Out of the Closet, Off the Screen:The Life of William Haines(2001 documentary)

in the late 1920s and early 30s William Haynes was one of Hollywood's most popular stars he was also one of the few actors who made the successful transition from silent films to talkies and as you'll see in out of the closet off the screen Haynes was also gay and despite intense pressure from the studio's to conceal his sexuality Haynes refused and abruptly walked away from Hollywood this is his story on the day they struck this glamorous pose the man and woman in this MGM publicity shot reigned as the two most popular movie stars in America the liquid eyes and arched brows on the left belong to Joan Crawford but the dashing profile on the right belongs to one of history's forgotten stars Billy Haines [Music] Billy Haynes was named the top male movie star in the world there was nobody bigger than Billy Haynes in 1930 he was the equivalent of Clark Gable a few years later get a mere two years after being named Hollywood's number one star Billy Haines vanished from the screen driven into exile by a moral code that forced him to choose between the world he had conquered and the love of his life not the woman he loved but the man [Music] [Music] in 1933 Billy Haines was the toast of Hollywood America's top box-office draw he was also a homosexual who lived openly some said brazenly with his male lover Jimmy shields I said in my book Mommy Dearest and and a lot of people picked up on it that my mother actually said that she thought she said you know I think they have the best marriage in Hollywood one person who did not think Billie had the best marriage in Hollywood was his boss MGM's Louie be mayor Louisville mayor never liked Billy Haines and Louie be there certainly did not approve of his sexual orientation or his stubborn refusal to play along with a charade of arranged dates and staged marriages that Hollywood expected of gay actors one day in 1933 Mayer delivered Hanes and ultimatum that either he could continue his contract with MGM studios as an actor or he can choose his partner Jimmy Shields according to Hollywood legend Billy didn't miss a beat I'll be glad to give up Jimmy just as long as you give up your own wife with that wisecrack billy Haynes's stardom was snuffed out if Billy's refusal to hide his homosexuality seemed outrageous in 1933 it seems remarkably courageous today after all seventy years later there is still not a single male romantic lead who has dared to be openly gay it's a taboo it's sort of the last frontier and it hasn't been broken yet it's remarkable then at Hollywood's original gay star hailed not from some sophisticated City but from the rural Shenandoah Valley far from the Hollywood Hills it was here in prosperous Staunton Virginia that Billy Haines was born on January 2nd 1900 the Haines's were respected local family this is a wonderful shot of a parade in the early 20th century parade in Stanton and the the second float shows a smoking cigar the Haynes family were cigar manufacturers in the city and this was their entry in that parade young Billy however was a black sheep from the start a natural athlete he would have nothing to do with sports instead he was drawn to the interest of the mother he adored sewing cooking and the interior decoration of Stanton's great homes he had an interest in in stylish things there is even a reference to him redecorating his bedroom in his house and his grandfather didn't approve of it at all yet Billy was rarely teased for what bullies might call his [ __ ] entrance Billy was very butch he was deep voiced he was very masculine when he was teased he fought back with wisecracks defending himself with laughter instead of fists his looks and sense of humor enabled him to not merely survive but thrive he had a personality that was hard to dislike everyone liked though Haynes Billy himself loved the movies and eight to join their glamorous world of big cities and handsome sophisticated heroes and then at 14 revelation Billy discovered sexuality which in his case meant homosexuality I never discussed my life before 14 things that happen after 14 are so much more important because one is conscious of sex determined to find a place where he could live his life authentically at just 15 Billy ran away it's a narrative that I think a lot of people can still relate to that breaking away you're you're the square peg in a community of round holes his first stop was Hopewell Virginia a teeming boomtown of floating brothels and cutthroat thieves gamblers and prostitutes a born hustler Billy and a few friends opened a makeshift dance hall which prospered until one windy night when the entire slapdash town of Hopewell along with Billy's dance hall went up in flames undaunted the would be dandy headed north to the place that would change his life forever New York City a grimy glittering Oz drowning in bathtub gin teeming with flappers and hiss Gerald's flaming youth scandalizing Victorian Marlys with bohemian