#dack rambo

[cumpletelyhappythesecond]

Dack Rambo

[angrylovelyheart]

Dack Rambo

[alovelywaytospendanevening]

Dack Rambo in publicity stills for the TV series The Guns of Will Sonnett (1967)

[citizenscreen]

Dack and Dirk Rambo publicity photos for “The New Loretta Young Show” in 1962.

[sparklejamesysparkle]

🌈"𝓦𝓮𝓵𝓬𝓸𝓶𝓮 𝓪𝓫𝓸𝓪𝓻𝓭 𝓲𝓽'𝓼 𝓵𝓸𝓿𝓮!"🌈 (Part Two) LGBTQ+ representation on the Aaron Spelling romantic-comedy-drama anthology series The Love Boat, which ran on ABC from its launch as a TV movie in 1976 and then as a weekly series from September 24th, 1977 until the Pacific Princess sailed off the airwaves on May 24th, 1986. Among the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender celebrities featured on the original series were actor, comedian and director Charles Nelson Reilly (mentioned in the previous post---I found his porthole!), veteran stage and television actress Holland Taylor, who is also the life-partner of actress Sarah Paulson, British stage, screen, and television actor Jeremy Brett, best remembered as Freddy Eynsford-Hill opposite Audrey Hepburn in My Fair Lady (1964) and for his portrayal of Sherlock Holmes on British television from 1984 to 1994, television star and AIDS activist Dack Rambo (among his vast credits include roles on The Donna Reed Show, Wonder Woman, Dallas, Paper Dolls, and All My Children), British stage, screen and television actor Maurice Evans (Shakespearean trained, Evans made a splash as Hamlet on Broadway in the 1920s and went on to star in Rosemary's Baby in 1968, as Dr. Zaius in Planet of the Apes in 1968 and Beneath the Planet of the Apes in 1970, and as Samantha Stephens' warlock father Maurice on the 1964-1972 sitcom Bewitched), Canadian actor Raymond Burr known for his portrayals of the villain in Alfred Hitchcock's Rear Window (1954), as the title character on the long-running television series Perry Mason (1957 to 1966), and as Robert T. Ironside on the series Ironside (1967-1974), prolific film and television star Raymond St. Jacques (cast as "Simon Blake" on the Western series Rawhide in 1965, St. Jacques made history as the first African-American actor to have a regular starring role on a prime time western series), actor and singer Jim Nabors who starred as wholesome and goofy Gomer Pyle on both The Andy Griffith Show and the spin-off Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C. (Nabors was also one of Carol Burnett's best friends), Ron Palillo who played Horshack on the sitcom Welcome Back, Kotter from 1975 to 1979, Caitlyn Jenner, gold medalist at the 1976 Montreal Olympics who also acted in a few films and TV shows (Caitlyn appeared on The Love Boat in 1986 long before she transitioned, but her porthole credit now reflects her identity), Timothy Patrick Murphy who appeared on The Love Boat four times between 1979 and 1985, Will Geer, well-known for his iconic portrayal of Grandpa Walton on the long-running family drama The Waltons from 1972 until his passing in 1978, Meredith Baxter, the daughter of Hazel actress Whitney Blake who starred on the TV show Family in the 1970s (which also starred fellow openly gay Love Boat guest star Kristy McNichol, featured in part one of this post) and memorably played Michael J. Fox's mom Elyse Keaton on the popular 1980s sitcom Family Ties (Meredith came out as a lesbian in 2009 and married her partner Nancy Locke in 2013), and fashion designer Geoffrey Beene, renowned for dressing many American First Ladies as well as actresses Faye Dunaway and Glenn Close. Among these celebrities, it's worth noting that three of them tragically died from complications due to HIV/AIDS: Dack Rambo at age 52 in 1994, Raymond St. Jacques at age 60 in 1990, and Timothy Patrick Murphy, who had a promising career ahead of him, at the untimely age of 29 in 1988. Part one of this post can be viewed here.

