The Steven Carrington Institute for the Treatment & Study of Faggotry!

Michael Torrance

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Here if of course Jack Coleman discussing leaving and how after the first couple of years where he was happy to just have a job, he started worrying about his image and how he would be perceived, and that ""I happen to be straight so I feel more comfortable playing that." I mean, further down he talks about acting and being envious of Klaus Maria Brandauer doing Hamlet in Vienna and getting an Oscar nomination, but playing a gay man, that is just too much acting. :D


FOR COLEMAN, IT'S THE END OF 'DYNASTY'
https://www.mcall.com/news/mc-xpm-1988-03-17-2612241-story.html
 

Matthew Blaisdel

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"I happen to be straight so I feel more comfortable playing that."

Hard to believe he actually attended any acting school, as he seems to not even know what "acting" means.. :fp:
 

Luke Fuller

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Here if of course Jack Coleman discussing leaving and how after the first couple of years where he was happy to just have a job, he started worrying about his image and how he would be perceived, and that ""I happen to be straight so I feel more comfortable playing that." I mean, further down he talks about acting and being envious of Klaus Maria Brandauer doing Hamlet in Vienna and getting an Oscar nomination, but playing a gay man, that is just too much acting. :D


FOR COLEMAN, IT'S THE END OF 'DYNASTY'
https://www.mcall.com/news/mc-xpm-1988-03-17-2612241-story.html

Unfortunately the article is not visible in the EU. Neverthless, it is a sad story about Jack Coleman.
 

Snarky Oracle!

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FOR COLEMAN, IT'S THE END OF 'DYNASTY'
SYLVIA LAWLER, The Morning CallTHE MORNING CALL


Jack Coleman finally gets his wish to say goodbye forever to Krystle and Alexis, Sammy Jo and Fallon and the rest of the platinum-plated ilk that hangs around the Denver Carringtons. "Dynasty's" season finale on Wednesday night will mark the Easton-born actor's final appearance as Blake Carrington's (John Forsythe) troubled, bisexual son Steven.

It's a role that has given Coleman national exposure of the People magazine, talk show and hunk-of-the-month variety, but -- the nature of soaps being what they are -- not a lot of room for creative expression in six years of playing Steven.

Coleman, whose background is in theater, has wanted to leave the mercurial nighttime melodrama since around the time Steven survived the Moldavian massacre two seasons ago. The decision, finally, to head in another career direction is his. (He tried quitting last year, but instead negotiated for one more season, the one just concluding. When the producers asked him to stay for the 1988-89 season, he made firm his decision).

A cryptic note left behind for Blake, not death by landslide, hurricane or kidnapping by aliens, will be the writer's peg explaining Coleman's absence from the show. Will his disappearance hint that Steven is going off to resume his former homosexual lifestyle?

"He has been sexually neutered for the last couple of seasons and will remain so," said Coleman's manager, John Zaring of Film Associates in Los Angeles. "Even Jack doesn't know what's going on or how he will leave. All anybody but the writers knows is he left a note for Blake and then disappears. We won't know until next season why."

Coleman has always said he didn't care if the writers pointed Steven down the straight or gay path, but that "I happen to be straight so I feel more comfortable playing that."

"The first two years of the series it wasn't a big deal because I was just so happy to be on the show. After a couple of years is when you start worrying about your image, and how you're being perceived, and I think at that point, I started hoping more and more that the storyline would go to a heterosexual one."

That started to happen, sort of ... but Steven's character really remained in a kind of sexual limbo even while he professed a quiet preference for the gay life. In an earlier interview, Coleman talked of growing more and more uncomfortable with what had become a kind of character-stagnation he felt all the acting ability in the world couldn't rise above. Reminded that John Forsythe had once commented that he (Coleman) possessed "a world of charm that he is never able to show," Coleman said:

"It's not so much the casting as the show itself. I, for better or worse, have a rather sharp tongue. I enjoy quips and offhand humor, and humor is something that's not a strong suit of 'Dynasty's' and it happens to be one of the things I do best. I think I can be funny, but Steven tends to be a fairly troubled character, as do most of the people on the show. There's not a whole lot of lightness," he understated. "But that's something that, in another role, I can get to display more."

