Clive Davis — the man credited with discovering Whitney Houston and working with everyone from Aretha Franklin to Bruce Springsteen and Kelly Clarkson — reveals for the first time his bisexuality in his new memoir, The Soundtrack of My Life.
Davis, who has been married and divorced twice, has never before publically addressed his sexuality. In a candid five-page section toward the end of the book, due in stores today, he writes that he first had a sexual encounter with a man during “the era of Studio 54.” “On this night, after imbibing enough alcohol, I was open to responding to his sexual overtures,” writes Davis, who says he had only been with women before. Being with a man, he writes, provided “welcome relief.”
After a period of “soul searching and self-analysis,” Davis separated from his second wife in 1985, and says that he went on to have simultaneous relationships with two women and a man. In 1990, he entered into a “monogamous relationship” with a male doctor, who is not named in the book. Although that relationship ended in 2004, Davis says he has been in a subsequent relationship with another man ever since. Davis writes that his coming out deeply affected his ties with one of his sons, Mitchell: After what Davis calls “one very trying year,” father and son worked out their differences, Davis says.
Good news today from Crain’s Business as they report solid poll results for marriage equality in Illinois:
The survey of 600 adults found that 50 percent support the gay-marriage bill that cleared the state Senate last week and now awaits action in the House. That’s considerably more than the 29 percent who oppose it, with 20 percent saying they don’t know or have mixed feelings on the matter.
As expected, support is strongest in Chicago, with 56 percent backing passage. A majority of 52 percent of suburban residents supports approval, but support drops to a plurality of 48 percent downstate.
The online survey had an accuracy rate of plus or minus 4.7 percent statewide, with wider ranges for numbers specific to Chicago or its suburbs.
Olympic runner Oscar Pistorius recorded a video message for South Africa’s “It Gets Better” website launching this week, but it will not be included due to his current legal troubles.
Organisers of the “It Gets Better, South Africa” campaign against homophobic bullying, due to be launched tomorrow, severed Oscar Pistorius’s connection with it yesterday.
In his video, which will no longer be included in the campaign, Pistorius said: “Just remember that you’re special. You don’t have to worry. You don’t have to change. Take a deep breath and remember ‘It will get better’.”
At a preliminary hearing today for the alleged murder of his girlfriend, Pistorius pleaded “not guilty,” and insisted it was an accident based on his mistaking her for an intruder.
NY-ers are used to the kooks who rant and rave on subway rides. But this one rider had had enough.
I love that the subway car erupts into applause at the 1:33 mark – “I’m a man. And I’m a good man. And I’m a gay man and Jesus loves me. Jesus loves me!”
“If any NFL players happen to read this, I guarantee you’ve played with or against a gay player at some point during your career — that’s simple statistics.
“Guess what? It didn’t make him any less of a player. It didn’t make him any less able to push through conditioning drills, less able to stay awake during meetings, less able to rally for the win when down by 10 with four minutes to go in the game.
“That gay player, whether you knew it or not — he was a teammate. He was your teammate. He was my teammate.
“Just like the coaches go on and on about every preseason: Once you step between those white lines, it doesn’t matter who you are, where you came from, what you believe or when you were born. There’s only one thing that matters, and that’s ‘Can you play?'” – Minnesota Vikings punter Chris Kluwe, writing for Salon.
Timothy McCormick, a 24-year-old gay EMT from Greenwood, Indiana, was killed in an accident early Saturday morning in Indianapolis when the ambulance he was in was struck by a 21-year-old woman WTHI-TV reports had alcohol on her breath when officers spoke with her after the crash.
McCormick was also an Eagle Scout and spent his time at health fairs educating people about CPR.
He made an ‘It Gets Better‘ video posted to YouTube in December 2011, in which he said:
“My name is Tim McCormick. I am an Eagle Scout, college student, and professional EMT living in Indianapolis, Indiana. I am a gay American adult.
I have a brief but short message for you today. I want you to know that It Gets Better. Regardless of who you are. Regardless of your persona. academic, spiritual, professional, or sexual identity.
The things that are happening today are only typical of the hard times in which we live. If you don’t have anything, keep searching. If you’ve lost what you used to have., keep trying. Life isn’t a dress rehearsal, and it’s your time to shine. Right now.”
Very sad when heroes die.
Even though the Boy Scouts of America continue their ban on gay scouts, Timothy is a shining example of what great things can come from the program. His contributions to family, community and society in general make it clear what “gay” scouts can do.
My best thoughts and prayers are with his family and friends.
