Director Bill Sherwood and Producer Paul Kaplan Discuss the Groundbreaking Film 'Parting Glances'

What a thrill to discover Rian Keating's spirited 1986 interview with "Parting Glances" director Bill Sherwood and producer Paul Kaplan. "Parting Glances" -- about two lovers in NYC dealing with the imminent departure of one of them on a two-year work assignment in Africa -- changed my life when I first saw it as a teenager living in Arizona (wishing I were a New Yorker with a gay lover of my own). 

Even though AIDS was all we heard about in the 1980s -- and the film didn't shy away from the grim reality of the disease -- the film was the first time I felt like I could have a "normal" life as a gay man, with a successful career, cool friends and a loving relationship rather than surefire gloom and doom.

 

The smart and clever dialogue made me feel like I was hanging out with a bunch of people I knew -- or people I dreamed of knowing, as a Debbie Harry-obsessed kid in the suburbs of Phoenix -- and the cast had some fun surprises, including a very young Steve Buscemi, Kathy Kinney (Mimi from "The Drew Carey Show") and hunky co-leading man John Bolger, who is The Scarecrow Ray Bolger's great-nephew.

I knew Sherwood died of AIDS in 1990. Sad to read that Kaplan, the film's executive producer, was also taken by the disease the year after at just 36. 

Paul A. Kaplan, 36, a Theatrical Producer (Nov. 28, 1991)

Bill Sherwood: June 14, 1952 – February 10, 1990

Get a slight Matt Rettenmund vibe off the late director, who also grew up in Michigan. What a shame we didn't get to see what he would have come up with next. RIP.

Watch: 

Read all "Parting Glances" posts HERE.

A Bolger in My Pants

#TBT When I came face to face with John Bolger in 2007, who was the object of my desire since I saw him in the seminal gay film "Parting Glances" in 1986. (Charming, but probably could have done without my explaining how I used to "use" photos of him -- oops!)

Seeing Robert and Michael's relationship in "Parting Glances" was the first time I realized being gay could be "normal."

John Bolger — Sex & The City from Nina Shreiber on Vimeo.

 Fun facts: Bolger played Samantha's lover who liked baby talk on "Sex and the City." He is the great nephew of Ray Bolger, who played the Scarecrow in "The Wizard of Oz."

He also played Jason Alexander's brother(!) on the short-lived sitcom "Everything's Relative" in 1987.

Gives good head (shot)

Richard Wall, Douglas in the Seminal Gay Film 'Parting Glances,' Has Died at 71

Very sad to report that Richard Wall, best known for playing the wealthy, Piaf-loving Douglas in Bill Sherwood's "Parting Glances," died over the weekend in North Carolina after a long battle with kidney disease. He was 71. Despite a plot that involved AIDS at the height of the epidemic, "Parting Glances" was the first film that convinced me that being gay was going to be OK, as I watched Robert and Michael -- two guys I saw as role models -- go through the normal ups and downs of a relationship while living an exciting, friend-filled life in New York City. But despite two handsome leading men, an adorable twink and a knockout performance by Steve Buscemi, it was Richard, as the humorless, quintessential older queen, who stole most of the film's scenes, and it was his lines that my friends and I have repeated over the past three decades in full Douglas fashion:

"Just one, honey!"  

"I may have committed the gay cardinal sin of being a tad bit overweight, but it's this so-called unattractiveness that's spared me from the plague."  

"Why don't you pack a little bag and fly to Paris for the weekend with me. I have a standing reservation on the Concord, a suite in the huitieme, and a box at the opera. I never dine at a restaurant with less than two stars. What do you say?" 

... and so on.

Richard contacted me years ago after reading some things I'd written on my blog, and in an interview I conducted in 2007, he described his experience working on the film like this: 

It was a wonderful experience for me, because the casting director "discovered" me walking up 85th Street towards Broadway and said, "Are you and actor?" and of course, I said, "Yes." The next thing I know I'm at the Tribeca Film Center auditioning for Bill Sherwood, and the following weekend, we were in Fire Island. All the Fire Island filming was done in one August day in 1984. It was blazing hot and I had to change make-up and clothes many, many times because of all the whipped cream. And I got sunburned because of all the aluminum reflectors!

