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Publisher: Univ. “I called her the ice queen, very cool to me,” she said. It eventually became part of the lexicon. Largest I’ve seen before or since. Although his second marriage had no such communication problems, rumors persisted.
To many American men at the time (and now), European men like Valentino look too well put together to not be LGBTQ.
But Valentino filed for divorce on the basis that she refused to sleep with him and even locked him out of the bedroom on his wedding night. Deep friends with my very good friend Cesar ‘Butch’ Romero.” She added, “Danny Kaye, also bisexual. And the marvelous Charles Laughton, he was gay and had a lovely relationship with his wife Elsa Lanchester.
At the end of the movie, she is the other woman attached to the hunky Power and tells Dietrich she is too old for him. He brought them into his house, offered them cigarettes and brandy, took one of them into the bedroom, and ended up dead at 69. Studio heads even changed the name of a beautiful young Jewish actor to “Ricardo Cortez” hoping to cash in on the phenomenon.
But by all accounts, he was a very decent, kind man who lived a lonely existence in the City of Angels.
Gilbert Roland: Bisexual Family Man
Gilbert Roland cobbled his screen name together from two of his favorite stars: John Gilbert and Ruth Roland. He even played “the Cisco Kid” throughout the 1940s, taking up the role from Cesar Romero.
Cesar Romero: Out and About
Romero was the only Latin lover who was out during his lifetime.
Remember, Rudoplph Valentino’s biggest film by far was “The Son of the Sheik.”
Equally if not more important, the Latin lover archetype may indirectly result from the limitations of primitive camera equipment. “Suddenly,” writes Garza Bernstein, “he is on lunch boxes, school supplies, board games, T-shirts, jigsaw puzzles, and trading cards.” Romero was a closeted gay actor, but Garza Bernstein astutely notes that he was “secure enough that even though he assiduously keeps his private life out of the public eye, he still refuses to marry a woman to provide cover—unlike many of his peers in Hollywood.” Romero’s privacy extended to his “famous friends,” writes the author.
Johnny Mercer, Kaye Thompson—cold like Dietrich on the set of Funny Face where I played her secretary, but so wonderful—and warm and kind Audrey Hepburn and Astaire. It was his two-year “iconic” stint on Batman, however, that garnered him widespread notoriety as a character actor. Neither does he conform to binary stereotypes about ethnicity, social class, sexual orientation, or cultural identity."
The book explores Romero's "true love," the actor Tyrone Power.
"[Romero] repeatedly shared treasured memories of his ten-month South American publicity tour with Tyrone Power, the movie star, fellow World War II veteran, and his true love.