William (Billy) Haines was a Hollywood queer legend. The only openly gay movie star who defied the major Studio’s blatant homophobia, and yet from 1930-1933 was their most successful male star. In fact this record as the Number One Box Office Star who was/is openly gay sadly remains unchallenged some 85 years later.
Haines was discovered by a talent scout in NY and whisked away to Hollywood in 1922. Just four years later his smash hit movie Brown of Harvard made him a major star. A handsome rugged man he created a screen persona as a wisecracking, arrogant wit which set him apart from the other matinee idols of the day.
That same year he met and fell in love with Jimmie Shields who got some work as a film extra, and the pair defying Hollywood’s unspoken code of practice moved in together in a house that Haines rather grandly redecorated. Their home became a hub for some of the most glamourous parties of the time and a brand new actress starting out who had just been renamed Joan Crawford and who was a very close friend declared them as ‘happiest married couple in Hollywood’.
However with the advent of the 1930’s and the economic depression Hollywood started to face a moral backlash against some of its ‘fast-living behavior’. Louis Mayer the head of MGM sent for Haines and gave him an ultimatum. Get rid of Shields or never work in Hollywood again. Without a hesitation he replied that if Mayer would lose his wife, then he would lose Jimmie. He was fired on the spot.
The easy way out would have been like other gay men in Hollywood at the time such as Cary Grant who married Virginia Merrill in 1934 BUT still lived with his lover Randolph Scott.
Haines had already decorated Joan Crawford’s new mansion and now offered to do the same for Carole Lombard without charging her a fee. Influenced by all the sumptuous movie sets the stars worked in all day, he created the same outrageous glamour for them at home. With a couple of years he became the most successful interior designer and in great demand not by the Hollywood set but by some of the rich conservatives of California like Betsy Bloomingdale where his sexuality was never an issue.
This short documentary from 2001 one of the first ever made by celebrated gay duo Randy Barbato and Fenton Bailey fills in some of the gaps of Haines’s life with Shields his partner of over 50 years. It is unquestionably a beautiful love story and places Haines as the King of Hollywood in a much more authentic light than the King of England who would abdicate for that very questionable relationship of his.
Out of the Closet, Off the Screen:The Life of William Haines may seem a little dated and a tad like a Lifetime Movie of the Week now, but it’s an essential part of LGBT history for its portrayal of a this remarkable gay men who refused to deny his true self. And until someone (!) wakes up and realise that his story is truly worthy of a fully fledged documentary/biopic, then this will have to do.
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