to the LGBT Community.   He however didn't stop there as he also added that it was an honor to be the first openly gay man to win one of these precious statutes, but on that account he was wrong, several times over.

One of the most high profile gay winners in the past was Lance Dustin Black who won a Best Screenplay Academy Award for 'Milk' the biopic about slain gay politician Harvey Milk in 2009 when Sam Smith was 17 years old. Black's win was matched with one of the most eloquent speeches the Awards audience had ever heard. In fact he relayed a copy of it to Smith last night with a very funny tweet which said if you have no idea who I am, it may be time to stop texting my fiancé.    Black is of course engaged to the very handsome diver Tom Daley.

The very first openly gay actor to win an Oscar was in fact Sir John Gielgud and it was for his performance in 1981 for the film, Arthur.

In 1969, it was the turn of yet another Brit John Schlesinger who won the Oscar for Best Director in Midnight Cowboy, his film about two New York hustlers. He would later go on to be collect one of four Oscar nominations that were given in 1972 to Sunday Bloody Sunday a movie about a young bi-sexual Brit who flitted between his older male and female lovers.

Even before this, in 1964 openly gay George Cukor who was known to be the head of the gay subculture in Hollywood during the 1930′s, was the recipient of the Oscar for Best Director in My Fair Lady.

                                                                     Cukor with presenter Joan Crawford

Quite how Sam Smith could forget about one of the world's gay-est singers ever is hard to believe,  and he should have known that Sir Elton John won an  Oscar in 1994 for Best Original Song with Can You Feel The Love Tonight.

In 2006, it was the turn of another gay rockstar when Melissa Etheridge won the Oscar for the Best Original song. Her song, I Need to Wake Up, was featured in the Vice President Al Gore's Oscar winning documentary, An Inconvenient Truth.

Gay songwriter Howard Ashman collected six Oscar Nominations and won twice . Both wins were for Disney songs he co-wrote which Alan Menken and were sadly awarded to him posthumously in 1992 and 1993 after he had died of AIDS just aged 40.

In 1991 Broadway legend Stephen Sondheim collected his Oscar for this little ditty that he wrote for Madonna to sing in the movie Dick Tracy.

Sam Smith claimed that his source of mis-information about the lack of openly gay winner was he claimed none other than Sir Ian McKellen, which is hard to believe as his friend Bill Condon won one for writing the screenplay of Gods & Monster a movie that McKellen starred in and picked up an nomination for too.

Another screenplay Oscar went to Alan Ball for American Beauty, one of five Academy Awards, including Best Picture, that the movie won in 2000.   

Rounding this list up to a neat dozen are two actors who came out as gay sometime after they had won their Oscars. Joel Grey won for his definitive performance as the Master of Ceremonies in Cabaret in 1973, but didnt talk about his sexuality publically until 2015. Jodie Foster got her first Oscar Nomination (for Taxi Driver) when she was just 14 years old, and then 12 years later she won her first Best Actress Award for The Accused, followed by another one for The Silence of the Lambs in 1991.  Foster had been in a same-sex relationship for years but never talked about it openly until 2007.

Trans actress Mya Taylor Makes History

Tonight at the Film Independent Spirit Awards Mya Taylor made history as the first trans actress to win a major acting award. When she collected her statute for Best Supporting Female from J.K. Simmons for her outstanding performance in the movie Tangerine she delighted the star studded audience with her funny feisty speech.

She related that when she was told by writer/director Sean S. Baker that Tangerine was to be shot using iPhones, “The first thing I thought, ‘The movie ain’t gonna be sh*t.”  

She was totally wrong and this offbeat gritty comedy about a day in the life of two trans hookers on the streets of L.A. has been getting rave reviews and picking awards as well as delighting audiences everywhere.  

After thanking all the people who helped her get this far Taylor finished her speech with  “there is transgender talent, and you better get out there and put it in your next movie.”

Dan Savage Wants Us To Watch More Sex

Dan Savage has been a sex worker now for the past 25 years.  Not the usual kind that stands on windy street corners late at night. In fact he does it all fully clothed sitting at a desk.  Ever since he told his friend Tim Keck that the weekly newspaper he was starting in Seattle would need a sex-advice columnist and inadvertently talked himself into a job, he has been talking to people straight about sex. Actually not that straight as what he brought to the job was a gay man's perceptive and sensibility that made him an instant hit with heteros and homos alike.

