Episodes

  • Forgotten Queer Rob Halford

    Forgotten Queer Rob Halford
    Jan 7 2026
    Rob Halford lead vocalist of Judas Priest. He joined them in 1973. They received a 2010 Grammy award for best metal performance. Learn more in this podcast.

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    Please follow me on Facebook, BlueSky at Gary Thoren. We must never forget our Forgotten Queers
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    58 mins
  • Forgotten Queer Keith Haring

    Forgotten Queer Keith Haring
    Dec 31 2025
    Moved to New York City in 1978 to study painting at the School of Visual Arts
    Started his career as a graffiti artist in subway stations using white chaulk on black, unused
    advertisement boards.
    1980: He used New York lamp posts to post graphic letter messages around the city.
    “Regan Slain By Hero Cop” “Pope killed for Freed Hostage”
    1980: Participated in The Times Square Show with one of his earliest projects. He altered a
    banner advertisement above a subway entrance in Times Square that showed a female
    embracing a male’s legs, blacking out the first letter of the clothing brand Cardon, to read
    Hardon.
    1980: began organizing exhibitions at Club 57 which were filmed by close friend, photographer
    Tseng Kwong Chi.
    1981: First solo exhibition at Westbath Painters Space in the West Village
    Later that year, he had a solo exhibition at the Hal Bromm Gallery in Tribecca
    1982 to 1986: His career started to take off
    HIs work appeared in Times Square, computer animated, (probably some of the first of it’s kind)

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    Please follow me on Facebook, BlueSky at Gary Thoren. We must never forget our Forgotten Queers
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    37 mins
  • Danny Lockin

    Danny Lockin
    Dec 26 2025
    Danny Lockin was born in Hawaii in 1943,Not for any glamorous reasons but because that’s where dad Joseph was an operations manager for Dole Pineapple well anyway the family didn’t stay there long and fairly soon relocated to Omaha, Nebraska. Mom also known as Jean, who had been a dancer in the last raspy gasps of The vaudeville circuit , opened up a successful dance studio. From an early age Danny excelled at dancing. He obviously wowed his mom because well come on it’s mom but other people noticed also. So from an early age he performed. Professionally from the age of 9. In a kind of modern day vaudevillian act with an African American partner named Neal Reynolds. They would do the fair circuit, and by all accounts, it was successful, let’s keep in mind, queers and weirdos, we are talking about, the mid-west and like a 3 month time frame but a success All the same.
    In, what to me, seems like a terrible time to do this, but none of us know what was going on in the Lockin family, they moved to Anaheim, California, Danny’s junior year of high school. During this time he got leading juvenile roles is several regional productions of Gypsy, The Music Man and Time for Everything (a show I have never heard of).
    Once graduating he almost immediately got a small, let me restate that by saying, more like glorified extra part in the filmed version of Gypsy in 1962 as one of Dainty June’s farm boys, truly a blink and you’ll miss it part but it was a working part of the film industry. I’m sure he was hooked. Next in 1963 he was cast in the play Morning Sun with Bert Convy and Patricia Neway….

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    Please follow me on Facebook, BlueSky at Gary Thoren. We must never forget our Forgotten Queers
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    28 mins
  • Wendy Carlos: Caterpillar to Butterfly

    Wendy Carlos: Caterpillar to Butterfly
    Nov 10 2025
    Good morning, queers and weirdos! Today we remember Wendy Carlos — the electronic genius who helped invent the sound of the future. In the 1960s, she took Robert Moog’s early synthesizer and turned it into an instrument of emotion. Her album Switched-On Bach blew minds and won Grammys, proving that circuits could sing with soul.

    Behind the studio walls, Wendy was also transforming herself. Assigned male at birth, she transitioned in a time when few could safely do so, living for years in stealth until coming out publicly in 1979. Through the fear and isolation, she kept creating: trailblazing film scores for Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange and The Shining, and later Disney’s Tron. Each soundtrack redefined what “electronic music” could be — intimate, unnerving, human.

    Wendy spent decades pushing boundaries most people never heard of: micro-tonal scales, custom instruments, cosmic soundscapes. She guarded her privacy but left a legacy that still vibrates through film, pop, and ambient music today. Her life reminds us that to be authentic is its own revolution — and that queerness and innovation have always been in tune.

    Wendy Carlos: composer, scientist, visionary, and Forgotten Queer far too brilliant to stay forgotten.

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    Please follow me on Facebook, BlueSky at Gary Thoren. We must never forget our Forgotten Queers
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    30 mins
  • Charles Nelson Reilly — To Fabulous to Forget

    Charles Nelson Reilly — To Fabulous to Forget
    Nov 3 2025
    Today we remember a man who could out-quipp anyone on television and still go home alone because America wasn’t ready for his truth. Charles Nelson Reilly was more than the wise-cracking guest on Match Game—he was a Tony-winning actor, a master director, and a pioneer of coded queer visibility in mid-century America.

    In this episode, I dive into the life of this one-of-a-kind performer: his Broadway triumphs, his decades on television, the painful cost of being openly gay in a closeted industry, and the joyful camp he shared with millions. Reilly lived as loudly as he could, as safely as he dared, and he left behind a trail of laughter, truth, and wigs.

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    Please follow me on Facebook, BlueSky at Gary Thoren. We must never forget our Forgotten Queers
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    25 mins
  • Peter Allen: The Boy from Tenterfield to Broadway

    Peter Allen: The Boy from Tenterfield to Broadway
    Oct 20 2025
    Peter Richard Woolnough Allen, born in Tenterfield, Australia, lived a life that swung between dazzling fame and deep heartbreak. Discovered in Hong Kong by Judy Garland’s husband, he later married her daughter, Liza Minnelli—a glamorous but short-lived union. Peter’s flamboyant stage presence and heartfelt songwriting defined an era: he co-wrote I Honestly Love You, Don’t Cry Out Loud, and Arthur’s Theme (Best That You Can Do), earning two Oscars. Though he never formally came out, Peter lived openly with his longtime partner, model Gregory Connell, inspiring his iconic anthem I Still Call Australia Home. After Gregory’s death from AIDS, Peter continued to perform until his own passing from the same disease nearly ten years later. His story—of love, loss, resilience, and melody—reminds us of a queer artist who refused to hide, shining brighter than the spotlight itself.

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    Please follow me on Facebook, BlueSky at Gary Thoren. We must never forget our Forgotten Queers
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    25 mins
  • Dirk Bogarde - The Gentleman Rebel

    Dirk Bogarde - The Gentleman Rebel
    Oct 13 2025
    Dirk Bogarde was Britain’s matinee idol turned quiet revolutionary. From his charming Doctor in the House films to the daring Victim (1961)—the first British movie to say “homosexual” aloud—Bogarde risked his career to bring empathy and truth to queer lives on screen. A war veteran, writer, and lifelong partner to Anthony Forwood, he evolved from heart-throb to acclaimed artist in The Servant, Death in Venice, and The Night Porter. Behind his polished charm was courage, intellect, and compassion—a gentleman who changed the world not with noise, but with honesty.

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    Please follow me on Facebook, BlueSky at Gary Thoren. We must never forget our Forgotten Queers
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    22 mins
  • Coco - The Forgotten Golden Girl

    Coco - The Forgotten Golden Girl
    Oct 6 2025
    What happened to Coco on the Golden Girls? One Episode there the next gone. Just like he never existed? Cover up? Or just 80’s conservatism poking through! Enjoy

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    Please follow me on Facebook, BlueSky at Gary Thoren. We must never forget our Forgotten Queers
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    14 mins