Fairies and Communists: The Homophobia of Jack Paar by Kliph Nesteroff

“Dick, did you ever think that Jack was maybe deep in the closet?” - Jonathan Winters asking Dick Cavett about Jack Paar

I've always been intrigued by Jack Paar. Regarded as an immensely important cog in Tonight Show history, his name was referenced heavily in 'Late Night' news items at the start of 2010. However, few during the last forty years have seen an episode of his show from beginning to end and even less understand why he was special. He had wit, class and a great ability for conversation. Many concede that it was Paar who truly put the 'talk' in the idiom 'talk show.'

He was also a nut.

One of Dick Cavett's first jobs in show business was working for Paar. "He was uniquely neurotic in a way that made [one] addicted to watching him," recalls Cavett. "Kenneth Tynan said ... in effect ... about Jack's electric, dangerous on-camera personality, 'No matter who's on camera - if it were ... the President or Cary Grant ... you still can't take your eyes off Jack for fear of missing a live nervous breakdown.' And it was true." 

While reading Jack Paar's second book, My Saber is Bent (1961, Pocket Books), my mouth froze during chapter fourteen. I assumed the page heading, Fairies and Communists, was a tongue-in-cheek title that one needn't take seriously. This is, after all, a book written by a top television comedian. Instead, what it fed me was hitherto overlooked information about Jack Paar. Granted, this was the early sixties; an era when social mores allowed sexism, racism and homophobia to exist more or less unabated. That being said, there were several people that rejected such offensive conventions and the arts were often far more accepting. This is what makes the stance of Paar, by most accounts an erudite man, all the more difficult.

Paar was known for his many feuds. He sparred with columnist Dorothy Kilgallen, actor Mickey Rooney and fellow TV host Ed Sullivan. But perhaps Paar's greatest feud was one that has been completely ignored - his vocal hatred of and decade-long fight with - the homosexual community. In the pages of My Saber is Bent, Paar writes without apology about his disdain for gays in show business. He obviously worked very hard to cull a series of quotes from other respected pop culture figures that at some point made a disparaging remark about gays. Ernie Kovacs, Oscar Levant, George Jean Nathan and Alex King are all dragged into Paar's essay to further his cause. This is the bizarre chapter, Fairies and Communists, reproduced in its entirety. It is followed by a brief story on a confrontation that transpired between Jack and the gay community a few years later.

Fairies and Communists by Jack Paar

There used to be a time when it looked like the Communists were taking over show business. Now it's fairies. They operate a lot alike, actually; both have a tendency to colonize. Just as there used to be no such thing as one Communist in a play or movie, now there is no such thing as one fairy. Where you find one, you usually find a baker's dozen swishing around. I had a little game I used to play when I was an actor in Hollywood, back in the days when Communists or Communist sympathizers were nearly as plentiful in the film capital as yes-men. If I spotted someone in a picture who was a Communist or leftist, I could usually pick out several others. They always came in sets. Now I play it a different way. When I hear that some fairy is producing or directing or acting in a play, I can often name some of the rest of the cast, even if I've never heard it. But Communists and fairies do differ in some respects. The Hollywood Communists had their "Unfriendly Ten," who refused to testify before a Congressional Committee, but the fairies are overfriendly. They do say no occasionally. "When a fairy says no," Alex King has observed, "he almost throws his back out of joint." The poor darlings, as they sometimes call themselves, are everywhere in show business. The theater is infested with them and it's beginning to show the effects. "The New York theater is dying," the late Ernie Kovacs complained recently, "Killed by limp wrists."

The dance is a mecca for the gamboling third sex, which prompted Oscar Levant to observe that "ballet is the fairies' baseball." The movies have long been a happy hunting ground for them, and now they're starting to take over television. No TV variety show seems complete without a group of fairy dancers leaping about with balloons.

George Jean Nathan wrote long ago, "What we need is more actors like Jack Dempsey. Jack may not be much of an actor but his worst enemy cannot accuse him of belonging to the court of Titania." Alas, things have been getting worse ever since. 

The increasing emasculation of our stage seems to stem in part from the influence of actors from England, where homosexuality is rampant in the theater. Kenneth Tynan, the British critic, has acknowledged the growth there of the theatrical phenomenon known as "camp" whose distinguishing feature, he says, is a marked inclination toward the dainty, the coy and the exuberantly fussy. "High comedy in England is nowadays hostage in the camp of camp," he lamented. "With each new season its voice gets shriller and its blood runs thinner."   

