The Scream King Hooks Up with Ricky Schroder

Three days after his high school graduation in 1981, Mark Patton, a country boy from Kansas City, Missouri, was immersed in the gay mecca of Greenwich Village, Manhattan.  Ten day after, he landed a role as a gay country boy in the Broadway play Come Back to the 5 and Dime, Jimmy Dean, co-starring with the legendary Sandy Dennis.

Has any star ever risen so fast? he wondered.

When he moved to Hollywood to work on the film version of Jimmy Dean (1982), he thought "This is fate.  I am destined to become the first open, out actor in Hollywood!"

He went on some auditions, and got some jobs: a country boy bonding with his estranged father (Chuck Connors!) in Kelsey's Son (1983); the brother of a cloned girl in Anna to the Infinite Power (1983); and Jesse Walsh, a gay boy harassed by Freddy Krueger in Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge (1985).

He assumed that the character was written as gay, but his costar, Robert Rusler, said "Hell, no!  And if you know what's good for you, you won't mentions gays to David [writer David Chaskin], ever!  He'll have you fired and on the first bus back to Missouri!"

Mark had never been closeted, but he now found himself constrained by Hollywood homophobia.  His agent went through his closet and told him what "normal boys" wear, and refused to allow him to be interviewed by a gay magazine, not even about his gay character in Jimmy Dean.


 Jack Sholder, the director of Nightmare, peppered his speech with anti-gay slurs.

One of the producers, gay but closeted, told Mark that he absolutely could not set foot in West Hollywood.  If there was even a hint that he was gay, his career would be over, plus the box office for Nightmare 2 would plummet.

Most of the cast and crew shunned him, as if they were afraid that the "gay" would rub off.  Only Robert Rusler wanted to hang out with him.  They even went to gay bars together, Catch One, Basgo's (neither of them were in West Hollywood, right?).


 After the homophobic nightmare of Nightmare, Mark had had it; he was going to be out!  But his agent said that she'd drop him instantly if he told anyone in the Hollywood community, and no other agent would touch him, either. So he dutifully closeted himself on auditions, and got a couple of parts: a CBS Schoolbreak Special and an episode of Hotel.


And he got to know other closeted actors, like Wesley Eure and Dean Paul Martin.  They had no problem with making up girlfriends, introducing their boyfriends as "buddies," escorting girls to events while their boyfriends stayed home in the darkness!

Living a lie your whole life.  How could they stand it?

Mark knew that he'd never be able to stand it. He started auditioning as an open gay man, and was cast in a tv series where he'd play a gay character, "but you have to tell everyone you're straight in real life."  He ran.

He started taking classes in interior design at L.A. City College.

The kicker came in the spring of 1988, when Robert offered to set him up on a date with Ricky Schroder, who had played "poor little rich boy" Ricky Stratton on the Reagan-era glorification of excess, Silver Spoons (1982-87).

"He's just a kid!" Mark complained. "I like older guys.  And he's a blond-haired, blue-eyed Ken Doll.  I like my men tall, dark, and handsome, swarthy Mediterraneans, Latinos, black guys.  Now, set me up with Alfonso Ribeiro [his costar on Silver Spoons], and we'll talk."

"A kid, maybe," Robert said, "But the star of a top-rated tv show, with connections all over Hollywood.  Let him top you, and the offers will start pouring in."

"He's a top?"  Somehow Mark always assumed that Ricky was a bottom.

"Babe, a hard top!  With a super-sized sausage  -- and he knows how to us it.  He's plugged half the macho men in town, with or without a condom, your choice."

Super-sized sausage?  Well, it wouldn't hurt to have dinner....

They met briefly for coffee at a place in Hacienda Heights.  Then came the date:

First a messenger knocked on the door of Mark's apartment with a bottle of wine and a bouquet of flowers.

Then a delivery guy with Chinese food.

Finally Ricky arrived, dressed to the hilt, and pulled Mark into a long kiss and grope.  In a moment they were in the bedroom.  Mark went down on Ricky (average sized, but thick), then fell down on the bed so Ricky could enter doggy-style.  Instead Ricky pushed him onto his back and entered from the top.  Nice, but a little uncomfortable -- your legs only go up so far.  

Afterwards they sat on the couch, eating microwaved Chinese food and watching Miami Vice.

"I'm so glad I don't have to play fags anymore," Ricky said, looking at the fashion-conscious Crockett.

Mark stared, open jawed.  "But aren't you...."

"Liking guys is one thing.  Being a fag is another.  I can't stand those West Hollywood queens, with their parades where they wiggle their butts and squeal 'Look at me, I like dick!'  Keep it in the bedroom where it belongs, Mary!"

"But we have to work on social tolerance, civil rights.  The AIDS Crisis..."

"Keep it in the bedroom!" Ricky repeated.  "In ten years I'll have a wife and about a dozen kids, while West Hollywood queens are still wiggling their little butts, afraid to grow up."

"So you're going to give up on being gay?"

"That's another word I can't stand: 'gay.'  What does 'gay" have to do with getting your cock sucked? I like guys, sure, but I like girls, too.  What's gay about that?"

Mark was silent.  At that moment, he decided to fire his agent, stop the audition cycle, and get on with his life -- his real life, the one that mattered.

I met Mark at a party thrown by my roommate Derek in the summer of 1988: a cute twink, a little fey, with a slim physique and a respectable basket, dating one of Derek's friends.  Having never seen Nightmare on Elm Street, I didn't realize that he was an actor.  We didn't "share."

Today Mark lives in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, where he runs an art store, along with his husband Hector Mondragon.  He often appears at fan events as the first "scream king"

Ricky Schroder has appeared in a number of movies and tv shows, including Lonesome Dove and NYPD Blue.  He was married to Andrea Bernard from 1992 to 2016, and has four children.  He has made no public statements about "liking guys."

I got this story from Zack the Photographer, who heard it from his boyfriend Tim, who dated Mark in the 1990s.  It may have changed a bit in the countless retellings, but the sadness stays the same.

See also: Michael in the Boys' Room with Cole or Dylan Sprouse.