parties and shocking talk a free love gay men and lesbians were remarkably open in the village in the 1920s there were cafeterias and Sheridan square with plate glass windows where gay men wearing mascara and makeup would gather and gaze out of those straits on the street who were would actually gather and Waka them because he didn't see anything like that outside of the village Billie was enthralled handsome and young for the carefree attitude in perfect sync with the times he soon had a stream of lovers he spent time with a largely homosexual theatre crowd that included the future director George Cukor the future designer orry-kelly and the young Acrobat named Archie leach later known as Cary Grant he moved in a world that was they were chorus girls and chorus boys and drag queens and people that lived a little bit on the edge no one in Billy's circle could really be considered openly gay in the modern sense since the modern identity of sexual orientation had not yet been conceived but men who were attracted to men often adopted certain well recognized roles there were self-described fairies who advertised their effeminacy with shocking red bow ties and those called punks or trade who adopted a tough working-class demeanor and then there were the so-called wise crackers like Billy himself elegant men whose appreciation of the theatre antiques and fine clothes was accompanied by a sharp scathing wit it was a sensibility that he kept with him all his life person could be forgiven for literacy but never from lack of good taste then one day came the chance meeting that would ultimately make him a star crossing in Manhattan Street he caught the eye of at top Hollywood agent I like your face she said so do I mind I'm breaking in for a friend in just a few weeks Billie was named the new face of 1922 signed to a studio contract and packed off to Hollywood Hollywood started out as just being this little sagebrush town and at the far frontier of the United States and these people came out to create out of that wilderness this this land of dreams and I think there was a sense that we can do anything we want out here for the exuberant Billy Haines that small patch of Southern California was probably the only place outside New York or he could live an open authentic life Hollywood was a haven for free thinkers and free lovers in the 1920s what was what was being created in Hollywood was a community of people who lived on the margins there was a sense that we can do anything we want out here flaunting old fashioned gender roles women smoked and drank had flagrant Affairs and ran their own lives and men did some experimenting of their own on screen the biggest stars were sleek pampered heroes like Rudolph Valentino and Ramon Navarro early 20s and early 30s this sort of wonderful possibility of ambivalence and how sexuality and that's seen in the in the movie stars women are being dreamed to be seduced by a guy who's better dressed than they are and that's the world that William Haynes entered to friends and colleagues Billy pretended it was all a wild lark a great excuse for a party in a laugh but his memory of his first meeting with the studio suggested otherwise the office was two miles my knees were knocking together the friend my boss stood up enough courage to be flippant walked up to the seats I said I'm your new Beauty problems buts career kind of languished for a while in very undistinguished supporting roles it was until movies like Sally Irene and Mary and tell it to the Marines that his reputation started building abandoning any attempt to fit into the classic silent formula of the Latin Lover mature romantic lead or Chaplin s clown haiyan's concocted his own type based on his own personality as a wisecracker it was a strategy that gave him the extra confidence to conquer his nervousness I argued it out with myself why should I be afraid of the camera there was an inanimate object and couldn't reach out and bite me in the chin it had the Faculty of photographing thought as well as features so I made up my mind that I would think more about what I was doing to try and live the role by the time Billy Haines read the script that would make him a star he was ready that script was brown of Harvard a comedy that epitomized what would become the classic Billy Haines for me a smart-aleck youth thoughtless and conceited who emerges as a hero winning the heart of the heroine and the audience at the urging of his ambitious friend Joan Crawford Billy plunged into the fray of studio politics lobbying hard for the part I was determined that no one but William hangs and play the role of Tom Brown I would turn him inside out and make him the freshest punk that ever drew breath having won the role Billie surprised the studio with a performance that was natural breezy and endearing Billy's new wisecracker persona was clearly modeled at an androgynous jumble of Greenwich Village gay mannerisms part of what makes him made him so popular was his his very