In 1933, in a Great Depression-wracked country turning increasingly conservative, MGM head Louis Mayer issued an ultimatum to fading star Billy Haines. The star's reply, more than half a century before Ellen DeGeneres came out, undoubtedly caught him by surprise.
"I'll be glad to give up my boyfriend," Haines shouted. "As soon as you get rid of your wife."
To this day, Haines is thought to be Hollywood's only openly gay film star ever, says Bill Horn, spokesman for the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation. And now, his life and times are resurrected in "Wisecracker" (Viking), by Massachusetts journalist William J. Mann.
"Billy lived his life with complete integrity," Mann said. "It's always hard to do that, but even harder in the '30s in [Hollywood], because he was under such pressure to conform."
Born in Stanton, Va., Haines ran off to New York when he was 16, where he parlayed his good looks into a career as a gigolo. "In the '20s, thewar to end all wars--World War I--had ended," Mann said. "It was a time of political radicalism, of free thinking and free love. The rules of the past had broken down, and new rules were still being written. Definitions between homosexual and heterosexual were fluid, and eyebrows weren't raised if two people cohabited outside of marriage."
Even in this heady atmosphere, however, Haines' excesses got him into trouble. Kept by "many of the best men and women in the city," Haines ultimately jeopardized his life as the kept boyfriend of a Fifth Avenue matron by inviting his friends to come over and party--without her. In 1921, the woman walked in on one of his impromptu parties and kicked him out.
This might have marked the end of Haines' meteoric rise through society, but soon after, he won a Goldwyn studios contest seeking out fresh faces. The following spring, he was on a train to Hollywood, a studio contract under his arm. Haines proved a quick study, and starred in more than a dozen films between 1926 and 1930. His breakthrough role was in "Brown of Harvard," a sentimental story of two college roommates. His biggest film was "Tell It to the Marines."
Haines starred in the era's silent movies, but his "big, booming voice" easily enabled him to make the transition to the talkies, Mann said. Haines' house on Stanley Drive became "one of the places to be invited to. Invitations to his parties were among the most coveted in Hollywood."
