Anything Goes by John Barrowman; Carole E. Barrowman Page B
Authors: John Barrowman; Carole E. Barrowman
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miles trying to figure out if we were nuts or just, well, fucking nuts. Another time, as my mum and dad’s plane was leaving San Diego International Airport, Marilyn and I climbed out on to one of the observation decks (this was pre-9/11), and dropped our jeans in tribute. According to my mum and dad, the passengers cheered wildly when the pilot announced that ‘someone was getting a royal send-off.’
In my second summer at Opryland, Marilyn and I were assigned to a show called Way Out West. A number of the songs we performed were from Oklahoma! – and, trust me, after singing songs from that musical day after day, it’s easy to see why ‘poor Jud is dead.’
The summer before, after I’d finished my show, I’d walk across the park to watch another performer, Michael Clowers, dance in a different production. He was probably one of the best dancers at Opryland and he had an incredible smile. I thought he was sexy and for the longest time I never flirted or approached him in any way, I just watched him dance. Occasionally, I’d catch a glimpse of him at one of the gay clubs in Nashville – a place where many of the Opryland performers gathered to watch one of our wardrobe guys do his drag show, a wicked ‘Le Jazz Hot’ from Victor Victoria. The show was brilliant, but he had to perform in the worst area in Nashville in order to distance himself from any direct association with Opryland, which was a lovely slice of irony because it seemed to me that almost everyone who worked at Opryland was gay anyway.
Living in such a gay community was, in fact, a kind of liberation for me. Although I never felt as if I’d been ‘in the closet’, I was conscious of being truly myself for the first time in my life. I do think that being part of a group where, gay or not gay, we acceptedeach other and marked territory by our talent not our sexual preference made all the difference. Having said that, those years of puberty and adolescence were never really years of keeping myself hidden; instead they were all about growing comfortable with all parts of myself, and my sexuality was only one of those parts.
When a group of my closest high-school friends came to Nashville to visit me, I kept my Opry friends around and did not change who I was becoming. I remember thinking that my life so far was turning out okay, and my schoolmates would either accept me or they wouldn’t; we’d either stay in touch or we wouldn’t. With a couple of exceptions, we have.
The Nashville summer nights saw my Barrowman party gene kick in, and with a little help from my friends I threw some great bashes. We were all between eighteen and twenty-one years of age, all far from home, and there wasn’t much we didn’t do. At one of these parties, I finally plucked up the courage to ask Michael Clowers if he wanted to go swimming in the apartment complex’s pool.
I was a tit bipsy, I mean a bit tipsy, and so was he. In the still of the Nashville night, the stars shimmered like sequins. I kept my eyes on them even as I sensed Michael gliding slowly across the swimming pool toward me. The water rippled slightly as he slid on top of me and cupped his hand under my head. Then it happened: my first gay kiss. To this day, it remains one of the most romantic kisses of my life. As far as I know, the recipient of that slow sensational snog is now a choreographer for the Radio City Music Hall, but in 1986 he was in my arms in a swimming pool in Tennessee. It hadn’t taken much flirting on my part to get him into the pool, and that kiss led to, well, let me just say, ‘Uh oh, those summer nights …’
The sad part was that, despite both of us being comfortable with being gay, the threat of HIV and AIDS loomed large in the late eighties, and so taking the plunge, so to speak, and participating inthe complete sex act scared the hell out of us. He and I still had a lot of fun, though, and that night in the pool led to a few more romantic evenings under the
In my second summer at Opryland, Marilyn and I were assigned to a show called Way Out West. A number of the songs we performed were from Oklahoma! – and, trust me, after singing songs from that musical day after day, it’s easy to see why ‘poor Jud is dead.’
The summer before, after I’d finished my show, I’d walk across the park to watch another performer, Michael Clowers, dance in a different production. He was probably one of the best dancers at Opryland and he had an incredible smile. I thought he was sexy and for the longest time I never flirted or approached him in any way, I just watched him dance. Occasionally, I’d catch a glimpse of him at one of the gay clubs in Nashville – a place where many of the Opryland performers gathered to watch one of our wardrobe guys do his drag show, a wicked ‘Le Jazz Hot’ from Victor Victoria. The show was brilliant, but he had to perform in the worst area in Nashville in order to distance himself from any direct association with Opryland, which was a lovely slice of irony because it seemed to me that almost everyone who worked at Opryland was gay anyway.
Living in such a gay community was, in fact, a kind of liberation for me. Although I never felt as if I’d been ‘in the closet’, I was conscious of being truly myself for the first time in my life. I do think that being part of a group where, gay or not gay, we acceptedeach other and marked territory by our talent not our sexual preference made all the difference. Having said that, those years of puberty and adolescence were never really years of keeping myself hidden; instead they were all about growing comfortable with all parts of myself, and my sexuality was only one of those parts.
When a group of my closest high-school friends came to Nashville to visit me, I kept my Opry friends around and did not change who I was becoming. I remember thinking that my life so far was turning out okay, and my schoolmates would either accept me or they wouldn’t; we’d either stay in touch or we wouldn’t. With a couple of exceptions, we have.
The Nashville summer nights saw my Barrowman party gene kick in, and with a little help from my friends I threw some great bashes. We were all between eighteen and twenty-one years of age, all far from home, and there wasn’t much we didn’t do. At one of these parties, I finally plucked up the courage to ask Michael Clowers if he wanted to go swimming in the apartment complex’s pool.
I was a tit bipsy, I mean a bit tipsy, and so was he. In the still of the Nashville night, the stars shimmered like sequins. I kept my eyes on them even as I sensed Michael gliding slowly across the swimming pool toward me. The water rippled slightly as he slid on top of me and cupped his hand under my head. Then it happened: my first gay kiss. To this day, it remains one of the most romantic kisses of my life. As far as I know, the recipient of that slow sensational snog is now a choreographer for the Radio City Music Hall, but in 1986 he was in my arms in a swimming pool in Tennessee. It hadn’t taken much flirting on my part to get him into the pool, and that kiss led to, well, let me just say, ‘Uh oh, those summer nights …’
The sad part was that, despite both of us being comfortable with being gay, the threat of HIV and AIDS loomed large in the late eighties, and so taking the plunge, so to speak, and participating inthe complete sex act scared the hell out of us. He and I still had a lot of fun, though, and that night in the pool led to a few more romantic evenings under the
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