My Boyfriend Ed Asner and I Make Gay History

Hi, Boomer,

I'm Michael, from the gay synagogue in L.A.  Here's my gay celebrity romance story:

The episode "My Brother's Keeper" of The Mary Tyler Moore Show  (January 13, 1973) is an icon of gay history, the first time that the word "gay" was ever used on the air to mean a gay person.

The plot  is simple: When her brother Ben (Robert Moore) visits, the snooty Phyllis (Cloris Leachman) tries to fix him up with Mary, but instead he hits it off with working-class Rhoda (Valerie Harper).  Phyllis is horrified at the idea of Rhoda as a sister-in-law, until Rhoda says that it won't work out: "He's not my type."

"Why not?" Phyllis asks.  "He's witty, he's attractive, he's successful..."

"He's gay."  90 seconds of uproarious laughter from the studio audience, Phyllis looks confused, then relieved.  And blackout.

The original script didn't have a big reveal: Rhoda and Ben just weren't going to date.  But why not?  Various ideas were bantered about: he was married, he was a priest -- but they all raised too many questions.   Why hadn't he told Phyllis?  Was his relationship with Rhoda cheating?  Finally someone suggested "He's gay."

There's a dispute over who made the suggestion.  Some say Robert Moore.   After all, he was gay in real life, and had directed the gay-themed Boys in the Band in 1968.

Some say writer Dick Clair.  He was gay in real life, too.

Some say Valerie Harper.

They're all wrong.  It was my idea.

I was still in high school, a tall, slim twink with a smooth chest and a big cock, a drama club geek, a good little Jewish boy, the class clown, and o-u-t, out!

Well, not at school -- I had a "girlfriend," who turned out to be a big ol' lesbian later on.

Out to my parents, who were sending me to a shrink to "cure" me but otherwise were relatively accepting for the 1970s.

Out to myself -- Gay Liberation, baby!

And of course, out to my boyfriend, Ed Asner.

Ed Asner, who played gruff boss Lou Grant on Mary Tyler Moore, was 40 years old, a former football star, a big, burly Daddy, with a hard hairy chest, thick biceps, and a thick monster cock!  A total top, which wasn't a problem -- I was only 17, but I had already been plowed by the best of them, including my dad's best friend (don't tell Dad).

Ed was married -- 13 years, three kids.  But it was a marriage full of temptations and recriminations, infidelities, separations, suppressed traumas, and screaming matches.  They were both seeing psychiatrists.

And when the heartache grew too much for him, he drove out to Van Nuys and picked me up.  We went out to dinner, we went to ballgames -- when a reporter turned up, he introduced me as his "nephew." We checked into a cheap hotel, where I started with my tongue on his chest and worked down to his cock and balls, until he groaned, turned me over on my stomach, and spent the next hour inside me. 

Don't you hate those jackrabbits -- three thrusts and a spurt?  Ed took his time.  Slow and methodical, thrusting over and over until it felt like he had always been inside me, like we were too halves of the same person.

Yeah, I was a little bit in love with him.

Ok, a lot in love with him.

My parents were fine with our relationship -- they didn't know that we were boyfriends, of course.  They thought that having a big, macho man around would be a good influence on me, that is, turn me straight.

So, getting back to the story:

One night we were at a burger place, and Ed told me that they were having problems with a script:

"This guy, Phyllis's brother, starts spending time with Rhoda, but he's not interested in her romantically.  Why not?  Just not having chemistry won't work -- there has to be a big reveal at the end."

"Seems obvious to me," I said.  "He's gay."

Ed looked around to see if anyone heard.  "Are you kidding?  You can't have a gay guy on tv.  The censors would be down our throat!"

"It's the 1970s -- just don't show him making out with a dude, and it will be fine.  They had a gay guy on All in the Family last year."

"But they didn't use the word 'gay.'  It's the word that will get people up in arms."

"They just have to get used to it.  Watch -- gay!"  I exclaimed.  People looked around.  "Gay!  Gay!"

"Shut up!"  Ed muttered.  "My nephew is quite the kidder!", he told the couple at the next table with a fake laugh.

"You ever hear of Gay Liberation?  We're coming out of the closet, baby!  Better to deal with it now than later, and better Mary Tyler Moore than The Partridge Family."  I grabbed his hand under the table.  He brushed me away.  "You could at least ask."

He shrugged.  "Ok, I'll ask, but I can't make any promises."

But everybody loved the idea of making Ben gay -- it was hip, it was edgy, it was "now." It went right into the script, and the rest is history.

