Quote:
Were they reluctant? Is this a fact? I thought Peel quit acting a year or so after BRIDES. The implication is that Hammer was not a "gay-friendly" environment. Well, they certain hired the bachelor Peel for the role in the first place, hired other gay/bachelor actors for important roles, and solidified the prominence of James Bernard as the Hammer horror composer man.


Whooop... hold on. No, no, this is not fact, merely conjecture. All I'm going by is the fact that we've got an actor who, I think we all agree, was excellent in a particular role, but who then retired from acting altogether within a few years.

I'm not insinuating that any of the Hammer execs (which basically is Carreras Sr. & Jr. and Hinds) was anti-gay in personal outlook (as men of theater/film, they probably couldn't have cared less). But we were discussing how openly gay David Peel was, so what I'm wondering is this: might Hammer have been discouraged from promoting Peel as another Lee or Cushing because of this? (As for Bernard, somehow I don't think even a late 1950s/early 1960s audience cares if your composer is gay).