Now as a highly successful journalist, author, theater director, TV pundit and radio broadcast Savage has gained a remarkable reputation as both an activist and a highly and very visible opinionated leading member of the LGBT community.  queerguru takes it's hat off to Savage in particular for co-creating the It Gets Better Project to help gay teenagers in light of the suicide of 15-year-old Billy Lucas, who was bullied for his perceived sexual orientation. 

Savage hasn't forgotten about sex either.  Eleven years ago he had an unconventional idea in his column Savage Love and he asked people to send him homemade dirty movies, and surprisingly, they did. Before you could say 'Linda Lovelace', his mailbox was brimming with films so hot, so hilarious, and diverse that he felt compelled to share them with the world, and so Hump! was born.

Hump! Film Festival which tours across the US is the only public place to see creative, homegrown porn.  The films cover a very wide spectrum in every sense of the word and include all body sizes, shapes, ages, colors, sexualities, genders, kinks, and fetishes, and all under the welcoming umbrella of sex-positivity and sexual expression. Savage who acts as Editor and Curator of the Festival Program stresses that first and foremost Hump! is about acceptance and redefining conventional porn, with more than a smattering of humor in some of the pieces. 

Savage adds "We bill HUMP! as an amateur porn festival, but it's more than that. It's rare for people to watch porn that takes them outside their comfort zones— it's rare for people to watch porn that, if they were home alone in front of the computer, they wouldn't choose to click on and watch. At HUMP! straight people watch gay porn, vanilla people watch kinky porn, gay people watch lesbian porn. And people laugh, they gasp, sometimes they cover their eyes. But at the end of every film people clap and cheer."

We've been privy to seeing a preview of this years Festival Tour which kicks off in Pittsburgh next week and were shocked at how fresh and funny ..... and downright sexy it was ..... and Savage is right, there were times we really did have to cover our eyes.

For details of the Tour : 16 Cities so far and more being added all the time click here

A Cat's Near Purr-fect Oscar Predictions

Of all the pundits who have been making waves with their predictions of who will go home clutching their  gold statutes on Sunday, the Office cat at the best Cinema magazine in the UK ....Little White Lies ..... does an incredible job picking the winners. We actually think she has got them all right ......well almost .... sadly Charlotte Rampling will not be Best Actress as that award will go to Brie Larson for her stunning performance in Room,  and The Revenant will probably be voted Best Picture and not Brooklyn.

Shura is Touched Again

Out gay British electropop singer-songwriter Aleksandra Denton, known as Shura, has released a new music video called of her hit song 'Touch' which this time features the American hip hop artist Talib Kweli.

24 year old Shura artist first appeared in the spotlight and signed with Polydor Records after she released the video for her song Touch last March. The video, which shows various couples (women and men, men and men, women and women) approaching each other and slowly kissing, went viral with almost 25 million views so far.   Shura said at that time “There are many different kinds of love. It didn’t really feel like a political statement at the time. When you have a lot of gay friends, you don’t think of that as being different or divisive or weird, that’s just your reality."

BalletBoyz Hit New York

If you prefer your ballet when it is not all cluttered up with skinny ballerinas in pink tutus then you will love The Ballet Boyz : The Talent.  This celebrated rather stunning group of contemporary Brit dancers are just finishing their current US Tour with a week performing at The Joyce Theater in New York.

The show features two commissions from leading British choreographers: The Murmuring by Alexander Whitley and Mesmerics by Christopher Wheeldon. The cast of 10 dancers have been receiving rave reviews for their pyrotechnic performances which is part of the  newer, more approachable presentation that their Company has earned its reputation on.  

BalletBoyz; The Talent is the brainchild Michael Nunn and Billy Trevitt who met when they were principal dancers with Britain's prestigious Royal Ballet.  Now 12 years later loaded with a stack of Awards, the Company appearances have continued to attract enthusiastic young audiences that are completely new to ballet and who can relate to unconventional, often sensual male-male partnering.  

The BalletBoyz are at The Joyce Theater through to February 28th . For tickets and information click here

Jay Khan sings Naked

German singer Jay Khan takes the title of his song Naked literally in this video shot in a street in  Bucharest four years ago.  The very handsome Khan was born in the UK to Pakistani father  and a British mother but has lived in Berlin since he was 6 years old, was once part of  the multinational band US5.

