In a few short months from now it will be "ellen's" 10th year anniversary of her coming out! Not just on her TV show but in real life as well! Well TV hasn't been the same since however "Ellen Degeneres" wasn't the first actor to "come out", yes she was the biggest however the first actor on a major TV show that was out to the world was "Terry Sweeney". He was out long before the first episode of the 1985-1986 of SNL aired. In fact this was the year that Lorne Michaels returned to the show as Executive producer after 5 years! This season was a disaster but it had its moments most of them came from Terry Sweeney.
Season 11 of Saturday Night live with Terry Sweeney aired in 1985-1986. Being gay at this moment in history was very Taboo! Nobody was out. Nobody at your office, nobody in your family and no famous faces!
The only gay character TV had was Jody from "Soap" but that show had been off the air for years and was played by a straight actor and future Saturday Night Live Cast member Billy Crystal.
Terry being out at this time is very notable because this was in the Reagan era! In fact a few months before the season premiere of SNL Rock Hudson died of AIDS at it seemed the whole world was blaming gay men for the disease! Everybody heard the "Rock Hudson".
The jokes were told everywhere! (If you lost a friend to AIDS you did not find the jokes funny!)
Terry however was out and talked about it openly and honestly! I am sure he did it because He had knew he had nothing to be ashamed of! He was proud of his life! He was also in a committed relationship and wanted to show the world "A gay man can be happy". He and his life partner Lanier Laney have been together for over 20 years!
Terry was only on the air for 1 season! He might be best known for playing "Nancy Reagan" on the show. This was the first time Terry did anything in drag and he was great! What is sad is that Terry's talent was not used very much that year as a performer!
Unfortunately the season that Terry Sweeney was on the show focused on "Randy Quaid" and for a short time brat packer Anthony Michael Hall! Terry was not used to his abilities! The show suffered because it focused on the "Well Known Cast Members" that year! However they missed the boat with Terry Sweeney! Also on that year "Damon Wayan's". Show you how short sighted Lorene Michaels is!
On the 1985-1986 season the show somehow loved to put Randy Quaid and Anthony Michael Hall in most of the sketches! However both of them were boring to watch &
most of the episodes were awful. They should used Terry or maybe his sketch ideas! But they didn't and show suffered for it! However NBC did renew for the following year!
Before the start of season 12 much of the cast & writing staff were fired! Nora Dunn & Jon Lovitz were the only cast members to return from the previous year!
After Saturday Night Live Terry went on to write screenplays! One movie he wrote was "Shag" another was "Love AT Stake"
Terry the performer however did return! Terry got great reviews for playing Nancy Reagan again in his one man show "Its still my Turn" a take-off of Nancy Reagan's autobiography "Its My Turn" which came out a year before!
Terry Sweeney went on to write for MAD TV and then created the TV show "Hype".
So before everybody starts singing "ellen's praises" lets not forget about Terry Sweeney. Any openly gay person in America owes Terry a "Thank you". He was out before "ellen" made it okay!
Here's to you to Terry and "Thank you"!
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