The list of closeted gays from Hollywood's past just seems to get longer and longer. Besides Tony Perkins, Merv Griffin, Raymond Burr, Rock Hudson, Richard Chamberlain, and Tab Hunter to name a few, it appears that the name Van Johnson can be added to the list. Johnson died on Friday in Nyack, New York at the age of 92. The Los Angeles Times and New York Times both avoid any mention of Johnson's sexual orientation and apparent arranged marriage back in 1947 at the directive of MGM chief Louis B. Mayer with Evie Wynn. Her obituary from back in 2004 shows a far different reality from the one engineered by Mayer, et al. It is unfortunate that even in this day and age major stars feel compelled to pretend to be someone other than who they really are. Hopefully, some day soon a star will feel that he/she can be out and not suffer damage to his/her career. Here are some highlights from the Independent's 2004 article:*
In 1999, when Evie was bitter and near poverty, she finally stated that MGM had persuaded her to marry Johnson, one of their top stars of the Forties. "They needed their `big star' to be married to quell rumours about his sexual preferences," she said, "and unfortunately, I was `It' - the only woman he would marry."
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Although rumours quickly circulated that the MGM chief Louis B. Mayer had ordered the union to cover up potential scandal, the truth is cloudy. The writer Arthur Laurents states in his memoirs, a sunny male star caught performing in public urinals once too often was ordered by his studio to get married. His best friends, a young comedian and his wife, divorced so that he could marry the wife.
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She was briefly reconciled with Johnson and travelled with him to London in 1961 when he starred on stage in The Music Man, but the couple finally parted when Johnson began an affair with a member of the show's cast. Ned Wynn writes that his mother told him that Johnson had left her "for a man - a boy, really. He's the lead boy dancer."
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