Now Khan divides his time working  music label producer (Nexxus Music) and is gaining successfully attention with his new band “Großstadtfreunde” when he is not helping his father out in “Padre E Figlio” the italian restaurant that they own together in Berlin..  It's a pity though as the streets of Bucharest  (and us) miss him baring his  considerable talent.

Jay - Naked from Parcfilm on Vimeo.

Legends, Icons and Superstars

                                                                                                                                  Liza by Warhol 

There is a new rather spectacular exhibition in London that showcases the work of two giants of American postwar visual culture. Photographer Richard Avedon and artist Andy Warhol were both portraitists, obsessed with celebrity, and used repetition within their images.  They often used the same subjects, and Avedon even photographed Warhol a couple of times with not always very flattering results.  Despite their worlds overlapping they were not friends, and in his diaries Warhol describes Avedon as 'horrible'.

                                                                             Warhol and members of  The Factory by Avedon

Avedon  Warhol is at The Gagosian Gallery until April 23rd 2016.

Full details and information : http://www.gagosian.com

P.S.  Today is the 29th Anniversary of Warhol's death.

Vote For Jake ..... please!

Still looking to do your good deed for the day?  Then here's the perfect one for you.  Jake Graf : filmmaker, queer activist ,  actor   (and queerquru's friend) is the very first transman ever to be nominated as LGBT Celebrity Rising Star in the British LGBT 2016 Awards.

We had the pleasure of interviewing him recently for our profile piece Jake Graf : Man of The Moment which if you have read you can see why we are more than happy to cast our vote for him in this new poll.  You can too .... you don't even have to British to do so .... and then you can pour yourself a (small?) drink and take a look at Brace one of Jake's films.

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http://www.britishlgbtawards.co.uk/lgbt-celebrity-rising-star-2016.html

Top 10 Coming Out of The Closet Scenes

It's not easy coming out as gay, whether in real life or on the small screen. The reactions of our friends and our families is not always what we may have hoped for.  Nevertheless its a journey that we as gay men and women need to take if we are to lead lives being true to ourselves.

The folks over at www.watchmojo.com have put together a compilation of Top 10 Coming Out of The Closet Scenes from a wealth of different TV programs.  Some are heartbreaking, but some are gloriously happy too. 

The Gayest TV Program In The World

The most watched TV program in the world is also the most unintentionally gayest one too.  The annual Eurovision Song Contest is watched by over 195 million people ( to keep it in perspective this years Super Bowl managed a mere 114.5 million viewers). 

It's a real music anomaly.  For starters the countries that send a singer to represent them in what are considered the Pop Olympics do not even have to be European ...... e.g. Russia and Australia are amongst the 40 odd nations to participate. And you certainly do not have to possess a ounce of musical talent as in its 60 year history it has pumped out more really horrible pop songs than anyone else, and despite all the money and talent thrown out it, Eurovision persists in keeping alive all these dire dated styles of music that never deserved to be born in the first place.  And the show goes on for ours and hours : o call it 'camp' would be a major understatement.  

What you need is chutzpah, be totally outrageous, grin from ear to ear, wear a silly outfit and sing really loud (and not necessarily in tune).  The trouble is it that it kind of casts a spell over the performers and even ex-participants seemed trapped into a lifetime of singing pure eurotrash. Like 40 year old Páll Óskar who once represented Iceland and now just cannot stop himself from singing a la Eurovision : just check out his latest video

P.S. Sometimes against all odds all the countries manage to vote a really talented act that has some how slipped in,  Like in 2014 when bearded chanteuse Austrian Conchita Wurst stunned the crowds with her big campy ballad 'Rise Like A Phoenix' and her very glamorous sparkly sheaf dress making that year the gayest show ever.

Eurovison 2016 runs May 10, 2016 – May 14, 2016

http://www.eurovision.tv/tag/expand/2016

Happy 66th Birthday Julie Walters

Academy-Award nominated actress Julie Walters think she is a dying breed. Her recent comments that there are too many 'posh actors' today and very few working class ones like her coming through the ranks,  caused a wee rumpus in the media,  She certainly does have a point as over in the UK every new star seems to be ex Public School (that's the same as a posh US Private School) : think Eddie Redmayne and Benedict Cumberbatch just to name few.  It has not however affected the demand for her work and Walters is back on UK TV screens next month for the second series of Indian Summers, Channel 4’s epic of intrigue and romance, set in the hill station of Shimla in the dying days of the British Raj.