 
Although best-remembered for playing Douglas, Richard had a long and successful career as a professional musician, including working with Bob Fosse conducting national tours of "Chicago" in the '70s and '80s -- right up until 1985 when the last production was done at Harrah's in Atlantic City starring Chita Rivera -- and was even portrayed in "All That Jazz" as a larger piano player. In 1981, he toured "Makin' Whoopee" with Imogene Coca and Mamie Van Doren. In the '90s he managed a classical FM radio station in Raleigh, N.C., and began working at Duke University conducting for the Duke Children's Golf Classic Celebrity Show.

I had the pleasure of accompanying Richard to Outfest's screening of the restored version of "Parting Glances" at Lincoln Center nearly a decade ago, and we maintained a friendship ever since. Just last month, I had the opportunity to see "Parting Glances" on the big screen for a second time (when BAM did an indie film retrospective) and was sure to let him know about it. Richard was going through some rough stuff at the time, yet always kept an upbeat attitude, documenting his journey on a blog he said I'd inspired him to write. Here's one of his last posts -- I'm so glad I checked in when I did.

RIP, my friend. You will be missed.

The Enduring Legacy of Bill Sherwood's 'Parting Glances'

Had a rather magical time in Brooklyn last night introducing someone special to "Parting Glances," Bill Sherwood's seminal gay film shot in 1984 and released in 1986. Things started off on a rather disturbing note: When I emerged from the subway at the Atlantic Avenue/Barclays Center stop, the first words I heard were a large woman screaming, "You big-forehead faggot!!!!" Relieved to realize she wasn't talking to me -- apparently there was another one in the vicinity -- my friend and I beat a hasty retreat while she berated some guy in the middle of the street, perhaps over a parking space by the Burlington Coat Factory.

Away from the smackdown, we then had some incredible food at El Toro Taqueria before slipping into BAM for the main event. As longtime readers know, "Parting Glances" was my first real gay film and remains my all-time favorite. ("Making Love" came before it but doesn't really count, although it served another purpose ) I discovered it on home video after my best friend in Detroit, Mark, saw (and loved) it on one of his first gay dates back in '86, right before I came out as "bisexual." (!!!) I was fortunate enough to be at Lincoln Center for the unveiling of the restored version in 2007, so last night was in fact my second time seeing it on the big screen. What a joy. My date helped me understand why it's so special, pointing out on the trip back to the city that although it does have a romantic relationship in its purview, it's the other "gay" relationships -- with a hag, with an ex, with a straight woman you know through your partner's work, with a flirtatious twink you met -- that are the film's heart and make it unlike any other. My date later said:

Also worth noting that, despite treatments of the varying dynamics of coming-out experiences and degrees -- the record store twink mentioning he'd done it at what was then the relatively quite early age at 16 (Nick repeating the number for emphasis), Robert's ex-gf talking about how she'd already suspected, the boss still in a tacitly accepted beard arrangement -- none of the characters are grappling with self-loathing or the like, having come to terms with their sexuality already. It's a built-in "It Gets Better" message, which your still-adolescent self picked up on right away.

Later, a Facebook friend had a similar thought about the friendship angle, adding an important point:

It is wonderful, a film about gay lives, relationships (and not just romantic relationships), sex and HIV, and NOBODY dies.

Imagine being teenager in suburban Phoenix having grown up with the only gay people you knew of being Paul Lynde, Wayland Flowers and Charles Nelson Reilly ... and only learning about Rock Hudson when he died of AIDS -- then suddenly seeing these two handsome and healthy GWM living a completely normal life in New York City, with friends and jobs and without shame and alienation. It's hard to quantify just how monumental this was, but I'm so glad the film lives on thanks to the Outfest Legacy Project. While works like "The Normal Heart," "Longtime Companion" and "Angels in America" are profound and incredibly important, I'm happy "Parting Glances" exists as another small, less dramatic slice of life from gay history's darkest moment, If you haven't had the privilege of seeing "Parting Glances," Netflix is streaming it. Enjoy it before it disappears -- and be sure to let me know what you think.

My Top 10 Favorite Gay Movies

    

Geeks on Film: 5 Gay Men Discuss Their 10 Favorite Gay Movies

I'm still too hung over to be definitive about this, but I do know "Parting Glances" would be on top, as it was for one of the guys on here ... and I like the inclusion of "Doing Time on Maple Drive" by another guy. My pal Matt notes how little overlap there is on the five guys' lists -- he's the one who chose "Parting Glances," yet I wouldn't pick any of his other nine -- and the diversity is indeed curious because I would put "Trick" on my list and I see no one else did.

