Lesbian Couples of Old Hollywood
TFW you're condemned for 'erotic vagrancy' by the Pope
As discussed on Twitter yesterday, some straight couples are lesbians—and may not even know it. That’s fine, because we know. I’m going to rate the straights on a sliding scale of lesbianism. I’m focusing on Old Hollywood because I feel like there is a large concentration of these couples in film, music, and television pre-1975.
(Straight people: what happened? Why are none of you hot anymore?)
Without further ado:
Dolly Parton and Husband (???)
Your Honor, she’s a lesbian. Also I’m not convinced this dude actually exists. The man pictured here is a paid actor. Dolly, please show us the woman you’re actually dating. Is she Jolene? Tell me she’s Jolene.
Rating: at least a Kinsey 4
Bogart and Bacall
I cannot explain, but this is bisexual. This is like the exact vibe of every bi couple I’ve met in my adult life. He hooked up with dudes in college, she only dated women until she met him. Now they are doing whatever this is.
Rating: Kinsey 3.5 (Bicons; please turn on the Emergency Bisexual Lighting and watch your step.)
Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy
Gay. He is an old-school butch, the kind who buys the nice cologne. This couple renovated a house recently, and they enjoy hosting dinner parties together.
There is a subtle kink dynamic happening here; it’s hard to say which direction it goes in.
Rating: Kinsey 5, Tracy is a he/him lesbian and his gender is Complicated.
Gregory Peck and Audrey Hepburn
Not gay! I can see how you’d be confused, given the chemistry here, but these two have Big Missionary Position energy. I’m happy for them. Lots of gays went to their wedding.
Rating: 1 (not gay, but they want you to know they support you!)
June Carter/Johnny Cash
Listen, all I have to say about this one is that one time my ex-fiancee and I were ‘friends’ (in the loosest sense) with this one couple, and they were just a fucking trainwreck. The butch kept cheating, there were drugs involved, it was only a matter of time before one or both ended up in jail. Anyway, the femme was a dead ringer for June Carter Cash.
Rating: Kinsey 6, unfortunately
Sonny and Cher
That T4T couple— the coolest people you know. He grew that mustache after 8 months on T, and it is his pride and joy.
Rating: Kinsey scale found dead in Miami
Yoko Ono and John Lennon
God, haven’t we all met these people. She is amazing, but her thembo partner is a flaming human garbage heap of racism and toxic masculinity, beneath the façade (the ‘quirky’ style, the queer studies degree.)
Now that I think about it, John Lennon was the first tenderqueer.
Rating: PLEASE break up with them, Yoko.
Lisa Bonet and Lenny Kravitz
This is well after the time period I was aiming for, but come on, this one’s for lesbianism. You’ve never had more than a five-minute conversation with this couple— they have to leave because her art show is opening in half an hour. So good to see you! Let’s hang out sometime!
[You will not hang out sometime.]
Rating: 6
Han and Leia/ Harrison Ford and Carrie Fisher
Here we are in 1980, but what does time even mean? Anyway this is just the very straightest of straight couples, god bless. I’m so glad they banged; it was good that they did that.
Rating: 0/6 on the Kinsey scale, 6/6 in our hearts
(Moving back in time again, attempting to remain on-topic.)
The Prince and Princess of Genovia*
Almost didn’t include them, because look: snooze. How are you this beautiful and still so boring?
Rating: 0/6
* I know it’s Monaco, please no one correct me
Vivien Leigh and Laurence Olivier
This looks like my grandparents’ wedding photo.
Rating: 0/6 on the Kinsey scale
Lucy and Desi
This is tough, because his face is like, Twinks of America, and her make-up (and her everything) is very camp, but I’m going to rule these as straights.
Rating: they were married in real life, did you know that? I did not know that until I was making this list. Giving them a 1/6 for the whiff of ambient Gay.
THEM.
I have been thinking about this photo since I was 12 years old. Here’s what I think: I think it makes me feel fully insane.
As a child I had a copy of National Velvet on VHS that I watched until the tape wore out, which may or may not be relevant right now.
Maybe it’s just me, but Taylor and Burton look like masc and femme versions of the same person, especially in this photo— the eyes, the graceful slope of the nose, the way he is looking UP at her. Buckets of charisma on both sides. Looking at this, I feel sort of unmoored, gender-wise; like it might be possible to be man and woman at once, lover and beloved, beyond classification.
Also: Liz and Dick (Dick!) married, got divorced, then got married again. Doesn’t get more dykey than that. The Pope (The Pope!) once condemned them for ‘erotic vagrancy’—that alone should qualify you.
Yet—
Who, in all of Hollywood canon, is more heterosexual? I saw this photo as an extremely not-straight preteen and thought, maybe it won’t be so bad, marrying a man. You had to marry to get divorced, after all, and nothing seemed more grown-up and exciting to me than getting divorced. I wanted to bang them both so badly I could barely breathe.
The verdict is out. I am dismayed by the way straights have failed to appreciate this couple, who are, in my opinion, perhaps the most sophisticated expression of gender and sexuality they have achieved.
Listen: if this situation was from MY team, I would never shut up about it.
Therefore I am retiring Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton from the ranks of straight people, effective immediately. Their theatrical sensibility, their many break-ups and reunions, make them promising candidates for the field of Homosexuality.
Rating: 6
(also Richard Burton gives off FtM vibes. This should be a conspiracy theory, and I am surprised it is not. The Truth Is Out There.)
Thank you for joining me on this journey. Please tell me how you feel in the comments.
Spectacular stuff.