Formerly playwrights were writing plays about fairies and now they're writing plays for them. There was a wonderful scene in Peter Pan when Mary Martin turned and asked the audience if they believed in fairies and they answered with an affirmative roar. I began to get worried when the cast started drowning out the audience.

Not only have homosexuals taken over a leading role in the theater, but the theme of homosexuality is becoming increasingly prominent on the stage as witness Advise and Consent, Compulsion, The Best Man and Tea and Sympathy, some of which have been produced on both the stage and screen. Recently, not one but two versions of the life of Oscar Wilde were showing in New York.

A half century ago Wilde was jailed and disgraced in England for "The love that dared not speak its name," yet today actors found guilty of the same offense become not only famous but honored. One of England's most noted actors and a popular American male singer have both been convicted of homosexuality without it adversely affecting their public lives or careers.

I first noticed the widespread prevalence of homosexuality in Hollywood, which boasted a Fairyland long before it had a Disneyland. Fresh out of the Army, and rather naive, it became as quite a shock to discover that some of Hollywood's biggest he-man stars were actually more interested in each other than in the glamorous actresses they made love to before the cameras. One virile looking Western star was such a gay Caballero that he had to be restrained from riding side saddle. Another gorgeous hunk of man, whom millions of girls sighed over, had his voice dubbed by another actor to disguise its girlish quality. Other male stars, known as AC-DC types, are ambidextrous and can't decide what to do when confronted by "His" and "Hers" towels. In New York they are prominent in all of the arts. They cavort in ballet. They flutter on the Broadway stage. And they are everywhere in television. Wherever there is one you will find others. They are highly organized and indefatigable at assisting each other.   

Although fairies are usually cool toward women, for some reason they seem irresistibly attracted to comediennes. Perhaps being a comedienne is unnatural for a woman, like playing the bass fiddle or pole-vaulting, which may be the reason why they have such an attraction for the limp-wristed set. There always seems something terribly sad about many comediennes, for all their talent, as they are almost inevitably surrounded by these demimales. I once mentioned on such famous comedienne to a friend of mine. "She is terribly amusing," the friend said. Then he added, wistfully: "Of course, she has no alternative."

Once Wilson Mizner, the noted wit, was having lunch at a New York hotel with Marshall Neilan, the director. At an adjoining table were several fairies, giggling as gaily as four suburban housewives having butterscotch sundaes at Schraffts. Annoyed by the girlish carrying-on, Mizner began directing audible disparaging remarks at the group. The giggling died away and the group began to direct some cold glares at Mizner and Neilan. Still Mizner continued to aim his loud barbs until violence seemed imminent. Neilan suddenly became philosophical. "Wouldn't it be strange," he mused, "if on Judgment Day it turned out they were right?" I feel quite sure it won't - but that's their problem. I just wish they would leave show business alone, and stop leaping about with their balloons on television.

We occasionally have fashion shows on our program so I've had a chance to observe at firsthand the havoc that limp-wristed designers and hair dressers and make-up men have wrought upon once beautiful girls. When they finish accentuating the hollow cheeks, the pallor and the blue circles under the eyes, the models look less made-up than embalmed. One night a group of them trooped out modeling bathing suits and they were so skinny and unfeminine I thought it was the mile relay team from the YMCA. Gradually I've become so accustomed to seeing these bony, boyish figures that I was pleasantly surprised one night when one model appeared displaying a full-blown figure with ample curves. Later I commented backstage on how rare it was now to see a model with curves. Our wardrobe lady chuckled cynically. "When she took off that bathing suit and dropped it on the floor," she said, "it bounced for five minutes."

Another lovely girl who managed to escape the ministrations of the fairy Svengalis is the 1961 Miss Universe, Marlene Schmidt. She is a tall, ravishing blonde with a figure like God intended woman to have, without alterations by Slenderella or some delicate designer. I asked her measurements and she told me they were 95-45-95! This was in centimeters, it turned out, but even measured in inches her endowments were opulent. The reason she still possessed her naturally lovely figure and rosy-cheeked, healthy face, I discovered, was that she was a recent refuge from East Germany and our fairy fashion fraternity hadn't gotten their clutches on her yet. Because of all this I've started my campaign to save our starving models by sending them CARE packages. For Christmas I plan to send my friends cards with notes saying that donations in their names have been made to Jinx Falkenburg.