Thousands of fans are looking forward to this summer’s “The Package” Tour featuring 98 Degrees, NKOTB and Boys II Men. And now comes the news that not only are they reuniting for the tour, but 98 Degrees is in the studio making new music.
But don’t worry fans – Jeff Timmons, founding member of 98 Degrees, promises the fans will get the goods they are looking for. From People Magazine:
Timmons adds that the group isn’t resting on their laurels, they’re back in the studio, working on new music. “We’ve all developed different sounds,” he added. “I’m more R&B. A couple of the other guys are more pop. So it’s fun to put us together and see what we come up with.”
But they’ll still perform many of their old songs this summer when they embark on The Package Tour, a joint tour with New Kids on the Block and Boyz II Men.
“That’s what people remember us for,” Timmons said. “I think our most popular song is ‘I Do,’ which still gets played at weddings. But people also like ‘The Hardest Thing.’ We’ll definitely give them what they want.”
I, for one, am glad to see the guys back together. I loved their music back in the 90s and still do. Great vocals all around.
For the upcoming tour, though, I hope Jeff plans to give the fans not only the music that the fans want, but also at least a hint of the beef cake I know the fans also admire about the guys of 98 Degrees. Here’s a just sample – if you’ve got a Porsche, kids, you don’t keep it in the garage…):
I just spent the last few weeks staging the musical CHICAGO at San Diego Music Theater, which opened Saturday night. I’m very proud of the cast who were all uber-fantastic to work with.
Readers have emailed me asking how it all went. Here’s the review from San Diego’s major newspaper, the San Diego Union-Tribune. Nice mention for me (thanks Union-Tribune) but the credit really goes to the fabu cast:
With its just-opened production of the sharply comic Kander & Ebb musical, San Diego Musical Theatre delivers all that. It’s the kind of polished, propulsive staging that’ll remind you why “Chicago” keeps running endlessly on Broadway.
Ron Kellum directs a versatile (and conspicuously fit) cast led by Kyra Da Costa as the alpha jailbird Velma Kelly and Emma Radwick as the upstart “merry murderess” Roxie Hart. Both bring comic chops and solid vocals to the roles of the antiheroines who wind up competing for dubious celebrity in the crime-fixated Windy City of the 1920s.
Robert J. Townsend steps in smartly as the defense lawyer Billy Flynn, giving this debonair character a nice bite of the cynical. The show’s smaller but still piquant roles also find good matches in Ria Carey as the jail honcho Matron “Mama” Morton (although she could stand to vamp it up a bit more); Jason James as Roxie’s seriously meek husband, Amos; and A. Saunders, who played the gossip scribe Mary Sunshine on Broadway and reprises the role here.
Musical director/conductor and SDMT regular Don Le Master leads a tight 13-piece band that brings loads of saucy personality to such memorable numbers as “All That Jazz,” “Razzle Dazzle” and (especially) “Cell Block Tango.” And choreographer Randy Slovacek stays true to the style and spirit of the late, great Bob Fosse without seeming slavish.
The show’s setting, the Birch North Park Theatre, is a bit of a mixed blessing. The feel of the place fits the piece: “Chicago” is set in 1929, the same year the ornate theater opened as a vaudeville and movie house, as SDMT co-executive director Gary Lewis pointed out before Saturday’s opening-night performance.
But the house’s shallow rake means sight lines can be dicey when the ever-limber “Chicago” dancers get down low on the stage floor.
Still, it’s more than worth a little neck-craning to see that ensemble at work, including such standouts as Jennifer Simpson (Go-to-Hell Kitty), Chuck Saculla (Roxie’s doomed squeeze Fred Casely) and Katie Whalley, who has an amusing turn as an inmate explaining her “creative differences” with her promiscuous boyfriend. (“He saw himself as alive. I saw him as dead.”)
Matthew Novotny’s lighting evokes a certain sepia-toned seediness, and Janet Pitcher’s excellent costumes – black on black on black, with boatloads of bowlers and a spangle here and there – match the musical’s tone of sexy, dark satire.
Kudos for this show? To borrow from “Tango”: They have it comin’.
Here’s a few more pics from the opening night performance (all photos by Ken Jacques):
Emma Radwick as “Roxie”
“Me and My Baby”
“We Both Reached for the Gun”
Robert Townsend and ladies – “All I Care About Is Love”
Kyra Da Costa (“Velma”) and Emma Radwick (“Roxie”) in “Nowadays”
Ria Carey (“Mama Morton”) and Kyra Da Costa (“Velma Kelly”)