Join the fun HERE.

My (totally unofficial) Top 10 Favorite* Gay Movies

 (not including documentaries or "The Times of Harvey Milk" would be No. 2):

1. Parting Glances 

2. Doing Time on Maple Drive

3. The Edge of Seventeen 

4. Trick 

5. The Broken Hearts Club

6. The Sum of Us

7. All Over the Guy

8. Brokeback Mountain

9. Billy's Hollywood Screen Kiss

10. Making Love

Or perhaps: 

Jeffrey

The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert

Gods and Monsters

Beautiful Thing

Weekend (if you edit out all of the incessant eating scenes and rattling of candy-bar wrappers)

and who remembers "August" with Dom from "Looking" or Shelter?

* And favorite means just that. It's not that I necessarily think these are better than other gay films, I just enjoy them more for whatever reason

The Last Temptation of Michael

   If you're as obsessed with "Parting Glances" as I am -- see proof HERE, HERE, HERE and HERE -- then you'll be happy to know that Adam Nathan, who played the aggressive twink, Peter, from the record shop, has been located after a 25-year absence. He's a writer now -- but even more importantly you can see what he looks like today HERE!

Speaking of which, here's a recent picture "Michael" (aka Richard Ganoung)!

'Parting Glances' vs. 'Longtime Companion'

As regular readers know, I'm a huge fan of "Parting Glances." It was one of the first gay films I ever saw, and even though it dealt with the topic of AIDS, it was the principal characters' life as a couple in Manhattan that really made an impression on me. This wasn't about coming out, or being ashamed of being gay, or being married but sleeping with men behind your wife's back. And it wasn't really even about AIDS, even though the disease was addressed head-on. It was about a couple ... who happened to be gay ... living their lives. It was the first time I ever saw -- in real life or in art -- that it was possible to be both gay and "normal," whatever that meant. From there I learned that gay couples had the same kind of lives as every other couple -- friends you love, friends who get on your nerves, work obligations, complications in your relationship. Michael and Robert, of course, were gay men in New York City in the late '80s, so their lives included knowing people with AIDS. But they had other concerns as well.

When "Longtime Companion" came out a few years later, I was immediately skeptical, looking at it as a bigger-budget, big-studio knockoff. It was a ridiculous reaction, but I was defensive of my "first love," a film I had felt was sorely neglected. A friend who had never seen either (Ken) watched them both recently -- without knowing the pedigree of either -- and casually mentioned that he thought "Longtime Companion" was the superior of the two, a statement that brought an audible gasp from me.

I only saw it once -- at the Beverly Center in 1990 with my friend Greg who was visiting from Phoenix -- and while I remember thinking it wasn't bad, I certainly thought it paled in comparison to Bill Sherwood's 1986 classic. Intrigued by what my friend Ken had said, I watched "Longtime Companion" again last night and had a few new revelations. First off, was this really from 1989? I know films play in theaters longer than they do now, but I could have sworn Greg and I saw it in L.A. when it had just come out. But my research shows it was released on Oct. 11, 1989. Anyone remember anything about its release/distribution? Perhaps it showed exclusively in New York at first -- but I always thought these things tended to be New York and L.A. when first released. This film has always been a 1990 film to me, so while a year might not seem like that big of a difference, it is in my highly chronological mind. 

 I didn't realize the guy who played the soap star was a Cassidy, as in Jack Cassidy and Shirley Jones' son, brother of Shaun and half brother of David. What a hunk! I remember Campbell Scott being in it -- I knew he was George C. Scott and Colleen Dewhurst's son -- but I had forgotten his character grows a mustache late in the '80s. (I'm assuming his hunky lover, Fuzzy, didn't mind, even though he had shaved his beard by the time the 'stache sprouted!) I'd forgotten how fabulously femme Dermot Mulroney was -- and how great it was to see Michael "Jake Ryan" Schoeffling again. 

 The dialogue on the beach at the end (not the reunion, but the dialogue) was still as cringe-inducing today as it was 20-some years ago -- I think the idea was right, but the execution faltered -- but overall I thought the film held up rather nicely, even better than I had remembered. I think it captured what so many people were going through at the time -- with everyone they know dying one after the other. Still, even opening with Blondie's "The Tide Is High" and everyone reading an article in the New York Times, it's still no "Parting Glances." Thoughts?