It hit him one night, he said, waiting to go on a national talk show and listening in the green room as actor Klaus Maria Brandauer talked with the host about his own career.

"He had just finished doing 'Hamlet' on the Vienna stage, and was discussing that and 'Out of Africa,' for which he was nominated for an Oscar. I was to come out after him and I almost didn't want to go on," Coleman said. "To go from talking about 'Hamlet' and 'Out of Africa' and then ... "

Coleman distorted his voice into a Mickey Mouse squeak ... " 'And now, here comes Jack Coleman. Tell us, Jack, what is Alexis really like?' ... I happen to think I'm more interesting than that, but that's the situation I'm in."

But he did not want his frustration to be mistaken for ingratitude. Asked whether the word "trapped" was too strong to describe his feelings at the time he answered:

"Right. I'm not pulling for any sympathy here. I have an absolutely charmed life. But in terms of being interviewed, I just think that 10 years from now people are going to be much more interested in what I have to say about things."

Coleman's charmed life began in Easton where his parents -- his father is a retired Lafayette College history professor -- still live. The last of seven children, Coleman is a direct descendant of Benjamin Franklin and the grandson of 1934 Pulitzer Prize-winner Herbert Agar. A Duke University graduate, he was only 24 when he took over the role of Steven Carrington from Al Corley, the actor fired from the part during "Dynasty's" second season.

The series premiered in January, 1981. Coleman turned 30 this Feb. 21, so the greater part of his adult life has been spent with the Aaron Spelling production, which has roamed the ratings scale from riotous super-success to ho-hum mediocrity.

He is free now, to pursue his first love, the stage. He has done theater in Los Angeles and Off-Broadway, having performed in at least two plays during breaks in "Dynasty's" schedule over the years, and he is young, attractive and backgrounded enough to have the best part of a career ahead of him.

But acting is a precarious business, and even though Coleman says he knows "it's the right one for me," he is also aware -- as he told "Entertainment Tonight" when his departure was announced -- that many another actor has gone the McLean Stevenson route and faded from view after leaving a successful series to strike out on his own. (The very popular Stevenson left his role as Lt. Col. Henry Blake on "M*A*S*H" at its peak and never achieved comparable fame on his own, while the series itself continued and went out with a blaze of glory several years later. "Dynasty," however, may have already run its course on ABC; there are those who believe next season could be its last).

Coleman also knows it's strictly a myth that any but the most select group of actors can call their own shots. "There are about 10 people in the business who control their careers. Seriously, that's about what it comes down to." He chalked off "The DeNiros, the Jack Nicholsons, the Meryl Streeps, and then there's the rest of everybody else sort of floundering around for what's available."

He is considering a Broadway play, and coming up for sure is a theatrical movie with his manager's firm, Film Associates. It is an adult, Boston-set drama called "Winners' Out," and will costar Denzel Washington, who is hot right now after "Cry Freedom." Coleman and Washington play two friends, basketball teammates at Harvard -- Coleman is mad about basketball -- who meet later in life on a professional level and fall in love with the same woman.

The idea for the story -- its theme being the fine line between using and abusing friendship -- came from Coleman, his manager John Zaring who is a Wyomissing native, and another friend, writer Peter Doyle, whose family's business built the Coleman family's summer home in New England, and who will do the screenplay. The continuing writer's strike could push the project into next spring from what had been planned as a fall start, pointing up once more that in Coleman's business, there are no sure things.

But this is something Coleman had to do for himself, and with his healthy attitude toward reality, it's not likely he'll harbor any regrets.

Once, he admitted that it hurt to see some of Hollywood's less talented lights get ahead in a business where many craftsmen weren't working. "Yeah, it does. It does," he repeated. "But I think it all comes out in the wash eventually and I don't begrudge anybody anything because I've been lucky myself."

 

Tony

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I think Jack Coleman (pre Heroes success), like other actors who decided to quite like Terri Garber, look back in hindsight and realise how lucky they were to be on the show in their 20s.

