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“DON’T MESS WITH MONA”

Does anyone remember an actor/comedian named Michael Greer? There is no special reason why you should unless, like this writer, you happen to be over forty, with a fascination for 70’s cabaret and a memory for very obscure films. I can tell you this much, if you ever saw Michael’s cabaret act in person you would never forget him. You see Michael Greer was a fiercely independent entertainer who should have been a major player in films and television, as well as Broadway. The only thing that stood in his way was his sexuality which was out there in your face from day one. Michael Greer was a truly unique performer but more importantly he was one of the first openly gay actors to work in Hollywood. He would become, willingly or not, the pre-eminent role model for all the openly gay actors that were to follow for the next twenty years.

Without the pioneer efforts of actors like Michael Greer and his groundbreaking body of work there would not be successful openly gay actors like Chad Allan, Sir Ian McKellan or Rupert Everett, nor cable/mainstream television shows like QUEER AS FOLK or WILL AND GRACE, nor films like BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN. The sexual /political climate in Tinsel town at the time Michael Greer was a working actor {1968-82} was so homophobic across the corporate wasteland that being perceived as openly gay condemned men like Michael to few if any opportunities to display his talent. His then agent advised him to get married like all the other closet queens in town and just pretend to be a normal kind of guy the whole family would like in their living rooms or watch at the movies.

Michael would have none of it; therefore he would spend the majority of his career in gay cabaret. He found himself performing around the country, occasionally appearing in films like THE ROSE in a small role as the MC at the drag show, or on television in something like The Bobby Gentry Show as a semi-regular performer. As an impressionist he would also record albums of comedy material showcasing his interpretation of Tallulah Bankhead, not to mention his spot-on turn as Bette Davis.

Michael Greer made only a handful of films in his lifetime, yet it took only one performance in one particular film to immortalize him forever in Queer Cinema. The role was that of “Queenie” in playwright John Herbert’s greatest achievement (not to mention his only hit play), FORTUNE AND MEN’S EYES. Herbert found his inspiration in a quotation from the Bard’s sonnet 29 “when in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes…..” the words from this sonnet perfectly captured the helplessness of the principals trapped in their own private torment thus setting the tone for his play.

FORTUNE AND MEN’S EYES touched a personal chord in almost everyone who experienced it. John Herbert was instrumental in creating a support group, The Fortune Society, for men who had similar abusive experiences in prison, yet the system remains in serious need of change and as of now those reforms are still not in place.

The play was a runaway success all over the world, playing to shocked houses, giving audiences unaccustomed to overt displays of male homosexuality in the prison system something to think about on the way home. When MGM chose to make a film of the play, Michael Greer was asked to repeat his stage performance, or so he thought.

The film changed directors in mid production, with a decided shift in tone and substance. The original play was a plea for reform in the still inhumane prison system. The film, then under the heavy hand of Harvey Hart, became an exploitive freak show of homosexual gang bangs with suicide as the only alternative to gay sex, with Michael forced by the producers to send up his character and play out a savage and desperate drag show confrontation, which resulted in humiliation for his original efforts to bring some humanity to his role.

This exaggerated kind of exploitation film serves but one purpose: in giving its viewing audience the impression that the entire prison system is filled to the rafters with predatory homosexuals on the make, it totally erased the original play’s power and integrity, which was supposedly what motivated John Herbert to write the play in the first place (he was once, as a young man, arrested for being in drag, then placed in prison where he was abused) creating in its wake a film that critic Roger Ebert would call THE BOYS IN THE BAND GOES TO JAIL.

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