queerness this was the mantra of the Roaring Twenties you there were no limits there were no boundaries old rules were being broken down and I think his screen persona was perfect for that time but he always remained ambivalent about his alter ego a construction that he used as a shield the wisecrack is my shell my protection at heart I'm not a wisecracker William Haynes the wisecracker came into being in Hollywood Brown of Harvard proved the comedy event of the year Billy's breakthrough role making a fortune for the studio and a national star out of William Haynes with a string of follow-ups each more successful than the last Billy Lord's who the rest of the decade as the toast of the town the most golden most open homosexual Hollywood had ever seen but it wouldn't be long before a more somber decade and a less forgiving morality would reign the curtain down [Music] while waiting for Brown of Harvard to be released Billy took a brief trip to Greenwich Village and they're on the same New York streets where he was discovered almost three years earlier Billy Haines made a discovery of his own his name was Jimmy Shields a handsome 21 year old from a prominent Daytona Beach family taught it as a [ __ ] back home Jimmy was just finishing a difficult two year stint in the Navy when he looked up to see a handsome stranger on the street Billy and Jimmy were complete opposites Jimmy was was effeminate Billy was very butch but opposites attract they found in each other their completion within a few days that one-night stand would blossom into a relationship that would barely change for 50 years Billy the successful star Jimmy his devoted partner Jimmy always deferred to Billy with that arrangement you can't have fights and I think I always thought I felt they were very well matched and very happy together having found the love he was looking for Billy was hardly about to hide his happiness from anyone within a short time of their meeting they were living openly together and entertaining Irving Thalberg and other studio officials and members of the press it may seem incredible today that Billy and Jimmy could have lived openly as a couple but the film industry of the 1920s was not conformist conservative or homophobic [Music] amid hollywood's fabled night spots and casting couches it's opium love cults and naked pool parties the whispered homosexual affairs of stars like Rudolph Valentino Ramon Navarro and Greta Garbo seem like just another exotic part of the atmosphere protection was provided by an elaborate system of press publicity and raw power the studios controlled the press they controlled what was said and what was not said about their major actors studios worked with fan magazines to pump out mythic stories of the stars while carefully shielding their grainier secrets from the public all the writers knew it but may dependent on the movies they didn't want to cause it to sink everybody's income came from them from the stars with movie magazines in the pocket of the studio's even gay and lesbian stars felt free to live fairly authentic lives within certain limits what some of the survivors of the era call it is the difference between being Oh Bert and circumspect and by far most actors were circumspect being circumspect involved playing along with reporters or going along with arranged dates and faked photo opportunities Billy didn't really go for this he didn't like this kind of baloney he created this wisecracking character who you know somebody would say how come there's been never any woman linked to you in the press and he'd say oh I'm too busy buying antiques not many people could have gotten away with that but he had this persona that deflected that kind of questioned [Music] irreverent and hilarious in person Billy was invited everywhere and he and Jimmy emerged as fixtures at everything from black-tie premieres to speakeasies they told riotous jokes everything was happy and disrespectful and funny and just there was a feeling of good times he emerged as a ringleader of the so-called younger degeneration at William Randolph Hearst fabled San Simeon estate where he and Jimmy were the only unmarried couple allowed to share a room a side that is from Hearst and his mistress Marion Davies his closest pal who ever was ambitious young ingénue Lucile asura when MGM renamed her Joan Crawford she was horrified but Billy simply teased her when she first heard it she begged them not to do that to her because she said it sounded like crawfish so William Haynes heard that and teased her unmercifully Crawford's not so bad they could have called you cranberry served you with the turkey he would call her cranberry from then on something no one else would dare to do if there was a an area of vulnerability of course his sense of humor went right to it and every time he did it she'd say Oh Willie don't do that you know I hate that he said no we all know and it would go on sensing a kindred spirit Billie began to mold her in his own image following