Today on her 66th Birthday we look back at just a few of the highlights of her very successful career that have made her so immensely popular and a treasured gay icon.

Her breakthrough role came in 1983 when she transferred her performance in Willy Russell's hit play to the big screen in  Educating Rita and won her a Golden Globe, a BAFTA and her first Academy Award Nomination.

Walters rejected all the numerous offers that Hollywood showered upon her after Educating Rita and went back to the UK to star in Terry Jones movie Personal Services based on the true life story of the much-beloved Cynthia Payne the British brothel keeper and Madam who showed how hypocritical the UK sex laws were at the time.  The movie, a smash hit in the UK, flopped ignominiously in the US .... one audience member walked  out muttering that 'the movie contained something to offend everyone.'

That same year she played the mother of murdered gay playwright Joe Orton's in Stephen Frear's biopic of Orton called Prick Up Your Ears cementing a love affair between Walters and the gay community that has never diminished since.

Walters won her second Academy Award Nomination for teaching Billy Elliot to dance in the popular 2000 movie.

It was however Walters work with the TV comic actress/writer Victoria Wood that she won over everyone's hearts in the UK ..... and it is an enormous shame that none of the enormous body of work that kept us Brits hysterically scream in laughter ever found it's way to the worldwide audience that it so deserved.  From a vast secretion of favorite clips, queerguru has chosen two.  The first from this glorious Made-for-Tv Movie Pat and Margaret about two long-lost sisters who are now world's apart.

However there is a hardly a single Brit gay man of a certain age who doesn't know the words of this classic sketch called Two Soups off by heart which shows Walters at her very funniest.

Meanwhile check out her scene-stealing performance as the Irish landlady Mrs Keogh in the new Oscar nominated movie Brooklyn.

Happy 66th Birthday Julie Walters ..... and thank you for enriching our lives.

Helena Bonham-Carter is Never Out Of The Game

Helena Bonham-Carter acts up as a rule-bending librarian as she acts out  Rufus Wainwright’s “Out of the Game,” taken from his Mark Ronson produced album of the same name. The video directed by Philip Andelman was released last March but we never ever get bored watching it.

How To Look Swish This Season

Urban Dictionary defines the word 'swish' as English slang meaning 'good' but when it comes to our latest discovery of its use, we would beg to differ. queerguru thinks that Swish Embassy .... our favorite new fashion find.... is actually excellent!

Their very fresh vibrant range of T's and Tops are cute, funny and very suggestive and would be great additions to any hot homo's wardrobe.  You don't have to be gay to wear Swish,  but it does help if you are at least a wee bit fierce.

We caught up with  Swish's main man Dean up in his home town of Toronto and were shocked to find he had started out back in 2009. Initially it was a hobby to keep him out of trouble when he wasn't at his day job in corporate Canada, but then it grew.  Inspired by vacations to places like P. Town (and who wouldn't be?) where he was always a tad disappointed by the fact that whilst there were plenty of T's which left nothing to the (gay) imagination, but they were usually too crude to pass for general urban wear.

With the company's slogan of 'Wear A Conversation Piece', what Dean set out do was produce a range that  is camp, funny and with plenty of references to pop culture but with not-too-crude vernacular, and we think he has succeeded beautifully.  What also attracted queerguru to Swish is the way that it is so accessible for so many sectors of our community ......check out the section called "Bears and Otters and Wolves, oh my!"  And like most really good things that we queers start, straight boys and girls are soon going to be wanting these 'message' t's too.

Last year Dean stepped up the pace of Swish and devoted himself full-time to the business and expanded his product range. Now everything can be ordered online ... most of the T's are $29.95 ....but they will  also soon be available in selected stores worldwide (locations on the website).  

