BONUS NUMBER 119: OUTRAGEOUS AND UNNATURAL
(Did You Sleep With the Models?)
This four-page feature, “People Will Talk” by Leigh W. Rutledge, ran in the May, 1985, issue of Playguy. It was a preview of what would later become his popular book of outrageous, but also sane and sympathetic, statements about gays made by celebrities and people in the news. And ranging from ancient times to the present. I still think of the book and its verbal kaleidoscope as “outrageous,” even though Leigh and his publisher preferred a different adjective.
Unnatural Quotations was first published by Alyson in November 1988. It went on to become one of the top-selling gay-themed books in the U.S. When the second edition came out the following year, Unnatural Quotations was a Lambda Literary Award finalist. In a review, Booklist noted that Unnatural Quotations is “not as big as Bartlett’s, but it’s far more consistently amusing and provocative.”
Rereading these quotes, I feel outrage at several of the speakers— Joan Collins, Eddie Murphy — but also gratitude to others, for instance Paul Newman. Then there are the self-serving lies, such as Michael Jackson’s big whopper. And witty toss-offs from Divine, Quentin Crisp, Valerie Perrine.
Joan Collins, an actress of microscopic talent, is the perfect example of Eurotrash. For a sleazy opportunist like her to judge anyone’s behavior would be pathetic if it weren’t
infuriating. Still poisoning the air at 92, she has probably changed her tune by now. She’s the kind of hypocrite who could say “Some of my best friends are homosexuals” if it sounded good on Fox televison — and never mean a syllable of it. She belongs on a pile of Kardashian.
What can you say about Edde Murphy except that he’s troubled and ignorant. His stupid AIDS remarks came back to haunt him a few years later, when, on May 2, 1997, he was stopped by police in West Hollywood at 4:45 a.m. with a transgender prostitute
in his car. The real facts of the story were laundered, of course, a typical whitewash in Hollywood. Murphy’s official tale was that he was giving her a ride and sex was the farthest thing from his mind. Yeah, we know what kind of ride that is.
A similar book of Leigh’s, Nice Girls Don’t Wear Cha Cha Heels, is lighthearted and laugh-out-loud. Published by Alyson in 1999, it’s over a hundred pages of camp lines from movies. The title comes from Female Trouble (1974); Roland Hertz says it to his daughter, Dawn Davenport — played by Divine.
It’s much easier to stop eating peanuts than to stop reading the camp lines in this book. Samples: “You’re not a woman. You’re a disease!” — Mike Connors to Susan Hayward, Where Love Has Gone (1964)…..“Honey, I was wondering, um — do you have two of anything else?” — Chelsea Brown, The Thing With Two Heads (1972)…..“Your first crucifixion, isn’t it?” — Roman centurion Jeff Morrow making precrucifixion small talk with Richard Burton in The Robe (1953)…..“I’d like to kiss you but I just washed my hair.” — Bette Davis, Cabin in the Cotton (1932).
