Richard Gere in "American Gigolo" -- talk about an awakening. At the tender age of 12, simply watching the commercial for the film made me feel like I was being outed in front of my whole family. (Surely they all could see me hypnotized by the sight of Gere's smooth chest popping out of his khaki dress shirt.) John Travolta and Christopher Reeve famously turned down the role, but 30 years later it's hard to imagine anyone else playing Julian, even if the film bombed and truthfully wasn't nearly as good as it should have been, even though I never fail to watch it when it's on cable.
Speaking of original casting, found it fascinating when I recently learned that producer Giorgio Moroder's first pick to collaborate on the theme from the movie was Stevie Nicks, but she was unable to due to contractual constraints. That's when he turned to turned to Debbie Harry, who was given a rough instrumental track called "Man Machine." Harry quickly turned it into "Call Me," which became the year's biggest single of the year, spending six weeks at No. 6, becoming the second of Blondie's four No. 1 singles.
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For me, the Richard Gere movie was "Breathless". I was probably in my early teens when my dad and I watched it on cable, and when Gere went full-frontal, I could swear my dad looked right at me. At that moment I was SURE he knew, but when I came out to him years later, he was completely surprised.
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