Coleman appeared in the UK produced 'After Dynasty' in 2002, and admitted it was the first time he felt what it was like to be a jobbing actor after leaving a hit show.

Seasoned pros like Joan Collins, Forsythe and Evans knew how fortunate they were to get regular employment on a hit show where you get well paid.
 

Willie Oleson

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"but -- the nature of soaps being what they are -- not a lot of room for creative expression in six years of playing Steven"
That's nonsense, of course.
Blake's blatant homophobia was pretty hardcore for 80s prime time TV.
The writers control the story, there's no such thing as naturally boring characters.
 

Snarky Oracle!

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It's no secret Coleman was uncomfortable, embarrassed playing a gay guy -- even Nolan Miller mentioned this in one of his interviews. Coleman himself has since admitted he had "issues" at the time, and there was a tendency for him in public to go, "Look, here's my girlfriend. See??" (Funny, because Steven did essentially the same thing).

Frustrating, since Al Corley was fired for wanting to keep Steven gay.

 

Luke Fuller

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I am sorry for Jack Coleman, but I am able to understand him. It was not so easy to play a long term gay character in the 1980th. After season 6, a character of Steven was more and more devastated and wasted. Primarily it happened because of a pressure from ABC and a lack of invention of script-writers (not because of Jack). Fortunately, they did not use planned plotlines about a platonic romance between Steven and Leslie or about Steven becoming a priest (or living in a monastery). A really used plotline about a dysfunctional family of Steven + Sammy Jo + Danny (in seasons 7 and 8) was more acceptable and believable. Neverthless, Steven was living in a depression and in "a sexual limbo" (as it was written in an article). I agree with Jack Coleman that Dynasty needed more humor. (It improved in season 9!) But what about a development of a character of Steven, there was a chance for him after a meeting with Christopher Deegan (and moving out from Deltha Rho) in the mid of season 8. It would have been fun to watch Steven going to gay (or non-gay) parties together with Fallon and flirting with guys. Then, Steven could have decided to leave Denver to live with Bart Fallmont in Washington, D.C. It would have been more realistic than Steven´s departure to an unknown place to be lost again.
 

Snarky Oracle!

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After season 6, a character of Steven was more and more devastated and wasted. Primarily it happened because of a pressure from ABC and a lack of invention of script-writers (not because of Jack)
Pressure from ABC to straighten Steven out was mostly in the early-'80s, but had eventually relaxed a bit (hence, the semi-romance between Steven and Luke). The sexual ambiguity of Steven later on was due to a writing staff who didn't know what to do with Steven and a top producer, Spelling, who was as afraid of it as the network had originally been.
 

Willie Oleson

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I would have Coleman revealed to be Ben Reynolds after the massacre
Does he believe he is Steven, or devious impostor style? Or maybe he doesn't know who he is, and he's just glad someone identified him.
That would explain his homosexual confusion because he doesn't remember being homosexual.
A really used plotline about a dysfunctional family of Steven + Sammy Jo + Danny (in seasons 7 and 8) was more acceptable and believable.
But it was so depressing to watch them sitting in that dreadful Delta Rho living room with such a dead end storyline. Or maybe it should have been more depressing than it was?
 

Willie Oleson

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It would be all gay Wes Parmalee
Would the Carringtons keep him after the sensational return of the real Steven? Could there be a romance between Steven and ex-Steven? ("he's my ex-me")

Btw, where was the real Steven all this time? And did he think he was someone else too?
 

Snarky Oracle!

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Would the Carringtons keep him after the sensational return of the real Steven? Could there be a romance between Steven and ex-Steven? ("he's my ex-me")
Maybe. And then they'd keep Ben Reynolds in that Maine light house that Blake and Krystle visit on their anniversaries.

Willie Oleson said:
Btw, where was the real Steven all this time? And did he think he was someone else too?
Huang Ti Prison, where he suffered for three years after the China Sea rig explosion, sentenced for being 'too sexy for his shirt.'

 
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