It's been long accepted that Janet Gaynor was a lesbian. An older gentleman I knew who was very much part of Hollywood during the studio years referred to her as "a feisty little dyke."
Her husband was costume designer Adrian, who was gay, and her lover, Mary Martin, was also married to a gay man.
Janet Gaynor - 'First' Best Actress
I watched the A&E Biography on Janet Gaynor (first Academy Award winner for Best Actress in a Leading Role) this past weekend and learned some interesting things about her. Before her success with such films as 7th Heaven, Sunrise (which had similar themes to Dreiser’s “An American Tragedy” and, later, A Place in the Sun), and Street Angel, she was a precocious and talented young woman who was very well-liked. She was not even interested in acting until her stepfather moved their family to Hollywood and coaxed her out of a career in stenography.
Interestingly, it was actually her older sister who tirelessly went on auditions only to be rejected in favor of her extremely, likeable, girl-next-door younger sister. Her sister became a huge drunk and completely embarrassed Janet at the first Academy Award ceremony by hanging on the velvet rope and shouting drunken slurs at her sister and passers-by. The program made a direct parallel between this incident and the one depicted later on in A Star is Born (1936), when while accepting her Oscar, Vicki Lester is confronted by her drunk, jealous husband who accidentally slaps her.
The program also seemed to imply that Gaynor had been let go from 20th Century Fox because she wouldn’t sleep with sleazoid Daryl Zanuck. One of her greatest success with A Star is Born, however, was just around the corner.
Gaynor was also another one of those actresses who dogged lesbian rumors all her life. Her neighbor in Brazil was Mary Martin, very hot off a Broadway run at the time and there’s speculation that the two were lovers. Later in 1982, she was in a car accident in San Francisco with Mary Martin, Martin’s agent and her then-husband causing several injuries which most likely contributed to her death.
Interestingly, it was actually her older sister who tirelessly went on auditions only to be rejected in favor of her extremely, likeable, girl-next-door younger sister. Her sister became a huge drunk and completely embarrassed Janet at the first Academy Award ceremony by hanging on the velvet rope and shouting drunken slurs at her sister and passers-by. The program made a direct parallel between this incident and the one depicted later on in A Star is Born (1936), when while accepting her Oscar, Vicki Lester is confronted by her drunk, jealous husband who accidentally slaps her.
The program also seemed to imply that Gaynor had been let go from 20th Century Fox because she wouldn’t sleep with sleazoid Daryl Zanuck. One of her greatest success with A Star is Born, however, was just around the corner.
Gaynor was also another one of those actresses who dogged lesbian rumors all her life. Her neighbor in Brazil was Mary Martin, very hot off a Broadway run at the time and there’s speculation that the two were lovers. Later in 1982, she was in a car accident in San Francisco with Mary Martin, Martin’s agent and her then-husband causing several injuries which most likely contributed to her death.
"The mantle of spinsterhood was definitely in her shoulders. She was twenty five and looked it."
-Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
-Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell