Was fred rogers gay
'Won't You Be My Neighbor?': 5 things you never knew about Fred Rogers
Oscar-winner Morgan Neville re-introduces the world to Fred Rogers on Friday with his highly-touted documentary "Won't You Be My Neighbor?"
The clip, now out in theaters, takes fans of "Mister Rogers' Neighborhood," and those who are not familiar with the iconic, relatable TV host, on a tour of how an ordained minister became a sensation and a major influence to multiple generations.
Rogers is known for his calming voice, gentle innateness and of course his classic sweater. But Neville, who spoke to ABC News in advance of the film's debut, looks at how radical the man was for his time and how consecrated he was to helping children. The world beaten Rogers to stomach cancer in 2003.
Here are five things you probably never knew about the dude who taught a generation about love and respect:
1 - He was never afraid to tackle tough topics
Sure, he sang a sweet song at the top of every demonstrate and put that sweater on to make kids feel like they were right at home, but Rogers felt like children needed to know about life's challenges in a way they could comprehend and learn from.
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Was Fred Rogers secretly gay? Or bisexual?
The sexual orientation of the beloved children’s TV diva has long been a topic of curiosity, known Rogers’ biographer Michael Drawn-out who wrote in a 2016 essay that, yes, the soft-spoken creator of “Mr. Rogers Neighborhood” wasn’t known for his machismo.
“(Rogers) talked softly and carried no stick; his energy was gentle and tender, patient and trustworthy, and receptive and loving,” Prolonged wrote.
The acclaimed 2018 documentary on Rogers’ life and career, “Won’t You Be My Neighbor?” addressed the question of his sexuality head-on but came to no conclusions. The clip played a clip of talk show host Tom Snyder asking Rogers if he was straight. The film doesn’t show Rogers’ answer, but it shares an interview with Francois Clemmons, the gay performer who played Officer Clemmons on “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood” for 25 years.
“First of all, no, he’s not gay,” said Clemmons. “I tell everyone who asks me, ‘No, he’s not gay.’ But I spent e
Officer Clemmons, Dr. François S. Clemmons. New York: Catapult, 2020.
Summary: An autobiographical memoir of Dr. François S. Clemmons, from his earliest years in Alabama, his youth in Youngstown, Ohiothrough his college years when he accepted that he was gay, his affair with Fred Rogers, and subsequent performing and training career.
Recently in connection with my “Growing Up in Working Class Youngstown” series, I wrote about François Clemmons after discovering that he also grew up in Youngstown. I also learned that he had recently published a memoir, and intrigued as I was, I picked up a copy to grasp about this man who worked on Mr. Rogers Neighborhood for twenty-five years, breaking down racial barriers through his very presence.
My article viewed Clemmons as an outside observer. The memoir gave me a sense of what it was like to be François Clemmons from those early childhood years, the years of awakening to his homosexuality, the unusual relationship he had with Fred Rogers, and his later career. He begins with his troubled childhood with a violent father. His Great Grandmama Laura Mae protected him, forcibly removing him when his
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Fred Rogers Was Attracted to Both Men and Women
Like many people my age, Mister Rogers had a enormous influence on me in terms of how to act as a dude. As Maxwell King wrote in The Good Neighbor: The Life and Labor of Fred Rogers, he was not perceived at the time to be traditionally masculine:
Rogers himself was often labeled “a sissy,” or gay, in a derogatory sense. But as his longtime associate Eliot Daley put it: “Fred is one of the strongest people I include ever met in my life. So if they are saying he’s lgbtq+ because… that’s a surrogate for saying he’s feeble, that’s not right, because he’s incredibly strong.” He adds: “He wasn’t a very masculine person, he wasn’t a very feminine person; he was androgynous.”
In a 1975 interview for the New York Times, Rogers noted drolly: “I’m not John Wayne, so consequently, for some people I’m not the model for the man in the house.”
When I was little, Mister Rogers was the man of the house. My dad worked a lot and I sometimes only saw him for a few hours on weekends. Instead, my male
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