[gay-bi-classic-actors-bracket]

Gay & Bi Classic Hollywood Actors Bracket — Round 1-A

Dack Rambo vs Alec Guinness

Dack Rambo

Alec Guinness

Voting ended onJun 24

Dack Rambo (November 13, 1941 – March 21, 1994) Best-known role in the Classic era: Peter Massey in The New Loretta Young Show (1962–63)

Alec Guinness (April 2, 1914 – August 5, 2000) Best-known role in the Classic era: Prince Faisal in Lawrence of Arabia (1962)

[100gayicons]

When Norman and his twin brother Orman arrived in Hollywood in 1962, the handsome young men were immediately cast in Loretta Young’s new TV series as her twin sons! The duo were rechristened Dack and Dirk. The two were virtually identical, with the exception that Dack had a mole on his left cheek.

After Loretta Young’s show was cancels, the brothers appeared in episodes of various other TV shows. Then in 1967, brother Dirk died in an accident (hit a drunk driver). Later others would speculate that Dack’s addictions to alcohol, drugs, and sex were how he dealt with the grief over his brother’s death.

While Dack Rambo was never a major star, he worked consistently, in part due to his good looks. Later he would talk disparagingly about his own career:

“I think I wanted it for all the wrong reasons. I wanted it to be rich and famous. When you go at it from that point of view, it's never going to be really satisfying. ... And I didn't think I was particularly good. I thought I was pretty lucky."

Rambo privately identified himself as bisexual, but like other actors of the era, publicly he remained in the closet.

"It's not something you run around announcing.”

He would describe his sex life as "spicy" and admitted that he never practiced safe sex:

"I've been in love with women and I've been in love with men. And I think, depending on the particular time in my life, {the attraction} was stronger in one area than another. It's kind of the essence of a person that I've been attracted to. Whether it turned out to be a man or a woman was kind of immaterial."

In 1985, when Patrick Duffy decided to leave the show “Dallas”, Dack was hired to become Victoria Principal’s new love interest. This was the same year that Rock Hudson was cast as Linda Evans’ love interest in the rival show “Dynasty”. Subsequently when Hudson’s illness with AIDS was revealed, viewers wondered whether Hudson could have infected Evans when they kissed on the show.

This added scrutiny on gay actors impacted Dack. He never shared an on screen kiss with any of his female co-stars on Dallas. He also noticed that his role began to shrink because he was suspected of being gay.

"I knew there were whispers going on behind my back. Either 'He's gay,' or 'He's this or. . . .' And I thought, 'What the hell did I do?'

Dallas costar Ken Kercheval told Dack he admired him for being able to work on the show despite the homophobic flack from the crew. And it didn’t help that Dack and series star Larry Hagman didn’t get along. Rambo recalled:

“I didn't really fit into the mold of what (Hagman) considered male or macho. It was just very clear to me I wasn't going to be part of the family."

Rambo left the series in 1987 after 51 episodes.

In 1991, he was cast as Congressman Grant Harrison in the daytime soap opera “Another World” as a young man running for election as a senator. On the morning of his 18th episode, Dack received a call from his doctor telling him he tested positive for HIV. He went to the sent and completed his scheduled scenes for the day. In his last shot, his “father”, played by David Hedison, doubted his commitment to the senate race, asked him, “Are you ready to give that up?”

A prophetic questions… with his work done for the day, Rambo went directly to the production office and quit the show.

Dack described his feelings at the time:

"I was scared. I felt a lot of anger and a lot of rage. And actually wanting to die. But all those things were short-lived."

After discussing the diagnosis with his mangers, he decided to go public. A week later, Rambo released a statement announcing that he had the AIDS virus would devote himself to working on AIDS education and research. He is the first well-known actor ever to make such a statement. He said:

“Going public was like freedom to me…. I thought I would just go public with it, and suffer the consequences. Well, there were no consequences to suffer. In all the reaction I got literally from around the world -- the letters that came in, the telegrams, the phone calls, from people I knew, people I didn't know -- there was not one negative. I was grateful. I really knew I had done the right thing. Everyone was calling me, commending me on my courage and my bravery. I mean, you don't feel that at the time. But when you hear those words you think, 'Gee, maybe I've done something right."

Dack Rambo died on March of 1994, at the age of 52 of complications from AIDS.

[charnel-grounds]

Nightmare Honeymoon (1974)