My Date with Robin Williams and His Mega-Hunk Boyfriend

West Hollywood, September 1985

When I first moved to West Hollywod, I expected to see (and meet, and date) celebrities all the time.  But during my first two months, I saw only four., and only met (and sort of dated) one.

So when my friend Marcus invited me to a Labor Day pool party hosted by his film-producer housemate, visions of celebrity beefcake filled my head.

Sylvester Stallone and Lou Ferrigno sunbathe nude.  

Harrison Ford in a speedo dives into the pool and splashes Steve Gutenberg.

Mel Gibson struts  about in his bulgeworthy Mad Max leather chaps.

Besides I heard about West Hollywood parties, where the games involve  penis size contests and the evening ends in the bedroom, with couples bringing in a third to "share."  Maybe me and Harrison Ford and Steve Guttenberg!

Marcus' house was in the Hollywood Hills, only a few miles from my apartment in West Hollywood, but through a maze of narrow, curvy roads named after Greek gods: Hercules, Zeus, Venus, Achilles.

On the way up Laurel Canyon Boulevard, the car behind me decided that I was going too slow, and zoomed around.  As it passed, I got a glimpse of the swishy queen in the passenger seat sneering at me.

It was Robin Williams (1951-2014), soon to become a comedy legend with starring roles in movies like Mrs. Doubtfire, The Fisher King, Hook, Aladdin, and Good Will Hunting.

In 1985 I knew him mostly as the effervescent fish-out-of-water Mork, an alien observer who misunderstood Earth customs and recited treacly morals on the tv show Mork and Mindy (1978-1982), but I had also seen him in Popeye (1980) and The World According to Garp (1982).

He was 34 years old, with rather homely face, but a thick, almost muscular frame and a fabulously fur-covered chest and belly.

Who knew that he was so swishy?

I followed the car as it turned right onto Mount Olympus Drive, then Electra, then Achilles.

We were going to the same party! Robin was gay!

 We pulled up to the valet parking station at the same time.

My jaw dropped: Robin's date was gorgeous! Mid-20s,tanned, Mediterranean features, v-shaped torso, massive shoulders, thick biceps.

"Hi, I'm Boomer!" I exclaimed.

"Pete," the date said with a friendly smile, shaking my hand vigorously.  Robin ignored me and touched Pete's shoulder.  "Could we go inside now?"

He shrugged.  They disappeared inside the house.

I was rather offender -- I naively expected all celebrities to be as friendly as Michael J. Fox -- but Pete piqued my interest, and Robin, swishy or not, was part of the deal.  I was definitely going to be sharing their bed at the end of this party!

Unfortunately, it turned out to be not a West Hollywood party after all.  A lot of men and women standing around in the living room, drinking cocktails and wine spritzers.

A few minor celebrities: C. Thomas Howell (Red Dawn), Tom Hulce (Amadeus), Dean Paul Martin (Misfits of Science).  With women.

I found Marcus out by the pool, where there was a more pleasant male-female ratio, plus hunks in swimsuits.  "Hey, I thought this was a West Hollywood party! All groping and three-ways!"

He grinned.  "It might get a little steamy later on, after the heteros leave."

"Great!  There's still a chance I can make it with Robin Williams and his super-hot boy toy."

"Robin Williams brought a date?  I knew he was gay, but I always figured he was too closeted to be seen with guys in public."

"Well, maybe he's coming out.  And you should see the hunk he's snared!"

 At that moment, Pete emerged onto the patio -- alone.  Seeing my chance, I brought Marcus as an excuse to talk to him.

"We're in town for a week," he told us, "While Robin is appearing at the Comedy Store."  So this wasn't their first date -- they were boyfriends.  "I miss San Francisco, and my home gym.  I can't wait to get back."

"I go to the Hollywood Spa.  It's a nice facility...." I began.

"Sorry, it's noisy out here," Pete said, leaning close.  I put my arm around his waist.  Marcus found someone else he needed to say hello to, and vanished.  "How's the free weight situation?"

Pete was cruising me while his boyfriend was in the other room?  He must want to "share. "Excellent.  I can get you a day pass, if you'd like to work out with me -- say tomorrow afternoon?  Robin, too -- a lot of celebrities work out there."

"Sounds great.  I'll have to check with the Boss, but I think we're free."

I laughed at his joke -- calling his partner The Boss!"


We had barely finished exchanging telephone numbers when Robin flounced onto the patio like a 1930s movie diva.  "I'm all done here," he said curtly.  "Let's go."

"I invited Pete to work out with me tomorrow," I said. "You're invited too, of course.  And afterwards maybe we could have dinner...."

Followed by sharing!

Robin glared at me, no doubt upset at someone cruising his date.  "Sorry, but I'm very busy. I'm working on some new material for my show tomorrow night."  He pulled at Pete's arm.  "Come on, we're done here."