his lead she blossomed into Hollywood's most scandalous flapper famous for her tabletop Charleston they would remain fiercely devoted for life I think she was more comfortable with him and Jimmy than anybody else in the world she didn't have to put on any pretenses with him because she met him when he was a big big movie star and she was a chorus girl one day he came in and he said oh dear they had been out to a dinner party the night before he said oh dear went in to pick her up and my gracious he said I had to edit the jewels they had to be pared down but as a new moral conservatism crept into Hollywood Louie Mayer began to fear disaster if word of Billy sexuality leaked out he begged him to stop living openly with Jimmy and start romancing an eligible starlet Louie Mayer said I didn't have any sex appeal and I said oh he was quite wrong I said mr. mayor before I came out here I was kept by the best men and women in New York City I appealed to both sexes he never forgave me for that thumbing his nose at mayor's concerns Billy now turned his relationship with Jimmy into a public spectacle they bought a lavish new house together in Hollywood and Billie indulged his passion for antiques by doing the interior decoration himself the results astonished Hollywood Way of Hames opened his new house and Hollywood so beautifully done that no one would even recognize it that is one of the most delightful small houses in the film community Tallulah Bankhead dubbed at the haines castle it quickly became the center of hollywood society as the century and Billie Haynes turned 30 together and after he triumphed in his first talking picture the prestigious Quigley poll voted him America's number one male star the king of Hollywood but on Wall Street the crash would soon assure in the depression and Congress hand-wringing about Hollywood indecency would prompt the industry to crack down on its own in society at large a rebellious irreverent era was about to give way to a conformist age in which Billy and Jimmy's kind of love would be deemed an unspeakable vice banished from public view [Music] by the middle of 1930 Billy Haines could look back on one of Hollywood's most remarkable careers Billy Haines was the top box-office star of 1930 that means even more than it meant 20 years later when there was television to contend with and other forms of celebrity at the time movies were it for people but now the bohemian world of the 1920s that made Haynes a star suddenly ended in economic collapse some consider this just retribution for a sinful decade a moral panic infected the national mood Crusaders stepped up their demand for movie censorship and their attacks in the scandalous off-screen behavior of the Stars foibles that seemed innocent in the roaring 20s came to seem suspicious even subversive so that which was tolerated as colorful before became this is something that's dangerous it could cost us there certainly was a dampening of the climate at the same time Americans began embracing modern psychiatry and its scientific approach to mental health homosexuality will be labeled a frightening intractable mental illness it's really just beginning in the 1930s that psychological explanations of homosexuality became a major part of the culture and homosexuals were seen as Psychopaths who Breton's the nation's children across the nation gay clubs were raided and homosexuals were hounded from jobs blackmail sometimes arrests part of the reaction to that was was fueled by the depression by the sense that people were now tired of those kind of excesses and indeed that those excesses had led to the current suffering so there was this this reaction against that kind of gay we're outrageous frivolity as social attitudes hardened the sexual ambiguity of the 19 20 stars like Valentino when decidedly out of style replaced by tough guys like James Cagney energy Robinson and Clark Gable these were men these were he men these were macho men the the paradigm of the gender ambiguous star that had been so popular in the 1920s was now viewed as suspect in the rush to respectability even flappers like Joan Crawford settled down she was jumping up on the top of tables doing the Charleston you know by the end of the 1930s of course she was giving off another image one of you know I'm the perfect mother the late 3334 a bunch of stars who are well known who were single men suddenly got married all at once clearly under pressure from the studio's who wanted to straighten up the image of their stars now in the face of this overwhelming tide Billy Haynes made an inexplicable disastrous career move [Music] in the MGM comedy way out west he agreed to star as a campy carnival barker in the most effeminate role of his career they don't pick that word pansy out of a hat that this was this had some resonance in the culture at the time shock to see him actually swish across the screen depression-era audiences were not amused the queer became much too obvious and I audiences sat back and