UPDATE: Got some clarity on the film's release date today in an email:

Mr. Walsh, My friend, Norman Rene, directed Longtime. The premiere was May 3,1990 and it opened publically the next day. I very much enjoy your blog. Best, George 

The Birthday Boy

I want to take a moment to wish my dear friend Richard Wall a very happy birthday! As the Piaf-loving Douglas in the seminal gay film "Parting Glances," Richard made me smile and helped make my coming out a little easier. Nearly 25 years later, his friendship has only made my life happier. You can visit his blog and wish him well yourself over HERE. Hope it's a great one, Mother!

Welcome to the (Electronic) Neighborhood

If you're as obsessed with Bill Sherwood's classic film "Parting Glances" as I am, then you will be tickled to know that Richard Wall -- aka the lover-of-all-things-Piaf Douglas -- has just launched his own blog. (Welcome, darling!) I'd recommend starting with his morning dream of Teddy K. post, an instant classic that already has me looking forward to many more ...

Bloggerlingus: Richard, flanked by me and Boy Culturist Matthew Rettenmund at the "Parting Glances" restoration New York premiere last October at Lincoln Center.

'It's Picture Time'

With John Bolger, Yolande Bavan and Richard Ganoung

Some of you are probably wondering if I'm ever going to shut up about my cat or the film "Parting Glances." Larry will probably be around for another 15-20 years, but last night's premiere party for the restored version of Bill Sherwood's seminal 1986 film about a gay couple's impending separation and their close-knit group of friends in mid-'80s Manhattan might be hard to top.

With Richard Wall and Matt Rettenmund, left, and with Yolande Bavan and Kathy Kinney

As I've come to discover, I was far from the only young gay man whose life was greatly touched by this slice-of-life gay film. (Newfest board member Josh Rosenzweig told me his quest for love has been forever tainted by his lifelong search to find his own Robert!) But what might make my experience slightly different is that it was actually part of an "introduction to being gay" video double feature. You see, my childhood best friend in Michigan (we met in sixth grade camp under a tree avoiding the dodge ball competition of the day) was the first of our big group of friends to finally take the plunge and come out of the closet. (Eventually, every single guy we knew came out and 25-plus years later I still get e-mails from peripheral friends who have come across my blog coming out to me!) I'll never forget that phone call from Mark during the holidays in 1986. We were both 19 and while I knew something had to give, the second he said the words I felt sick and realized life as I knew it was never going to be the same. If it had been a made-for-TV movie I would have, "Me, too!" and we'd have gotten together and had a nice long talk followed by a big hug. But alas life is rarely like a movie and it would be another six months or so before I could process what was happening. Still, by the time I was heading back to Detroit (from Phoenix) for my annual pilgrimage "home" for the summer, I was at least finally ready to admit to Mark that I was "bi." (Cue the laugh track. Like you didn't try that for awhile, too.) At the beginning of that summer (1987) I had gone to London with a friend and then on to Paris to attend the French Open. (I met a 16-year-old kid named Andre Agassi, and Steffi Graf won her first Grand Slam title that year.) Being away from Arizona and in big cities I was beginning to notice guys noticing me, but I was still not ready and would panic whenever I felt like something gay was gong on. When I finally got to Detroit later in the summer it my first experience being around an openly gay guy, period (he just happened to be my best friend). And it was the first time I was allowed to be open about who I was (even if 50 percent of my thoughts were supposedly on gettin' me some pussy).

The first thing Mark did was pop in his videocassette of "Parting Glances." He told me how it was the greatest film he'd ever seen and how it had helped him understand what it meant to be a gay man. From the opening scene with the young men going back to their apartment and rolling around on the bed together I was mesmerized. I couldn't get over how everybody was so comfortable being who they were. No one was "coming out" to anyone. No mothers were crying. No one was apologizing for who they were. I instantly saw myself in the Michael character and was completely smitten with his boyfriend, the Robert character (who wasn't?). No sooner had we finished the film Mark pulled out this letter he'd gotten from Richard Ganoung, aka Michael. Mark had written to him to tell him how much the film had helped him with his coming out ordeal and he'd actually gotten a handwritten response (Can you imagine?!!). For the first time since I could remember I felt like everything was going to be OK.
But the evening didn't stop there. Although "Parting Glances" wasn't shy about depicting affection between the two male lovers (remember the shower scene?), it was a mainstream -- albeit low-budget -- movie, after all. So most of what you saw was implied. Next up on Mark's double feature? "Powertool," Jeff Stryker's 1986 prison classic. While young men and porn might normally go together like peanut butter and jelly, for a young gay guy whose life had been completely sheltered like mine was, the idea of seeing two guys have sex was more than just titillating -- it was like having a preview of the brave new world. How do men have sex, anyway? What exactly goes on? The second Mark popped the tape in and this blond, curly haired guy named Johnny Davenport (NSFWish photo here) got down to business with his cellmate, Michael Gere, all of my questions were answered -- and then some.
(Call it a fetish, but to this day John Davenport (above) -- who is by all most measures not my "type" -- still makes me weak in the knees and makes me feel like I'm 20 years old again.)