Pete shot me a pained look and allowed himself to be led out.

We didn't work out together, but the next night Pete called and asked if I wanted to go cruising.  We went to the Gold Coast, where we looked at the hot guys, talked about San Francisco  -- surprisingly, he didn't say much about Robin, except that they had been together for less than a year.  We drank orange juice, kissed, and groped.

Then I followed Pete to a house on Crestview Street where all of the out-of-town performers at the Comedy Store stay.

We sat on the couch, and Pete pushed my hand down onto the bulge in his jeans.  He was already aroused.

Shouldn't we wait for Robin to get here?  "What about Robin...." I murmured.

"Oh, he doesn't mind," Pete said, unzipping.  His Kielbasa+, uncut, sprang to life.  I wrapped my hand around the shaft.

I started going down on him.  He leaned back and spread his legs and mussed my hair.  "That's good -- great."

I worked feverishly, expecting the door to open at any moment and an irate boyfriend to come bursting in.  Soon Pete spurted down my throat with a very loud "Yeah!", then moved me to the floor to go down on me.  But I wasn't able to stay aroused.  Eventually he switched to using his hand while we kissed.

When I finished, I tried to lead Pete into the bedroom, but he said "Robin will be back soon, so you'd better go."

What about sharing?  "Go?  Wait -- I thought..."

"But it's been great!  We're heading back to San Francisco tomorrow, but keep in touch.  Maybe you can come up and visit sometime."

"That would be fun."  I walked out of the house feeling guilty, unclean.  This was not sharing.  Closeted celebrity or not, I had helped Pete cheat on his boyfriend.

I didn't call Pete in San Francisco, and I didn't make up a "sharing" experience to tell at West Hollywood parties.   I didn't want anything more to do with the sordid affair.

Was Robin Williams Gay?

In September 1985, Robin Williams was married to Valerie Valardi, with a two year old son, Zachary.  He would marry twice more during his life.

He played many gay and gay-vague characters over the years, in The Birdcage, The Night Listener, and in his last movie, The Boulevard.   Some of his performances were extremely homophobic, yet he was always an advocate for gay rights and gay marriage.  When her daughter Zelda came out as bisexual, Robin was completely supportive.

One would expect that, with that gay-positive background, Robin would be open about being bisexual, but he always insisted that he was 100% into the ladies.  He never even considered having a same-sex experience.

So, if Pete wasn't a boyfriend, who was he?

Maybe a personal assistant or a bodyguard?  He never claimed that they were boyfriends, and he did call Robin "the boss."

By the way, in case you want to see it, here's Robin's penis, from The World's Greatest Dad (2009).  There may have been some shrinkage.

See also: Michael J. Fox Beneath the Belt; and The World According to Mork

The Martian Boy Invites Me to "Play"

Rock Island, September 1969

My parents used to have a barbecue every Labor Day, and invited all their friends and neighbors.  This year Greg and his father came.  After our hot dogs and hamburgers and Lays potato chips and apple cobbler, they wanted to play croquet.

Greg and I were in 4th grade, too old for baby games, so we escaped. We walked across the deserted schoolyard, peeking in the windows of Denkmann School, then crossed the street to Dewey's Candy Store.

Dick the Mean Boy was out of town, so we were free to explore south of Denkmann without being attacked.  We found a scary bizarro-world where the normal rules of time and space didn't apply.

Streets had names instead of numbers.
They doubled back on each other like a space warp.
They dead-ended at nothingness.
We saw the end of the world: 46th Street then 1st Street, the beginning of a new universe.

It felt very dangerous, as if we might run into a mysterious threat around every curve.

Then, standing in a front yard all by himself, staring into space, we saw a boy!

A couple of years younger than us, very cute: black hair, black eyes, olive skin, wearing a red shirt and short pants.

But strikingly out of place: alone, silent, unmoving.  And Asian!

In Rock Island, "minority" meant Belgian, Italian, or Greek.  African-Americans were strictly segregated, below the hill, and I had never met or seen anyone Asian.  Not even a face in the crowd at Longview Park or Mother Goose Land.


[Even in 2016, the Asian population of Rock Island is only 0.75%]

He couldn't be real! He must be a ghost.  Maybe a Vietnamese boy who died in the War.  Or a Martian!  Maybe he came here in a spaceship!

"Can he see us?" I whispered.

"I dunno.  Is he even here?"

We approached.  He smiled invitingly and said something in a strange musical language.  Martian or Vietnamese!

"Do you speak English?" I said loudly, enunciating every word.

He smiled, not comprehending, and said more.

"My name is Boomer.  This is Greg.  What's your name?"

He pointed to himself.  "Chi Ehr Ma."