said this is not something we want to see I mean what was he thinking when he did it you're so surprised to see a movie by a major studio in which you have this the hero sort of capping it up wildly to make matters worse Way Out West revealed that the former juvenile stars waistline was starting to spread and his hairline beginning to recede what was charming for a younger actor as he's growing older becomes less charming as he ages Way Out West was more than just a box-office flop for Billy Haines it was a staggering career misstep he would struggle to live down how would you erase in the public's mind the memory of this wonderfully Fey cowboy here it was out of the closet and it would be hard to bring him back in after overnight Billy's stock in Hollywood plummeted and MGM handed him a string of forgettable roles in films that performed far below expectations the studio wasn't behind him mayor wasn't behind him and therefore the whole machinery to keep Haynes in place as a top flight star was starting to go instead of protecting himself Billy defiantly remained the city's most visible homosexual then in a police raid in a gay bar Billy Haynes was arrested the details remain obscure largely because MGM covered up the affair but the recent number one star was devastated to find that he had been demoted to a mere featured player last year I was pointing that as being one of the best drawing cards on the screen now they say there goes that big luck meanwhile will Hayes and his new production code which would prohibit all discussion of homosexuality in the movies for 40 years was striving to eliminate gays entirely from the industry being gay was becoming dangerous in the spring of that year will Hayes was being quoted in a variety of saying he wanted the dual sex boys and lesbos out of movies some of the Reformers who are calling for boycotts of the movies saying that some of our top stars and directors are perverts we need to get them out journalistic sharks and the increasingly independent press began to circle he was not a very safe position to negotiate here his off screen printed press was filled with innuendo one devastating article and photoplay hinted that Billy kept house quote just like a housewife another in Vanity Fair declared there is a great deal of the woman in him Haynes found himself routinely described as sensitive and temperamental code words easily deciphered by those in the no confirmed bachelor was another one you know which which was code for gay just as the term women's director in cuecore was it was a term for that Deena he was gay and was better with women somehow Billy Haynes was really too gay in his films too gay in the public personas for the studio's to bring him back and straighten him up finally in 1933 Maher had had enough calling Billy into his office he issued a non-negotiable ultimatum get married or get off the lot he said we have to send Jimmy Scheels to Europe on a vacation for a year and not come back for a year and Bill said he refused to do it word spread that Billy was fired on the spot after he wise cracked that he would be glad to get married and give up Jimmy provided Mayer gave up his own wife no one had ever stood up to Louie be mayor that way before what Hannes did was to say that I have now lived my life here in Hollywood for the last ten years in a certain way in a certain way that was authentic and and honest he wasn't about to change that he was going to kick Jimmy out of his house I think that a lot of people but particularly Joan Crawford admired that kind of courage it was a stunningly swift fall from number one star in 1932 unemployed three years later for most stars being dropped by a studio like MGM meant literally the end of their existence as actors invitation stopped and many former stars descended into drugs alcoholism and despair but for william haynes dismissal from MGM would inaugurate a whole new career in which his openness would become not a hindrance but a key to his success forgot [Music] 19:33 was a bad year to face unemployment in the depths of the depression millions stood on bread lines and slept in boxcars but instead of despairing Hanes had a plan [Music] well aware that most stars long to live the romantic lives they portrayed he decided to carve a new career by transplanting the glamorous designs of movie sets from studio lot right into the stars living room in a sense he had already begun years earlier decorating the homes of friends like Joan Crawford she was one of the first to commissioned him to do her house this is while he was still an actor and was doing this kind of as a sideline he did it all in white and kind of set of trend Hayes had received raise for turning Crawford's house into a living set our house was one of the first it was almost like a showcase and the house was completely and totally transformed there was a lot of white it got whiter and whiter as Crawford publicly promoted him as a talented decorator and invited him everywhere keeping