I hope that all red-blooded men will rally to my crusade to have girls look like girls again. If we show our determination I'm sure that women will throw off the tyranny of fairy designers. They have nothing to lose but their falsies. Meantime, I must go now and give a blood transfusion to Suzy Parker

- Jack Paar, December 1961, My Saber Is Bent - Chapter 14 - Fairies and Communists (1961, Pocket Books)   

It's interesting to hear Paar complain about "the exuberantly fussy." When Jack Paar first took over The Tonight Show in 1957, his sidekick was a wonderful character actor that carved an entire career out of playing "the exuberantly fussy." Franklin Pangborn, regularly cast as a hotel clerk, tailor or an eager-to-please bank manager was a familiar comic face in the RKO musicals of the thirties and forties. The various snippets written about Pangborn over the years refer to these fussy and prissy characters that were, indeed, coded homosexual portrayals. I can't help but wonder if Paar referring to "the exuberantly fussy" is taking a dig at his one-time sidekick. Pangborn's stint with Paar did not last long. Most accounts state it was because Pangborn, an often hilarious heel to W.C. Fields in old pictures, was not funny when he had to act as himself. Perhaps, after reading this essay, there was another reason he wasn't retained as Paar's sidekick.

Twelve years after this book, Paar was still complaining about homosexuals and making jokes about the gay movement on his new ABC program Jack Paar Tonite. By the early seventies homosexuals were far more vocal as a minority group. Gays joined the chorus of African-Americans, Native-Americans and women that were vocally demanding equal rights. In 1973, Jack Paar wrote a column for The New York Times denouncing adults that instill racist values in their children. It was ample opportunity for a letter writer to point out Paar's hypocrisy.

"BIGOTED"

To The Editor:

We agree with Jack Paar ("Will Johnny Be Up to Paar) that "every time you tell a kid a word like 'spade' you haven't accomplished anything good." One word that Paar himself seems addicted to is "fairy." Let him try it out on some of the homosexuals he knows ...

We guess that those of us in the Gay movement he calls "amateur fairies" will have to go on battling until "professionals" like Paar are forced to shut their bigoted yaps - in print and on the airwaves. We clocked an average of five anti-homosexual jokes on each of his first week's shows. Paar, we think, is not the fellow to talk about dignity.

Bruce Voeller
President
Gay Activists Alliance
New York City

Jack Paar Tonite was floundering in the ratings. Paar couldn't seem to figure out why. ABC's then vice-president, Tom Mackin, remembers, "He telephoned me one day to ask if I had any thoughts on the show. I wanted to tell him he was up to his old campaigns against marijuana, long hair and other manifestations of the sixties. It was as though he had been asleep for ten years - had never seen The Graduate, Hair or All in the Family. He and his TV guests still used such terms as 'fairies,' 'dykes' and 'fags.' The Gay Activist Alliance announced it would picket the theater where Paar's show aired. In a letter to Paar that reached my desk, the GAA said, 'In the course of one week you have managed to offend and infuriate 20 million Americans with a barrage of anti-homosexual jokes and innuendos.' Privately, I thought that if 20 million people were watching the show, I would encourage Paar to keep it up. The audience was about half that size. But I also wanted to tell him that doing 20 minutes on the size of Goldie Hawn's breasts no longer shocked TV audiences ... but being in the public relations business, I said none of these things. As the ratings plummeted, Paar called me several times to ask me what I thought of this program or that. I sensed that he did not want advice ..."

Paar was no coward, however, and he also knew how to create compelling television. Paar said he would invite two members of the GAA to come on Jack Paar Tonite to explain why he "and other entertainers should not call homosexuals 'fairies,' 'dykes' and 'fags." During the episode that aired February 28, 1973, Paar actually apologized for his deluge of anti-gay remarks. This infuriated Nicholas von Hoffman, a Washington Post commentator and regular contributor to 60 Minutes. He felt it was despicable of Paar to invite such characters on his show while "permitting their opinions to go unchallenged." Clearly Hoffman had never read the book My Saber is Bent. Jack Paar restrained from further anti-gay remarks, although one could argue that was because his show was canceled shortly thereafter. He no longer had a forum to spout his opinions and was increasingly viewed as an anachronism. It seems unlikely that he had truly changed his attitude after speaking with members of the GAA. Jack Paar never shirked from exposing the potentially uncouth thoughts swimming through his subconscious. He was an intriguing guy, any way you look at it.

