Tag: Fred Rogers

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Trailer: Fred Rogers Biopic “A Beautiful Day In The Neighborhood”

Tom Hanks as Fred Rogers in ‘A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood’ (image via IMDB)

From a time when decency and empathy were still admired, check out the new trailer for the upcoming Fred Rogers biopic, A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood.

Inspired by an article penned by Tom Junod for Esquire (“Can You Say…Hero?”), two-time Oscar winner Tom Hanks portrays Fred Rogers (Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood) in a timely story of kindness triumphing over cynicism, based on the true story of a real-life friendship between Rogers and Junod.

The official longline reads: “After a jaded magazine writer (Emmy winner Matthew Rhys) is assigned a profile of Fred Rogers, he overcomes his skepticism, learning about empathy, kindness, and decency from America’s most beloved neighbor.”

Earlier this year, it came to light that Rogers referred to himself as sexually fluid.

According to Maxwell King’s 2018 biography of Rogers, The Good Neighbor: The Life and Work of Fred Rogers, the TV host and puppeteer is quoted from a conversation with one of his friends, Dr. William Hirsch, regarding his own sexuality as saying, “Well, you know, I must be smack in the middle. Because I have found women attractive, and I have found men attractive.”

In theaters November 22.

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Fred Rogers, Iconic TV Host, Was Likely Bisexual

Fred Rogers (photo – Rogelio A. Galaviz C./Flickr – CC license)

Folks have been a bit gobsmacked over the news that Mr. Rogers – yes, the ‘Mr. Rogers’ – considered himself bisexual.

An excerpt from The Good Neighbor by Maxwell King, references a 1974 interview Rogers did with the New York Times and also a conversation with Rogers’ friend, Dr. William Hirsch.

In the Times interview, Rogers admitted he wasn’t a he-man in the model of ‘John Wayne.’

And in a chat with Hirsch, Rogers apparently admitted he had “found women to be attractive, and I have found men attractive.”

Before you get too concerned as to whether Fred was some two-timing cad on the down low – never fear, our hero’s reputation is completely intact. According to King, Rogers was “absolutely faithful to his marriage vows.”

In addition to his long-running, popular children’s television show on PBS, Rogers was a musician, a puppeteer and a Presbyterian minister.

Over the course of his career, he was awarded 40 honorary degrees, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, and a Peabody Award.

He was inducted into the Television Hall of Fame in 1999.

Rogers died a few years later of stomach cancer in 2003.