From kissing Homer Simpson to experimental theatre, 10 things we learned about Harvey Fierstein
In a Q interview, the Broadway legend discussed his new memoir, I Was Better Last Night
Click the play button below to listen to Tom Power's full conversation with Harvey Fierstein on The Q Interview podcast.
Harvey Fierstein is a legend of Broadway, but above all, he's a trailblazer for gay representation on the stage and screen. In an interview with Q's Tom Power, he spoke about his new memoir, I Was Better Last Night.
Here are 10 things we learned along the way.
His stage debut was playing the king in Sleeping Beauty
The first story Fierstein wrote for his new memoir centred around his very first stage role: the king in a grade-school production of Sleeping Beauty at P.S. 186 in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn. But he wasn't happy about how he was casted.
"I didn't want to play the king in Sleeping Beauty. I wanted to play the evil witch because she got to have green skin, she got to have red lips," he told Power. "She had the big hat and all that."
The role of the witch went to Fierstein's childhood friend, Philomena, whom he met in kindergarten and remains friends with to this day. When he sent her the first chapter of his book, she sent back a picture without words.
"She sent back that photograph that's in the book of me at seven years old in drag," said Fierstein. "She took that picture and sent it to me. And I said, 'If that day and that experience … means something to somebody else, I'll go ahead and finish writing the book.'"
His mother would buy tickets to Broadway shows for about $2.50 each
When he was a kid, Fierstein's mother would regularly take the family to museums, the ballet and the theatre. "We saw everything — my mother loved culture," he said.
"She would look [at] what's coming in theatre and sit down and mail order — no internet — mail order tickets to every new show.… She would buy the dead centre, the very first row, so it was like the show was being put on for you, you know. It was like — it was there. And those tickets back then were $2.50 [or] $3 a ticket."
For $10, Fierstein said, the whole family could see a Broadway show, plus subway fare and lunch. "Those tickets are $200 now instead of $2.50," he said. "And the subway is — I don't even know what the subway is now."
He never wanted to be an actor. He just wanted to meet Andy Warhol
Fierstein said he never wanted to be an actor or a playwright. As an art student, he started doing community theatre because he thought it would be fun and his best friend Michael was doing it too.
When he received a glowing review in a small New York theatre newspaper, he tore out the page and came across a casting notice on the back for Andy Warhol's 1971 play Pork. Fierstein wasn't a big fan of Warhol's pop art yet, but he did love the artist's commercial work drawing advertisements for Bloomingdale's.
"So to meet Andy Warhol, I said, 'Wait a second, it's an audition for a play [and] I'm a kind of actor,'" he told Power.
At the time, Fierstein couldn't have known how serendipitous that moment would be for him. His debut in Pork at the experimental theatre La MaMa would start a whole new chapter of his life.
"I wanted to meet Andy Warhol — I didn't want to be an actor," he said. "I got cast in Andy Warhol's play. Never got to meet Andy Warhol until it was the opening show because he wasn't going to hang around with a bunch of loser experimental theatre actors. So we did finally meet him. But … all of a sudden, I was a part of experimental theatre."
He thought Torch Song Trilogy would flop on Broadway — and he wanted it to
In the experimental theatre world, Fierstein wrote the three plays that would later go on to become his massive hit Torch Song Trilogy, which won him two Tony Awards for best play and best actor in a play.
But his decision to move the play from the basement of La MaMa to Broadway wasn't out of a desire to become rich and famous. He had actually hoped the play would flop.
"[Torch Song Trilogy] was running off-Broadway and we were this big hit," recalled Fierstein. "I came out of the subway one day, and there was a line from the box office all the way around the corner waiting to buy tickets…. And I saw that line and I freaked. I said, 'This thing's a hit. I'm going to be stuck here forever!...
"We had all these people that wanted to move it to Broadway. And I said, 'You know what? I'll let it move to Broadway, where it'll flop.… We'll move the show to Broadway; I'll have a nice Broadway credit — you know, look good on the resumé — and the show will close and I can go on with my life. But if we leave the show downtown, it's going to run forever.'"
Fierstein joked that it goes to show how good of a judge he is about what works and what doesn't since the play ran for five years.
He found success, but 'lost a lover' in the process
When Fierstein found success on Broadway, he started having issues in his relationship with his partner at the time, who was also an actor.
"I lost a lover. But you know, men, impossible to live with," he said with a laugh. "When we got together, we were both actors, but he had a paying job. He could type, and he typed really fast.… So when we got together, he was the breadwinner of the family or whatever.
"Within a year and a half, everything had so shifted all of a sudden. I'm getting famous and all that. I'm making real money. He can't get a job as an actor. He's working temp jobs. It affected the relationship, and he could not take that adjustment at all."
His 1983 interview with Barbara Walters surprised him because they were friends
In a segment on 20/20 nearly 40 years ago, Fierstein spoke with Barbara Walters, who famously asked him, "What's it like to be a homosexual?"
Fierstein was shocked not only by the content of the interview, but also because he and Walters were friends and knew each other quite well.
"She obviously knew other gay people because I met her through this pair of lesbians," said Fierstein. "And all of a sudden, I sit down with this woman that I think of as a friend, and she talks to me like I'm from another planet.… My eyes just open up like, 'What happened to my friend Barbara?'...
"And then I realize I'm on television — or we're on television — and she's giving me this unbelievable chance to explain that which doesn't need explanation, but that which does need explanation. I mean, I sort of understood the moment on some level. So I tried my very best to explain as clearly as I could, though I was very thrown off."
Since that interview in 1983, Fierstein said, he's received thousands of letters from people who saw it on television or, more recently, on YouTube.
He voiced one of the earliest gay cartoon characters and kissed Homer Simpson
As a trailblazer for gay representation, Fierstein has been the first to do a lot of things, including voicing a gay cartoon character.
In a Season 2 episode of The Simpsons titled "Simpson and Delilah," the Broadway legend voiced Karl, Homer Simpson's assistant.
"I kissed Homer Simpson," said Fierstein. "I grabbed him and kissed him, telling him he was smart or whatever — 'You're good enough.' And I gave him a big kiss."
He turned down the TV adaptation of Stephen King's It
On the flip side, Fierstein also rejected a lot of work because he was concerned about what it might mean for the portrayal of gay people in media. One big role he turned down was Pennywise the clown in the 1990 TV adaptation of Stephen King's It.
"I didn't want an openly gay man eating children," he told Power. "I said, the religious right will take me out of context, will take that character and say, 'See what they're like! See what homosexuals are like!' So I didn't play that role."
He turned down offers to be a judge on RuPaul's Drag Race
At the third annual Trailblazer Honors, the largest televised LGBTQ pride event, contestants from RuPaul's Drag Race All Stars Season 2 paid tribute to Fierstein with a performance of I Am What I Am from his and Jerry Herman's Tony Award-winning musical La Cage aux folles (based on the French play of the same name by Jean Poiret).
Fierstein told Power he was moved by the performance, but wouldn't ever feel comfortable participating as a judge on RuPaul's Drag Race despite being asked several times.
"I love those drag queens. I love RuPaul's Drag Race," he said. "I've never appeared because I don't want to judge.… I'm not going to sit there and say, 'You are better than you.' Those drag queens are so different than [the] drag queens of my day.… They're just these gorgeous creatures — these wonderful, fun, glorious, artistic creations that aren't sexually frightening to anybody. I don't see men running away — straight men running away from RuPaul's Drag Race."
He insisted on the kiss at the end of La Cage aux folles
At the end of La Cage aux folles, Fierstein wrote in a kiss between the two main characters. But the first production of the show didn't include the kiss.
"Well, Arthur Laurents, who directed the show — openly gay in his way, in that 1950s kind of openly gay way — said no, he would not stage it with a kiss," said Fierstein.
"He called me all kinds of names. We called each other all kinds of names. But he said, 'This is enough, you know. Why turn the audience off at that moment?' Or whatever — I don't even remember it. But it's in the book."
Fierstein said he doesn't believe the second production of the show included the kiss either, but the third was more aligned with what he wanted.
"At the very end, there was a lovely kiss," he said. "I came to find out from the understudy that when they kissed, Kelsey Grammer actually slid his hand between the two mouths so they wouldn't ever touch. And then Kelsey actually said to the understudy, 'If your lips touch mine, I will bring you up on charges.' Or something as ridiculous as that.…
"Have a heterosexual actor play a gay role and they give them an Oscar. Gay people play straight roles all the time and nobody even notices. You know, we kiss women all the time and have no problem with it. But you ask two men to kiss, you get all these problems."
Written by Vivian Rashotte. Produced by Jennifer Warren.