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Archive of Kliph Nesteroff articles
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Comments

[texas scott]

It's amazing to me how simple it all is.To hold racist or homophobic thoughts can be traced back to just plain not knowing others of a different race or sexual preference.Gives new meaning to the phrase "Ignorance is bliss".
Nice post,Kliph.

[QuizmasterChris]

I have a couple of Jack Paar books including this one, and hadn't yet gotten around to reading them. Well, they just got bumped up the list! Bizarre and disturbing.

Fans of the paranoid "faeries and commies" types would enjoy the series of "[Fill in the Blank] Confidential" books by Lee Mortimer and Jack Lee.

[QuizmasterChris]

Sorry, that's Jack Lait.

[Larry Craig]

For a guy so willing to publicly excoriate the manhood of certain others, the title of Paar's book, My Saber Is Bent, is rather eyebrow-raising. I see that Wikipedia mentions that Paar was married (twice), but so were Ted Haggard and George Rekers. In the spirit of so many virulently anti-gay blowhards, I'm guessing that ol' Jack's saber did its fair share of, um, dueling

[John M]

very strange man, very bizarre ideas, but a decided product of his time. when I was growing up during the 60s, making fun of gays in my blue-collar neighborhood was, pardon the pun, par for the course. racism faded faster, in many respects.

I never knew this about paar and always admired his wit and tv presence. this puts a big dent in my opinion of him. as larry craig said above, I have to wonder about the virulently homophobic. people do tend to hate those most like themselves, or those whose qualities they most envy but covertly fear and cover with bravado.

one weird dude, that paar.

[Jim]

"A product of his time"? I don't think so, John. It's one thing to tell "fag" jokes to your pat-his-ass-while-playing-football buddies at a 1960s bar. It's another to go deliberately aside a full chapter of a book that's an investment of a major publishing house.

Paar obviously concealed deep-seated issues he refused to deal with, whether something happened in the military he doesn't wish to admit, or he felt some kind of gay Hollywood conspiracy was responsible for his numerous career ills (gays, as Kliph suggests, would have been a more palatable target to the mainstream in the '60s than, say, the Jews).

The fact Paar bashed Communists but simultaneously praised Fidel Castro speaks more than I could.

The Paar who was Jack Benny's summer replacement in 1947 uncloaked himself to be a petulant self-martyr who blamed a network for him walking off his show over something that was funny because he decreed it was. And he should know because he was Jack Paar. If you want to know what people really think, give them money and power. They then decide they're in a position to say and do anything they want without impugnity, and can do no wrong.

To paraphrase Maxwell Smart: "If only he had used his considerable intellect for niceness..."

[Andrew]

Around the time Paar invited the two gay activists on his 1970s show, The Credibility Gap radio comedy team (Harry Shearer, David L. Lander, Michael McKean and Richard Beebe) did a Tonight Show parody ("Where's Johnny," available on the A GREAT GIFT IDEA album) where Johnny Carson invted two gay guests to discuss homosexuality. The skit ended with the arrival of Don Rickles who proceeded to gay-bash to general laughter and appluase.

[Larry Howard]

I used to watch Paar's ABC series, but gave up before that GAA segment. No matter what his excuses, by that time Paar was sadly past his prime.

There was a documentary, broadcast on PBS I think, about Paar some years ago. Talking about his early radio days, Paar breathtakingly described Jack Benny as "a handsome man." My wife later asked me, "Was Jack Paar gay?" I replied, I don't think so," but I wonder now.

[j]

Paar's book book seems an expression of the attitudes at the time. Nearly all written references to homosexuality pre-Stonewall were automatically negative.

"... no newspaper column took him to task..." as if something like that might have happened. That would have been unimaginable in the early 1960's.

Read through old literature and you will find countless passages which are unacceptable today.

Writings from the past should be read in the context of their times, not with a viewpoint that has advanced nearly fifty years.