The only way finally meeting Richard Ganoung, John Bolger, Kathy Kinney ("Joan") , Yolande Bavan ("Betty") and the irrespressible Richard Wall ("Douglas") and getting to learn a bunch of new information about the creators of this life-changing film tonight could have been more of a thrill would have been if Johnny D. had been waiting in my bed for me when I got home. It was truly a night to remember ...

(Bonus points to the first person besides Matt who identifies this posts headline!)

Reminder: 'Parting Glances' Restoration Premiere -- TONIGHT!

WHAT: East Coast premiere of the restored "Parting Glances."
WHEN: Monday evening, October 29 -- TONIGHT!!!!
WHERE: Film Society of Lincoln Center, Walter Reade Theater, 165 W. 65th St., upper level (b/w Bwy and Amsterdam)

6:30 P.M. Pre-Reception (VIP ticket holders)
7:30 P.M. Screening followed by Q&A (all ticket holders)
9:30-11 P.M. Reception (all ticket holders)

Scheduled to appear: Members of the cast including Kathy Kinney, Richard Ganoung and John Bolger

TICKETS: $100 VIP -- includes Pre-Reception, Preferred Seating, Reception
$75 General Admission -- General Seating, Reception

Tickets are available online at www.Newfest.org

Second 'Glances'

Here are some recent pieces related to the restoration of "Parting Glances." Get all the details about the New York premiere here.

My dream lover: John Bolger (aka Robert) / click on the article to enlarge

Looking back at the landmark gay film that launched Buscemi's career

By ELLA TAYLOR
Wednesday, July 11, 2007 - 6:00 pm
Outside of documentaries about poverty in Africa, AIDS has more or less slipped off the map of Western cinema and out of public consciousness. Which is only one reason to bring back, in a version newly restored by Outfest in conjunction with the UCLA Film and Television Archive, Bill Sherwood’s 1986 Parting Glances, one of the best American movies ever made about the disease. Not that Sherwood, who died of AIDS-related complications in 1990 at the age of 38, would have appreciated the label. More a waspishly funny portrait of the hip downtown Manhattan arts scene of the early 1980s than a disease movie, the defiantly unapologetic drama turns on the ambivalent but enduring bond between two former gay lovers -- one of them a punk rocker trying to continue his work while dying of AIDS, played by a then-unknown standup performer and firefighter named Steve Buscemi. Now a ubiquitous actor and a director in his own right -- his new film, Interview, in which he co-stars with Sienna Miller, opens this week -- the very modest, very low-key Buscemi recently spoke to us by phone from New York about working on Parting Glances.

L.A. WEEKLY: One of the great things about Parting Glances is that AIDS is woven into the fabric of the characters’ lives, not the other way about.

STEVE BUSCEMI: Parting Glances was the first movie about AIDS, made before Longtime Companion but around the same time as the television movie An Early Frost. But I never saw Parting Glances as an AIDS movie, just as a great character-driven New York film whose characters happened to be gay and living with AIDS.

How did you get cast?

Bill Sherwood was a friend of The Drew Carey Show’s Kathy Kinney, who’s in the film. Kathy used to perform in an improv group and at the time I did theater improv with my friend Mark Boone Junior. Bill came down to see our shows, and he asked me to audition. My audition was terrible and he told me so, and said that if he hadn't seen me in theater, he wouldn't have cast me on the strength of my audition. It was a long shoot -- he would shoot a couple of weeks and then raise more money, then shoot again. I was still working for the New York Fire Department at the time and had to take a leave of absence.

