Actor Gordon Thompson, who played the homophobic character Adam Carrington in the ’80s drama Dynasty, has come out and shared that he’s gay.
The 72 year old actor revealed his sexuality in an interview with The Daily Beast.
Back in the 1980’s when Dynasty was one of the highest rating shows Thompson’s character often showed his disdain for one of TV’s very rare gay characters, Steven Carrington.
Steven Carrington was played by actor Al Corley, and later Jack Coleman. Throughout the show’s run the character oscillated from being gay to being straight. Thompson says he found it frustrating that the writers took the bold step of bringing in a gay character and then kept rewriting him as being straight.
“I thought it was bullshit,” Thomson told The Daily Beast. “At the time, the AIDS crisis had a lot to do with pressure on the network. I know that Al Corley quit because he felt they were not allowing him to play the part honestly. And they weren’t.
“I was very impressed to hear him say that as Steven when he met his boyfriend they would only allow them to shake hands. He left the show because he thought that was crap, and of course it was.
“Today there is gay marriage, and what an enormous difference. It was appallingly handled. They opened a can of worms and weren’t true to it, and they could have been. They had good actors playing the parts. It was a big shame. I’m very sorry.”
Thompson said at the time he couldn’t argue with the writers about how they were portraying a gay character because ‘coming out’ was considered to be a career ending move for a leading man.
The Canadian actor recalled that back in the ’70s and ’80s being gay was not widely accepted in society.
“When I was growing up it [homosexuality] was a crime, and then classified as a mental illness. It was not until Pierre Trudeau was Prime Minister of Canada when I was 23, 24 years old, did it cease being a crime, and it was not until I was nearly 30 that it stopped being classified as a mental illness in the U.S.
“So you’re dealing with that. And the shame, the breathtaking lack of self-esteem, has only just begun to seep out of my soul.” Thompson said in the interview.
A re-boot of Dynasty is about to launch in the USA. Among it’s cast is Melrose Place actor Grant Show and Australia’s Alan Dale. In the new version of the show Heather Locklear’s character Sammy-Jo has been written as a gay man.
Check out one of the big scenes from Dynasty, they just don’t make drama like this anymore.
OIP Staff
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