and i don t remember anyone complaining. of course since i have heard from people saying, i am so grateful to you for that kiss, which i was watching in indiana with my parents, and we had a good conversation about it afterwards and i am a happily married gay man. that was wonderful. i didn t do that play because i was on a mission to tell people about homosexuality and certainly not about my own, because i was closeted, i wasn t honest about myself. you were 20 years from coming out publicly, you had actually suffered the consequences professionally of being gay, because i think in 1979 you were due to star in an adaptation of howard pinter s betrayal
open in his political views, went along with this judgment that i was inappropriate because i was gay, although he must ve known i was gay. and it was 30 years later, i think, shortly before harold died that i was in a restaurant in london and he came by, slightly tottery, and i stood up to greet him and he leaned into my ear and said, i am sorry about betrayal. did he? was it a premeditated decision when you went on a radio 3 show, i think it was, the third ear, and it was a publisher associated with the sunday telegraph and used two words, like myself , in reference to homosexuality, was it a premeditated decision that that would be the moment? i don t know. it probably was, it probably was. i think that the moment
and the producer, i think he said to you, when you come over to america with your wife? i went to meet sam, and howard had to leave and i was left with his producer. we have nothing in common, we were talking and i referred to an upcoming visit to america and he said, about taking the family and my wife, and i said i am not married, i m gay. i think sam may be the first person i came out to. when i was shown the door. literally? shown the door. leave. and of course i was not in the film. now, the interesting thing to me now is not that it happened, but where was harold pinter? harold pinter, a great humanitarian. nobel prize winner. fearlessly honest.