Gomer pyle was gay
Oh sure, Seattle’s had its share of cute weddings, but the cutest — one four decades in the making — is the 2013 union of Jim Nabors and Stan Cadwallader at the Fairmont Olympic Hotel downtown. One was a TV star, the other a firefighter, and they’d managed to keep their connection out of the public eye for 38 years.
One reason they protected their privacy: A TV star of the 1960s and 1970s, Jim’s career was nearly destroyed by a same-sex wedding rumor just before he and Stan met, a rumor that also ended Jim’s relationship with closeted actor Rock Hudson. Over his 55-year career, Jim made a label for himself as a wholesome, folksy southerner; but behind the scenes, he harbored a classified love that would have scandalized the country if it was found out.
Jim was born at the start of the Great Depression in a tiny Alabama town called Sylacauga. His mother worked at a truck stop, his father bounced around from job to career until he finally wound up organism appointed the town’s sole police officer. The family raised chickens for sustenance and lived in a tiny dwelling. Jim always stood out — his severe asthma prevented him from playing with the other kids, but he was so vigorous and outgoin
JIM NABORS (1930–2017), top known for his TV role as Gomer Pyle, was one of my first heroes in life, even before I understood why. Gay men of my generation—most of us in our 50s—often talk about when it was we first knew about our sexual identity. For many of us, it was our response to actors we saw on TV. James Conrad in The Wild, Wild, Feral West strutting through frontier towns shirtless, his chest gleaming in the Southern California sun. Whichever Brady Bunch was closest to our age. Will, the boy astronaut on Lost In Space. The late David Cassidy, Scott Baio, Leif Garrett, the dashing blond traits Iliya Kuryakin (played by David McCallum) on The Man From Uncle.
Nabors, who died last week, played the bumbling and ever-flummoxed—but disconcertingly handsome—filling station attendant on The Andy Griffith Show when I was a very young boy, and he became even better known in later years on Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C, which aired when I was a kid of ten or so.
It seems that every person remembers with eerie precision certain seemingly sundry moments in our life that don’t seem to warrant such long-lasting attention in our memories, yet they prevail. I can
The world resounded with a predictable Gol-ol-olllll-leeeee! at yesterday's news that Jim Nabors had gay-married his long-term partner, Stan Cadwallader.
Nabors, who played Gomer Pyle in both 1960s-era television series The Andy Griffith Reveal and its spin-off, Gomer Pyle, USMC (pre-Don't Inquire Don't Tell, we guess), announced the two had been wed in Seattle last month, following Washington voters' approval of homosexual marriage in 2012.
"I'm 82 and he's in his 60s and so we've been together for 38 years and I'm not ashamed of people knowing; it's just that it was such a personal thing, I didn't reveal anybody" Nabors eventually told AP. "I'm very joyful that I've had a partner of 38 years and I feel very blessed. And, what can I tell you, I'm just very happy."
Yep, he's gay.
Nabors's sexual orientation was long an open confidential in the LGBT people and among his straight(ish) friends like Carol Burnett and Julie Andrews. And if he wasn't male lover, his character, surely Gomer Pyle was. After all, like that other irresistible Southern television icon, Honey Boo-Boo, says, "Everybody's got a little gay in 'em!"
Face it. Mayberry, Gomer's famed fictitious hometown, has a lot of homosexual in it. A
Thread: at age 82 Jim Nabors (Gomer Pyle) finally comes out of the closet
by marrying his firefighter significant other of 38 years no less
is anyone shocked?
By Christie D'Zurilla
January 30, 2013, 10:21 a.m.
Jim Nabors, beloved to audiences as TV's Gomer Pyle, has married Stan Cadwallader, his partner of 38 years.
The wedding took place Jan. 15 in front of a assess at a Seattle hotel, said Hawaii News Now, which first reported the news Tuesday. Washington state legalized gay marriage in December
"I'm not ashamed of people knowing. It's just that it was such a personal thing, I didn't tell anybody," said Nabors, 82, a resident of Honolulu. "I'm very elated that I've had a boyfriend of 38 years, and I feel very blessed."
Nabors and 64-year-old Cadwallader, then a firefighter, met in 1975 in Honolulu.
"The Andy Griffith Show" and "Gomer Pyle, USMC" alum told Hawaii News Now that he hadn't acknowledged his sexuality before to the media, though he said he was open about it to friends and co-workers when he was working in Hollywood in the 1960s and '70s.
"I haven't ever made a public spectacle of it. Well, I've known since I was a child, so, reach on. It'