This was a risky part for a young actor just starting out on his career. At that time, not many would have taken it. Why did you?

I didn't see it as risky, because it was a wonderful part. I can’t see why anyone would turn it down just because the character, Nick, was gay. Nick is in a state of denial and shock about what he’s going through, and he doesn’t want to alter his lifestyle. It's very important to him to keep working and not be treated as a sick person by his friends. At the same time, he feels his mortality and wants to re-establish that connection again with his former boyfriend, Michael, and let it be known that he loves him. This was an independent film and Bill had the creative freedom to do it as he wanted. Hollywood would have watered it down.

Talk a bit about working with Bill Sherwood.

He could be hard on people. He cared so much about what he was doing, and because he had such a low budget he had to do most of it himself. Sometimes I would get frustrated with him, because he’d give me very specific instructions, and then we’d do a take and he would berate me for not being spontaneous. But that was part of his master plan to keep me in an agitated state. Whatever he was doing he was doing it right, because the role remains one of my favorite performances. It also launched your career. Parting Glances was certainly the first role that got me any notice at all. I got an agent on the strength of it and that got me more work. But it wasn't until Reservoir Dogs that I got wider recognition. Quentin (Tarantino) had definitely seen Parting Glances -- so there you go.

You’re terribly handsome and James Dean-ish in Parting Glances. Yet you've gone on to play nebbishes, neurotics, weasels, paranoids and, of course, Templeton the rat in Charlotte’s Web.

It’s just the way things go. I was very fortunate to have played a role like that and hoped it would lead to similar roles. But it’s led to a variety of roles, among them Living in Oblivion and In the Soup. I’m not a character actor, I see myself as an actor, period.


FromSirWithlove.com
Monday, July 30, 2007
Get It Right
Gay men of a certain age and sensibility know the film Parting Glances. More than know it, we can recite every syllable of its theatrical verbosity -- and will at the drop of a hat. We're amused by straights who only know Steve Buscemi from Reservoir Dogs or The Sopranos because we go way back to when Steve was Nick Spangler.My friend Bob ~ another ardent P.G. fan -- sent me a note last week telling me it's been 20 years since the release of this film about gay life in New York at the dawn of the Age of AIDS. It was written and directed by Bill Sherwood, who died of complications from AIDS four years after the movie's theatrical release.


The centerpiece of the movie is a Going Away Party thrown by earth mother Joan for one member of a dueling gay couple. The party's in Joan's loft in Soho (from all appearances) and is attended by the nightside denizens of Lower Manhattan. Though delightfully uneven, the film is revered ... from Hell to Breakfast because it's real and about love, not sex -- despite what the DVD package might suggest ... I was talking to a straight friend recently about "gay stuff," telling him why I wasn't going to see Chuck and Larry at the cineplex: I didn't trust the movie to get it right.

Parting Glances gets it right.

(Thanks to Column of Life for pulling these together so beautifully!)

'Parting Glances' Comes Home

Well, it's official. The New York screening of Outfest Project Legacy's restored print of my favorite gay film of all time -- and one of my favorite films of all time -- "Parting Glances" has been confirmed. (Complete details below.) If you've been on this blog before then you've undoubtedly heard me yammer on and on about this landmark film. Its impact on me and, as I've come to learn, so many other people of my generation is enormous. Although it deals with the AIDS crisis, which was certainly at the forefront of my mind at the time in 1986, for me "Parting Glances" was really about every other part of being a gay man. It showed this teenage boy in Mesa, Arizona, that I wasn't the only gay person in the world. That I wasn't a complete freak. That the only option for me wasn't being drag queen.* (How much we owe to independent film.) The character of Michael taught me that I could still be a smart, witty, upstanding member of society -- an editor, a lover, a friend -- in spite of everything I'd seen or heard about being one of those "homosexuals." His boyfriend, Robert, gave me hope for meeting the hunky man of my dreams. His friend Joan helped me understand why so many of my closest friends had always been girls. And Douglas helped me understand who Doug Semig was. Watching Bill Sherwood's 48-hour slice of Manhattan gay life was the first time in my life that I believed that I was going be OK.

The Walter Reade Theater

The Film Society of Lincoln Center

165 W. 65th St., upper level (between Broadway and Amsterdam)

Monday, October 29

6:30 p.m.: Pre-Reception (VIP ticket holders)

7:30 p.m.: Screening and Q&A (all ticket holders)

9:30-11 p.m.: Post-Reception (all ticket holders)

For more information click here. For tickets, click here
Scheduled to appear: Kathy Kinney, Richard Ganoung and John Bolger

*Not that there's anything wrong with that.