"Ma?" Greg joked.  "Whose Ma are you?"

More words in his musical language, a bright smile, and then, in English, "Play."  He turned and walked around the side of the house and into the back yard.

Was that an invitation?  Did the Martian want us to play with him in the back yard?

Then suddenly he came out the front door!

There's no way he could have gone through the back yard, in the back door, and all the way through the house in just a second or two!


Screaming in fear, we ran back down the curving street and side streets with names instead of numbers, back to Denkmann School where things were safe, where things made sense.

A while later, when we calmed down, we decided that there were probably two boys, twins, trying to scare us.

On another day when Dick wasn't around, we ventured south again, and tried to find the Asian boys, Chi Ehr Ma and his brother, but all the houses on that weird curved street looked alike.  We couldn't be sure which one they lived in.

If they lived anywhere.  They were old enough to be in school.  Why had we never seen them at Denkmann?  Or at Dewey's, or anywhere else in the neighborhood?  Maybe they were ghosts after all.

Days and weeks and months passed, and Chi Ehr Ma, the cute boy -- we concluded that he was probably Vietnamese -- became increasingly attractive in my mind  -- and increasingly mysterious.  What would have happened if Greg and I followed him into the back yard to "play"?  Would we have been transported to a new, magical world?   Or would we just have become friends, with long, lush afternoons playing, walking hand in hand, clinging together during sleepovers?

Chi Ehr Ma, with his dazzling, seductive smile became one of the icons of my childhood, combining with Jonny Quest and Hadji, with Kurt Russell in The Secret of Boyne Castle, with John Christopher's Tripod books as a clue to the unraveling the Big Lie.  Telling me that, in spite of the adults' hysterical screaming of "You like girls!  Every boy likes girls!", some boys like boys.

It is not raining upstairs.

In junior high and high school I met a few other Asian men and boys -- my judo instructor, Peter who invited me to a sleepover, the Vietnamese refugee who worked at the pretzel place in the mall --  always with a subtle, nearly unconscious desire, as if I expected them to flash a dazzling, seductive smile and invite me to secret places in the back yard.

Rock Island, February 1979

During the spring of my freshman year at Augustana College, I enrolled in a course in East Asian Culture and Civilization, taught by Professor Ma of the Political Science Department.

I loved it.  I wantd to change my major to Asian Studies, to immerse myself in the exploits of ancient Chinese emperors, The Dream of the Red Chamber, Taoism, Buddhism, and that mysterious, musical language.

"Chinese has four tones," Professor Ma said.  "Ma is my family name, but depending on the tone, it could be horse, mother, to scold, or a question mark.  Let me demonstrate:  Ma ma ma ma -- 'did mother scold the horse?'"

Ma!  The boy from my memory was speaking Chinese!  Not Vietnamese, not Martian.  He must have been asking us a question.

I stayed after class and asked Professor Ma what "Chi Ehr" means.

"Depending on the tone, it could mean 'The life force is strong' or 'He eats cabbage.'  It's also my son's real name, but he likes to be called Chip."

My mouth dropped.


Professor Ma moved to the United States in August 1969 to teach  political science at Augustana, bringing his wife and twin sons, Yung Yu and Chi Ehr.  They bought a house in Davenport, across the river. In September 1969 his colleague, who lived in Rock Island, invited them over for a Labor Day picnic.  

A few days later, Professor Ma invited me to dinner, and to reunite with my old friend Chi Ehr, or Chip, now a 16-year old high school junior. (The model is over 18.)

He escorted me to an upstairs bedroom: unmade single bed, stereo, books, clothes, and sports stuff scattered about, posters of Van Halen and Farrah Fawcett.  The smell of marijuana.

"Farrah Fawcett -- gross!"  I thought.

Chip was sitting on the bed, a calculus book open in front of him.  Very tall and slim, with long hair and a long face, not at all cute.

This was the icon of my childhood, a clue that gay people exist?

"Sup?" he said. "Dad told me that we met before, when I was a kid."  Suspicious scowl, American accent.  Not at all what I was expecting!

"Yeah.  Me and my friend Greg, in 4th grade.  We said hello, and then you went to the back yard, and your brother came out the front door.  We got spooked and ran away."

He laughed, and flashed that dazzling, seductive smile of my childhood.  "Oh, yeah -- I remember that!  When you vanished, I got spooked, too.  The first guys I met in America were a couple of ghosts!  I always wondered what would have happened if you stuck around."

We didn't hook up, or even become friends.  The smile was enough.

By the way, I just looked up "Chi Ehr Ma" on the internet. He's a professor of mathematics at a university in California (not the famous mineralogist).

Not married. 

See also: 20 Asian Dates, Hookups, and Sausage Sightings; Kurt Russell's Secret.; The Son of Mr. Blowfish