Who was gay on the waltons

He was born onto a farm in Frankfort, Indiana, but then his father went to work for a railroad, so he spent much of his childhood shuffling between Kentucky, Georgia, and Tennessee. RICHARD THOMAS, who was born inquit The Waltons in and later won a Tony award for playing a gay Vietnam veteran on Broadway. At any rate, Geer simplified the spelling when he went into show business.

While transvestism is not the same as gay, many transvestites are also gay. And he was eccentric: with his long white hair, droopy mustache and penchant for wearing his overalls with only one strap buttoned. At all events, after this whirlwind period things become more digestible again. Here are the details about Geer and Corby's relationship.

On-screen, Ellen Corby and Will Geer played Grandma and Grandpa Walton, but both were actually gay, with Ellen Corby gay in real life, protecting their careers. In Geer was forced to sell his ritzy Santa Monica home and purchase land in nearby Topanga Canyon. He is now married to his third wife and has triplets whom he has used to good effect in advertising campaigns.

He was kindly, gentle, wise, funny. Onstage he had played Walt Whitman and Mark Twain ; he clearly channeled those guys into his late career persona. He was in the Depression era revue Sing Out the New In he narrated the short documentary Men and Dust, about Oklahoma coal miners. Geer also acted on radio. He was blacklisted in the s by Hollywood after refusing, in testimony before Congress, to name persons who had joined the Communist Party USA.

In his later years, Geer was best known for his role as Grandpa Zebulon "Zeb" Walton in the TV series The Waltons from until his death in Finally, my answer is yes, Geer was the lover of gay activist Harry Hay. InHay met Geer at the Tony Pastor Theatre, where Geer worked as an actor. What would the locals on Walton's Mountain have said if they knew that Grandpa (Will Geer) was gay, Pa (Ralph Waite) was a recovering alcoholic and that Mary Ellen (Judy Norton-Taylor) had posed for Playboy?

Most of these films were westerns. Grandpa Walton was a Gay, Blacklisted Communist Activist He was also shot at as an agitator for the Trade Union Movement and an influential friend of Woody Guthrie. Otis Skinner played Falstaff. He played Lot, a transvestite in the play The Seven Descents of Myrtle. Indiana, Illinois, Pennsylvania. He took a degree in horticulture from the University of Chicago, and a masters at Columbia.

The pair put up a façade with their marriages, and people believed they intended to safeguard their careers. They became lovers, and Hay credited. Grandpa Walton was a character. Then, disaster: called to testify before the House Un-American Committee, he took the Fifth, and was blacklisted. Even over many decades as a successful performing artist, Geer never abandoned this part of his life.

No, she played a gay. Fiske died incutting Geer loose in the depths of the Great Depression. Sexual orientation for him was not written into the script. Geer began performing during summer hiatuses in his college years, acting in tent shows and on show boats on the Ohio River. The series never re-casted the duo, even when they experienced hard times. Grandpa Walton was a Gay, Blacklisted Communist Activist He was also shot at as an agitator for the Trade Union Movement and an influential friend of Woody Guthrie.

What a feast of riches it is acquainting oneself with the life and career of Will Geer William Aughe Ghere, : actor, folksinger, political activist, and — wait for it — horticulturist. Ellen Corby and Will Geer captivated viewers of the classic show "The Waltons" with their veteran acting skills as grandma and grandpa.

RICHARD THOMAS, who was born in , quit The Waltons in and later won a Tony award for playing a gay Vietnam veteran on Broadway. He is now married to his third wife and has triplets whom he has used to good effect in advertising campaigns.

Like most Americans, I adored him during his late career Renaissance when he played Grandpa on The Waltons and appeared in movies like Jeremiah Johnson He seemed the very soul of rural America, in particular the good parts. He worked on ships for a time, and became involved with the maritime union. While he had previously been sympathetic to union causes, and sung folk songs with his fellow troupers, this experience seems to mark a new phase.

What was not much publicized at the time even though it was the hippy-dippy s was that he was bisexual and, for a time, a communist. It was kept quiet from the nation that Will was in fact a one-time lover of one of America's most famous gay activists Harry Hay. I reiterate, because this is important and it needs to be heard and digested: Will Geer was simultaneously queer, communist and as American as apple pie.

However, they were gay in real life and were involved in homosexual relationships. Grandpa Walton was so unflappable and mischievous, that I like to think he wouldn't have been at all shocked by the life of the actor who played him. He has not played any overtly gay roles.