As a bonus, here is a four-minute clip of from Robert's surprise going-away party. These were people I wanted to be friends with, and in a sense feel I am now.

Previously:

Cathing Up With Richard Wall

'Parting Glances Reunion'

Revisiting an Old Friend

None of That

Catching Up With Richard Wall

Richard Wall at the "Lost Colony" 70th anniversary last week at the Outer Banks, N.C., with Dixie Griffith, Andy's daughter.

So all of my blogging about Stephen Gutwillig's recently restored version of the classic film "Parting Glances" has had a fun ripple effect. Yesterday I received an e-mail from none other than Richard Wall, who played the wonderfully gay fabulous Douglas ("just one, honey!") in the film. Richard's had a long and busy career working as a professional musician (he worked with Bob Fosse conducting national tours of "Chicago" in the '70s and '80s, right up until 1985 when the last production was done at Harrah's in Atlantic City starring Chita Rivera -- "I love that show!"), teaching and conducting. In the '90s he managed a classical FM radio station in Raleigh, N.C. and began working at Duke University conducting for the Duke Children's Golf Classic Celebrity Show every May. These days he's semi-retired and going to reunions. ("That's all I do!!")

Q: So great to hear from you! All of my friends worshipped the Douglas character back in the day and would recite all of his hilarious lines! Do you keep in touch with any of the other cast members?
A: No, I haven't seen any of them since Bill Sherwood's funeral. And since I don't live in NYC anymore, I never see anybody. But even to this day, wherever I go, someone says to me "Weren't you in 'Parting Glances'?" And then they gush and gush.

Q: Well count me as one of the gushers! Tell us what you remember about making the film.
A: It was a wonderful experience for me, because the casting director "discovered" me walking up 85th Street towards Broadway and said, "Are you and actor?" and of course, I said, "Yes." The next thing I know I'm at the Tribeca Film Center auditioning for Bill Sherwood, and the following weekend, we were in Fire Island. All the Fire Island filming was done in one August day in 1984. It was blazing hot and I had to change make-up and clothes many, many times because of all the whipped cream. And I got sunburned because of all the aluminum reflectors!

Q: What did you do when you finished filming?
A: Then I left town to teach in college in California and saw the film in L.A. when it came out. The most amazing part is that Bill used his apartment for the two lovers and it was/is directly across 84th St. from my apartment! So whenever I watch the movie and see those scenes filmed in the apartment, I can see my old apartment through the windows, especially my air conditioners and my white cat.

Q: The budget for the film was very tight. Didn't it almost never get finished?
A: The film took almost a year to complete after the Fire Island scenes because they couldn't get the money to film the airplane sequence. A couple of years after the filmed opened, I was back in NYC and standing in front of the record store (used in the film - where I also was the manager) and Bill Sherwood walked up and spoke to me. He was very gaunt and frail and, obviously, near death. I said, "You are the man who has made me a legend!!" And he loved that.

Q: Did you ever see him again?
A: No, that was the last time I ever saw him. What a sad loss. But at least we have the film to remember that glorious summer of 1984. You know that it's a true story, and Bill was one of the two lovers? Yep.

Q: I heard a rumor that there is going to be a New York premiere of the restored version of the film later in the summer. If you hear anything, will you let me know and travel to New York to be my date?
A: I probably won't hear anything about it, but I will come to the "re-premiere" with you! :+) "No autographs please! You think beautiful girls are gonna stay in style forever?"

Remind you of anyone? Vintage Douglas Richard ... :-)

Douglas: Why don't you pack a little bag and fly to Paris for the weekend with me. I have a standing reservation on the Concord, a suite in the huitieme, and a box at the opera. I never dine at a restaurant with less than two stars. What do you say?
Peter: Chem lab, Saturday morning.

Nick: Hey, Douglas -- looking trim.
Douglas: So are you.

Douglas to Terry (played by Andre Morgan -- where are you?): I'll have the last laugh. I may have committed the gay cardinal sin of being a bit overweight, but it's this self-imposed unattractiveness that's spared me from the plague.

Previously:

'Parting Glances Reunion'

Revisiting an Old Friend

None of That