Harassment Suit

Q: Of the several newspaper obits I've glanced over online today, only the one in /Variety/ seems to have mentioned the palimony suit: 'Griffin married Julann Elizabeth Wright in 1958; that union ended in divorce during the 1970s. Impishly coy about his rumored sexuality over the years (he was even sued unsuccessfully for palimony by one man, whom Griffin countersued), he once quipped to the New York Times, “I’m a quatre-sexual -- I will do anything with anybody for a quarter.” At one point he also had a high-profile relationship with Eva Gabo,didn't he ?

A: Right now it's 2 sentences in the Trivia section; I had forgotten about the sexual harassment suit. I had also forgotten, btw, that he and I belonged to the same college fraternity, Tau Kappa Epsilon. Me so proud. The Hollywood mogul Merv Griffin died at the age of 82 over the weekend after a battle with cancer, and I was amazed to see The New York Times actually discuss his sexual orientation, the palimony lawsuit and the male-on-male sexual harassment lawsuit. I'm thinking perhaps the Times editors really took it to heart when many of us criticized them after Susan Sontag's death and the obituary cover-up

of her sexual orientation and her relationship with Annie Liebovitz. So far, in the the rest of the obits on Griffin (Reuters, Associated Press) I've seen nothing about his homosexuality. And yet, it is very important for reasons far beyond visibility or mere gossip. Merv Griffin was an example of how dangerous the closet can be -- and how the closet and power are a combustible combination that adversely affects so many other lives. We should point to his life for GLBT youth and say, "Don't let this happen to you. Don't let your closet compromise you to the point where you are actively harming your own people, even though you have the power to do so much good."