The late Kenneth Williams recalled in his Diaries an encounter with a young cockney criminal who, although he claimed to be straight, had gone home with dozens of homosexuals. Most of these men were masculine types, and the criminal would never have guessed that they were gay if it were not for the fact that they all owned Judy Garland records. "That always gave them away," he said.
Few gay men today collect Judy Garland records, and even Barbra Streisand and Bette Midler have seen their legions of gay fans diminish. But, according to an exhibition called Nobody is Perfect, that opened this week at Berlin's Gay Museum, lesbians and gay men still cherish screen idols - but not always those you might expect.
"Heteros have idols too, but gays and lesbians have traditionally had far fewer role models and idols play a very important role there. Gays and lesbians have no choice but to look at the world in a different way and read things differently. In that context, idols and people you can yearn for can play a life-saving role," says Manuela Kay, one of the show's curators.
Some of the stars featured in the exhibition, such as Keanu Reeves and Jean Claude van Damme, are clearly sex objects for most of their gay fans. But the relationship between fan and idol is often more a more complicated mixture of sex appeal, psychological identification and self-irony.
Many visitors to the museum are surprised to discover that Bruce Willis is an idol for lesbians, many of whom have seen all his films a number of times. Herself a fan, Kay says that the fact that the actor is a conservative defender of traditional family values does nothing to diminish his appeal.
"Bruce Willis always behaves in these films like a lesbian would behave. He's so super-tough that it seems ridiculous, like a butch lesbian who tries to be a supermacho but always collides with her own soft side. He has a sex appeal that appeals to lesbians because they think: `that's the kind of effect I'd like to have on a woman'," she says. Other stars that appeal to both gays and lesbians include Brad Pitt (who was named by a lesbian magazine as one of the world's most attractive lesbians) and James Dean, who has a room to himself at the Berlin exhibition. Dean was himself gay, although his sexual orientation was kept secret from his fans during his lifetime, but Kay claims that he is equally cherished by gay men and women.
"If you look at him you'll see that he looks like a young lesbian. This lost look as if he doesn't fit in anywhere - that's how a lot of young lesbians feel. He's attractive because he's girlish, but in a tomboyish way," she says. Nobody is Perfect documents dozens of idols on film, video and slides but it is dominated by a forest of photographs showing the leading gay cult figures of the century. Among them is Mae West, who once attended a transvestite competition and saw 16 contestants impersonating herself - "the ones who do me always win," she said. More recent idols include Whoopi Goldberg, with whom thousands of gay men identify, and Madonna, who identifies with gay men.
Contemporary cult figures tend to be feisty rather than feeble and courageous instead of catty, leaving older gay icons such as Joan Crawford and Bette Davis looking like relics from an age of selfdoubt and secrecy. One of the few stars to have survived gay liberation as an icon for both gays and lesbians is Marlene Dietrich, whose own bisexuality only recently became public knowledge.
An opinion poll by a Berlin gay magazine found that Dietrich is undisputed as the favourite icon for gays and lesbians, which Kay puts down to the fact that, on the face of it, the star had very little going for her. "She couldn't do anything particularly well. She was neither a good actress nor a good singer really. At the start, she didn't even look terribly good; she was a bit plump. I think it's the fact that she was able to make something out of nothing that fascinates people," she says.
Changes in the law and in public attitudes have meant that gays and lesbians in the developed world are now able to make more of their lives than ever before. But Kay is convinced that, even if the present trend continues, gays and lesbians will continue to need icons and to create their own cult figures.
"Even if we become more integrated, we'll still be a minority, and minorities always need identification figures more than majorities do. We must get to the point where there are far more openly lesbian and gay stars - that would be a first step. But we're a long way off being able to do without idols," she says.