him in the public eye it took courage to publicly applaud be friends with and support somebody that had been ostracized outed by the by the powers that be she was one of the first to encourage him to be a decorated to the Stars I heard those conversations I mean this is not secondhand information she was a great cheerleader for him of course when it came to Joan Crawford even staunch support could be stretched a bit thin there were a couple of times that colors were heatedly disgust and how she would look in those colors I don't mean to wear but to sit in at Crawford's clever suggestion Billy approached another close friend Carole Lombard with an offer at the time lombard hosted Hollywood's most sensational parties I offered to do her house without charging a fee knowing that if people liked what I did I'd have a business Foundation Billy's striking transformation of lombards home into what seemed like a dream sequence from one of her most glamorous films made it clear that with Hannes designing your house you could not only act the glamorous life you could live it Billy Haines designer found himself in hot demand paint his background as a film star with an understanding of the film set and the backdrop and the matte painting and the general idea of the composed environment absolutely had a great impact on the way that he approached doing interior design for his clients I think coming out of out of doubted movies as he's did he was very aware of how a room should look and how it made people look Billy Haines his style as part of that whole sort of Southern California Regency style they invented a style of architecture and a style of interior design that went with big money in the great climate the openness that doomed him as a star now seemed to help him in a decorating career where he thrived precisely by being himself he kept up see all these great friends in movies anyway and could do whatever he liked he didn't have to worry about scandal anymore because nobody cared what interior decorators do Commission's poured in and by 1936 Billy had engineered a remarkable comeback from dismissed star to star designer but then in May of 1936 it all threatened to come crashing down for several years Billy had rented an oceanfront house in Manhattan Beach 20 minutes south of Los Angeles neighbors in the conservative enclave were suspicious of the homosexual men who regularly trooped out to the Haynes cottage a crowd that included Cole Porter director George Cukor and costume designer orry-kelly on May 31st Jimmy was walking his dog alone in the beach when neighbors noticed him chatting the local boy Jimmy Walker the father assumed that something terrible had happened I guess and he went to the neighbors and got the neighbors all riled up that evening as Billy arrived for the weekend with guests an angry violent crowd had gathered the whole entourage came down from the studios for the weekend all these people were milling around outside suddenly the mob began chanting let's clean up the town they just ran for the house when Billy and Jimmy confronted the mob they were surrounded beaten savagely and forced to flee for their lives the attack made headlines across the nation Billy steadfast defense of Jimmy seemed vindicated when the boy failed to identify Jimmy in a hearing but although no charges were filed the damage was done Billy Haines's homosexuality was scandalous nationwide front-page news and he faced public disgrace and professional ruin but once again Joan Crawford came to the rescue she wasn't a very good mother but she was a hell of a good friend she was incredibly loyal and by keeping him invited to parties by keeping him in the industry's eyes she was always there to kind of stand up and reinforce her friendship with him Billy's name began reappearing on invitation lists and in society columns within a year of Manhattan Beach Billy was back on top in 1945 Billy took on young partner Ted Graber next to Jimmy Ted became the most important person in Billy's life the son he never had together their business expanded to include their custom-designed furniture today Hollywood's top stars and collectors bid thousands for a single chair or end table many of the clients who approached me for his pieces are today's moguls today's blonde bombshell's the furniture was not machined it was all hand hand finished everything was was specially done and done by hand it continues to be extremely important [Music] as he grew older Hollywood's most open homosexual found himself embraced by some of America's most powerful conservatives he was giving Hollywood glamour to people who weren't necessarily glamorous the Annenberg and the Bloomingdale's and it was wonderful I mean he was able to give them almost movie star Sheen his sexuality and relationship with Jimmy were quietly accepted even by friends like Ron and Nancy Reagan they simply had nothing to do with people who didn't accept them as a couple [Music] in the late 60s this wealthy now elderly gay