It’s never too late to visibility for LGTBQ elders, though this is, unfortunately, not a happy tale or announcement.
According to Daily Mail, Scottish actor, comedian, and performer Stanley Baxter (The Stanley Baxter Moving Picture Show, The First Lady, and Crooks Anonymous) recently came out as gay. Baxter did so through a new biography with some scandalous details about his former marriage.
In the book The Real Stanley Baxter, it’s revealed by biographer Brian Beacom that Baxter has struggled with his sexuality all his life. This then affected his 46-year marriage with wife Moira Baxter. According to Baxter, he had “tender feelings” for Moira but also saw staying with her was “real weakness on my part.” The book even details how the Baxters settled on an arrangement where Stanley would bring men over and Moira would look the other way.
“Thankfully Moira was very understanding,” Baxter said in the book. “If there were someone I were interested in, I could bring them home. She was very good about letting them go to bed with me. She would go off to our bedroom and let me take the one opposite.”
Baxter also talked about once being arrested, as homosexuality was once illegal in the country. Though more specifically, Baxter was arrested in 1961 London for allegedly soliciting sex in a public bathroom with undercover cops. While Baxter’s lawyer was able to get the charges dropped, the actor feared for his career.
“I was going to top myself,” Baxter recalled. “I thought, ‘My career will never survive this. And if I don’t have a career, what do I have?’”
According to Metro, Stanley is still haunted by his sexuality to this day.
As the former actor confessed, “Anybody would be insane to choose to live such a very difficult life. There are many gay people these days who are fairly comfortable with their sexuality, fairly happy with who they are. I’m not. I never wanted to be gay. I still don’t. The truth is, I don’t really want to be me.”
Source: Daily Mail, Metro,