The T shirt below is one of Swish's best sellers, and it has a nice touch of irony combining one of the most overused terms of gay dating sights with the picture of a big fat unicorn

www.swishembassy.com

Happy 70th Birthday Brenda Blethyn

                                                                                                                                                           Photo @Jack Barnes

No disrespect to Frances McDormand but in 1996 the Academy Award for Best Actress should have gone to Brenda Blethyn for her superlative performance as Cynthia Rose Purley the unforgettable, big-hearted cockney heroine in Mike Leigh's Secrets and Lies. She had already picked up the BAFTA, Golden Globe and Cannes Best Actress Award  for the role and in our eyes, the Oscar was hers for the taking.  It also marked the start of her becoming a treasured gay icon too. 

As this quintessential English Actress celebrates her 70th Birthday today, queerguru looks back at just five of our very favorite performances from this long career of this sheer genius of a woman who excels in these larger-than-life characters that always have a big heart. Such as her role as Mari Hoff in the movie adaption of Jim Cartwright's hit play Little Voice, which in 1998 earned Blethyn another Academy Award Nomination.

In 2000 Blethyn played a small-town widow in 'Saving Grace' facing financial difficulty when she is persuaded to go into agricultural and grow a very special 'crop' with very hilarious consequences.

In 2005 she played Mrs Bennett who takes to her bed with the vapors in 'Pride And Prejudice'. 

In the  2007 Australian movie 'Introducing The Dwights' Blethyn played a cafeteria worker by day who did stand up comedy by night, with yet another tour-de-force performance.

Happy 70th Birthday Brenda Blethyn.

Shane Wickes : A Hero

Although he will probably want to deny it,  but Shane Wickes is a real hero. This young High School football Coach from Reno Nevada came out as gay to the world very publicly in a TED talk at the University of Nevada. His story about his own journey is powerful as he articulates about his experiences with depression and a suicide attempt, all of which led him to finally coming out for the sake of the kids who might be gay around him.

"Sharing our truth is the only way we can have the impact we want to have," Wickes said in his talk. "One day being gay in football will be normal. But in order for that to happen, those of us who are gay need to stand up and own it."

It takes balls to do what Wickes did ( and not just the kind you play soccer with).   As he added at the end of his passionate  speech “a healthy person cannot live life in the dark,”  and hopefully his bravery will inspire others struggling with their sexuality to find the light. 

Happy 87th Birthday Patricia Routledge

Beloved veteran British actress Patricia Routledge celebrates her 87th Birthday this week which is still very hard to believe.  Most people in the US know her as the hilarious pretentious Hyacinth Bucket (it's pronounced bouquet) in the smash hit TV series 'Keeping Up The Appearances', back across the Pond though we are aware that is a lot more than that in her long and highly successful career.

Patricia Routledge made her Broadway debut exactly 50 years ago, and two years later won the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical for her role in 'Darling of the Day'.  She was a member of the Royal Shakespeare Company in the UK for years ; starred in Joseph Papps 'The Pirates of Penzanze' with Kevin Kline in NY's Central Park; won a Lawrence Oliver Award for her role in Bernstein's Candide in London etc  etc.  Before she started her most famous role as the biggest snob in surburbia, Patricia earned her place as a fully bona-fide gay icon with a series of monologues she did as 'Kitty' for The Victoria Wood TV Show.  They are quintessential English gems .... she talks fast though and you may have to play it a couple of time to get all the words if you are not a Brit ..... but trust me, you will soon get hooked.

Happy Birthday Patricia Routledge CBE and we hope you are not too upset that Hyacinth's precious Sheridan didn't even bother to send you a card!

Meryl Streep Sings Very Badly for maybe another Oscar

We hope that for her performance in  the title role of her latest movie Florence Foster Jenkins that Meryl Streep will for once sing really badly.

Directed by Stephen Frears ('The Queen') from a script by Nicholas Martin ('Big Bad World') its the very true story of a tone deaf opera diva who was probably the worst singer in the world. At the beginning of the last century wealthy socialite Jenkins was known for having legions of fans despite the fact that she was unable to hit a high note and it always remained unclear whether opera-goers showed up for her performances out of adoration for the singer or a strong desire to get a good laugh.

Evidently the voice that Jenkins heard in her head was beautiful and her partner and aristocratic manager St Clair Bayfield (played by Hugh Grant) was determined to protect Florence from the truth. Tony winner Nina Arianda, Simon Helberg, and Rebecca Ferguson also star.

Pathe have just released this first trailer of the movie that should be released in theaters in the summer.