Former M*A*S*H* star David Ogden Stiers says he is gay

[Moongirl]

MSNBC.com


Former ‘M*A*S*H’ star says he is gay
David Ogden Stiers says recent work as voice actor led him to stay closeted
Access Hollywood
updated 3:00 p.m. PT, Wed., May 6, 2009


David Livingston / Getty Images file
David Ogden Stiers, who played Major Charles Winchester on TV's "M*A*S*H," has come out.

LOS ANGELES - David Ogden Stiers, the actor who is best known for playing Major Charles Winchester on TV’s “M*A*S*H,” has come out.

“I am (gay),” the 66-year-old actor said in an interview with the blog Gossip-Boy.com. “Very proud to be so.”

Ogden Stiers revealed that his recent successful career as a voice actor caused him to remain closeted for so many years.

“I enjoy working and even though many have this idealistic belief that the entertainment industry and studios like Walt Disney are gay friendly. For the most part they are, but that doesn’t mean for them that business does not come first. It’s a matter of economics,” he said. “Most of my more notable work in the last two decades has been as a voice actor. Certainly, I’ve done television appearances, be they recurring or guest roles, and numerous motion picture and documentary stints, but a lot of my income has been derived from voicing Disney and family programming. What they might allow in a more known actor, they prefer not having to deal with in minor players.”

Ogden Stiers’ voice credits include the characters Cogsworth in “Beauty and the Beast,” both Ratcliffe and Wiggins in “Pocahontas,” and the Archdeacon in “The Hunchback of Notre Dame.”

Despite the pressure he felt to remain closeted, the actor said he has no ill will toward his former employers and admits that his own fear might be to blame.

“Many of my fears were in modern times self-invented. I’ve been working internally on whether they were the problem or if I just continued using them as an excuse long after the call for conservative private lives passed,” he explained.


“From the late 1980s until about seven or eight years ago, you would find certain individuals coming up to you, me, and advocating the position that since we were doing family fare that it would be best were the actors to maintain a certain palatability to parents,” he continued. “These parties likely had heard rumors or harbored suspicions about me and wanted to make sure no embarrassing incidents were forthcoming. Cogsworth, the character I did on ‘Beauty and the Beast’ could be a bit flamboyant on screen, because basically he is a cartoon, but they didn’t want Cogsworth to become Disney’s gay character, because it got around a gay man was playing him. I haven’t witnessed such things occurring in a long, long time.

“I conclude that the work I do now no longer comes attached to once popular discriminations.”

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URL: Former ‘M*A*S*H’ star says he is gay - Access Hollywood - msnbc.com



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[Sylkyn]

I KNEW IT!! My gay-dar has been going off for years about him (I love this guy...always have) and it's finally paid off! YES! I love being right!!

[A*O]

I doubt this will come as shocking news...

[NicoleWasHere]

Someone's gonna have to show me his MASH character, because I don't remember which one Winchester is.

[Lobelia]

Not a shocker. He played that prim little-old-lady character a little too well.

[A*O]

Someone's gonna have to show me his MASH character, because I don't remember which one Winchester is.

He was the tall Bostonian WASP into classical music who shared a tent with Hawkeye and BJ.

[NicoleWasHere]

^ I'll have to watch MASH tonight, then, because I still don't remember. Thanks, though.

[RevellingInSane]

Some people thought he was straight?

[msdeb]

Charles Emerson Winchester the third.

[tkdgirl]

I doubt this will come as shocking news...

Exactly.

[BITTER]

I was hoping it was Harry Morgan. He's HOT.

[ur_next_ex]

Being Gay Cannot Possibly Be as "Normal" and "Acceptable" as Special Groups Would Have You Think It Is If A Man has To Hide in a Closet For 35 years in Order To Maintain an Acceptable Living Income.

[DitaPage*]

Good for him. No one has to ever publically 'come out' but when they do, it shows that there's nothing to hide... i wish more stars did this. Of course they can't... but it must be horrible to stay in the closet.

[NicoleWasHere]

Charles Emerson Winchester the third.

Thank you! I know exactly who he is, now.

[lurkur]

Being Gay Cannot Possibly Be as "Normal" and "Acceptable" as Special Groups Would Have You Think It Is If A Man has To Hide in a Closet For 35 years in Order To Maintain an Acceptable Living Income.

Normal is defined by the average, which is skewed toward the majority when a majority exists. No one ever said gays were the majority.

And the second part of your statement is circular, but nonetheless expresses the reasoning behind his choice anyway. Being gay cannot possibly be acceptable if a man has to be closeted to be accepted? It isn't acceptable to all people, which is why people decide to stay closeted. That doesn't prove that what they are doing is unacceptable, it proves the other people are intolerant.