In Gore Vidal's 1968 satire on the politics of the Hollywood star system his protagonist, Myra Breckenridge, espoused a theory of natural A-list selection based on an ever-repeating order of movie archetypes. Every age, Myra believed, must have its Marilyn Monroes, its Clark Gables, its Bette Davies, and its Jimmy Stewarts, for without these stalwarts safely installed at the cornerstones of the industry, Joe Public's deep connection to the Hollywood fantasy would be broken forever.
By and large, Myra was right. There may be many left-of-field actors in L.A., creating personas and characters that don't tie in with the received system, but in essence they all are, and always will be, B-list.
The current Hollywood A-list reads like an updated who's who from any of the industry's golden eras. Tom Hanks is a modern version of Jimmy Stewart's all-American everyman, George Clooney is Cary Grant's devil-may-care debonair for the cineplex crowd. Julia Roberts is a latter day Norma Shearer, with the same waxen mixture of sympathetic vulnerability and determination, while Cameron Diaz fills Marilyn Monroe's shoes adequately, as the dumb, kooky blonde who actually has a brain.
But there has been one archetype lurking in the shadows all along, one even Vidal didn't categorise. Perhaps this reticence is because the original belonged firmly in the position of supporting actor and, in line with the stringent laws of the Hollywood bible, never came out of the closet. Publicists will tell you that Rupert Everett's acceptance into the higher echelons of the Hollywood elite, based on a type-cast portrayal of gay men on screen aligned with his much vaunted sexual preference, is something almost revolutionary, but only the public declaration of his homosexuality, on screen and off, is new. The origins of his persona rest firmly on the shoulders of character actors such as Tony Randall and Paul Lynde, who regularly played a kind of asexual support to full-blooded heterosexual heart-throbs such as Rock Hudson and Cary Grant.
While the sexual orientation of these B-men was never declared, their homosexuality was implicit, not least in their devotion to the secured happiness of the leading man. Everett's Hollywood breakthrough film, My Best Friend's Wedding, eschewed the male bonding of Tony Randall's era for a new kind of relationship, paralleling the objectives of heterosexual women and homosexual men, while bringing the sexual preferences of the best friend out into the open. Again, this was nothing new. The straight woman's best gay friend had already been a staple for several years, with actors such as Nathan Lane and Steve Zahn fulfilling the role for Michelle Pfieffer in Frankie and Johnny, and Winona Ryder in Reality Bites. What made My Best Friend's Wedding different was that Rupert Everett's character was not only central to the film's plot resolution, but his version of the gay best friend was the life and soul of the movie. Everett's polished, almost other-worldly beauty was another departure from the camp, mousy stereotype, making him a non-threatening quasi-romantic object for the film's target female audience. And his status as Julia Roberts's wise pretend-boyfriend all but eclipsed the heterosexual object of her affection.
But although the closet door was opened, and a beautiful social butterfly had emerged, the central rule was still firmly in place. In 1993, Jonathan Demme's Philadelphia was seen as a breakthrough film in the portrayal of homosexuality on the Hollywood screen. On the surface it charted the journey of a gay protagonist dealing with corporate homophobia as he lost his battle with AIDS.
Demme, however, was very shrewd in how he went about telling his story. Firstly he chose Tom Hanks, the American everyman, to play the gay lead, and then he filtered the action through the eyes of Denzel Washington's heterosexual lawyer. Mass audience identification was uppermost in Demme's framework, so much so that virtually no on-screen reference was made to Hanks's sexual relationship with his partner, played by Anthony Banderas. Unlike Washington and his screen wife, Hanks and Banderas were not even seen in bed together. This lack of actual sexual identification is fundamental to the law of sympathetic gay portrayals in the mainstream.
So while Rupert Everett may have re-created the Mr Nice Gay archetype in his own image, far from being able to circumvent this crucial rule, he has been swallowed by it. In his latest role, he plays Madonna's gay best friend who accidentally fathers her child. This is the Hollywood denial of real homosexuality taken full circle. In The Next Best Thing, not only does Rupert's character, Robert, not pursue a homosexual life of his own, but his off-screen desires are replaced with the desires of the audience. His character, which to all intents and purposes was branded "better" than the heterosexual romantic interest in My Best Friend's Wedding, actually replaces a heterosexual romantic interest in The Next Best Thing, giving the straight female demographic what they want. A gorgeous gay man who isn't gay after all. Director John Schlesinger disagrees. "I think the film presents a modern real-life story in a very honest fashion," he says, "and it doesn't shirk from dealing with gay issues. In many films you never get a sense of the private life of the gay characters - here, you are introduced to a circle of Robert's friends, as well as to a man whose desire for a more serious relationship with Robert is doomed by Robert's commitment to his child. I think we bring some contemporary, valid issues to this story."
The contemporary, valid issues Schlesinger brings to the story are, of course, based only on stereotyped disparities between heterosexual and homosexual lifestyles. Robert's commitment to his child is a commitment to the perceived heterosexual lifestyle, which includes his relationship with the mother of his that child. He is unable to commit to a romance with another man because such a relationship would threaten the heterosexual status quo. Madonna's character, on the other hand, is free to pursue a heterosexual romance of her own, because although the ensuing relationship might complicate the family structure, it essentially stays within the boundaries of perceived normality.
Next up for Rupert is Unconditional Love, directed by P.J. Hogan, who also took the chair on My Best Friend's Wedding. Currently shooting in London, the film tells the story of a closeted gay pop star who develops a relationship with an obsessive, but sympathetic female fan. Again, the story is told through the eyes of the female protagonist, and once more the girl will get her gay guy by the final reel. Mr Nice Gay may have come dancing out of the closet, but Hollywood has found a way to keep his archetype as asexually fixed as Rock Hudson's best friend ever was.
The Next Best Thing is on general release