Actors who played gay roles

Robert Downey Jr. and Tobey Maguire. That’s right, action-hero fans. Iron Man and Spider-Man developed a passion for each other in Curtis Hanson’s unjustly neglected Wonder Boys. Downey’s a publisher, and Maguire’s an aspiring writer. The 2000 movie’s got a terrific cast headed by Michael Douglas and Frances McDormand. Well worth a rental, at least. Michael Caine and Christopher Reeve. When the original Alfie locked lips with Superman, some audience members gasped. But it happened in 1982’s film version of Broadway smash Deathtrap. Caine had played gay four years earlier as Maggie Smith’s husband in California Suite. When Dame Maggie won the Oscar, she saluted Caine as the most supportive acting partner she could have wished for. Al Pacino. After The Godfather, Pacino was at the top o’ the world, Ma. Playing the bankrobber in 1975’s Dog Day Afternoon probably was a risk. Seems he robs the bank to finance his male lover’s sex-change operation. Pacino’s raw, urgent performance was a career highlight. Audiences still applaud when he yells, “Attica! Attica! Attica!” Robert Redford. It took chutzpah for upcoming star Redford to play a bisexual matinee idol who marries Natalie Wood in the inside-Hollywood movie Inside Daisy Clover. Redford pulled it off. Lots of “guess who?” games followed the film’s 1965 release. Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton. Hollywood’s onetime royal couple played gay in different movies. In 1972’s wickedly campy X, Y and Zee, Liz discovers husband Michael Caine’s affair with Susannah York and retaliates by seducing York herself. In 1969’s Staircase, Burton and Rex Harrison play bickering lovers whose relationship strengthens when one faces a lawsuit. Staircase was based on a hit play, but movie audiences didn’t respond. Robby Benson. Country music fans were shocked when the 1976 movie Ode to Billy Joe revealed the reason why Billy Joe McAllister jumped off the Tallahachee Bridge, as immortalized by Bobbie Gentry. As played by Benson (who recently directed a movie about Billy Graham’s early years), Billy Joe took the plunge after having “been with a man.” Leave it to ’70s gossip diva Rona Barrett to have the last word: “That loud splash you just heard was half the actors in Hollywood jumping off the nearest bridge.

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