pioneer found it difficult to comprehend the youthful emergence of gay lib like so many of his generation he couldn't quite integrate that into his experience the idea that being gay required parades and marching in the street was not something that he had ever felt was necessary then in 1970 when most of his friends had long since retired Billy received the commission of a lifetime Walter Annenberg was appointed American ambassador to Great Britain and hired Billy and Ted to give the high profile ambassadorial residents a total overhaul [Music] it was a marvelous residence big georgian residence that barbara hutton had built in the 30s they had a wonderful time doing this and finding marvelous antiques to fit into the architecture of the residence it was a special it was a very special job to do finally Billy was ready to take it easy for the first time in his life but just a year into his retirement he was diagnosed with inoperable lung cancer as his health rapidly failed the once tireless host disappeared into seclusion [Music] near the end he summoned the strength to visit a house recently decorated by his partner and protege Ted Graber he was in a wheelchair and we took him through the house and he looked up and he looked at Ted and he said the student has surpassed the master just a few years later that same student would receive America's ultimate design Commission the redecoration of the White House under Nancy Reagan but Billy would not live to see it in late 1973 he left home to enter the hospital for the last time he walked to the door of the house and he turned around and he just looked around at all that he had designed and built in the house and I just said oh hell turned around and walked out to the car and he never came back [Music] on Christmas Day 1973 he exchanged small gifts with Jimmy in the hospital and managed a few words and a weak smile the next day as Jimmy sat holding his hand Billy Haynes slipped quietly away he was 73 the obituaries named his brothers and sisters as survivors Jimmy shields his partner of 50 years was ignored he just could not imagine going on through life without Billy he didn't know how to been together so many years friends tried to comfort Jimmy but to no avail he was completely despondent and I remember one evening we were going out to a dinner I remember him telling me in our automobile ride to the restaurant I said I have no life without buildings he was everything for this rather touchy [Music] less than three months after the death of the man who had given up Hollywood stardom for his love Jimmy taped a note to his bedroom door and swallowed a bottle of sleeping pills goodbye to all of you who have tried so hard to comfort me in my loss of William Haynes who might have been with since 1926 he wrote I now find it impossible to go on I am much too lonely when you look at Jimmy's suicide note you understand that this was a love that had had really transcended even death I understood it I understood how alone he felt he had lost his life time made [Music] their ashes were interred together in Santa Monica their stories still stands as unique in the annals of Hollywood he could have continued in a role of fame and fortune and public acclaim and when he was asked to make a decision about that or his relationship with another human being he chose the relationship many people can't do that they don't have that kind of courage sadly that includes most modern gay stars in an industry that remains largely closeted more than 75 years after Billy Haines and Jimmy Scheels first came roaring out what makes Billy Haines a story important is the way he lived his life not for any great movie role or even any great decor that he did both of which are very memorable but ultimately what makes Billy Haines important is that he chose to live his life according to his own rules according to his own values [Music] [Music] you

Channel: innocentti

Views: 1,887,998

Rating: 4.7132359 out of 5

Keywords: William Haines, Billy Haines, Jimmie Shields, Joan Crawford, Louis B. Mayer, gay, homosexual, queer, LGBT, interior decorator, box office, George Cukor, Ramon Novarro, Rudolph Valentino, Tyrone Power, Cesar Romero, MGM, 1930, Hollywood

Id: Lr11bt6FOOQ

Length: 46min 17sec (2777 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 04 2016

Reddit Comments

[u/Sweetheartscanbeeeee]

I don't know anything about him, but just reading the quick bio on IMDb makes me think he has a film or two that would be perfect candidates for Criterion. Here's hoping!

[u/TheIndieHandbk]

Haines was a huge star in his day, but no, as I recall, none of his films are included in the Criterion Collection. Outside of Chaplin and Harold Lloyd, Criterion rarely seems to touch American films of that era. There aren't really many William Haines films available from any of the larger publishers (there may be a few on Warner Archive). You can get them on the gray market pretty easily, though, and from smaller DIY labels like Grapevine.