Natalie Wood Reportedly Found Her Husband “R.J.” With Another Man the Night She DiedJodie Foster’s public admission of her love for another woman marked a watershed in the life of the two-time Oscar-winning actress, if not in the popular culture at large. Many gay and bisexual celebrities remain deep in “The Closet” to avoid prejudice, which they feel may hurt their
careers. A perusal of the Internet reveals an abundance of gay-themed Hollywood and celebrity gossip sites with the “theme” of outing closeted celebrities. Here are some of the rumors, which not surprisingly are, circular, implicating the same people less than by actual “guilt” than by association:Paul Newman and Gore Vidal shared the Three-Faced Eve, Joanne Woodward, in the late 1950s, living as a happy threesome for a while. Paul and Gore remained close throughout the ’60s, until Gore’s live-in “husband” got him to vamoose for Italy and away from the sultry arms of the box-office star.Paul took Robert Wagner as a lover sometime in the early 1960s, after Wagner was dumped by his wife Natalie Wood. In turn, Newman dumped “Babs” (Wagner’s nickname given to him by the denizens of the New York transvestite demimonde he loved to flock with) in the late ’60s, after New Blue Eyes became the top box office star in America (1968-70, ranking #1 twice). His disdain for Babs’ TV career bled over into Newman’s relations with rival (on the queen scene) James Garner. The two eyed each other warily, but nothing came of that. They later co-starred in one of Newman’s last films, Twilight, when neither had anything more to prove.Chuck Connors and Ernest Borgnine ran in different circles; they were not A-list. Babs Wagner dropped off the A-list into the B-list dominated by TV personalities and tired old queens sometime in the late ’60s (it would have been sooner but for Newman’s “patronage”). James Garner “straddled” both lists. Out-and-out queens like Rock Hudson were a universe unto themselves, socializing with the Nancy Reagans and other noveau riche.
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