WHY WE THINK HOT MALE ACTORS ARE GAY-GAY-GAY! Or Will Taron Egerton At Last Make His Move?

With news last Friday that Hugh Jackman and his wife Deborra-Lee Furness were separating, certain quarters of the Internet started foaming at the peen. At last, they surmised, Hugh will soon leap out of the closet and give Taron Egerton the hard, wood-poppin' trip to pound-town he's long been hungering for (I would pay for that video) (no, really). This isn't surprising, of course. There's a long tradition of hot male actors, married or not, being called out as gay. Which inevitably leads non-believers to exclaim, "Oh, but you think everyone's gay!" Or, "He's not gay, he's just British!" or "...he's just into musicals!" or "...he's just in touch with his feminine side!" or "...he's just very tan and likes to work out!"

And yet, can we blame the gay-sayers? As far back as movies go, stars like Cary Grant - featured above with his inseparable "roommate," Randolph Scott, before he married several women - were known by insiders and the eagle-eyed to be, if not gay, then at the very least bisexual. Before he hit the big-time, young Grant was a carnival barker and gay hustler while living in Greenwich Village with his lover, Orry-Kelly, the later who found fame soon after as a Hollywood costume designer. Marriage to a woman means nothing. Even Oscar Wilde was once married to a woman, and Rock Hudson and Little Richard. Ad infinitum

The term "beard" or "lavender marriage," dates back to at least the 1800s. Back then, it was used to describe a "pretty bird," or a straight woman enlisted by a closeted gay man, or an "Ethel," as helpful camouflage, be it for dating or marriage. It worked the other way around, too, and sometimes in tandem, when gay men would marry lesbian women to keep both their families and society at bay. Yet it's not always a strict case of bearding. Cluelessness can play a part, too. In other words, many celebrities enter into straight marriages believing they're heterosexual, only to recognize otherwise later. Like Peter Allen, who was married to Liza Minnelli before realizing he was strictly-dickly. Angela Lansbury was briefly married to actor Richard Cromwell before he admitted he fancied the pole; and Fran Drescher was married for some time to producer Peter Marc Jacobson before learning he sizzled for sausage. People are complicated, even now.

And then there are instances of, "You're kidding, right? You fool no one, you big girl." Case in point, John Travolta, who's been rumored to be gay since the late 1970s. Back then, Carrie Fisher, in a loose-lipped moment, stated that he's "openly gay." And of course there's the well documented liaisons with his male plane pilot, Doug Gotterba, who reported that he and Travolta were longtime sexual partners - and remained so even after his marriage to Kelly Preston, a rumored beard paired with Travolta when he joined Scientology. And yes, all those pesky male masseuses Travolta had to pay off after getting all grabby-assy-pully-pistol with them. Tsk-Tsk. Is it possible that Travolta is bisexual (or "fluid," as the kids like to say these days)? Of course it is. Is it likely? I don't know. Ask Tom Cruise. 

Some stars were genuinely tortured about being gay, like Anthony Perkins, who struggled with his sexuality, slept with men, but married Berry Berenson and had two children. Tragically, Perkins died years later of AIDS-related complications, while just as tragic, Berenson died aboard Flight 11, which was deliberately crashed into the World Trade Center's North Tower on 9/11. In the 1980s, Elton John was, as he's said, "confused," and convinced he was bisexual during his near five year marriage to Renate Blauel, a recording engineer who years later sued him for damages when he revealed details of their marriage in his autobiography - which violated their non-disclosure agreement - in a case which John hastily settled. There's also been cases when gay men have allegedly taken advantage of a straight celebrities. Case in point is author Terry McMillan, who was famously thrown for a loop when her much younger Jamaican husband, Jonathan Plummer - the inspiration for the young male lover in "How Stella Got Her Groove Back" - told her he was gay. Their divorce was bitter, messy and costly, especially for McMillan, who claimed Plummer knew he was gay well before they married, cheated on her with multiple men throughout their marriage and used her from the start to gain U.S. citizenship and access to her millions. He walked away with nearly half a million. 

Luckily, a number of celebrities these days feel comfortable enough to come out, like Jarrod Carmichael, but it's still a very risky thing to do career-wise, especially if you're male (coming out as a lesbian, on the other hand, is "hot" for straight men, even more so now than in the days of Jodie Foster). Which means that having a beard is still quite useful, and some might say necessary, for gay male celebrities hoping to maintain a mass-market career, whether it's a certain middle-aged movie star having a string of young, hot model girlfriends and never marrying, or a young male pop singer having an on-again off-again affair with a female Latina pop star (guess who, don't sue!). Playing straight is always bank. 

So the next time you hear someone say, "He's gay!" - and not as a pejorative  - you might want to entertain the possibility, if fleetingly. Is Hugh Jackman a big ol' 'mo? Or is he just a strapping Aussie lad who likes to do musicals and flex his pectorals? Time will tell. Or else we'll never know till he's long dead and buried, which is how it usually works. Of those, there's almost too many to list, including Montgomery Clift, Tab Hunter, Ruby Dandridge, Patsy Kelly, Sherman Helmsley, Cesar Romero and many more. "I cannot tell you the number of (male) actors I know, some very well known," said Kate Winslet recently, "who are terrified their sexuality will be revealed." It's enough to make you wonder, isn't it? Or at least briefly speculate. Look closer. You can't always believe what you see. 

Photo Credits: John Engstead/Paramount/Kobal/Shutterstock; Emily Shur for The New York Times, Sam Taylor/Instagram