[del sol]

Very interesting historical piece -- wasn't previously aware of these unfortunate tendencies in Jack Paar's personality and behavior. His b&w television heyday ended a little before my childhood years spent gazing at the tube. Here's some side commentary:

Fidel Castro did not initially tie himself to the Communist label. During his first year in power (1959) he criticized autocratic Communist states and sought American approval for successful overthrow of the hated Batista regime. Ahead of his time in media savvy, he sought to charm the masses through network TV, at one point being interviewed by Ed Sullivan. By 1960 this media campaign clearly failed to get the desired thumbs-up from the Eishenhower administration (annoyed by industry nationalizations in Cuba, Ike began plans for the Bay of Pigs landing), so Fidel quickly switched gears and publicly embraced Khrushchev. I'll bet that, very early on, when Castro personally met with Paar, he treated him very attentively, charming the daylights out of the television host.

Paar's wailing in chapter 14 about how gay film & theater actors in mid-century "got away" with behavior that landed Oscar Wilde in prison several decades earlier speaks, unwittingly, to a noteworthy degree of positive, behind-the-scenes change in social position for pre-Stonewall gays. For blacks, women and gays, social change didn't just suddenly take place in years between 1963-1973. Instead, the "sudden burst" of high-profile activism during these years (along with earlier civil rights organizing) arguably represents a very belated, decades-in-waiting recognition of the slow tectonic movements below the surface of American/European culture. Paar, through the lens of his homophobic paranoia, correctly recognized the changes gradually occurring around him. In parallel to Paar, political organizing by fundamentalist Christian began in earnest during the mid-1970s because they, and leaders like Jerry Falwell and Anita Bryant, understood better than anyone the degree of leftward change that 20th century urban life and the postwar countercultures had brought to the American mainstream
-- their reactionary views had been viewed as mainstream two or three decades earlier.

Also, in this light, "sexism, racism and homophobia" didn't quite "exist more or less unabated" when Paar wrote this book in the early 1960s. The federal decree to integrate the Army in 1948, Brown vs. Board of Education in 1954, and the Montgomery bus boycott of 1955-56 were historical milestones setting the stage for later civil rights achievements in the mid- to-late 1960s. Racism and Jim Crow still thrived in 1960, yet a significant retreat was already underway. As for sexism, abatement surfaced decades earlier when the suffrage movement achieved victory in 1920, at a time when actor Mary Pickford achieved renown as a female entertainment mogul. By the late 1950s, Hollywood denizens such as Lucille Ball and Donna Reed had gained executive control over their own projects (their decision, however, to portray housewives on television tacitly recognized the limits of sexual equality in that era). Meanwhile, as Paar's book first reached book stores, Betty Friedan began writing a book of her own. In comparison to racism and sexism, relief from homophobia occurred more slowly and more quietly.

Jack Paar did not berate the mid-century developments in civil rights, and it appears from what I read here that he openly embraced them. In a limited way, he pokes fun at successful women (in entertainment) but prefers to avoid specifics when so doing and does not seem to challenge these women's right to their own success. Instead, he feels free to slam homosexuality and bisexuality -- as if he were creating the future voice of Archie Bunker. As as result, I do think Paar's attitudes generally reflect his times, although I also agree with the comment that his spending an entire chapter on gay-bashing is pretty striking. A typical "erudite" homophobe would have made no more than a brief, passing comment or two regarding their fears, or else wrote nothing at all about them for public consumption. Don't ask & don't tell was pretty standard for Paar's peers.

[Andrew]

Johnny Carson wasn't much more enlightened, either, what with his incessant jokes about Wayne Newton (which only ended when Newton stormed into Carson's office past the NBC security and physically threatened him)...

[Bobo Hoho]

Del Sol, best comment online I've ever read. Yes, I'm commenting on a comment. Interesting article too.

[Michael Powers]

Paar was much bigger during his Tonight Show reign than Carson ever was, in terms of continuously riveting the country's attention and getting everyone talking the next day, which practically never happened during Carson's comparatively soporific stewardship of the show. Even so, when this book was published, during the lengthy period when Paar's career was white-hot, this chapter garnered little or no extra publicity at all as far as I know, leading one to think that the problem here, sadly, was as much with the culture as a whole as with Paar himself (who was, as mentioned at the outset of this fine piece, nutty as a fruitcake, which in turn made his television programs so utterly compelling). The first installment of Paar's "Tonight" show exists, along with the whole run of his brief post-Tonight prime time series, brilliant conversations which make today's infomercials that pass for talk shows seem unwatchable by comparison. There's also the opening episode of a daytime talk show he did some years before his late night show in which he is the very personification of charisma. I've watched these shows at the Paley Center for Media (formerly the Museum of Television and Radio) dozens of times over the years, and I think some of them have appeared on DVD. This was anything but a politically correct time, though; black people rode in the backs of buses down south and homosexuality was literally a crime for which men were jailed even in Manhattan. As is the case with anything else (Griffith's "The Birth of a Nation" especially springs to mind), we have to judge everything within the context of its time, always shockingly different when you're turning the clock back five or more decades. The chapter in Paar's book is excruciatingly sickening but wasn't seen as especially remarkable upon its high-profile publication, which gives us an unfortunate clue as to what the nation was like at the time.