Our relationship ended not with a bang, but a whimper: eventually Ed just stopped calling me -- I guess he decided to "work things out" with the wife.

But I'll always have great memories of my romance with a Hollywood legend.  And the knowledge that I was part of gay history.

Summer 1970: Looking for Uncle Edd's Gun

Year after year, summertime and Christmastime, we would visit my Grandpa Prater in the old farmhouse outside of Garrett, Indiana, and Uncle Edd was there.

He was tall and lanky, with a beard and piercing eyes.  He didn't participate much in Mom and Dad and Grandpa's evocations of long ago-events in the hills of Kentucky, or the more recent exploits of uncles and aunts.  He sat in  an old easy chair, smoking cigarettes, his face illuminated in firelight like an otherworldly creature.  After awhile, he grabbed his car keys and left without a word, driving out into the darkness of the Indiana countryside.

Was he a secret agent, off to fight evil Russian spies?  Or maybe he was a wizard, off to the cemetery to summon the spirits of the undead?

I thought he was the coolest guy in the world.

My Cousin Buster lived nearby, and saw him all the time, but he, too, thought of Uncle Edd as a mysterious, otherworldly character.  One of his favorite games was spying, hiding beneath Uncle Edd's bedroom window and trying to catch a glimpse of what he had in there.  Spy equipment?  Treasure? Magical implements?

But the curtain was always drawn.

Uncle Edd never played with us, and he didn't say much, but he wasn't indifferent.  He often brought out gifts of comic books and candy.  He sent me a Christmas present every year -- an unabridged dictionary, a world atlas.  It's just that he was the strong, silent type, not used to kids.

Later I discovered that he was a writer!  He didn't make a living off his writing, but he published some photo-journalism, and some Western stories, back when Western stories were popular.  After he died, my cousin sent me one: "My Sister Sue," about a female gunslinger who rescues the male narrator from the villain.

Coolest guy in the world!

I also discovered the reason he left during our visits to drive into the Indiana darkness.  He wasn't a spy or a necromancer after all.  He was going to work at the night shift at the foundry.  On the nights he wasn't working, he went to a tavern downtown.

Still cool.

After I "figured it out" in 1978, it occurred to me that Uncle Edd might be gay.  After all, he was over 40 years old, not married, and he had never been seen with a woman or mentioned a girlfriend.  My mother said that if he was a Catholic, he would have become a monk.

But before I could bring up the subject, my Grandpa Prater died, and three weeks later Uncle Edd shocked everyone by moving in with a widow with three teenage sons.  Apparently they had been dating for years without telling anyone, because they didn't want Grandpa Prater to feel guilty about Edd living there to take care of him.

Not gay.  Still pretty cool.

He died in 2010, leaving a library of over 3,000 books on every subject imaginable.  My nephew hauled three carloads back to his apartment.

I have a good story about Uncle Edd.

One day when we were nine or ten years old, Cousin Buster and I sneaked into the barn, planning to steal some eggs.

The outhouse gate was closed.  In the dim light, we could see Uncle Edd's pants drawn around his ankles inside.

"He's cleaning his gun in there," Cousin Buster whispered.  "An AK-47.  He shoots Russians with it.  Let's go up and look."  He pointed up to the loft.

"That doesn't sound like a good idea," I whispered.  "Uncle Edd'll get mad."

"He won't get mad --  I do it all the time. Besides, from up there you can see his peter."

I don't know why Cousin Buster thought that male nudity would seal the deal, but it did.  We climbed up to the loft, careful that the rickety wooden ladder didn't creak.

The outhouse was a little stall built where the loft met the barn wall.  It had no ceiling -- I could look right into it, down to where Uncle Edd was sitting on a bench with a little hole in it.  He wasn't cleaning his gun after all -- he was reading Photoplay magazine, with a Sears catalog next to him, to use as toilet paper.

The stench was overpowering.

But Cousin Buster was right -- I could see his peter, a gleam of white in the dim light.

I bent my head down to get a better look.

And lost my balance and tumbled down into the outhouse, crashing into the wall and onto Uncle Edd's lap.

Later, after three stitches in my head  a tetanus shot, and a lot of yelling from my parents, I was back at Aunt Nora's house, where we were staying.

"Whatever got into you?" she asked.  "Climbing onto an old outhouse like that!"

I had already explained a million times, so I just said, curtly, "I wanted to see Uncle Edd's gun."

My older cousins started laughing.  It would be ten years before I understood the joke.