Alan sues gay
James Ellroy&#;s father Armand had many connections in Hollywood. Armand Ellroy was Rita Hayworth&#;s business manager from As a non-certified accountant he filed tax returns for actors such as Glenn Ford. He was also friends with Mickey Rooney and producer Sam Stiefel.
By the late s though, Armand Ellroy was out of work. He had lost nearly all of his Hollywood connections. After the murder of his ex-wife Jean Ellroy in , Armand raised their son Lee Earle (James Ellroy&#;s birth name) alone.
Armand threw himself into various get-rich-quick schemes. None of them worked and the Ellroys sank deeper into poverty. But at least one of his business ideas had potential and it resulted in a friendship which would prove quite valuable to Armand. Armand befriended a young comic named Alan Sues.
Alan Sues
Alan Sues was a comic actor and writer who achieved his greatest fame as a regular on the smash hit sketch reveal Laugh-In. Sues died in In , the biography Alan Sues: A Funny Man by Michael Gregg Michaud was published.
Early on in his biography of Sues, Michaud proffers this observ
Gay "Laugh-In" star Alan Sues dies at 85
Alan Sues, a comic actor optimal known for his flamboyant TV characters, died on Thursday (December 1).
The American actor is reported to have died of cardiac arrest in West Hollywood. He was 85 years old.
He was most famous for his over-the-top characters on the sketch comedy series Laugh-In, which also starred Goldie Hawn, Lily Tomlin, and more. His best-known characters included an effeminate, clueless sportscaster named Big Al and a hung-over children’s show host, Uncle Al the Kiddie’s Pal.
He also became spokesman for Peter Pan Peanut Butter and appeared in a Twilight Zone episode, “The Masks”.
His outrageous and campy characters became an inspiration for many gay viewers; he was one of the only actors who played gay-acting characters visible on television at the time. Although Sues was openly queer, he did not publicly announce his sexual orientation for most of his career.
Here's a clip of Sues playing Big Al:
This clip features Sues playing Uncle Al the Kiddie's Pal:
You can follow Craig Takeuchi on Twitter at Openly gay actor Alan Sues, 85, best known for his work on Laugh-In, died on Dec. 1. Laugh-In was a pre-Stonewall, quick-paced comedy-sketch TV demonstrate that also featured another gay performer — Lily Tomlin. But Sues’ characters were all outrageously, unapologetically, screamingly gay. Among them was Big Al, a gay sportscaster (see clip below). His campy characters even carried over into commercials. In the preliminary 70s, Sues was featured in Peter Pan Peanut Butter ads as a very flamboyant Peter Pan. According to the LA Times, Sues was openly gay but not publicly, because he was nervous it would ruin his career. At that day it was OK to be gay as drawn-out as you didn’t utter you were gay out loud. However, during a radio interview I did with Sues in the early 90s, he was open and talked freely about being gay. Sues was in Dallas at the time to execute in Breck Wall’s Bottoms Up revue — a live sketch show that began at Jack Ruby’s Dallas night club and moved to Las Vegas in where it ran for years. Wall, who died last year, and Sues appeared on Lambda Weeklyto promote Most people knew Alan Sues best from his years on Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In playing, among other roles, the most outrageously gay characters ever on television. He played non-gay characters too but he's best remembered as the outrageously gay sportscaster, the outrageously gay kiddie exhibit host, etc. Fewer people know that before and immediately after Laugh-In, he had a pretty decent career as a stern stage actor which included Shakespeare and dramatic operate, including a well-reviewed Broadway debut in the unique Tea and Sympathy, directed by Elia Kazan. He also had a stand-up comedy act and a cabaret act&#;and he worked a lot. Then. His presence on Laugh-In was probably predestined as he'd appeared in two ventures that laid a foundation for that groundbreaking series — The MAD Show (the off-Broadway revue based on MAD Magazine) and before that, The Nut House. The Nut House was an unsold TV pilot in produced by Jay Ward's company. It came and went with petty notice but in when Laugh-In became a smash hit, a lot of folks recalled The Nut House and sai