[Larry Grogan]

Wow...I always knew Paar was a first class neurotic, but not a homophobe. I also had no idea that one of my all-time fave character actors, Franklin 'Watch the birdie Spanky' Pangborn was a sidekick of his. You learn something new every day!

[Mark Allen]

Fascinating post Kliph! Great read...

[Fbks]

Jack Paar was not a reactionary, he understood where he was, and he was reachable. He did listen and he changed his mind. Evidence exists that later (maybe too late?) he realized his own bigotry and sought amends. Johnny Carson changed and by 1985 or so dropped the sneers at Gays and others. I do not believe a bigot can or should be forgiven, but what I do know and understand from my own 60 years on this planet, is that much of the serious change came about because once rock solid racists, homophobes, and other bigots thought it over and decided to change. If Paar were here today and given a chance he'd refute his past statements. Would it be opportunistic? I admit I am not sure. My guess Paar hated cruelty and viciousness; he shied away from dogma and resisted absolutes. Watching him from afar I sense a reasonable man. Had he defended "fairies" in "My Saber is Bent" would have destroyed his career. Better he said nothing, perhaps.

[unclesmedley]

"He obviously worked very hard to cull a series of quotes from other respected pop culture figures (Kovacs, Levant, Nathan and King) [who], at some point, made a disparaging remark about gays."

C'mon... Do you really believe that this sort of talk was unusual back in those days? This was the cultural default setting--and to smugly dismiss an historical reality, instead of expressing gratitude for the advances made since then, is unseemly, juvenile and derivative.

We're talking fifty years ago. Jack Paar was to television what Les Paul was to recorded music, or Chaplin to film. Observe your enlightenment through the prism of a half century, and then speak to us of your own accomplishments and rectitude. In the meantime, look to some real, live bad guys, and leave the well-meaning and departed alone.

[Michael Powers]

From the previous comment, by UncleSmedley: "Jack Paar was to television what Les Paul was to recorded music, or Chaplin to film." That's perfectly true and exquisitely well said. I'm wondering if this poster is any kin to Smedley Butler, the author of "War Is a Racket."

[Michael Powers]

Unclesmedley is exactly right about Paar's book chapter being the "cultural default setting" of that time. Brilliantly well said, and exactly what many of the rest of us had been groping for in our comments.

[Michael Powers]

One more thing that someone needs to say at some point: Jack Paar was, with the arguable exception of Dick Cavett, the most entertaining and informative television talk show host ever. The quality of the Tonight Show fell so far so fast when Johnny Carson took the job over that it was miserable to live through. And, again with the scintillating exception of Cavett, it was all downhill from there.

[Proud White Het]

Paar appeared on the Tonight Show with Carson, exactly once, in the 1980s. Johnny's first question, of course, was why Paar gave the show up. What I remember most was Paar telling a story about how he had inadvertently splashed the front of his pants a little with water while using the sink, and three gay makeup men with blow driers were needed to get his pants back into shape. Johnny wasn't convinced that the source of the wetness wasn't Paar himself, but I remember thinking it was curious that Paar needed to comment on gayness.

[Judy Carodine]

As we can see Paar was right. The homosexuals have infiltrated movies and television. I sincerely wish, wiTH ALL of my heart that they had stayed in closet.

[ebrown2]

"A typical "erudite" homophobe would have made no more than a brief, passing comment or two regarding their fears, or else wrote nothing at all about them for public consumption. Don't ask & don't tell was pretty standard for Paar's peers."

Posted by: del sol | May 25, 2010 at 01:58 PM

Speaking of Alexander King, he had this to say shortly before he died in 1965:

"King moves on to a discussion of his book, noting that the word "fruit" in the title refers to homosexuals, whom he believes many women date and marry. Although he reveals that he is puzzled by this practice, he assures Griffin that he is not in favor of banning homosexuality..."

http://www.paleycenter.org/collection/item/?q=homosexuals&p=2&item=T:06239